My comments on Piers Morgan and Bill Maher

NB: I rarely comment on YouTube channels, but recently I did. They referred to the ongoing Palestine and Israel conflict. I enclose the links to both and the content of my observations. I used to enjoy watching Maher now and then; but after he (recently, not in this video) used the term ‘collateral damage’ to refer to Palestinian deaths in Gaza, I was deeply dismayed. ‘Collateral damage’ is the most venomous and sociopathic way to describe killing, and it is shamelessly prejudiced; in this case, racist.

Maher’s ascription of bias to all critics of Western hypocrisy is indicative either of his ignorance or deceitfulness. Bill has a characteristic supercilious look whilst demolishing his chosen targets. I always enjoyed this, but in this case he made me sick. Maybe he enjoys creating a straw man in order to burn him down with his sarcasm. But this is unfolding genocide, Bill, thousands of children have been killed. Have you no heart? Can’t you do a little research before sneering at dead bodies? Collateral damage? Shame on you.

Be that as it may, here are the two links and my comments: DS

Watch Her SCHOOL Piers Morgan On Israel-Palestine Media Spin

Piers asks, pointedly, ‘Didn’t Hamas know what the reaction would be?’.. Quite right, they must have known, and this shows them to be ruthless. Continuing this line of argument, didn’t the Israeli establishment and the rampaging settlers on the West Bank know that you can’t humiliate people for decades on end, leave them without even a ray of hope of a dignified existence without the pressure cooker exploding?

Didn’t the Americans know that their shameless partisanship, their numerous murderous campaigns and interventions from Vietnam to Chile to Grenada to Iraq to Afghanistan – would cause the global population to turn against them some day? Didn’t they know? You still have your heads in the sand. But maybe not – the arms industry, especially the American one, is minting money. What a shame, what a terrible tragedy.

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New Rule: The War on the West | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Bill Maher is right to criticize the tendency to identify entire cultures with ingrained virtues or vices. And yes, the world is obliged to European political philosophy for many things; not least of which include individual liberty and the presumption of innocence in criminal cases. No, every culture other than the Western, does not, and need not ‘get a pass’. Horrific things have been done in all cultures, including the supposedly pacific Buddhist. And by the way, there were some very far sighted and humane thinkers in other parts of the world too. To name one, the fifteenth century poet Kabir’s profound poetry influenced millions of ordinary people in the Indian subcontinent for many centuries – in much the same manner as implied in the positive meaning of liberty.

Everyone doesn’t think in a binary way. Good and evil deeds – and those in shades of grey – cut across cultures; and the awareness of good and evil are not demarcated by the boundaries of identity. If we are all obliged to John Locke, it’s also true that many conservatives – as well as leftists – are inspired by the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. Not to mention Martin Heidegger, famous philosopher and card-carrying Nazi who could never bring himself to say he was wrong.

Yes, the killer of George Floyd was convicted for murder. But Lieutenant William Calley’s sentence was commuted by President Nixon. He spent three and a half years under house arrest for directing the massacre of between 300 to 500 Vietnamese villagers in 1968. The CIA’s involvement in coups in Iran (1953), Chile (1973) and Henry Kissinger’s brutal advice to the leaders of the 1976 coup in Argentina were not things that any democracy can be proud of.

Spanish colonists massacred thousands of Native Americans with the approval of the Catholic Church; but this was denounced by Bishop Las Casas, in his ‘Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies’ (1542); wherein he rejected the colonisers’ claim that native Americans were sub-human. Las Casas upheld their humanity; and held their inhuman treatment to be a grave injustice.

Genghis Khan wasn’t the worst mass murderer in history, Mao Zedong’s regime took between 37 to 45 million lives during the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950’s. This was written about by a Chinese communist, Yang Jisheng, in his book ‘Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962’ – banned in China. The ideas and deeds of Lenin and Stalin were heinous. Some of their most fervent critics were communists, who died for their opposition.

Since these matters are raised in the midst of ongoing carnage in Israel and Palestine, we should remember that Semite refers to the descendants of Shem, and includes Arabs; and that all three Abrahamic religions are Semitic. Antisemitism’s vicious meaning is rooted in the Biblical myth attributing Jesus’ crucifixion to Jews: ‘His blood be on us and on our children’ (Matthew 27:25). This was the root of centuries of persecution; which culminated in the Shoah. And this is also part of western civilisation, along with all the good things Bill reminded us of.

Antisemitism was Christian in origin, and it was a (briefly) German-led Europe that implemented this murderous ideology. The Nazis lost their war against the Allies; but they won their genocidal objective – Vichy France also collaborated in this. Western commentators ought to remember this bitter truth; along with the fact that at the Evian conference of 1938, the USA, along with the major powers, refused to increase their stringent quotas for the intake of Jewish refugees.

The list of American companies which collaborated with the Nazi regime is instructive; as is the story of the inspiration it derived from Jim Crow legislation. But there were heroes among both Protestants and Catholics who protested this inhuman doctrine and defended Europe’s Jews: Pastor Niemoller, Anton Schmid, Irene Sendler and Sophie Scholl are only a few of these. Not to mention the millions of Allied troops and populations who fought the Axis powers. No matter what you think of Soviet Russia; the fact remains that the USSR lost over twenty million dead in its resistance to Nazism. Humanity owes all these people everlasting gratitude.

There are numerous social and political evils in my part of the world; but there are many of us who speak and act against these, sometimes at great cost. Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 for his peaceable instincts, that was a terrible turning point. The experience of 55 years of occupation, plus the policy of settlement on the West Bank contributed to the tensions and bitterness that have exploded in recent weeks. Hamas has embraced a genocidal ideology, and no decent person should ever condone this, nor imagine that the violence now unfolding will lead ultimately to a peaceful resolution.

Today many Auschwitz survivors or their descendants, not to mention pacifist Rabbis, are also being accused of antisemitism. We ought to be able to speak our minds and consciences without such severity. The polemical atmosphere in the world detracts from meaningful conversation. It’s best to stop sneering and face our terrible situation with sobriety.

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Dogs of war / New acronym in Gaza: WCNSF – Wounded Child No Surviving Family

Patrick Lawrence: Deeper Into Depravity

A Conspiracy of Silence / The Killing Floor of Gaza

Michael Brenner: Europe-Jews-Muslims

Biden Is the Latest President To Tout the Vietnam War as Proud History

‘Napalm Girl’ at 50: The story of the Vietnam War’s defining photo / “Because Our Fathers Lied”: Craig McNamara Reveals the Lies of His Father, Robert McNamara

How the trauma of the Vietnam War led to the age of “alternative facts”

Seymour Hersh on Witnessing American War Crimes in Vietnam

Vietnam: Epitaph of a soldier

‘Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962’ – by Yang Jisheng

Palestine and Israel: Historical, Legal and Moral Issues