2015 11
The West is not at War with Islam
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Middle East with
NYC had 911, London the July 7th tube attack, Madrid the Atocha train bombs that left over 200 dead and 1000 injured, Boston the marathon bombers, and now Paris had the Charlie Hebdo-Jewish supermarket massacre. All horrible attaks. But each time these bombings and shootings take place commentators argue that this is the beginning of a war between Islam and the West. Over years they have predicted many more innocent victims dying in the hands of Islamist extremists. But much to their surprise, in each of these cases, the murderers were uniquely sick individuals not representative of the 1.5 billion other Muslims and more attacks did not materialize in each city.
The lack of other attacks has shown that the vast majority of Muslims who live in Europe and USA are not willing to join the ranks of the murderers and are as disgusted as non Muslims. They feel towards extremists as we feel towards the Norwegian attacker or the Newtown killer. Does the Muslim religion currently produce more people willing to kill in the name of Islam? I think this is undeniable. But to be fair the West produces a lot of people who are willing to unfairly kill and torture in the name of “freedom” in places as Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. And if we simply count victims, Muslim victims outnumber non Muslim victims at over 100 to 1. The victims of Islamic terrorism in the Muslim world, are mostly other Muslims.
2014 22
Blame the Jews
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with
Muslim history over the last decade has been extremely sad. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have died in armed conflicts. Over 99% of them died as a result of the European/American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and in the hands of fellow Muslims in the Syrian civil war, the ISIS conflict, the Shia Sunni conflicts, the Egyptian, Libyan internal fights, the fight against the Taliban in Pakistan and others. But this week after Hamas indiscriminately sent rockets on civilians all over Israel, and Israel retaliated striking on military targets, sadly killing innocent civilians who are not the target (as opposed to the Hamas rockets that do explicitly target civilians) but are used as human shields and this is happening when Hamas knows that the moment they stop throwing rockets, the Israeli retaliations will stop, I am shocked to see my Facebook and Twitter feeds go insane with accusations to us, the murderous Jews. If you are not a Jewish reader you have not idea what it is to be a Jew during the Gaza conflict and the things that people say to me, a diaspora Jew.
So what can I conclude. That when Jews defend ourselves we are horrible people but the USA, Spain, France, UK and all the countries of the Iraq/Afghanistan coalition, who committed horrible atrocities in the Fallujah attack are not? Or when Muslims massacre Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and other countries, you are nowhere to be found protesting? Where are you on my social media when Bashar Al Assad mass-murdered hundreds of thousands of his own? Why is it murder when Israelis build a wall to protect themselves from Palestinian terrorism and not when Spain builds one in Ceuta in which more people have died trying to cross it? Why are the same policies that others apply with much greater impact so worthy of condemnation when Israel adopts them? Why is there such a SELECTIVE INDIGNATION vis a vis Israel and Jews in general? Of course what Israel is doing now in Gaza is tragic, but why is my social media silent with the vast majority of Muslim deaths unrelated to Israel?
Have you thought of what it would be like to have to run to a bomb shelter at a minute’s notice with your loved ones many times a day? Can you imagine London under attack? Madrid under attack? New York under attack? Paris under attack? Well that is Tel Aviv when Hamas attacks and it’s happening now. Even the Palestinian UN representative said that Hamas rockets aimed at Israeli civilian population are a crime against humanity.
Please think again before you post. I have also condemned Israel in the past and Israel does have to work harder at reaching peace with the Palestinians. The Palestinians deserve their country and deserve it as soon as it can be done at peace with Israel along the lines of the Oslo treaty. Israel must find a way to contain its own radical elements that block peace with the Palestinians. But Israel is not at war with Al Fatah in the West Bank, it is at war with Hamas in Gaza who wants to wipe the country out and are financed by Iran who uses them to fight Israel. This is the case even though Israel, paradoxically, pulled out from Gaza and forced settlers to leave risking a civil war. Media keeps calling this a Palestinian Israeli conflict but the majority of Palestinians are not with Hamas. This is a war against Hamas in which Israel uses missiles to defend its children and Hamas sadly uses its children to protects its missiles. If Israel really wanted to kill the children of Gaza it would do what Bashar al Assad did when he killed over 50,000 of his own children. Not even the death of one child is justifiable, not a single civilian casualty is justifiable, but Israel can wipe out Hamas and it does not and I have no doubt that if Hamas could wipe out Israel it would. Moreover the rocket attacks at this point have been effective enough to isolate Israel and most airlines are not flying into Israel for fear of Hamas attacks.
In the midst of the awful ISIS successes in Iraq and the Syrian war going on now, and in the height of the Sunni Shia bloody conflict, and the threat of a nuclear Iran, Israel is our hope to stop the radicals in the region. Israel is fighting Hamas, people who dream to see you, me, moderate Muslims, and everyone who believes in equality of men and women, rights of homosexuals, freedom of expression and freedom of worship or non worship, dead. We cannot allow Hamas, ISIS and other horrible forces of evil win over reasonable and moderate Muslims. Considering what Israel could do to wipe out Gaza, the way Bashar al Assad wiped out Homs, its response is incredibly moderate, reasonable, measured and as targeted as the situation allows. If you study casualty figures in Wikipedia you will see that the chances of a Muslim to be killed by a fellow Muslim or Christian are over 1000 to 1 than those of being killed by a Jew. Please stop attacking the right of Israel to defend itself and take a global view of what is going on in the region before taking sides. In my view the only reasonable request at the moment is to ask Hamas to stop sending missiles to Israel and for Israel to stop bombarding Gaza. And I hope that this happens as soon as possible and peace is restored.
(Photos: The Telegraph and AFP)
It was agonizing being a Jew in Spain when Israel invaded Lebanon, when it attacked Gaza and when it shot the Turkish boat. I was against those three acts, as I felt that Israel was over reacting and responding with much more violence than it had received. Still I had a feeling that the tremendous anger of many in Spain was too targeted towards Israel and Jews in general, that it had an antisemitic undertone.
Now that I see how Spain doesn’t react in any comparable way to the massive killings of Syrian civilians by Bashar Al Assad, in a war that has already left over 25K dead, I am coming to the conclusion that I was right, many in Spain are just antisemitic.
It is not that Israel does not commit injustices, it does. And it is estimated that around 1000 people died in the Gaza attack and around 1300 in Lebanon and that is way too many, especially since most were civilians. So I want to make it clear that I opposed those wars.
But the number of casualties in Syria is shocking in comparison and nobody in Spain has done any demonstrating comparable to the massive protests against Israel. Because it was incredible how much Spaniards went to the streets to protest against Israel on each of those three events. I had to hear people call me “genocidal” just because I am Jewish, call all Jews Nazis and other attacks. My children were harassed at school over these incidents as if all Jews were part of them. Still I thought that I had to be understanding because Israel was committing injustices.
But now that I see how little people care about Bashar Al Assad killings I am coming to the conclusion that if Israel kills it’s huge news in Spain, now, if an Arab dictator does commit something that is closer to the definition of genocide however, there are no massive demonstrations in Spain. But if Israel boards a Turkish ship it is front page news and material for huge demonstrations. Not that Spaniards are physically violent because they generally are not, but they are extremely vocal in their dislike of Israel. A Spaniard will say horrible things about Israel and about Jews and it will feel normal. Indeed in Spanish of Spain (not of Latin America) calling somebody Jewish is an insult.
I love Spain but if there is one thing that it is hard in this country is to be Jewish, something that only 1 person in 2000 is. There is tremendous prejudice. Spain is a country in which most have opinions about Jews but most have never met a Jew in person. I wish more went to Israel and then see that while Israel it is clearly a country that has to improve a great deal is is light years ahead of its neighbors.
For the record I have visited Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Syria.
Here’s an article I wrote in Spanish about the challenges of being Jewish in Spain http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2008/07/21/lapurezaestaenlamezcla/1216636800.html
Here I emphasize that there is a great deal of cultural prejudice in Spain and it is not at all only a Jewish problem.
Here is the report of the Observatory for Antisemitism in Spain for the year 2011.. And here is their web site.
Here is a survey of Antisemitism in Europe that ranks Spain very poorly.
2012 4
There is still a lot of Game of Thrones around us
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Middle East with No Comments
We are in Sagaponack, NY. Nina, Leo and Mia went to see the Southampton 4th of July parade. I am sick in bed with a bad summer flu. I stayed in bed watching a Game of Thrones marathon. I am on Season 2 Episode 4. I almost never watch TV but I do enjoy TV series. I watch them mostly during flights off my iPad. And now because I am sick and can’t stop coughing I watch them in bed. By now, I have probably watched over 10 hours of Game of Thrones over the last 3 days.
Game of Thrones has a great deal of sex and people talk about that, but sex is nothing compared to the amount of violence it depicts. A violence that it is at the limit of what I can stomach, as when they kill a baby off a woman’s arm. But the story is good and I am hooked. At this point anything that makes me forget my flu is welcome. Still, I suffer as I watch the most violent scenes. When I watch these horrors, I remember the child in myself saying, this is just a movie, this is just a movie. But then, during a break I read the news. The real news. And I see this. A very Game of Thrones real life story going on right now in Syria as Bashar Al Assad tries to stay on his throne and goes on a killing rampage. Reuters reports.
Video clips showed rotting corpses lying in dried pools of blood in dark hallways, their faces covered with flies. One showed a woman and her child prone in a living room. The activist narrating the video said they had been stabbed.
A third video displayed pieces of charred flesh which activists said were severed genitals.
“There was more here yesterday,” said a man wearing plastic gloves.” “But the dogs were taking them.”
So now my defenses stopped working. I think about what is going on in Syria, a country I visited in 2003 and found it quite attractive. Here are my pictures of that trip. I can’t imagine how those who appear in them are doing now in this horrible civil war. Why would Bashar al Assad, a man who trained to be an ophtalmologist in London and his wife Asma al-Assad who was born and raised in the UK and has a degree in computer science go on murder rampages to stay in power?
There is still a lot of Game of Thrones around us. The middle ages are still here.
2012 10
On why Israel should not attack Iran
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Arab revolts with No Comments
Image via Wikipedia
I am Jewish and I can’t understand why attacking Iran over the threat of nuclear is a great idea. It’s not that I believe what Iran says. Of course they will develop nuclear weapons, but also Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And Pakistan is a very unstable country and we live with them and their weapons. And India, a country which most of us find easier to live with, has had to live with Pakistan, their weapons and their terrorists.
Pakistan is a country ruled by people who like us but populated by people who mostly hate us, and I don’t mean hate Jews, but the whole West, India and China. Polls show that in the mid 00s most Pakistanis liked Bin Laden as a leader. And some clearly liked him enough to give him shelter for so many years. And this is a country has nuclear weapons and we tolerate it. And Israel and maybe EU and USA are planning to go to war with Iran because they may have nuclear weapons and be where Pakistan is today. Going to war with a country because it will have nuclear weapons is hardly a way to increase world security. Why didn’t USA go to war with USSR when they developed nuclear weapons? Why didnt we go to war with North Korea whose lunatic leadership is far worse than the Iranian leadership. In each of those circumstances we estimated the cost of war to be greater than the cost of preventing nuclear proliferation. North Korea for example, could already wipe out a third of South Korea with conventional artillery, in the face of that threat, we let them go nuclear. I am sure the South Koreans would prefer another neighbor, but they do what they can given the circumstances. Even after a nuclear Iran, Israel’s situation won’t be as bad as that of South Korea at war with a nation that borders it and can destroy it with conventional and nuclear weapons and threatens to do so very frequently. Plus Iran is a threat to Israel already through its proxy armies of Hezbollah and Hamas. But Syria was partners with Iran and another serious threat to Israel under the leadership of Bashar Al Assad and look at where he is now, exterminating his own people, hated by his own people. Qaddafi said there was going to be a Middle East without Israel and we ended having a Libya without Qaddafi. I think there is enough evidence that Iran is going in the same direction. Preventive warfare is flawed. It’s a doctrine that says that because you may not like war in the future you start a war now. We squandered trillions of dollars of USA and EU money with this doctrine, and precious human lives, and achieved nothing. Anyone doubts that Saddam Hussein would have survived the Arab uprisings? If we intervene we should so so to tip the balance, not to go as an invasive force trying to conquer, police and rebuild a nation for a decade. It’s wrong and we can’t afford it.
Nuclear weapons have this weirdly positive aspect to them that their utilization is so serious, so incredibly harmful, that those who have them so far in history have stayed put. It’s as if their owners developed a deep sense of nausea just about having them. The only exception in history, is of course USA, who whether we like it or not, was the only nation brutal enough to overcome their nausea and use them. Probably because nobody had used them before and the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not on anyone’s minds.
I think that we should all put more hope in the people of Iran. Iran is the opposite of Pakistan, a country ruled by people who hate us but populated by people who are fed up with them and like us and our lifestyle. Every protest in Iran seems to be about people who want to be free and a government who puts them down. So we should not give these freedom seeking people who almost overthrew Ahmadinejad, a real reason to hate us. And let’s remember that under attack everyone becomes a nationalist and sides with whoever is the dictator who rules the country. From a Jewish point of view, now that the Muslim world is finally focused on their problems attacking Iran would be to go for the limelight at the worse possible moment.
We should accept that this situation is ugly, confusing, tough to deal with and there no easy answers. And for Israel attacking Iran a country of 80 million people that is twice as big as France and far away is a daunting task, nothing like the Operation Babylon of 1981. Israel, USA, EU, should continue with covert operations and other tactics that are short of war, and put all sorts of pressures to show how great life would be for all if Iran stops. But at the same time we have to learn to live with our fears, accept that Iran may go nuclear, and focus on promoting a change of leadership that is more aligned with the Iranian people and our interests.
2011 10
10th anniversary of the Afghanistan invasion
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Arab revolts with No Comments
Last Friday was the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan invasion. Why we are there is beyond my comprehension. We have killed so many innocent people, both our own soldiers who we sent to a hopeless war and countless innocent victims of our bombardments. We are at fault, both Europe and USA. Why did we stay in Iraq beyond overthrowing Saddam and in Afghanistan beyond overthrowing the Taliban? EU and USA are not meant to invade countries for decades and try to administer them. Why did we not wait until they had their Arab uprising as so many other countries? I can understand the use of military force in Libya, to tilt the balance without invading, to provide air support. But to invade, police, stay for a decade, be responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, accomplish nothing and waste trillions of our own savings is barbaric.
2011 26
In favor or against the Palestinian State?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Middle East with No Comments
As a Jew I want to see a Palestinian state. I just don’t know how to guarantee that this state will not be Hamas controlled and focused not on its own success but the destruction of Israel. Gaza has been a terrible example of what may happen in all of Palestine. And at the same time I think the Israelis are so in the wrong for allowing more settlements. Having said this, if those people are fanatics who want to be in Palestine I think the Palestinians should keep them and tax them. The GDP of the 300K Israeli settlers may be as high as that of the millions of Palestinians. Why chase them away?
2011 23
Why did we go to war?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Arab revolts with No Comments
I am debating with too many people on Twitter. I give up. Most people seem to believe that EU and USA went to war in the Arab countries, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Libya because somehow we are making money doing so. They don’t get it that Europe and USA lost trillions in these wars. That their people, their economies… lost trillions and a horrible sacrifice of human lives on all sides. That yes there are some minor beneficiaries of this disasters like some people in the military industry and military contracting but that for the economies of USA, UK and some EU countries have been wasting $3 trillion only in Iraq as you can see here. And this is madness. Most on my twitter stream believe that somehow we will get paid back. How? Stealing their oil? Well that will never happen and should not happen. Did Saddam or Gaddafi not want to sell oil? Because now we get somebody else to sell us oil at $107 per barrel is that enough reason to invade Iraq? If all we wanted was to buy oil we would not go to war. We went to war because of some idiotic reasoning in the case of Iraq and some smarter reasoning in the case of Libya (where we invested much much less, worked with Libyans and got what seems to be like a good outcome). We went to war because we believed that toppling people who kill their people and sometimes foreigners with oil money don’t deserve to be in power. But the Iraqi money and human lives spent in the Iraq War are gone for good. We should have done nothing in Iraq, Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and he would have fallen like Gaddafi did, at a much smaller cost if we had waited a decade.
2011 23
The average American owes $50K, the average Libyan has $30K
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Economy with No Comments
Libyans look like they are in horrible shape, and as they finish their civil war they are. And we are all happy Gaddafi, while still at large, is not in power. But unlike anything you can imagine, Libyan finances are not that bad. Libya is no Egypt. They have over $200bn in assets of which $165bn are abroad. They are only 6 million people and have no national debt. As a result each Libyan has assets of $30K. Americans instead have around $50K of debt per capita and Europeans $30K. But Americans and Europeans, paid dearly for the liberation of Libyans, not as much of course as the failed wars of Iraq and Afghanistan but still significant. Should us in EU and USA stop fighting other people’s wars and focus on rebuilding our economies? I think so. We should emulate George W Bush who had everyone contribute to the cost of the Gulf War and as a result it was short and relatively inexpensive as described in the first link. My view is that from now on, if we deal with wealthy nations like Libya I think we should only intervene only to tilt the balance and only if we get repaid. And in cases in which true humanitarian reasons are at stake we should do this together with many nations and sharing the costs.
When they say there can be no peace between Israelis and Palestinians they are mistaken. There is “peace” already or at least there is no war. During the last 2 years relatively few people died in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (268 since January 2009 to be exact – out of which 45 were Palestinians killed/executed by Palestinians), and I say “relatively” because this is in great contrast with Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur and many other areas of the world where tens of thousands have died. As a comparison, in USA alone 41,000 people die every year in car accidents. Indeed it is more likely to die in a car accident in USA than at war if you are a Palestinian or an Israeli.
During my visit to Israel I was surprised to see how many Palestinians actually live in Israel, this is something that is not well known outside of Israel. Arabs constitute about 20% of Israel’s total population. At the Tel Aviv beaches for example, the blend is magic. You see Israelis surfing next to Arab women who go into the water fully dressed. And some actually swim fully dressed. I had never seen anything like that. Israelis and Arabs, side by side, sharing their free time at the beach. I hope this is part of what the peaceful future of Israelis and Palestinians will be like.
If you compare other armed conflicts with the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you will see that while this is the one with the most media attention globally it is surprisingly the least deadly. I took the time to make a comparative chart based on the estimated number of casualties (including civilians) that can be found on Wikipedia. In most cases the spread between high and low estimates is very large, but the figures give a good general idea of the order of magnitude of each conflict. Of course it would be a mistake to focus only on the number of casualties when comparing different armed conflicts, there are many other factors to be considered, such as the number of indirect deaths, the number of displaced people, the amount of psychological damage caused, the long-term effects on the affected regions, just to name a few. And it is true that the Palestinians suffer many humiliations in their daily life like for example when they try to travel from Gaza to the West Bank or even around the West Bank. But casualties is still a clear measure of war.
I hope this post is not understood as an attempt to minimize the important of the conflict. I sincerely hope that something like the Oslo Accords gets implemented in the near future so the Palestinians can have their own country. While the situation now is not a war, it is not a solution either. But it is important to put things in perspective and realize that Palestinians in Israel and in the Palestinian territories do not live in what we would normally call a war.
Here’s the chart I made:
And here are a couple of pictures I took at the beach during my visit that illustrate what I saw in terms of Palestinians and Israelis enjoying the sea side by side.
To end this post, I leave you with this video I shot during a helicopter ride around Israel. What became very apparent in the helicopter ride is that the paradox of the Palestinians is that they are either in Israel or near Israel and that Israel is so developed compared to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, namely other countries in which Palestinians live, that it is not surprising that the Palestinians would want Israel as it is now. It is hard to say to what point do they want to go to the land of their ancestors and to what point they much prefer the greatly improved land of Israel of today. Indeed it is possible that if the Israelis had done with their country what the Palestinians did with Gaza and instead the Palestinians had reached the level of development in Gaza that Israel has now, that few Palestinians would be wanting to move to Israel or ask that a Gaza looking Israel be returned to them. Before many Israelis wanted the West Bank and Gaza, now few do. So Israelis have mostly given up the hope of a greater Israel. Only the Israeli fanatic settlers still want a Greater Israel. What people never say in this conflict is that this is not a conflict about the Biblical Israel or the Palestine of the 1920s. This is a conflict about what Israel is today and what Palestine is today. And the contrast is drastic. And it is hard to argue what the Palestinians argue that if they got Israel that it would be what today we know as Israel in terms of prosperity and economic development. I have a hard time imagining Israel being the country outside of USA with most Nasdaq traded companies or Nobel Prizes if it was Palestine. This is what happens when people’s past is so different from people’s present.
Lastly I would like to say that while I blame Israelis for not wanting to negotiate with the Palestinians now and I dislike the current position of the government of Israel vis a vis negotiations I think the Palestinians had a great opportunity in Gaza and by electing Hamas after settlers were forced out by force from there they escalated the conflict and made it hard for Israelis to feel comfortable about removing settlers by force from the West bank.
