KAMAU BOBB, GOOGLE'S FORMER GLOBAL LEAD FOR DIVERSITY STRATEGY AND RESEARCH wrote in a now-deleted 2007 blog post that if he were Jewish, he “would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself,” and referred to Jews’ “increasing insensitivity to the suffering (of) others.” (https://tinyurl.com/vfs3cs )
FORTUNATELY Google removed Bobb from his diversity position after complaints started to embarrass the company.
I will assume — always a foolish thing to do — that Bobb originated on the Indian sub-continent.
His “killing in defense of myself” smacks of Gandhi.
Gandhi and the nazis
Gandhi said: “Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany.... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.” Mahatma Gandhi, June 1946, in an interview with his biographer Louis Fischer. (https://tinyurl.com/3zuw69da)
Unfortunately, Gandhi was wrong; the world was not “aroused” as the nazis slaughtered Jews, Roma, Communists, mentally and physically disabled and anyone else the nazis determined less than human.
Gandhi also is quoted writing to the English during the war: “This manslaughter must be stopped. You are losing; if you persist, it will only result in greater bloodshed. Hitler is not a bad man.” (https://tinyurl.com/4pr9uvaf)
Gandhi was wrong — again. Hitler most assuredly was a “bad man.”
Did anyone ever prevail by NOT defending himself against murderers?
"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And being only for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?1
Had we not defended ourselves
Had Jews not defended themselves in our homeland,
✡. We would not HAVE a homeland
✡ We would not NEED a homeland since we would be dead at the hands of our “neighbors.”
A little history
1920: Jerusalem and Passover Six Jews were killed and some 200 injured in Jerusalem
1924: Jerusalem 133 Jews and 116 Arabs lay dead
1929: Hebron Death toll was 133 Jews, including eight Americans, and 110 Arabs
1936: April, an Arab attack on a Jewish bus led to a series of incidents that escalated into a major Palestinian rebellion.
1936-39: A total of 415 Jewish deaths were recorded during the Arab Revolt period.
1948: 78 Jews, including 23 women, were killed by gunfire or were burnt when their vehicles were set on fire. A convoy consisting of two ambulances, three buses of medical staff, three logistical trucks and two Haganah armored cars headed up the narrow road to Hadassah Hospital with medical and military supplies with assurances from the occupying English that all was well. It was not.
1948: Independence war; Israel attacked by five Muslim armies (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Saudi Arabia) and eventually by English-led Jordan.
1956 Sinai Campaign: Operation Kadesh
1967 Six-Day War
1968-70 War of Attrition
1973 Yom Kippur War
1982 Lebanon War: Operation Peace for Galilee
1991 Gulf War
2006 Second Lebanon War.
Source: (1920-1948) https://tinyurl.com/txxwj3f7 and (1956-2006) https://tinyurl.com/nvxn94c7
The frequent attacks from Lebanon/Syria (Hezbollah) and Gaza (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) are a continuing problem.
Defending against leftists
While Israel manages to fend off physical attacks, it fails to prevent or even mitigate attacks by leftist media and politicians eager to have a soapbox on which to rail against Israel and, increasingly, Jews in general.
According to many in politics and the media, Israel “disproportionally” defends itself. Why “disproportionally?”
1: Body count. Israel protects its citizens — ALL of its citizens: Jew, Muslim, other — with safe rooms, warning sirens, and anti-missile defenses to shoot down incoming mortars and drones.
2: Targeting. Israel precisely targets military assets. When it targets multi-use (military/civilian) assets such as a Hamas HQ/media center, it repeatedly warns the occupants to evacuate; that the site about to be eliminated. Missiles from Gaza and Lebanon/Syria so far have mostly been unguided mortars generally aimed at Israeli civilian areas. This is classified as a “war crime,” but this crime rarely is noted by the media.
It is sadly interesting to note that many of the civilian casualties in Gaza during the Spring 2021 campaign were caused by Hamas/Islamic Jihad missiles than blew up or landed in Gaza.
Israel’s major failure is in the field of “hasbara” — public relations.
It never seems able to get its side of the story published n the “major media,” the name newspapers and tv networks.
As an example: the so-called International Criminal Court (ICC) is charged with investigating and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. (https://www.icc-cpi.int/about).
The ICC intends to investigate Israel for war crimes, but it ignores actual war crimes committed by Israel’s enemies. (The ICC also threatens to investigate and try the United States for crimes presumably committed under the previous administration.) The ICC is encouraged in its witch hunt of Israel by several terrorist organizations, including the PFLP and Hamas.
As far as investigating “crimes against humanity,” the ICC chooses to ignore actual offenders.
Of the 197 countries of the world, there are 20, including three territories, considered to be the most societally repressive. Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea and Sudan are at the top of the global list for countries that are among the worst abusers of human rights. To be deemed an abuser of human rights, civil liberties and political rights are the violations assessed, and these particular countries mentioned above have concurrently been on such lists in the previous years. (https://tinyurl.com/27kv6k4e)
Human rights groups believe China, although not mentioned above, has detained more than a million Muslim Uighurs over the past few years in what the state defines as "re-education camps".
There is evidence of Uighurs being used as forced labour and of women being forcibly sterilised. (https://tinyurl.com/yuucd3s7)
Despite the above, the ICC only has time to investigate claims leveled by the very people who attack Israel both physically and politically.
The (dis)United Nations has a “Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices.” (https://tinyurl.com/25wv3393) The committee only recognizes complaints, real or imagined, by Israel's enemies.
As an example, “After recent annual consultations with Member States, the United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices* today expressed deep concern over reports that Israel, while donating surplus COVID-19 vaccines overseas, has failed to fulfill its international legal responsibility and obligation to ensure the vaccination of the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territory. The number of vaccines received so far by the Palestinian people represents only a ‘drop in the sea’, in addressing the overall vaccination needs and containing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Against this background, the Special Committee calls on Israel, as an occupying power, to urgently comply with its international legal obligations, to ensure that Palestinians and Syrians under occupation have access to available vaccines, in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
What the “Special Committee” fails to acknowledge is
a. The PLO’s executive refused vaccines from Israel.
b. According to many international law experts, the Oslo Accords specifically place healthcare for Palestinians squarely on the PLO.
c. Israel vaccinated many Palestinians who came into Israel to work (obviously for “selfish reasons” to reduce the spread of the Chinese virus in Israel).
d. Israel allowed Qatar — an enemy state — to land multiple aircraft at Israel’s main international airport with aid for the PLO — aid the PLO rejected because the planes landed at Lod. (Palestine lacks an airport capable of accommodating large commercial aircraft.)
About the only thing the United Nations is united about is castigating Israel at every opportunity and facts be damned.
QUESTION: How much of the above was reported by the media or acknowledged by politicians?
To return to Hillel’s question: If I am not for myself,
Who will be for me?
Sources
1. Hillel HaBavli: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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