Mary Dejevsky: Cool realism is a political virtue, too
No ideological recipe or vision could have replaced sound judgement in 1989
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Independent Minds
When world leaders, past and present, met yesterday at the Brandenburg Gate to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, many high-flown words were spoken about freedom and unity, miracles and dreams. And if such language cannot be invoked to describe that euphoric night, when can it? There was, and is, no going back.
What might have struck many, however, was the generally low-key and down-to-earth speech made by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, at the Bornholm Bridge – her first stop yesterday afternoon and the first of the city's checkpoints to fall. There was no disguising her delight; as a 35-year-old researcher, she had been in the exultant crowd that night. But even on this day of all days, Ms Merkel was her common-sensical self, a woman more at home with the nuts and bolts of politics than elevated rhetoric and big ideas.
Cross the Atlantic and you might be surprised to find something similar. As presidential candidate, Barack Obama was inspirational all right; his flights of rhetoric lifted crowds across America, and beyond. Whether recounting his own extraordinary career, calling on black voters to rise above racial injustice, or denouncing speculation, he showed himself as the supreme orator.
It is a gift, however, that he has struggled to transfer to the White House. Still compelling on the big occasion – his masterly speech in Cairo comes to mind – he has tended to concentrate on analysis, on exposition of the arguments, on trying to convey complexity. After the shootings at Fort Hood last week, he expressed the required condolences and warned against drawing premature conclusions.
But his matter-of-fact statement was very far from the rallying cry delivered by Bill Clinton after the suicide bombing in Oklahoma City. Still less did it recall Ronald Reagan's eloquent tribute to the astronauts killed in the Challenger disaster. Mr Obama still has to find a presidential voice for America that meets the expectations he raised.
Add to this what is increasingly seen as his "dithering" over Afghanistan – the White House is suggesting it could be weeks before he decides whether to send more troops – and Mr Obama already finds his effectiveness in question. Digs are made at his inexperience, and Republicans, cock-a-hoop after victories in two state governors' elections, are already talking the President down as a one-term wonder.
The US President and the German Chancellor might seem, on the face of it, very different politicians. But the principal criticisms, voiced even by supporters, are almost identical. While, in principle, voters like what they are doing – Ms Merkel, after all, recently led her party to electoral victory with an increased majority – they find them wanting in one key respect. What is it, they ask, these elected leaders actually stand for? What is their vision? Where are their big ideas?
In a season when the Western world is celebrating 20 years since the fall of communist regimes across Central and Eastern Europe – summed up in the demolition of the Berlin Wall – the nostalgia for big ideas may be understandable, and with it the notion that any national leader without an overarching philosophy is defective in some way. But it is built on two misconceptions.
The first is that any one big idea actually precipitated the fall of the Berlin Wall and everything that followed. It is true that, in the big-picture background of autumn 1989 lay Ronald Reagan's designation of the Soviet Union as the "empire of evil" and his appeal to the then Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to "tear down this Wall". But by the time the Wall fell, President Reagan had been succeeded by the far less visionary and more pragmatic George Bush, whose idealism, even two years later, stopped short of encouraging Ukrainians to vote for independence.
What actually toppled the Wall was the build-up of popular discontent within the GDR, the example of passive resistance from Poland and elsewhere, and a series of chance errors by East German leaders, as well as the Kremlin's refusal, or inability, to use force to preserve its empire. None of this had much to do with big ideas, although it could be rationalised afterwards as reflecting people's instinctive yearning for freedom and democracy.
The second misconception about big ideas is that they are always desirable, and somehow superior to an ability to deal competently with the matter in hand, be it day-to-day government or an all-out emergency, such as the serial fall of communist regimes in Europe.
In fact, there was no ideological recipe and no long-term vision that could have substituted for the snap judgements that had to be made in the autumn of 1989 by Helmut Kohl, George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. They faced circumstances that none of them – and you can add in here the French and British leaders, as has recently emerged – could possibly have anticipated.
Chancellor Kohl, now old and ill, said again last week that German reunification had never featured in his thinking, even though it might reasonably have been the dream/vision/big idea (take your pick) of any post-war West German politician to preside over a united and democratic Germany. But when the chance came, he seized it, with a sense of responsibility and assurance that, even with hindsight, inspires awe. Messrs Bush and Gorbachev, all too conscious of the perils, played their part as guarantors.
You could, for argument's sake, draw a contrast between the practical, hard-headed way in which these leaders approached truly cataclysmic events, and the big ideas that the second George Bush brought to his office, and ask how his simplistic idealism benefited anyone. That is before you take the more obvious shots at the harm done by really big ideas, such as Marxism, Communism or National Socialism, that place philosophical completeness above the most elementary humanity.
There is much to be said for the calm competence and analytical skills that Chancellor Merkel and President Obama respectively bring to their jobs. They are qualities that should be prized in political leaders far more often than they are. In this age of self-promotion and chasing the next big idea, those who accept the world as it is may in the end achieve more than those who strive to shape it to their vision.
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In addition all the so-called ‘peace plans’ between Israel and PLO – were destroyed by Zionist-regime, even before the ink got dried.
British historian John Rose (a Jewish academic, author and politician) in his book The Myths of Zionism. Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, was an Austrian Jewish journalist. He was not particularly interested in Palestine as a ‘Jewish homeland’. He, originally, considered Argentina, but later realized that the Jewish biblical myths were a potent source of inspiration for developing an exclusivist and highly nationalistic identity. However, he was aware of the fact that without the backing of a European colonial power, Zionists’ plan would not materialize. Herzle is quoted in Our Roots: “England with her possessions in Asia should be most interested in Zionism, for the shortest route to India is by way of Palestine. England’s great politicians were first to recognize the need for colonial expansion. And so I believe in England the idea of Zionism, which is a colonial idea, should be easily understood.”
5. “Every religious community has its homeland. Why not Jews.”
Rabbi Julian Morgenstern, president of Hebrew Union College of New York (1922-1947) viewed Zionism as an ideology of identity by negation. The Zionist reaction to assimilation, including retreat to the Middle East, seemed to him an admission of defeat and acceptance of anti-Semitic values. To him this way Zionism was escaping Judeophobia instead of repairing Judeophobic societies (a similar advice was given to Chaim Wiezmann, president of WJC by Mahtama Gandhi in 1937) – a treason and dereliction of duty, in violation of the universal tenets of Jewish values of identity and inclusion.
“The great majority of world Jewry opposed Zionism and creation of a Jewish state well into WW II. This opposition came from all sorts of Jews, Reform, Ultra-Orthodox, Communists, Bundists, and plain ordinary Jews,” – Avaraham Berg, former speaker of Knesset, in his book ‘The Holocaust is Over: We Must Rise From its Ashes’.
6. “Judaism is not based on racism.”
Historically, Israelite or Jewishness has always based on tribalism or nationalism. In the old days, Israelites were only those people, who were children of the 12 sons (tribes) of prophet Israel (Jacob). After the establisment of King Solomon’s empire of “Judea and Samara” – its citizens following the Torah used to be known as ‘Jews’. Even the Bible confirm it by quoting Jesus that “he came to preach only to the House of Israel”.
Theodor Herzl in his book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), wrote: “Our community of race is peculiar and unique, for we are bound together only by the faith of our fathers.”
Meanwhile it seems important to note, without all the dolts who spew their fetishist attachment to the fantastical Jewish world order conspiracy, that Israel HAS, alongside any number of other nations of various religious and secular backgrounds and history in recent history, committed heinous crimes against humanity. In its recent blasting away at Gaza it joins the ranks of the likes of the Rwandan genocidists, whatever despicable crimes we will some day find out about North Korea, Turkey in its carnage against the Armenians, The US genocide of N. American native tribes, as well as the Nazis. If you can find a common secret political philosophical and/or religiously biased thread between these historically disparate tragedies, beyond how all of history is inevitably linked, I'd like to know what drugs you're on, they certainly make the complete and utter darkness of the species easier to fathom than it is. All the world loves a simple answer to an overwhelmingly complicated stream of events. Unfortunately such simpleton logic and blaming makes serious conversation about Israeli responsibility for the Gazan massacres harder to sift out of the mess.
Oh, and by the way, it seems to me important to note that Obama’s "calling on black voters to rise above racial injustice" was said for the benefit of white people who were sick and scared about the fascist leanings of Bush and Cheney and crew, but still carried around with them the semi-conscious fear that if he were elected they would all be put into a pot of dark cannibals and surrounded by wild drumming and dancing while they were cooked. It is the same political device used when he or Hillary speak to their constituency through the peoples of some far flung nation whose citizens are poor and starving due, directly or indirectly, to US intervention and fetishistic attachment to oil: that they speak it in English and not in the language of those they are using for their photo ops is telling enough. The same can be said about this statement, which I bet (although I could be wrong) was uttered inspirationally to an audience of mostly white people; if not in person then through the mainstream media. This is, of course, no new political device.
Jesus said the temple stones will go away when the temple will fall and never build again.
revelation 2:7-24 page 1526 on 9-say:those say they themseves are jews,and yet they are not but are a synagogue of Satat. revelation 2:25-3:17 on 9-page 1527 look i will give thoe from the synaogue of Satat who say they are jews and yet they are not but lying.
they killed him twice one when they suggest the cross to the Romanian the 2nd when they lie on him twisting his words .
Any one who changes their authority they will do as they did to Jesus.
They will believe in the Beast because he has the money and gold,but not Jesus.
the one who destroy religion is the one who caused romanian to put jesus on the cross.
My second cousin was a Romanian. She was lovely to look at except she has cleft palate of the left eyelid and frightened the children in the neighborhood until they made her ride through the streets of the village on a Great Dane that finally collapsed under the weight of her pajamas and the underwire of her bra. There was a great storm then and we all knew that we had crossed the line that the lord had placed before us and would never be able to go to the Laundromat again. The poor town turned quite aromatic then and no amount of marigolds and tea would soothe the hankies of the tourists who used to flock there to see the relic of the Holy Monkey anus at the ruins of the cathedral of Toby the circus chimp.
But don't be alarmed, all the Jewish people stayed and fed us matzo until we bloated and burped cracker meal every breakfast with our prayers. Everyone was friends then, until the son of the rabbi chopped off his curls and declared himself to be a Great Mountain Taoist. The last we saw of him was at the annual pig roast to Satan?s donkey Bianca, the patron saint of conspiracy theorists.
Huulah huulah huulah hu!
so I was talking to one of them!
but this time 2009 in Gaza by the ones who call themselves victims of Hitler.
see:tp://home.swipnet.se/islam/quran-bib
"First of all, Bible is not known for scientific or historical facts ? as stated by Encyclopaedia Biblica (Vol. IV, p.4980) ? ?The New Testament was written by Christians for Christians?.?. As a matter of fact, European Zionist leaders were not practicing Jews, but used the so-called Biblical Promise of Zion in order to exploit fellow Jews and fool the Christian world. Theodor Herzl and his Zionist culprits were aiming for a secular-social Jewish society in a new homeland. Canannite civilization existed on that land as early as 3,500 BC. According to Jewish scholar, Erich Fromm: ?If all nations would suddenly claim territory on which their forefathers lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse.?
?Jews were expelled from Arab lands for Arabs? hatred of Jews.?
History, in fact, paints Arabs as liberators of Jewish communities in Jerusalem (638), Spain (711), Palestine (1186), and Germany (1940s). The discovery of the Cairo ?Geniza?, a treasure trove of documents found in the 11th century Cairo Synagogue, prove that Jewish communities were an integral part of Islamic culture. After WW I, it were Zionist leaders and Zionist agents and British officials who created fear among Jewish communities living Arab countries ? to relocate them into British mandated Palestine as part of Zionist strategy to increase the Jewish population in Palestine.
?Land without people for a people without land,? ? Zionist motto.
At the time of Balfour Declaration (1917), there were 65,000 Jews living in Palestine, as compared to 700,000 Arab Muslims and Christians. This was confirmed by the mid-wife of Balfour Declaration, British Zionist foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour by saying: ?Zionism is of far profounder import that the desires of 700,000 Arabs who inhabit the land.?
United Nations? 1947 Partition Plan, influenced by Europe?s guilty conscience of Holocaust ? awarded 56% of Palestine to Jews, who owned only 6.5% of land at that time. Now the Israeli Occupied Territories (PA) comprises less than 22% of Palestine.
?PLO and Israel?s neighbour don?t accept Israel?s right to exist.?
The reality is ? It?s Zionist-regime, which is based on a Jewish demographic (Jewish only) state, which having successfully wiped-off the map, centuries-old country (Palestine) ? have been confiscating more and more Arab lands and invading its Arab neighbour under cooked-up excuses with the help of powerful Jewish lobbying groups in the US and EU countries. In 1988, PNC accepted a ?two-state? solution. According to Israeli historian Benny Morris: ?In 1948, only five Arab countries sent their ill-equipped armies to help Palestinia to defend the part of land (44%) awarded to them under the partition plan?.where Jewish forces were conducting massacres to promote panic among the Palestinians. Those who did not flee in terror were loaded on to trucks or marched off under armed escort into exile, their property and homes subsequently confiscated.?
did not reply.
I want to remind you and the reader .
- you must have remembered the name of the zionist who left Iraq, who was called BIN- Phorat ; he went to Palestine to ask a permission from a Zionist leader to allow him to kill the jews in Iraq to encourage people leaving Iraq, the zionist leader told him a Jewish should not kill a Jewish; we have to go to the top Rabbi who was living in Haifa to take the permission. The answer from rabbi was:
:- if killing the jewish is for the top interest of the jews (to keep them afraid to save their lives) then you are allowed to do so.. and since then many bombs exploded in Iraq especially in synagogue. the only people in the world who did not persecuted Jews were the Muslims; when Muslims left Spain hundreds years ago; the Jews left with them because they would have never feel safe since the Muslims left. The ottoman empire helped the Jews,Irdujan said that to Perez last yeas. Omar bin al khattab ; when he came thousand years ago to Jerusalem, the bishop of Jerusalem told him to take the city keys and he advised him to remove the only jewish family that was in Jerusalem, but the Muslim Caliph -Omar bin Alkhattab- said: it is not right and fair to remove this Jewish family without doing a crime ( at that time there was nothing called preemptive fight)- what we have learnt by USA and israel -and you can see the difference between Muslims and zionists who were ungrateful to the Muslims. We have a proverb: THE ONE YOU HAVE PLANTED, HAS DuG YOU OUT" At the end, I think that Abraham Lincoln- who paid his life to save America from the rabbi 20% interest to help the civilian war in America, and I'm sure that you know this history very well.
see:tp://home.swipnet.se/islam/quran-bib
GOD IS NOT estate Agent.
I agree.
Jesus said the temple stones will go away when the temple will fall and never build again.
revelation 2:7-24 page 1526 on 9-say:those say they themseves are jews,and yet they are not but are a synagogue of Satat. revelation 2:25-3:17 on 9-page 1527 look i will give thoe from the synaogue of Satat who say they are jews and yet they are not but lying.
they killed him twice one when they suggest the cross to the Romanian the 2nd when they lie on him twisting his words .
Any one who changes their authority they will do as they did to Jesus.
They will believe in the Beast because he has the money and gold,but not Jesus.