Yet the real facts of history are nothing like the scenario portrayed in Dances With Wolves.
The Sioux Indians, along with the Comanche and many other Native American tribes, were just as rapacious as imperialistic white governments. They just lacked the power to do anything much more than stealing horses from other tribes whenever they could. And the Sioux in particular were appallingly brutal. The torture that they would inflict on captives that they took - men, women, and children - were horrifically brutal. (The details are too disturbing for me to relate, but you can read about them on Wikipedia.) Needless to say, there is no record of any Union soldier ever becoming a Sioux - why on earth would anyone do something like that?!The myth of indigenous non-white natives being gentle pacifist environmentalists is one that is eagerly adopted today by many Israelopathic enemies of the Jewish State. What's staggering is the blatant falsification of facts in which they engage. And we're not talking about dancing with history of 150 years ago - this is falsifying the reality of today, in a way that is so obviously utterly false, it's amazing that they can get away with it.
Recently, CNN's Jake Tapper pointed out that if Trump is to be blamed for incendiary rhetoric that incites white supremacists, then Arab and Palestinian leadership are at least as much to be blamed for their rhetoric which incites Hamas or other Palestinians to murder Israeli teenagers at a pizzeria. Tlaib responded as follows:
"Comparing Palestinian human rights advocates to terrorist white nationalists is fundamentally a lie. Palestinians want equality, human dignity & to stop the imprisonment of children. White supremacy is calling for the *domination* of one race w/ the use of violence."
 |
| A Palestinian "human rights advocate." |
Meanwhile, in Ha'Aretz, Gideon Levy responds to a variety of negative comments about Arabs and Palestinian culture, some of which were racist and also false, but others of which were largely or entirely true. Levy, in an article titled "If There's Such A Thing As A Murderous Culture, Then It Exists In Israel," makes claims and arguments that are simply ludicrous:
"We examined the past decade; those murderous, bloodletting Palestinians, have since January 2009 killed 190 Israelis. How many Palestinians were killed by Israel, the seeker of peace and goodness, which will never have anything culturally in common with the Arabs? Some 3,500. Israel was 18 times more murderous. Was it for sport? Erotic pleasure? Of course not, but the blood speaks: Israel draws far more of it.... If there’s a culture of killing, it actually exists in Israel."This is absurd. The number of people killed on each side has absolutely no relevance to the morality of each side. The only relevant statistic is how many people were killed in defense, and how many in offense. Tellingly, if you compare the percentage of Palestinians killed who were men between 18 and 40, compared to the percentage of Israelis killed who were in that category, the results are very revealing. The Palestinian fatalities are mostly combatants; the Israeli fatalities are mostly not. And Israel most certainly does not have a "culture of killing" - from personal experience, I can point to my nephew, who was decorated by the IDF for neutralizing a terrorist and did not kill him. Israel kills where necessary, and most certainly does not celebrate it.
Levy then doubles down on his absurdity with an opposite claim about the Palestinians:
"The Palestinian people, on the other hand, are one of the most restrained people in history in its violent resistance to occupation and injustice.""One of the most restrained people in history"?! Stabbing women and children to death, and celebrating those who do such things, is "restrained"?!
Such slanderous nonsense is eagerly lapped up by many Westerners who grew up with Dances With Wolves, Avatar, Spooks and other such fiction. All of these don't merely dance around with historical facts - they completely invert them. They have helped brainwash people into falsifying both the past and the present.
Great post. But the idea that the only relevant statistic is how many were killed in defense, how many in offense is highly questionable. An important ethical debate concerns the care taken to avoid civilian casualties during offense
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the claims of defense have to be looked at as well. There have been numerous incidents where rock throwers behind a border fence were shot and killed. Most people can't throw a rock farther than 20 or so meters.
DeleteAnd how far with a slingshot?
Delete1. To Anthony: The care taken to avoid civilian casualties must also be looked at with in light of the fact that the Palestinians embed their "fighters" among civilians using them as shields. Israeli fighters face a great dilemma under those circumstances and it is well documented that Israel has avoided fighting back when civilians are used shields by Palestinian terrorists. Colonel Richard Kemp who has filled a variety of military posts including the UN has stated that Israel's IDF is the most moral fighting force in the world, especially given the tactics of their enemies.
Delete2. To zdub: Please document your claim of how many rock throwers were killed by Israeli soldiers, especially those that were out of the range of their targets. I only ask because this is a strong claim that should be backed by evidence. Rock throwers can and do severely hurt and kill Israelis though and that has been documented. Also said rock throwers are often kids who are embedded with adults with guns. That is easily seen in film taken near the border wall.
Fakestinians can't possibly take care to avoid civilian casualties during offense while they are targeting civilians as their primary form of offense.
DeleteThrowing a rock or firebomb is an act of attempted murder not a sign of peace. Especially when a car is going 60+ MPH. There have been more than a dozen Israeli's (not soldiers, as if THAT makes a difference to these terrorist protestors) who were killed "just" by rocke being thrown at their cars, and many more maimed for life. You want to protest? Ask the politicians who voted in your terrorist leaders to sit down and talk peace, not to mention erase the murder of Jews all over the world from their Constitution of principles, the Hamas as well as the PA.
DeleteDaniel Byman said:
ReplyDeleteTextbooks in Saudi schools denigrate
nonbelievers and the West and extol martyrdom.
For example, Time magazine reported that
“an 8th grade book states that Allah cursed
Jews and Christians and turned some of them
into apes and pigs.
Ninth-graders learn that Judgment Day
will not come “until the Muslims
fight the Jews and kill them.”
A chapter for a 10th-grade class warns Muslims
against befriending non-Muslims saying,
“It is compulsory for Muslims to be loyal to
each other and consider the infidels their enemy.”
SOURCE: Al Qaeda, the Islamic State,
and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone
Needs to Know (chapter 6, page 122) by Daniel Byman,
Oxford University Press, year 2015,
ISBN: 019021726X (paperback) ISBN: 9780190217266
(paperback) ISBN: 0190217251 ISBN: 9780190217259
New PA textbooks are worse than the old ones
ReplyDeleteby Ken Cohen of FLAME, 2019 July 24:
www.jns.org/opinion/new-pa-textbooks-are-worse-than-the-old-ones/
Mr. Sean Savage said:
ReplyDelete“...the ADL has uncovered virulently
anti-Semitic passages in Qatari state textbooks.
These books claim that:
Jewish people are treacherous,
seek to conquer the world and follow
a perverted, invalid religion.
The books also contained numerous
examples of anti-Christian bigotry,
as well as incitement against the West.”
Qatar’s government also funds the
International Union of Muslim Scholars,
whose Secretary-General openly denies
the Holocaust, according to the
Middle East Media Research Institute.”
SOURCE: Qatar’s ‘big win’ in
White House visit unlikely to bridge vast policy
differences, by Mr. Sean Savage, 2019 July 9
www.jns.org/qatars-big-win-in-white-house-visit-unlikely-to-bridge-vast-policy-differences/
Until about 1970, when Dee Brown's *Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee* was published, the typical depiction of American Indians was that of totally uncivilized brutal savages who deserved everything that the white folks could dish out and that this has been the prevailing attitude for a very long time. I was shocked at reading the writings of Theodore Roosevelt, who was considered to be enlightened by the standards of his day. "Dances with Wolves" was the opposite extreme. The truth is that native American peoples were as diverse as any group of peoples on any continent.
ReplyDeleteMy own direct ancestors survived an attack by the Powhatan Confederacy on Virginia settlers in 1622 that killed about a third of the English settlers. (That is not a typo.) It was not obvious which people would survive at that time; the mortality in the Virginia settlement was as high as 80% even before the attack and the Native peoples had been devastated by diseases brought by the Europeans. The treatment of both African and European indentured servants (formal slavery was still a few decades in the future) caused some to run away to join the Native peoples where they were welcomed. Within a few decades the Powhatan Confederacy was destroyed and many of the Native peoples intermarried with the whites and blacks.
It is a miracle that there are actually thousands of people alive today who still identify as descendants of the Powhatan peoples and the Federal Government finally recognized them last year:
https://wittman.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1789
see https://www.isranet.org/israzine/zionism-indigenous-struggle-aboriginal-americans-and-jewish-state/
ReplyDeleteAnd this is why many of us will vote for Trump, even if we don't like a lot of his baggage; right now, he is all that stands between us and Leftist lunacy that just about every Democrat candidate is pushing.
ReplyDeleteAndy
"... just about every Democrat candidate"
DeleteThis is false.
Tlaib, Omar, and AOC are a tiny minority in the Democratic Party. A recent anti-BDS resolution passed the US House with well over 90% support from Democratic Representatives. It's a myth that the Democrats are anti-Israel, one that is being pushed both by Republicans and by the far-left minority within the Democrats.
Dov in MD
Dov in MD - its no myth at all, and really, when the voice vote at a democrat convention is against something as simple as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, then why even try to argue it? More to the point, of course, the lunacy Andy referred to wasn't limited only to Israel.
DeleteThe 'Leftist Lunacy' you describe is essentially standard Israeli socio-economic policy held by almost all IL parties when it comes to education, healthcare, immigrant rights, abortion rights, gun laws etc. etc. If you are referring to every single (or most) Democratic representative as holding some kind of anti-semitic or anti-Israel belief then the facts (remember those?) don't support your 'social media' thesis. Trump stands for nothing but himself and money. He barely even knows what IL means or where it might even be found on a map.
Delete" when the voice vote at a democrat convention is against something as simple as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital". So every US president before Trump was anti-Israel since they refrained from doing something so simple. Amazing.
DeleteDov, perhaps you forgot that one of the last things Obama did was abstain from a UN vote which resulted in giving Palestinians certain concessions under the UN that should have been negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians.
DeleteBut by Leftist lunacy, I meant health care plans that would cost trillions of dollars that we don't have, force the taxpayer to pay for welfare and medical care for illegal aliens, virtual open borders, higher taxes that kill jobs, etc.
And just who was it who gave us laws that require us to allow men in women's bathrooms and locker rooms? Was it Republicans and Republican-appointed judges?
Leftist lunacy.
Andy
David Ohsie - The point is not that the Democrats refrained from recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capitol. They, like Congress and the Republicans, had previously supported such a recognition. When they retreated from that position, they made a strong statement.
DeleteIt was not merely a case of benign inaction. It was a forceful, and, to many of us, unwelcome and unfriendly, action.
The left wing in Israel are totally psychotic IMHO. They are completely detached from reality and live inside their own bubble with an imagined reality projected onto the walls.
ReplyDeleteOf course. And seeking alliances with anti-zionist and zionist theocrats who claim to act in the name of God is an act of sanity. The Left in IL has not been in power for 15 years. Many of the best and brightest secula ILs have and will continue to live abroad as wages, opportunities and liberties disappear and the country moves towards a Jewish version of Turkey or ultimately Iran.
DeleteThe soundtrack has brought me much solace over the last 20 years.An extended 2hour 24 minute version was posted on you tube over a year ago, just phenomenal.
ReplyDeleteRabbis watching movies? Smacks of a lack of Yirat Shamayim.
ReplyDelete"the award-winning 1990 film Dances With Wolves, which was partially filmed there. ***At the time***, it was one of my favorite movies."
DeleteI guess you can't read.
Not that it matters anyway. Heaven forbid that rabbis have down time.
DeleteWhy?
DeletePlease explain.
I read the wikipedia article about the horrifyingly gruesome nature of Indian torture. That notwithstanding I do not find it helpful or necessarily accurate to compare Indian torture to that of the Nazi's.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it does honor or respect to the Holocaust victims to minimize, albeit by comparison, the nature of their victimhood.
Needless to say, there is no record of any Union soldier ever becoming a Sioux - why on earth would anyone do something like that?!
ReplyDeleteI don't know about Union soldiers, but there are loads of examples of Whites becoming red indians and many of them had a whale of a time. Link.
I read the wikipedia reference noting the horrifyingly gruesome nature of torture performed by the Indian tribes. This notwithstanding, I do not think that minimizing by comparison torture performed by the Nazis neither respects the dignity or does justice to the suffering of Nazi victims. The comparison is ill advised and should not have been used.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely true. I was going to post something similar. it seems the sentence has been deleted from the article
DeleteI don't agree, and RNS should not have deleted the sentence. The point was valid, and did nothing at all to diminish the Holocaust, as if such were even possible. This gotcha game called "Godwin's Law", which holds - as a way of ducking actual debate - that it is automatically forbidden to use Hitler or the Holocaust as a metaphoric point of comparison to anything, is stupid and should not be encouraged.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGoogle "myth of the noble savage". The contemporary attitude carries its own history of racism.
ReplyDeleteRashida Tlaib wrote, "White supremacy is calling for the *domination* of one race w/ the use of violence."
ReplyDeleteDoesn't that describe the Palestinian campaign to restore the 19th century social order?