"They have come from everywhere, these Jews of Zionism—from Germany to Ethiopia to Poland to Morocco to France to Iraq to the former Soviet Union and a thousand other places. And most have come because their 'equal rights' in those places proved nonexistent in the face of a millennia of hatred. In Israel, often for the first time in history, they are citizens with rights. And they enjoy those rights because, and only because, of Zionism."

Hey, next time we can ask you questions for free - you reblogged something about how people don't understand what Zionism is. I thought I did, but now I'm pretty sure I don't, and for obvious reasons I am having trouble finding reliabe information on it on the internet. What IS modern Zionism?

There were several rounds of foreign powers conquering and colonizing ancient Israel, causing several rounds of diaspora to match.

The history of the Jewish people goes back 3500+ years. Our creation myth, if you will, starts with Abraham, but our existence as a people starts with the story of exodus. Returning to the place where Abraham and his descendants made their home. That is where we start.

From then on, there has always been an Israelite, later Jewish, presence in our ancestral home. And yet so many of us were spread across the world. Over 2000 years ago we were settled in Italy and in Persia; some of us made it all the way to China and Ethiopia. We were no strangers to religious persecution - from Haman to the inquisition. Christians hated us, Muslims either tolerated us or persecuted us. And always we prayed, prayed to return to rebuilt Jerusalem.

In the 19th century, following the enlightenment, countries began to emancipate Jews. They lifted nearly every law that forced us to live apart, to look different. Many Jews took the opportunity to join western society, becoming indistinguishable from Christians. During this same time period was the rise of race science. The fear of Jews didn't go away. We were among them.

This is how racialized antisemitism was born. No longer could you stop being a Jew by converting to another religion; being Jewish was in your blood.

Frankly, Jews have always believed this to some degree. But this is what leads us, eventually, to the Holocaust.

It was already before this that we saw the signs. Racialized antisemitism was spreading throughout the world - not just in Europe, but in the US and MENA as well. Nationalist movements were popping up all over the place. It became clear that these nationalist movements excluded Jews. Thus was born Zionism: the natural result of thousands of years of yearning for our homeland, the natural result of antisemitism, the natural result of 3500 years of history.

Zionism initially wasn't necessarily about returning to Israel, strangely enough. But that aspect was rather quickly abandoned. As it was, throughout our history whenever there was a pogrom some groups of Jews would leave for Israel. Following the rise of racialized antisemitism, pogroms were happening throughout eastern Europe, and as Zionism spread, more and more Jews were doing aliyot - traveling in large groups to Israel. The Arab population - then still considered simply one part of the ottoman empire - did not approve, and several pogroms were committed against the local Jewish population, whether they were new arrivals or, like my own recent ancestors, had been living in Israel the entire time. And yet they kept coming.

Jumping ahead. What the Zionist dream would look like was not necessarily universally agreed on, but following the atrocities of the Holocaust and the world wide fall of the British empire an awkward decision of the holy land was proposed and agreed upon in the UN. It was understood that Zionism was not, as is presented now, racism. It was a move by an indigenous population to have self determination.

The Jews agreed to the plan. The Arab population did not. War broke out between Israel and every neighboring country, but Israel won. In 1948, a year after the UN resolution, Israel declared independence. 75 years later, we're still here.

In the 90s it looked like piece with the Palestinians would finally happen. Tragically, following terrorist actions from both Palestinians and Israelis, especially the assassination of itzhak rabin, the peace talks failed.

What is modern Zionism? That depends which Jew you ask. Some will say it's violent colonialism. Some will say it's racism. Some will say it's blind support for any action the Israeli government takes.

That is, frankly, bullshit. There are definitely Zionists who are violent, Zionists who are racist, Zionists who support the Israeli government. But there are also antizionists who are violent, who are antisemitic, who are blind supporters of Hamas. Claiming that that is representative of every Palestinian is ridiculous, as is so often parroted on this website. Practically every Israeli leftist who spent the last eight months protesting our government is a Zionist.

I will tell you what Zionism is to me. Zionism, to me, is the end of the Passover Seder, where we have, for 2000 years, called for the rebuilding of Jerusalem. It is praying at the western wall. It is Jewish existence in our homeland. It is self determination and land back for an indigenous population.

I am tired of apologizing for my existence. I am tired of saying "antizionism isn't antisemitism!!!" when so many antizionists refuse to unpack their antisemitism. I am tired of pretending Judaism wasn't always calling for our return to this homeland.

It is incredibly easy for outsiders to say that the only solution is a one state solution. But the truth is most Israelis *and* most Palestinians do not support it, because there is simply so much bad blood between us. Where did this cycle of violence begin? People who say 1948 do not understand how long the Jewish view of history is. The cycle of violence began during the first time Israel was conquered by a foreign power. The cycle of violence began when the Islamic empire colonized the entire middle east. The cycle of violence began during the rise of racialized antisemitism. The cycle of violence began when Jews illegally settled in Israel. The cycle of violence began when Arabs committed pogroms. The cycle of violence began when the war of independence broke out. The cycle of violence began when Israel conquered the west bank and Gaza strip in the six day war.

To me, the cycle of violence starts 3500 years ago, when the Israelites said, "we will not be slaves". To me, Zionism began when we spent 40 years in the desert, trying to reach what would be, for the next 3500 years, our home.

I cannot separate modern Zionism from that.

I read your take on one state solution. The reason for the creation of Israel is for a Jewish state and where jews are the majority. It makes no sense to allow Palestinians that left during the nakba. Although I don't support israel I think a one state solution is delusional cuz you can see that they r gonna elect a fundamentalist Islamic government. They slogan "from river to sea" is literally a call for genocide eventhough u r gonna deny it. You have to look at the context. This was used by both Palestinian and Israeli government in the past. I believe that west Bank should be free and other Palestinians in Israel should be given equal rights. We all wanna think that we wanna do something about this. But if there was really a solution we would've done it a long time ago. Also I'm sympathetic to the jews from middle east . They were ethnically cleansed from their countries. The Jewish presence in Mena has been very low. They have been migrating there since the ottoman empire. There were already jewish settlements in west Bank. The only problems here is the control of Jerusalem. I'm pretty sure that's the only reason the other countries care about these people. Everybody wants Jerusalem and that's the only reason ,there is no humanitarian reasons if you observe. This was the only reason from the beginning. Hope the israeli government stops killing people. They don't even have a stable government. They have these elections once in every 3 months. Whatever bibi is doing is the epitome of evil. He has a cult following. Both the leadership are the worst. We instead of calling for deaths for revenge must think rationally about the one state solution. Ik u r Palestinian but I don't think that what u r thinking is not what majority people think. I don't want the problem to end up in a genocide for both the sides. These r people that don't trust each other. Asking them to live together is calling for genocide. U r having wishful thinking that both of these people r not gonna elect right wing nut jobs. How many of these countries are secular in the middle east. What if Israel lost any of its wars. I'm sure it would've been a genocide either way. I just hope for a 2 state solution with Jerusalem bring independent which will never happen. One thing I would like to say is I don't put my energy on these things because the war will only stop if the leaderships decide to. Nothing will stop by rising awareness. It just takes away your energy. Most of the world doesn't give a shit about anything other than their problems. We think we have power to change things. It's just an illusion. Sorry for ranting . It's not organized at all.

I read through this twice and have come to the same conclusion both times: your reason for disagreeing that Palestinians should be in control of the land that is theirs is because you think they’re going to elect a right wing gov based on… just vibes. Because you believe white peoples when they interpret a slogan that was made by Palestinians, who have said thousands of times it’s not a call for genocide. Because you believe middle eastern people to be incapable of making “good decisions”. You’re literally so intrenched in racism there is no point discussing anything with you. “Palestinians are also bad because they’re Muslim!!” That’s your whole point. I am not wasting energy by fighting for my land and my people. By the way, I do exist as a real sentient person outside of this website. This is only one facet of my activism. What would be a waste of energy is spending any time arguing with you when the internet is free, and you can read about what PALESTINIANS IN PALESTINE say they would propose for a solution. Not two states. One Palestine. Free from occupation. From the river to the sea. You Islamophobic fuck.

Hi, genuine question here for you been following a long time. I was wondering how one would prove why the God of the Bible is the true God of everything. For example, I've been told in the past the reason God is God is because the Bible said so and God wrote the Bible. But that argument doesn't resonate with me, because humans had to write it, inspired or not and it seems a roundabout argument, like, you could say God wrote the Talmud or wrote the Bhagavad Gita because they said so. Another one I heard was that to believe because of Pascal's wager where it's better to try to believe than not because there's no harm done if it's wrong but you'll lose it all. But that could work for any religion, how's it to not lead to the Quran vs. the Bible? What kind of argument or justification can one use? I know you're pretty knowledgeable on the subject as you're a Christian, but I just don't know how to get on that bandwagon just yet because I haven't seen very many arguments that aren't able to have holes poked into them.

Here's the shocker anon : there's no one on this planet who will be able to convince you of God existence.

There's a reason Jesus spoke into parables and that many of the people he professed to never got his message. Not everyone can understand God, and God Himself saves whoever He wants to. Sure, as Christians we have the duty to profess His words, but ultimately, God has the last word in whether people will actually accept His message or not.

That's why Faith is so important in Christianity. Trusting in Jesus being the son of God and that only the only true God YHWH, saves. Jesus said how blessed are the people who trusts without seeing actual evidence of God. Such as a centurion who trusted Jesus when he said his servant was healed, before he even came back home to check whether it was true or not.

Obsessively trying to find rationale evidence of Christianity being real is comprehensible and necessary, but it can also be a stumbling stone (uncredulousnes, hardening of heart, etc.). Never forget it was satan who was taunting Jesus into making miracles to make him fall.

And FYI what separates religion from cults or "spiritual philosophy" are the revealed miracles. Whether you believe it or not, multiplication of bread happened, people spontaneously speaking & understanding foreign tongues during the Pentecost happened. Jesus coffin being empty after 3 days happened. Because God was smart enough to put up witnesses to testify about it. Even Jesus haters acknowledged his 'powers' - they were just wrong to argue they were from the devil. Prophecies written by Jews happened too.

That's what separates judaism & Christianism from eastern 'religions' and cults. That's what give them an actual relevance and trustworthiness that other spiritual movement don't.

The only'way to know that God is God is to simply ask Him. The Bible isn't some magical book that will turb me you into a Christian just by reading it. That's a spiritual leap. And no, it's not accessible to anyone.

That being said, I've always found pretty troubling the stories of Muslim who, when genuinely asked God to show Himself (instead of their repetitive mindless rehashed prayers) they saw a cross, or a man... There's the story who happened in a MENA country where a toddler and her baby seebling got buried alive by their uncle who wanted to get rid of them after his sister (their mom) died. They survived SEVERAL WEEKS, and when they got found and everyone asked the little girl how they managed to remain alive so long, the little girl said a man with white close gave them bread and that their mom (their psycho uncle buried them in the same coffin as her) regularly woke up to breastfeed her baby sibling. It's said that when they found them, the mom looked like she was dead just moments ago, not since the severals weeks she actually did.

Waking up the dead? A man with a white robe? That was Jesus, babe. But OF COURSE the Muslims REFUSED to admit it and coped saying it was an angel or some stuff. You can't force someone to believe when they obvious is just there.

If you want actual evidence of YHWH being God, just ask him.

I'm just gonna write a vent post of miscellaneous shit I can't say on my main blog without losing all my friends

anyone else annoyed at those posts going around where goyim are like "omg 30,000 people killed..............how can I go on with my life while this is happening....................." when like. there's so many other hugely tragic things going on in the world. why has this conflict in particular set off an existential crisis, hm? the vast majority of y'all don't have any stakes in this, you're just gonna forget about it like you did with Ukraine. stop with the groveling and the Holocaust inversion

look. people in the Israeli government have said truly horrible shit. but if you're gonna accuse Israel of genocide because of what they say, then why the hell isn't that standard being held to Hamas??????

one thing that's really telling to me is people only now being like "oh no, Israel treated the Holocaust survivors who fled there horribly! they're so evil" if you Actually gave a shit about Jews y'all'd've been talking about that ages ago, held huge events to raise money to help, any number of things! but you don't care. you just want to find any excuse to call for Israel's destruction.

and let's be clear - almost everything I've seen has been calling for a 1 Palestinian state solution. but there's never any discussion of how that actually plays out or what to do about "the Jewish question" beyond "oh y'all're all rich whities, go back to Europe"

are these European countries gonna kick out the people living in the houses that Jewish families fled from and give them back to their descendants? do you think Jews want to go back to towns that collaborated with the Nazis?

not to mention there's hundreds of thousands of Jews who left MENA countries. you think countries with at most 100 Jews currently living there would welcome the huge number of descendants that would pour in? you think they'd even be allowed to return?

and where exactly does that leave the Jews who have always been in the Levant? are you really naive enough to think that after nearly 80 years of fighting, the remaining Jews wouldn't actually be genocided??? (for the record, I don't think a one-state solution where Israel absorbed Gaza and the West Bank would work either; plenty of settlers have proven they can't live peacefully with Palestinians, and I don't think anyone wants to see that happen on a larger scale.)

don't talk to me about ~decolonization~ until Jews have full control over our holy sites. Obviously there's no way the compound would be taken down and a third Temple constructed; Arab countries scream bloody murder when Jews so much as pray there. (are they worried we're gonna do the same fucking thing they did??? lmao) but can we at least get the right to do that? that really shouldn't be restricted to one group.

the fact that people deny that Jews are indigenous to the Levant is fucking absurd. Jews have maintained their connection to their homeland for thousands of years. the fucking Dalai Lama asked Jews for advice on how to maintain Tibetan culture while in exile.

it's also like. I see people be like "you Jews don't own Israel just because your sky daddy said so in some old book, it even says you aren't from here because you had to conquer the land!" and ok sure. I personally as a convert with no known Jewish ancestry don't feel like I have more of a right to live in Eretz Yisrael than non-Jews who've lived there for hundreds to thousands of years. do you care about the historical and archaeological evidence that says Jews were Canaanites who eventually split off though or......? also these same people will be like "oh you should respect indigenous people and their religion; their oral tradition preserves facts about their past" while again, dismissing Jewish texts wholesale

I've seen tons of people calling out the soldiers that posted a video of them sniffing panties, and they should! it's deplorable and disgusting behavior! the sexual violence committed on 10/7? either "deserved," denied, or complete silence. it's fucking terrifying that people will justify that kind of thing in the name of decolonization.

I know nobody talks about antisemitism besides Jews, but it really is depressing to see absolutely Nobody talking about the horrific rise in antisemitic violence. It's all "uwu I'm anti-zionist, not antisemitic! it's actually very easy to criticize Israel without being antisemitic!" *does fuck-all to actually help Jewish people*

no one talks about the other countries involved either except to cheer on the Houthis for like a week before I saw maybe 1 (one) post about them being slavers and everybody shut up. didn't even bother reblogging that info to spread awareness or making a post like "whoopsie I didn't take 5 seconds to look up what this group is!"

and I stg if I have to see someone post that Israel sterilized Ethiopian Jews one more time I'm gonna lose it. there was miscommunication about temporary birth control. that shouldn't have happened! but it's a far cry from actually permanently sterilizing thousands of people.

I saw another post by a convert a while back saying something along the lines of "I'm anti-Zionist bc I think Judaism doesn't need a homeland anymore" and firstly like. Judaism is all about Eretz Yisrael; even if you don't like the modern country you can't really separate Judaism from the land it originated from. secondly unless OP was zera Yisrael, I don't really think it's our place as converts to decide whether Jews as a whole don't need a homeland like. yikes 😬

Hi folks! I'm writing two jewish characters, one ashkenazi and one mizrahi, and since you mentioned you have both ashkenazi and mizrahi heritage, i wanted to ask you if you have any advice. Particularly, if there are any details i could sprinkle throughout the story to make their heritage read more authentic

the two cultures between ashkenazic & mizrahim definitely have a ton of differences despite modern efforts to conform mizrahi jews to zionist ashkenazi european customs solely; we’re very proud of where our cultural identity ties into our religious identity. i definitely won’t be able to fit everything in here but i will also give further resources for you to do some further reading if you like!

cuisine differs greatly between them; with mizrahi being influenced from the mena [middle east & north africa] region while ashkenazi cuisine takes from european cultures such as germany, poland, etc. obviously the differences between those cultures like flavour palettes, spices, etc will all then bleed into how jewish cuisine between the subsections differ too!

likewise, dress apparal & customs will also differ depending on what type of family your characters were raised in, whether they tend to be more “modernized” into the mainstream culture, how religious / observant the family is, how connected they are to their own culture, etc.

how we observe & pray in our hymns can also feel incredibly different. mizrahi hymns can almost seem kind of sad & melancholic at times, whereas ashkenazi hymns seem more upbeat. obviously this is not the same across the board but it’s an interesting thing to see.

individuality vs community is also featured differently between the two; ashkenazi jews almost seem to mirror the larger population of home countries or if they’re american in individuality taking place over community. whereas mizrahi jews will probably still be in countries where the good of all & community value / face is placed as the upmost importance.

mizrahi jews also don’t speak just one unified language, each subgroup done by country of origin like iraq, yemen, etc would have their own "tongue” of language.

here are some further resources ♥ i hope this helped!

https://www.heyalma.com/both-mizrahi-and-ashkenazi-ive-never-known-quite-where-i-fit/ this one is incredible & definitely reaffirms the feelings i’ve felt as “half / half” in my jewish heritage.

https://www.heyalma.com/we-need-to-stop-erasing-mizrahi-jews/

https://flavorsofdiaspora.com/category/mizrahi/

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mizrahim-in-israel/

https://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/recognizing-histories-cultures-mizrahi-jews/

Sorry to bother you bc I assume it must be exhausted to constantly be asked about your stance on Israel as a Jewish person, but I'd really like to hear some Jewish radfem voices on the matter! I'm a gentile and I've supported Palestine ever since I became politically aware and obviously condemn the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinian people. But over the past few years I've noticed how leftists are getting just.. downright antisemitic? Aren't the comparisons to European colonization completely inappropriate given the context? Like how do you compare Europeans colonising America to expand their empires to Jewish people fleeing to Israel after the Holocaust (and antisemitic persecution in mena)? I also get kind of uncomfortable with the way leftists reject the two state solution because Israelis are colonizers that should go back where they came from etc as if every country in the world hasn't shown Jewish people that they're not welcome one way or another.... Am I misreading this? Bc of course Israel should be held accountable for its crimes but I also find it weird that the left is pretending it's unreasonable for Jewish people to want one (1) nation where they will always be welcome and safe after everything they've been through. There are numerous Christian and Muslim nations but it's unreasonable for one of the most persecuted ethnoreligious minorities to want to take care of their own as well?

Let me say, straight off the bat, I’m not gonna to be the most factual source. I can only tell you about my lived experience in a pro-Israel Jewish community, and with the fact that I have over a dozen relatives currently living in Israel and have known Holocaust survivors my whole life. So you can take what I say with a grain of salt but I highly recommend looking at sources from both sides before reaching your own conclusion.

My people, the Jewish people, came from Israel. How we came to live there, if you believe the Old Testament, isn’t something I agree with seeing as it’s believed that the Hebrews found the native peoples and conquered the land, but it housed the Hebrew peoples for thousands of years until the Babylonian Empire overtook it and enslaved them and forced them from their homes. The Hebrews found their way back home, and the Roman Empire came and did the same, for a final time. This is documented in the Arch of Titus, which shows the Romans taking both people and religious artifacts as spoils.

By this point, the land known as “Israel” had long since been split into “Israel” (Northern Territory) and “Judah” (Southern Territory), the ten tribes in the “Israel” having been taken away during the first invasion and we do not know what happened to them. This is where the concept of the Twelve Lost Tribes of Israel comes from, and the reason that the Hebrew People are now known as “Jews” (from the name Judah) because the remaining Hebrew Peoples chronicled in written memory are largely from the tribe of Judah from the southern territory. And the Jewish People were forced into their current Diaspora (meaning anywhere outside of Israel, northern and southern territory) by the Romans and never given permission to return home as a people.

This is why there are so many different groups of Jewish People—Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Syrian, Yemenite, Mizrahi, and more—because we were forced to assimilate into different nations to survive. And yet we continued to be persecuted wherever we went, under numerous leaders and religions and lands, until the biggest genocide of the Holocaust finally forced the world to listen to the Jewish People for a moment when they begged to finally go home, to build a place where the dominant people could be their own, and the British government eventually relented. That was how the state of Israel became established.

I do feel for the Palestinian people—to be living your life in a land your people had moved into with no resistance for hundreds of years only to be forced out of your home is something horrible. They deserve a place to live. But please consider for a moment what it must feel like to have been forced from your home, trying to scrape a life together under constant threat of genocide, to dream every generation of going home, and to finally get the chance to fulfill that dream only to arrive and find that the new inhabitants want to boot you out of that home.

I don’t know what the solution should have been but I do believe that the Jewish People had a right to go back to their homeland, and the events that followed the establishment of the state of Israel in 1964 have worn much of my sympathy for a Palestinian state very thin. Although the majority of the resistance to Israel has come from the surrounding nations and the terrorist organization Hamas whose goal is rooted less in aiding Palestinians so much as murdering Jews, it is difficult for me to invest much sympathy in the concept of a two state solution. I want the Palestinian people to have a home and feel safe but I don’t think that dividing the country would aid in that endeavor—I think that dissolving the country into one nation would be a better solution and building up both peoples as a result. But Israel can’t make that decision and the majority of the contested areas and the parts of the country that mainly see conflict, such as Gaza or the West Bank, are war zones because Israel’s neighbors are waging wars there and investing in terrorist activity that has resulted in its current state. I don’t think the Palestinian people should have to suffer but to constantly see news article after news article condemning Israel and calling for its dissolution and to hear the left downcry its existence when my friends and family in Israel spend every day under threat of missiles and terrorist attacks, makes me see red. I will not deny that the Israel Defense Force has engaged in activity that is unacceptable but I will not stand by and let the deaths of countless Jews over the less than hundred years of Israel’s establishment be swept under the rug, not when my hometown has a monument to a local girl who went to visit Israel and was blown up in an anti-Israel bus bombing aimed at murdering civilians—at this is not an unusual thing for my community to hear about.

So, to answer your question: what do I think about it? I think that a two state solution would never fix the problem but I also don’t believe that the neighboring countries would ever accept anything but the destruction of Israel and its Jewish People, based on actual wars they’ve waged against them, so I think the answer lies somewhere else. And I won’t kid that the antisemitism in the leftist community doesn’t surprise me or any other Jew. We’ve lived our lives hated by others so I figure this is just the way the world is turning. Holocaust survivors are dying out and the world’s sympathy for us is wearing thin and I fully believe we’re looking at the beginning of the next big anti-Jew genocide. It’s just easier for leftists to stick their heads in the sand and guise their antisemitism under “anti-Israel” sentiment when what they really mean is “anti-jew”

You mentioning South Africa in my last ask got me thinking about another issue: one problem with comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa is that it casts the PA in the role of the ANC, and while the ANC’s goals were deliberately a multiethnic democracy (putting aside whether they have been successful), the PA is still fundamentally opposed to the idea of a Jewish connection to the Levant or even to the concept of Jews as an ethnic as opposed to religious category. Their conception of a two-state solution is a Palestinian state and another Palestinian state in which Jews will grumblingly be allowed to reside. There are Palestinian groups interested in shared Jewish/Palestinian solidarity (Hadash comes to mind, as do some of the other “Arab” Israeli parties to a lesser extent), but the PA is not one of them.

You can tell how full of shit the PA is when they insist so angrily on areas where Jews aren't allowed to live. The ANC didn't do that. Robert Mugabe fighting against Apartheid Rhodesia didn't do that; he implored the whites to stay exactly where they were, live together as brothers and build a strong country together, and the last white PM of Rhodesia agreed with him and stayed. If someone's "liberation" movement can't even be as good as ROBERT MUGABE.... The whole South Africa analogy is a lie from start to finish, by overwhelmingly white privileged "activists" who steal the painful history of black Africans for a meme to pwn the j00z. It is a lie as a CONCEPT, it is a lie as a TACTIC, and it is a lie as a STRATEGY. Israel is in fact the only MENA nation that ISN'T under apartheid, the only one that ISN'T an unnatural monoculture but rather still represents the diversity of the pre-20th-century Middle East, coexisting with equal rights. For people who feel entitled to superiority over Jews, mere equal rights with Jews feels like apartheid. Meanwhile, if South Africa had ever had the demographic and economic advantages of Israel while facing the mortal security threats of Israel, it would be ruled by P.W. Botha's son today and Mandela would have died in prison.

When I type everything out as a single run-on sentence I want you to imagine me cornering you off-guard in a crowded room, my empty brown cow eyes staring straight at you and reflecting you--nopony home here, she checked out and hopped away forever ago on the toxic chemical trains and clacking cattle cars years ago--and just, for no reason, I’m here and you’re there pocketed in the corner of a crowded room, and I’m channeling my alternate history past-self who was a preacher that got kicked out of the church for delivering sermons about the impossibility of sin and just ran off to Point Sur with my harem of distractions since I could never stop blessing my congregation saying “Go forth and know that you cannot sin, in the beautiful eyes of God and in my beautiful eyes there can be no wrong or evil” which backfired on me when they started setting fires and it all went to Hell, but I’ve won out over them because the world honored my wishes when I sighed “I should like to start again,” and so I’m here with you and you’re hear with me and I’m saying some insane shit like: “Looking back on Emily’s early works it is easy to see where her later reactionary turn comes from, because, from the start, Alfred Alfer was a story about the fear of castration, I mean, the first video was literally about Alfred getting neutered and escaping into a violent fantasy where he is loved and praised for his violence and the ‘punchline’ establishes the general theme of ‘reality by despair,’ which is to say that Alfred’s clearly dissociative episode is ‘verified’ by his destruction and it is this self-destruction that establishes ‘reality,’ like ‘pinch me i might be dreaming,’ but the pinch is violent and unfair self-destruction as hope is still ripped away, but hope remains, because it is a hope to die rather than be changed by the world, and this theme remains throughout her most famous work (the Alfred’s Playhouse trilogy which cements in canon the jokes of her previous Rise of Alfred cartoon) where Alfred is possessed by the spirits of Stalin and Hitler--a false equivalency made by the authoritarians that have passed for liberals for years--in Rise of Alfred, one would be remiss not to mention the phallic imagery in both the title and the video itself, Alfred is cut loose upon the world by the absence of a Near God or little other by the orders of a Distant God or big Other (in this video played by a droning and irrelevant corporate figure that can offer nothing more than a wall without lead paint that one can lick), and this is the essence of reactionary thought, the idea of a big Other who is totally incompetent yet all powerful and somehow worth respecting and suffering for (King Henry II saying ‘will no one rid me of this troublesome priest’ or the departed Daiymo of the 47 Ronin), the reactionary sees the big Other as a master who can only set the dogs off the chain, the police chief who needs to get out of the way so McBain or Dirty Harry or Paul Kersey (especially in Death Wish III) can do what needs to be done and purge away all the filth and make the world right again (no different than Rambo--even the first movie, which for all of it’s goods part still is  reactionary propaganda bullshit pushing the fascist lies about a ‘fifth column’ that was rude to poor little meow meow war criminals--or modern day fantasies about nuking all of MENA until it glows green (fantasies delivered to raucous applause at Republican presidential conventions); the reactionary is perpetually trapped in this fantasy of destroying the world and escaping into the void of space, freed of the ground where the riff-raff are so they don’t have to negotiate life with their neighbors, and this is true, yes, even of people who spout bullshit about Fully Automated Luxury Communism who only want the right to consume as much as possible free of guilt--a condition they think is inflicting upon them by the big Other--as the Champagne of Shame Socialists of the 60s), and the righting of the world for the reactionary is just that, that the world must be Righted and the reactionary must be loved for all of their violence and because of their violence, for the reactionary finds themselves ever needing new excuses as they open new fronts in their fake, phony Culture War, and that is all they need (excuses), which is why Emily is so obsessed with justifying her edgy shit based on some Trauma (which is handy excuse to do Anything, even Things that Cannot Be Excused like war or self-harm or wanting to be seen), and so here you should already be able to hear so much madness, so many plaintive cries, all aligning around the same point (the trannies in the ‘wrong’ bathroom, the refugees in the ‘wrong’ country, the people in the ‘wrong’ neighborhood, the Jewish Question, etc), and, anyway, so in Rise of Alfred, Emily’s OC directly addresses the audience and tells them that they must love him/her--the castrated bitch desperate to be let off the leash--and in Alfred’s Playhouse she/he simultaneously affirms and denies the nature of a trauma that justifies everything (one is constantly reminded of The Act of Killing where one of the mass murderers imagines how, depending on the editing of the final film, he could be either a woobie or a war criminal) as the Trauma is simultaneously a joke--’sodomized with a popsicle!’--and the alleged real event that motivates her self-mutilation as we’re expected to believe Emily is processing something, but what is she is processing, hmmmm, isn’t that the true spice,” I rail and rave against your poor ear drums as my empty, dead cow’s eyes capture your entire body and reflect it back at you and the ice cubes in my drink pop and shatter and dissolve and as my fist clenches tighter and tighter around the glass containing them and I continue: she’s processing a fear of castration, which is shown clearly in Alfred’s Playhouse where Alfred’s “sodomy” is demonstrated by the sight of his crotch covered in blood (a scene that will be repeated in The Alfred Alfer Movie) but “what is castration,” one might ask, and one can respond “it is the removal of power by the Father,” and this is how we wrap back around to our root in the nature of Emily the Reactionary who believes herself to be deprived of the power she holds by The Bolshevik Jew that has inserted itself between her and the Father and this is the cause of the big Other’s ineffectiveness, and this is also the core of the reactionary as a whole, the reactionary doesn’t want a daddy to control them, but a Master to set them off the chain because they hate the Father who has castrated them, this is the nature of the mumbling corporate manager in Rise of Alfred, but it is also the nature of Alfred herself--and now you may ask if Emily is trans and the answer is I literally couldn’t fucking care less about any question left forever unanswered on God’s Green Earth and you shouldn’t care either--but Alfred the Castrated is also the Father/Mother of Alfred the Dictator, the murderous inner-self that is immune to consequences of the onrushing future (The Alfred Alfer Movie) but not immune to the justifications of the imagined past (Alfred’s Playhouse trilogy), and therefore free to inflict whatever violence that Emily the Reactionary desires, and it is in pursuit of this freedom that the reactionaries set off in the name of New Sincerity (two things to be noted here: (1) the Death of Irony was proclaimed at the birth of the 21st century police state and the new Forever War with all of its genocidal objectives, that is to say, 9/11, and (2) the broken necked coward who complained of American Psycho that it’s author provided no easy outs for easy survival was the one who offed himself while Bateman’s father still lives) and the Talking Cure (i miss who we used to be), and at this you should see me slugging back the whole lukewarm glass in between two syllables and continuing on without pause (as if this dog still has legs on which to receive them in any case), “Emily, like Alex Jones, is so desperate for an excuse because neither of them can accept that they have to be the one that pulls the trigger, like all liars they don’t understand that they have to define reality by action, the answer to what one might do is found in the difference between the types of irony, one type is constantly desperate for excuses (such as the broken necked coward found one day) for violence, and the other irony, the true spice, is the irony that releases from excuses into violence and energy, one must seek not to know or endure but to inflict, knowing that this inflicting was always inevitable, no searching for justifications, instead the answer is to realize that there was never a chain there connecting you to the Master or the present to the past, and the Father/Mother never had the power of castration (the past, after all, is a foreign country bombed and blasted to ruins already and better forgotten), and you can just be fucked up and terrible and do whatever amuses you right now without needing an excuse, and to the extent that anyone should, one should, because that is what fascism needs, fascism needs the need for an excuse and that is the irony of fascism--where the falling angel (the superego) meets the rising ape (the id) in an ego of ultimate violence which seeks only release from both of its creations in an instinctually and totally misunderstood caricature of dialectics--which opposes its opposite irony (the irony without fascism which is the id’s violence against purpose and reason rising free of anything else to obstruct it), and if you let go of that, if you just, ya know, if you just, you just have to cut loose and go and no one can stop you until it is too late, because there’s no Jew sitting over your shoulder to justify everything in terms of opposition or support, not even The Nazarene is real, but do you understand that you’ve always been free to just go? You’re free to go. You’ve been free to go all this time. You never needed permission for this or anything else. You’ve been free to go all this time. You’re free to go. A whole day off. Just mind the mo(u)rning and get on with it.”

hey, can you tell us a bit about racism in Spain? I'm incredibly uneducated about it, and I don't know much about Spanish history especially racism wise so it would be really nice to get an insight from you about it.

this is a big question, since Spain’s relationship with xenophobia dates back centuries and I’m neither the most qualified person to take you through it nor someone who has suffered from Spanish society’s racist tendencies. However I’ll try to piece a bit of something together and maybe other people can add on if there’s other stuff to include. Also, this is mainly Spanish history from a racism perspective, there are many other positive things in other areas that I haven’t included (patriota pero no mucho)

So basically, up until the 15th century, Spain (in its then form) was a relatively harmonious melting pot of different cultures. With the Roman invasion, settlements and a Visigoth takeover (Germanic population) thereafter, Christianity was pretty firmly established in the country/iberian peninsula by the 2nd Century AD. In 711 AD the Moors, who had control over Islamic Africa, invaded the peninsula and established a Caliphate named Al-Andalus which had a particular stronghold in the south: in Andalusia and their Córdoban capital. Rule was stronger or weaker depending on the region but largely Islamic rule was established and Jewish and Catholic people were treated as second class citizens. Córdoba became the wealthiest, largest and most sophisticated city in Europe by the end of the tenth century, with trade and rich intellectual North African traditions forming a unique culture in the region.

There is a strong historical basis that during a lot of this period there was pockets of ‘La Convivencia’ ie. the co-existence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Like for example, around Toledo where in universities the three backgrounds contributed to tremendous amounts of sharing of knowledge etc.

However, from about the 9th century onwards the Catholics who still held strong points right in the north, begun ‘la Reconquista’, the “reconquest,” where they began chipping away at the Caliphate’s dominance. By the early 11th century they had gained more land than was held by the Muslims and 1492 is where we set our next scene.

This is probably one of the biggest and most path changing years in Spanish history. Most known for being the year when Columbus landed in America, this enabled the start of Spanish imperlism which would extend to almost 5 centuries afterwards, conquering territories in South America, Africa and Asia and subjecting them to imperialistic rule and policies of white totalitarian dominance.

The second important happening in this year was the fall of Granada, the last remaining territory the Caliphate had in Spain, signifying the end of Muslim rule in the country. They were, as expected, thrown out of the country in their droves and many others were forced into hiding being subject to situations that would only get worse with the Inquisition in full swing.

The third, and last, big event in this year was outlined in the Alhambra Decree where the expulsion of all practicing Jews was announced. Now this had already followed the forced conversion tens of thousands of Jews had been subjected to in 1391 and 1415 (ie. crusades and masacres against them). As a result of the Alhambra decree and the prior persecution, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism and around 160,000 were expelled.

This ended religious diversity in Spain, the Inquisition sealed this fate. If you’ve heard of one thing about all of this I’m sure it’s the spanish inquisition. Primarily set up to identify heretics among those who converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism and ensure the establishment of the Catholic monarchy, it became a method of torture, fear and murder for those who were perceived to cause any threat to the Spanish catholic order. The effects of the Inquisition are widely debated, with some saying the death toll and magnitude has been blown up by the Protestants in other European countries at the time and does not show the full picture of the hundreds of thousands of converted jews and muslims who remained and overtime became integrated into Catholic society. Whilst others remaining firm to the devastating measure of these actions and the ‘pure blood’ mentality it created. What’s for certain though, is that by the end of the Inquisition in 1834 very little religious nor ethnic diversity remained in Spain.

Jump forward about 100 years and the Spanish Empire is no more after the 1898 crisis, there’s a weird back and forth period with Republics and Monarchies and dictatorships until the Civil War broke out in 1936. It lasted until 1939 when the Nationalists, led by Franco, took total control of the country and submitted it to a dictatorship that would last until his death in 1975. I don’t even know where to begin with a period that many people see as rosy and many others ignore completely whilst Historians have now gone so far as to call the 1940s and 50s the ‘Spanish Holocaust’. However I’ll break it down to one or two main things that have predominantly spurred on today’s racist attitudes.

During the Civil Rights movements of the 50s and 60s Spain was largely immune to the winds of changes due to their isolationist policies and dictatorial power holds. We didn’t take part in any of the dialogue nor go through any racial reconciliation, at least to much a lesser extent than most other countries. It’s quite a common thing to say that what much of europe did in 70 years we’ve only had time to do in 45, and there’s much of a grain of truth in this.

A famous conservative spanish politician called David Aznar defended these views and can be extrapolated into the sentiment that existed to facilitate the transition to democracy and still remain today: "In the democratic transition there were implicit and explicit agreements. One was that we Spaniards don't want to look to the past. Let's not disturb the graves and hurl bones at one another.” As a society, we hate to think about the past, it’s just not widely done. There’s ONE museum solely dedicated to the Civil War, the Historical Memory Law passed in 2007 to try and increase the rights of victims and their families was met by so much opposition and is devastatingly underfunded etc etc. This still translates to spaniards’ views on racism, saying it just doesn’t exist here and moving on. There’s a refusal to confront this and microagressions are ingrained in the culture.

As I’ve kind of mentioned before, issues of race extend much further than towards just black people which is why the US BLM movement cannot simply be traced onto Spain. People who are originally from Latin America face extreme stereotypes and varying forms of discrimination against them as do Arab populations and other people who have immigrated from MENA countries plus the large Roma communities. 

The refugee crisis has further perpetuated the stigma around African immigrants in the past years, whilst the social effects of the 2008 Financial Crisis and beyond also continue to contribute to a xenophobic and nativist perspective where true spaniards should be prioritised with jobs, opportunities etc. For example, the alt-right wing party Vox that’s blatantly racist, anti-immigrants etc posted something with the slogan ‘Spanish Lives Matter’ the other day. They are purposefully incendiary.  

Anyways, hope this was a suitable start for you, you can’t summarise millennia worths of history into a few paragraphs but I tried my best. Also there are obviously many who stand for none of these values, politicians who have tried to right these wrongs, activists who keep fighting the fight, people who have broken down barriers and areas where there’s complete coexistance. However the fact remains that these views and ideas are ingrained in people’s minds, theres blatant job discrimination and a lack of equal opportunities despite laws that may have been put in place.

I’m going to point anyone who has got this far to a couple of articles about racism from an Anglo-Saxon perspective below, racist football culture is almost always mentioned. Being a black traveller in Spain; Same Spanish Holocaust link as before but an extremely important book review read; Irish perspective on the Enigma of Spanish Racism; Racism? What Racism? Asks Spain; Opinion: Racism Is Alive and kicking in Spain

So You’re A Gentile Who’s Realized We Have A Problem: Now What?

Tumblr likes to spin its wheels and spend time yelling at each other, so here’s a nice comprehensive guide. Five Things You Can Do Now That You Know We Were Serious About The Antisemitism:

1) Accept that if you’re in this to be an ally, you’re going to have a tough road ahead of you. We’re traditionally very wary of outsiders in our spaces because when we welcome them, well . . . this happens. In fact, if you want to convert to Judaism, you traditionally get rejected three times, just to make sure you’re serious and not shitting with us. Expect wariness. Expect to get your feelings hurt, because a lot of us are very raw right now. Stick with us anyway--once we know you’re not just bandwagoning us, you’re going to end up with a lot of friends who are relying on you. Nobody said allyship was easy.

2) Learn about Judaism. Note that I DO NOT MEAN LEARNING WITH INTENTION TO CONVERT. We don’t proselytize and it would be against Torah for me to even suggest it. What I mean here is, you can’t call bullshit if you don’t know what we’re about. Some good basic resources are The Jewish Book of Why by Alfred Kolatch; My Jewish Learning; and for a strict Orthodox standpoint, Chabad. You’ll find that some things in these sources contradict each other. That’s pretty par for the course in Judaism; we don’t have a single dogma or point of view.

3) Consider calling a local synagogue and asking if they have volunteer work for a gentile ally. Introduce yourself, explain (briefly) what got your attention, and offer your services--to stand outside during services, to walk folks to and from shul (this is particularly important in Orthodox communities, where driving on Shabbat is forbidden), hell, to help stuff envelopes for whatever vigil or service they may be holding in memoriam. Anything will help.

4) You may wish to make a donation to a local synagogue or Jewish charity. I strongly recommend the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), which is a Jewish charity focused on combating antisemitism. Jews traditionally give monetary gifts in sums of $18, which corresponds to the numeric value of the word “chai,” or “life.” The last time this happened I made a post about this tradition and got accused of being a Nazi because of the whole 1-8 A-H thing, so let’s just nip that right in the bud: yes, we know. It’s a horrible coincidence. We’re not giving up a few-thousand-year-old tradition because of some dipshit with a bad moustache. If you can’t afford $18, consider moving the decimal over and donating in multiples of 18, like $3.60. Your meaning will still be perfectly clear, and anything helps. If you wish to make a donation in memory/in honor (which many synagogues appreciate), I suggest either choosing the name of one of the shooting victims--giving tzedakah, or charity, in their names is considered a great mitzvah and a blessing to their families--or using the phrase “am Yisrael chai.” It means “Israel lives.” Although the country in the MENA region is called Israel, this is not what the phrase refers to--the traditional patriarch of Judaism was named Jacob, and renamed as Israel following a wrestling match with a messenger of G-d. To say “am Yisrael chai” is to say his people, that is, the Jewish people, live.

And on that note . . .

5) In the coming days and weeks, you’re going to see a lot of people making this about Israel or Zionism. Please tell them to shut the fuck up. Israel, Zionism, and Jews are three completely different, albeit related, things. To wit: Israel is a geopolitical country situated on the site of our ancestral homeland and currently headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Zionism is the belief that Jews deserve a safe homeland; and Jews are a group of people spread across six continents and most countries who are united by a common group of ancestors from the Levant (the part of the world now occupied by the geopolitical entity known as Israel). Saying the victims of this shooting had anything to do with the political situation in Israel would be like saying I, personally, am responsible for Vladimir Putin because I have a Russian ancestor. I speak exactly two words of Russian, have never been to Russia, have no family left living there (and haven’t for four generations), but I’m totally responsible for Russia. You see how ridiculous that sounds? The same applies to Jews and Israel. Please, please, PLEASE do not conflate this event with Israeli politics. I’m not saying Israeli politics aren’t a topic worth discussing--I’m saying this is not a discussion they belong in. Don’t let the powers that be (or the alt-right sleaze that sucks the dicks of the powers that be) distract from the topic at hand, which is “out of control guns meet out of control xenophobia and antisemitism,” by throwing OMG ISRAEL AND ZIONISM AND GLOBALISM into the mix.

And finally: yes, gentiles, this is okay for you to reblog. In fact I encourage it. And I will answer any questions you have to the best of my ability, if they’re asked in good faith. Please just follow the most basic tenet of Judaism, which is: don’t be a dick.

If you’re ready to stand and help, now is the time.

Hi there! I really like your blog, I'm from a religious family myself and struggling with a lot of similar things. I'm Jewish though, from an Orthodox family, not Muslim. I have always wanted to ask someone this, but I never wanted to offend them, so let me ask you (I hope you will not be offended!), why does it seem like there is so much hatred of Jews in many Muslim countries? It is just because of Israel? Because to me it seems like hatred *of Jews*, not just *of Israel*.

Hello anon, I am glad to hear it. I’ve always lowkey wanted Jewish followers to talk to me but idk how to say that without it being weird??

Antisemitism…. yeah it’s a real thing tbh. And yes it targets Jews, not just Israel. The Jew-hating screeds are all very clearly against the “yahud” (Jews). At least in Arab countries. Though I just looked it up and it seems fairly widespread in Muslim countries in general (this is from here).

I mean… even compared to other non-Muslim groups, there is obviously a big problem here, except in Pakistan where people admirably hate everyone equally.

Israel does have something/a lot to do with it, there’s no doubt about that. Not to justify any antisemitism, but there is a clear association between Israel and Jews, and a clear association between Israel and Muslim oppression. Most of these same people would howl if anyone dared blame their religious group for the actions of one government, of course…. but the roots of it go deeper than that, and are older than most of us want to acknowledge. We pretend it’s not true, but antisemitism did not magically spring up in the 20th century.

The idea that Jews were treated well throughout all of Muslim history is a big lie that we’re indoctrinated into believing. Arab kids everywhere, whether they’re religious or not, are genuinely taught that Jews and other religious minorities were happy under Arab rule, and generally “Muslim rule” in the MENA region, until The Zionists came around. We’re taught from kindergarten that there was no anti-Semitism in Muslim countries before this, that the concept was Western. It is something said so frequently and with such conviction that few people ever think about it.

This is a lie, of course. There were massacres, institutionalized oppression and discrimination, forced conversions, and genocides all throughout MENA history. As in Europe, some eras and places were better than others. Often the situation deteriorated rapidly. The Jews were sometimes targeted for religious reasons, sometimes because they were perceived to be too wealthy or corrupt, sometimes because they were seen as too friendly to outsiders or traitorous. Even in “good” times, daily discrimination and often even humiliation persisted; the “dhimmi laws” were often petty and cruel, from wearing distinctive clothing to having court testimony automatically count less due to your religion. It was not an era of tolerant coexistence, though admittedly Jewish and Christian minorities often traded places as the bottom of the religious ladder (as in under the Ottomans). It’s just that the history is virtually unknown by Arabs themselves. I had no idea about any of this until I was maybe 15, 16 and got curious and looked it up. But many never even think to question it.

When times got really bad, the reasons were usually the same as the reasons for anti-Semitic pogroms in Europe. The Jews were perceived as too wealthy or influential, like in al-Andalus in a lynch mob in 1066 or a near-total extermination in Fez in 1465. They were blamed for war struggles, like a genocide in Yemen in the 17th century. They were caught up in periods of religious vigor like a series of forced conversionsin 19th century Sudan and 12th century Cordoba. Of course, the mass exiles and depopulations of Arab countries in the 20th century after Israel was declared a state was its own unique sort of discrimination. And now most Israeli Jews are descended from the people who were kicked out of those countries… because of Israel. Arabs creating their own damn problems as per usual smh.

Anyway, to relate this back to the topic at hand, the question seems to be more about Islam than Arabs as a group. So the question is, is there antisemitism within the religious texts of Islam that might help give rise to these feelings of hating Jews among Muslims in general (vs just among Arabs). The answer is yes. The Quran itself is antisemitic. Mohammed really goddamn hated the Jewish tribes around him in his Medina days and it shows. The entire fifth surah is one long Borat rant about The Jews. I mean, he didn’t like any non-Muslims, but the Jews really get the shit end of the stick in the Medina suwar. 5:82 literally says that the Jews and polytheists are ones who treat Muslims the worst whereas the Christians (while still doomed to hell!) are not as bad.

It says (multiple times) not to take Jews or Christians as auliya (allies/helpers/friends), it calls Jews greedy and deceitful, it frequently blames Jews for the misdeeds of past generations like killing “the prophets” (which does not include Jesus, incidentally, the Jews only thought they killed him… actually no one really knows wtf prophets he was talking about but that’s a separate story). Their beliefs are mocked repeatedly, often when Mohammed didn’t even get their beliefs correct. He was particularly obsessed with the notion of Allah’s continued punishment of the Jews for the disbelieving actions of Moses’ followers, saying that they had to keep kosher as a “punishment”. Another tale from Moses’ day was the oft-repeated story of how Allah transformed Sabbath-breaking Jews into apes and pigs, a story that kids who attend Islamic schools will hear like 500 times by the time they graduate, as the Quran relates this punishment to Mohammed’s contemporary Jews who rejected his message.

So… it’s bad, is the point. The ahadith are even worse but I don’t want to overwhelm you lmao, you can just sort of… browse through them at your leisure. I’m sure you’ve at least heard this one before. And yes, much of it is repeated as “the truth” even today. Some very well-meaning people will try to fight against this by saying “context!!!” etc, but Mohammed’s rants were against, simply, the Jews, often in a multi-generational, multi-cultural sense. Not… military-age male fighters and evildoers of the Banu Nadir and Banu Qurayza tribes of the time (both of which were Jewish and met appalling ends; the “Khaybar” dumbass rallying cries you hear sometimes are in reference to a battle against them). So while it’s truly nice that they’re at least trying to stamp out religious-based antisemitism, it’s unclear to me if they have much of a leg to stand on here…

Uh, this is a lot longer than I thought it was gonna be lmao but I hope I answered your question? Please come off anon and talk to me, if you want, bc there’s so much I want to know about a lot of Jewish-related topics and idk where to even begin!

Middle East of What? On Identity Politics and Eurocentric Definitions

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/middle-east-of-what-on-identity-politics-and-eurocentric-definitions-51598-21-08-2020/

Middle East of What? On Identity Politics and Eurocentric Definitions

Middle East of What? On Identity Politics and Eurocentric Definitions

The Middle East. Illustration by Noran Morsi

Most people do not stop to ask why the Middle East has been labelled as such. As a country in the Middle East, people from Egypt have long considered themselves “Middle Eastern”. But what is this region east to, and middle of? And what binds the countries of the Middle East together?

The phrase, which is used by newspapers, airlines, and official entities worldwide, usually includes 17 countries, along with a few that are sometimes left out, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Egyptian Streets spoke to Hanan Kholoussy, associate professor of history at the American University in Cairo, to find some clarifying information.

Colonial Connections

The earliest record there is of the use of the term “Middle East” is around 1901, says Kholoussy, when American Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan coined the term to refer to this part of the world, in relation to the Far East.

“The two major colonial powers at the time, which were England and France, had valuable colonies in the Far East. The term didn’t really catch on at first. It became more commonly used during World War Two when the British built a Middle East supply center in Egypt where they housed their supplies for the war,” Kholoussy said.

Due to the significant British role in the war while using Egypt as an important base, journalists would mention the “Middle East Supply Center” in their media coverage of the war, popularizing the term Middle East.

Soldiers on Egyptian land in World War 2. Photographer unknown.

Thus, the term refers to the region central east of London and Paris, referring to transcontinental masses of land in relation to their location in relation to two major colonial powers at the time of World War Two.

“The reason the term is problematic for some of us is that we were named by outsiders who were colonizing, controlling, and dominating our region to exploit its resources. And they got to decide what to call us. It refers to a colonial past; a time when we weren’t free and equal to the people who controlled us,” Kholoussy added.

Misconceptions and Media Representation

The Middle East only makes up five percent of the world, but it is a very diverse region, with great ethnic, religious, and geographic variety.

Though the bulk of the population of the Middle East is considered ‘Arab’, the region is far more diverse. There are Berbers in North Africa, concentrated in Morocco and Algeria among other nations, Jews of a wide variety of origins, Kurds in Western Asia mostly concentrated in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, as well as Armenians, Iranians, and Turks.

Though the West also largely associates the region with Islam, religiously, the Middle East is more diverse than that. To start, it is the birthplace of all three Abrahamic faiths, so there are large numbers of Jews and Christians as well as Muslims.

“Twelve percent of the world’s Muslims are from the Middle East, only twelve percent. So, this idea that many Westerners have, and even some Arabs have, that most people in the region are Muslim, because the Arab world has kind of claimed Islam [is false]. It’s the birthplace of Islam, but Arab Muslims only make up 12 percent of the world’s Muslims,” Kholoussy said.

In addition to the three Abrahamic religions, the region is also home to a number of other religious beliefs, such as Zoroastrians and Druze.

There is also often the misconception in Western media that portrays Middle Eastern people as nomads in a desert or extremist Muslim terrorists, as reported by The University of Chicago’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

However, according to a report by The University of Washington, 60 percent of the region’s population lives in major cities such as Damascus, Istanbul, and Cairo, proving that the Middle East is quite urbanized and also has some of the oldest cities in the world.

A perception of the Middle East. Map by Cacahuate via Wikivoyage.

“We have everything from deserts to beaches to snow-capped mountains to olive fields. So the idea that it’s just a barren desert is also false. There are many false stereotypes about the region, the area as a whole, whatever you want to call it, to outsiders. They are always a little shocked when they learn of the geographic diversity of the region,” Kholoussy added.

Identity; To Each Their Own

The term Middle East is not specifically what perpetuates these stereotypes though, she said, and entities in the region have adopted the term and made it their own. Kholoussy believes that the fact that people from the region now use it and have co-opted it makes it less problematic, despite most of them likely being unaware of its colonial history.

“The Egyptian news agency calls itself MENA for Middle East News Agency. The national airline carrier of Lebanon is called Middle East Airlines. There’s a famous newspaper, Al Shark Al Awsat in Saudi Arabia, called the Middle East. We’ve even translated the term into Arabic,” she added.

As for Egyptians, there are further questions of identity being asked. For long, many Egyptians have had a disconnect between themselves and their geographically African identity, as uncovered in a 2012 column for Daily News Egypt by journalist Shahira Amin.

Amin surveyed a number of Egyptians on how they identified, none of whom named their African identity, and most of whom labeled themselves as Muslims or Arabs. What she attributed this to was the idea of the conceptual Sahara divide.

“For centuries, the Sahara Desert has been viewed as a vast impenetrable barrier dividing our continent into two distinct areas: Northern “white” and sub-Saharan “black” Africa. The countries south of the Sahara have long been considered authentically “African” while those to the north have been perceived as Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Islamic,” Amin said.

She added that most anthropologists have refuted the truth of this geographical distribution of the continent that, however, has still influenced how people view the continent and the region, just as the term Middle East does.

The question hangs on what would be a better term to use rather than “Middle East” that encompasses the region without maintaining the colonial connection.

The Arab World. Illustration by Noran Morsi

“The problem is every other term we have is equally problematic,” Kholoussy said.

The term “Arab World” was likely coined by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the father of Arab nationalism, she adds, with the notion of pan-Arabism gaining wider acceptance in the seventies. At that time, Amin explained, concurrently with the Gulf oil boom, millions of Egyptians traveled to oil-rich Gulf nations to work and earn money, where many of the Gulf’s traditions were adopted by Egyptians.

“But the term excludes five key countries in the region – Iran, Turkey, Israel, Armenia and Kurdistan also…so, Arab World is not an inclusive term,” Kholoussy said.

There is also the term MENA which means Middle East North Africa, which is often used to include the countries of North Africa which aren’t always considered as part of the Middle East. The U.S. government refers to the Middle East and North Africa as two separate entities.

“And then when the U.S. government wants to group these two regions together, it calls us MENA, again, coined by an outsider who has interests in the region,” she added.

Therefore, Kholoussy thinks that this is why the ‘Middle East’ has remained so widely used since there has not been a better alternative that is inclusive, any less problematic, or a label created by its own people.

Within Egypt, even, there is a jumble of identities that differ from person to person and region to region. Kholoussy emphasizes, though, that regardless of what labels people cling to, identity is often determined by everyone else’s assumptions and not one’s own.

“Egyptians are a very diverse people. We’ve been occupied and invaded by so many other peoples. So the assortment of identities is astounding, but how we choose to identify ourselves is very much about what’s going on politically in our part of the world at the moment,” Kholoussy said.

Perhaps there is not currently a better term to identify the region accurately, and perhaps it is not the term that matters most. However, what does have impact on cultures and peoples is the misinformation on what the region does include, and the false stereotypes perpetuated by media of what the Middle East is actually defined by.

Redefining Girlhood: From Soad Hosny to Egypt’s Young Instagram Feminists

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Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman garners little trust from people in the region and the U.S.

Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman garners little trust from people in the region and the U.S.;

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (center) attends the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, 2019. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (sometimes known as MBS) is the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia and next in line for the kingdom’s throne. During his time in power, the prince came under worldwide scrutiny after the 2018 killing of journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Turkey. More recently, the United Nations has opened an inquiry into whether the crown prince hacked the cellphone of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in May 2018. Bezos also owns The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi wrote.

Here are perceptions of Crown Prince Mohammed in the U.S. and among those in countries in the Middle East-North Africa region:

Most across the Middle East and in the U.S. lack confidence in Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed to do the right thing regarding world affairs. Among those in the five countries where the question was asked, Israelis have the least faith in the prince, with roughly eight-in-ten saying they doubt his ability to effectively manage international dealings. Only about a fifth of American and Lebanese respondents express confidence that the crown prince can effectively handle international concerns.

In the U.S., Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are slightly more likely to trust Crown Prince Mohammed than are Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, although both groups overwhelmingly lack confidence in him. Around a quarter of Republicans (27%) say they have confidence in the Saudi crown prince to do the right thing regarding world affairs, compared with 18% of Democrats who say this.

How we did this

This analysis focuses on how publics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) view Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s handling of world affairs. For this post, we used data from a survey conducted in four MENA nations and the U.S. from May 13 to Aug. 29, 2019, totaling 5,561 respondents. Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses and its methodology.

Trust in the crown prince differs between religious and ethnic groups. In Israel, trust in Crown Prince Salman is slightly higher among Israeli Arabs than among Israeli Jews, even as trust is low overall in both groups. Specifically, 12% of Israeli Arabs and only 5% of Israeli Jews expressed confidence in the leader. Religious differences also are present in Lebanon. There, Sunni Muslims clearly have the most confidence in the crown prince (50%), who is also a Sunni Muslim, while few say the same among Lebanese Christians (12%) and Shiite Muslims (4%).

Compared with perceptions of current King Salman in 2017, the crown prince is seen as less trustworthy in his approach to foreign affairs. In 2017, Pew Research Center asked adults in four Middle Eastern and North African countries if they had confidence in King Salman, and in all four, evaluations of the king were significantly more positive than the opinions of his son, the prince, given in 2019. Among Turks and Israelis, Crown Prince Mohammed is about as trusted as his uncle, the late King Abdullah, was in 2011, while in Lebanon, King Abdullah was considerably more popular than both his nephew and half-brother, King Salman.

Between 2017 and 2019, events occurred that may have dampened support for Saudi leaders. Not least was the assassination of Khashoggi in Istanbul, which added to already fraught relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The killing also drew broad international backlash, including protests against the crown prince’s state visit to Tunisia in 2017, where confidence in Saudi leadership fell by 14 percentage points. The decline in Lebanon may be tied to the alleged kidnapping of now former Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, in Saudi Arabia during a state visit in late 2017.

The crown prince also is less trusted than other world leaders. In four of five countries, the share who have confidence in Crown Prince Mohammed is among the lowest, compared with other world leaders asked about in the survey.

In Israel, Crown Prince Mohammed earns the least confidence among world leaders by a wide margin, trailing the next-least-trusted leaders, French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin by about 30 percentage points. Confidence in the crown prince is tied with confidence in Trump (23%) among Lebanese, and, among Americans, Crown Prince Mohammed is tied with Putin at 20% as the least trusted leaders asked about. In Turkey, similarly low shares express confidence in the crown prince’s judgement in foreign affairs (14%) and that of Emmanuel Macron (14%) and Trump (11%). Only in Tunisia is Crown Prince Mohammed not at the bottom of the list, beating out Trump by a slim margin.

Note: Here are the questions used for the survey cited in this report, along with responses and its methodology.

; Blog – Pew Research Center; https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/29/saudi-arabias-mohammed-bin-salman-garners-little-trust-from-people-in-the-region-and-the-u-s/; ; January 29, 2020 at 03:41PM

Using Tragedy For Political Gain For the Nth Time.

I am torn as to whether or not I should have written a personal take on this so soon. When I woke up in Friday morning to see the news about the Christchurch terrorist attack I was alarmed. Yes, I saw the footage and yes, I read his manifesto - it was nothing short of absolutely grotesque and degenerate. Plain and simple. Make no mistake, this was an racist attack whose perpetrator is indeed a terrorist. In fact, I won’t even dignify him by referring to his name - he will simply be called henceforth the NZ terrorist. On Tumblr I shared a few articles and reblogged a few posts calling for moderation. But as I see the events further develop I can’t help but address this situation which I believe will make things worse unless if we talk about them anyway.

We don’t often get the luxury of having a mass murderer explain himself such as the Las Vegas shooter (whose motivations are still a mystery to this day and will never be explained). And while the NZ wrote an extensive manifesto and made it clear what his positions are. I’ve struggled (and I still do) on whether or not saying his manifesto should be read by people so that people can draw their own conclusions, but I’ve questioned how much he is a point he would have when the doc is filled with so much misdirection, shitposting and trolling. I’ve questioned if he really is world-traveled as he claims he is since his manifesto drips with the words of someone who never left his parents’ home and decided to go on a shooting because of death... Until I saw there is evidence he visited at least Pakistan, with video and passport to confirm it.

As far as we know, his manifesto was made to misdirect with only one thing for certain that we can assess: he wants to further cause division between the left and right and escalate the culture war. Unfortunately, many individuals have either mindlessly fallen into his trap and started heaping the blame on the wrong kind of individuals for allegedly “radicalizing” this criminal or even more insidiously, forming some sort of unholy ideological alliance with the terrorist because he knows his crimes will play into a certain course of action that he hopes they will take and they are grateful that someone did actually did it so he could use the tragedy as an convenient excuse.

A good example that comes to mind is the dictator of Turkey, Reccep Tayip Erdogan, (who is name dropped in the manifesto and who the terrorist calls for his death) blamed the attack on the “rise of Islamophobia” and went on to say the Hagia Sophia will never be a church again so long as there are Turkish people. Very typical behavior from him and to say so no surprise, but this time he is surely alarmed because the terrorist dared to paint a target on him. He is in pure hostility mode because that is how he operates. He is overly emotional, engages in divide and conquer tactics like the terrorist and makes no bones about how much he hates not just his political rivals, but also his allies too. He earns to revive the Ottoman caliphate so that he can take over the West and the Arab world. He is an absolute PR nightmare for anyone who wants to show an example of a liberal Muslim government, which Turkey used to be held up as the example the MENA countries should follow, but now is hardly any better. The only time I remembered he tried to present himself as a paragon compared - which is hard to do when you are jailing journalists and critics - except during the Jamal Khashoggi affair. For one, trying to pretend like you are a better human rights example than Saudi Arabia really isn’t that hard to achieve since they are just Islamic North Korea. For another, people have rightfully pointed out that he is full of shit and he was merely using that for personal agenda.

But Erdogan is a dictator so of course he wants his critics silenced and his opinions don’t earn any serious merit in the discussion. What really is concerning is the kind of discourse we will see in the Western world. Journalists have either consciously or not laid the blame at the feet of Donald Trump, Candace Owens, Pewdiepie, Christians, Jews, memelords, guns and others for supposedly radicalizing this individual. It’s ironic he said denounces Trump and conservatism in his manifesto, but since the public will be discouraged from reading it out of fear of radicalizing themselves, it creates an convenient opportunity they can paint a monster that must be put down.

This is dangerous not only because it validates the far-right’s concerns but also helps no one but further alienate those outside of the fight politically. Lets consider who will be marginalized if the far-left engages in a literal crusade to defend Islam by any means necessary. The first ones to get silenced would be the online memelords that post harmless memes simply because the terrorist used a lot of memes like the Remove Kebab song in his massacre footage, which has been deleted from Youtube as we speak.

Then there are historians like Iniciativa Condor, Real Crusades History and myself that are personally fascinated by the Crusades, the Reconquista and the Great Turkish War. Because the terrorist now used several references like the Battle of Tours, the Battle of Vienna, Skanderbeg, the Russo-Turkish War and many others (though ironically not Vlad the Impaler), I imagined we will be ostracized when discussing such subjects in the open out of fear of another Christchurch. In fact, I’ve been warned by personal relatives that I shouldn’t be vocal about it anymore.

And then on a more serious scale... There are critics of Islam as a religion, specially of Muslim background. Regardless if atheistic or religious, these people were already under enough scrutiny in their home countries who do everything to suppress criticism of Islam even secular societies like Indonesia and Turkey, the former in particular exploits its law Article 301 about “insulting Turkishness” which is misused to arrest dissidents. There is a former Muslim Youtuber I am subscribed, the Apostate Prophet who while deeply denouncing the attack, received messages asking if he was happy about Muslims being killed. What kind of fucked up perspective is this where criticism of Islam is equated with sanctioning the death of Muslims?

Now on the worst case of all. Consider that there is an actual epidemic of rape that liberals have turned an blind eye on Europe because it means tackling a very uncomfortable topic which goes contrary to what works in their agenda.

If what happens on Europe is bad, then its infinitely worse what is happening around the world, specially in the Middle-East where Christians are facing an actual genocide by jihadists and fundamentalists which has been going on for years now, but we have only started paying attention now that the Middle-East began to spill into the West. Furthermore, this attack will certainly result in retaliation since they have found less excuse for. Remember the Regensburg lecture by Pope Benedict when he quoted the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Palailogos for criticizing Muhammed and the entire Islamic world went apeshit with Iraq in particular killing Assyrians in retaliation as if they had anything to do with it. Just because of an controversial statement by the Pope.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not leaving the alt-righters celebrating this atrocity in their echo chambers off the hook either. I’ve seen how static /pol/ users were at seeing the footage of him shooting up innocents, advocating for more terrorist attacks to be called out, trolling users who said innocents shouldn’t be targeted or those accusing the terrorist of being a Mossad agent or a Shia Muslim. Its somewhat surprising you see: /pol/ hates Muslims too they think Jewish people are much, much worse (something which the shooter didn’t do). Hell I heard the Saudi Royal Family is in fact Jewish behind close doors. Consider these are the kind of people who are also in love with Bashar al Assad who portrays himself as the secular side of the Syrian Civil War that protects minorities when in fact this is also a ruse.

Similarly, for all their bitching about Western civilization falling, they are unsympathetic to the plight of Christians around the world because they are non-white and follow a “Semitic religion”. Not a single word about Asia Bibi being on death row, the persecution of Copts in Egypt or explosion of churches in  They have trivialized the word of genocide by comparing low birth-rates with actual fucking persecution, exiling, destruction of heritage that minorities suffer in the Middle-East. Also speaking as a Brazilian even one fascinated with Western heritage, they’d still advocate my death because I am non-white (I hate using the term “POC” because its patronizing) and they’d want us to stay in their shitty lane.

Its frustrating enough that the far-left has a monopoly on social media and journalism (this isn’t up for debate, the purge of NPC memes is evidence of that) and the internet is basically owned by them. Now imagine if they push down even harder? Or Erdogan’s comments will end up pushing someone to actually try to assassinate him (unlikely considering Kurds haven’t been pushed hard enough to consider assassinating him despite all the things they have done to their people, a foreigner will likely have even less motivation for doing so), but I don’t think that man will go down peacefully as he expects. The whole point of this massacre was to literally divide the world into left-wing and right-wing, with the shooter expecting that whites begin genociding foreigners regardless of religion (he simply chose a mosque because it was too obvious, he denounces Latinos and Indians who are majority Catholic and Hindu respectively). I’d argue that in addition to being a national socialist and a fascist, I think he is an anarchist too - because for a guy committed to such a cause, he did a lot of harm to it by killing children and filming it. Nobody sane will advocate for this, only the tiny, tiny minority in /pol/ that agree with his actions, and even they don’t have a back bone to follow his footsteps.

Everything the terrorist wanted he is getting because of the emotionally driven responses that people are making as such I call for moderation, quit the dick measuring game that you call a culture war and try to find a common ground before anything else. 

Virtual CPAC Meeting on Algerian MOU Request and Honduran and Bulgarian Renewals

By Peter K. Tompa

July 31, 2018

On July 31, 2018, the U.S. Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) held a “virtual” meeting where all speakers were linked via an internet based video platform.  According to my notes, at least the following CPAC members were in attendance at the State Department:  (1) Karol Wight (Museum); (2) Lothar von Falkenhausen (Archeology); (3) Nancy Wilkie (Archaeology); (4) Rosemary Joyce (Archaeology); (5) Dorit Straus (Trade); (6) Adele Chatfield-Taylor (Public); and (7) Jeremy Sabloff (Public-Chair).   Jim Willis (Trade) attended via videoconferencing. 

Cari Enav, who runs the Cultural Heritage Center, made introductions.  Andrew Cohen, who is the executive director for CPAC, provided the speakers with information about the 4 determinations CPAC was required to make before recommending a MOU or an extension.   Dr. Sabloff indicated speakers should take these requirements into account in their presentations. He then introduced the CPAC members before calling speakers for the Algerian MOU.

Algerian MOU

There were six (6) speakers:  (1) Kate FitzGibbon (Committee for Cultural Policy (CCP) and Global Heritage Alliance (GHA); (2) Peter Tompa (International Association of Professional Numismatists (IAPN)/Professional Numismatist’s Guild (PNG); (3) Gina Bublil-Waldman (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and Africa (JIMENA); and (4) Carole Basri (Fordham Law School).  No speakers appeared to argue for the MOU.

Kate FitzGibbon- CPAC initially only recommended MOUs on a narrow range of artifacts from a limited number of poor countries.  Today, MOUs close off entire areas from collecting.  Even worse, the State Department has recognized the claims of nation states to property that has been expropriated from fleeing Jews and Christians.  Ms. FitzGibbon acknowledges that recent Libyan import restrictions have been rewritten to remove references to Jewish items, but states that most, if not all, would still be restricted under more general coverage for Ottoman items.  The only way to ensure that artifacts of repressed minorities will not be subject to seizure is with a specific exclusion.  The problem can also be avoided if the State Department adheres to the definition of ethnological objects in the Cultural Property Implementation Act.  Algerian Jewish artifacts are not the products of preindustrial or tribal cultures and should be beyond the scope of coverage under the CPIA. 

Peter Tompa- This is yet another troubling request from an authoritarian North African government which is all the more problematic because Algeria seeks recognition of its rights to objects associated with its displaced Christian and Jewish populations.  This issue potentially impacts unprovenanced coins now in French collections.  (Algeria’s French “Pied Noir” and Jewish populations mainly fled to France after Algeria gained its independence.)  There is a real question whether Algeria’s patrimony is in jeopardy as no information has been provided whether coins are being found with metal detectors.  If they are, they need to be regulated as a less drastic remedy than import restrictions.  The UK Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme is IAPN/PNG’s preferred model for regulation.  If restrictions are recommended for coins, such restrictions must be limited to those “first discovered within” and hence “subject to export control” of Algeria.  Here, while there is some room for debate as to whether “local currency” issued at Cirta, Icosium (Algiers), Hippo Regius and Iol-Caesaria is exclusively found within the confines of modern day Algeria, coins of the Numidian and Mauritanian kingdoms, and the Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic Empires circulated well beyond the boundaries of modern day Algeria.  One cannot simply assume such coins were actually found in Algeria and hence are subject to Algerian export controls. 

Gina Bubill-Waldman- Ms. Waldman was driven from her home in Libya as a child.  She believes that these MOUs are a cynical tactic created to deny North African and Middle Eastern Jews patrimony and assets which were stolen from Jewish people when they were brutally expelled. The Libyan MOU has set a very dangerous and unjust precedent for countries who erase Jewish heritage by claiming it as their own, when Jews, the people who actually created it, have been hunted and expelled. Because these MOUs were passed without specifically excluding Jewish items, Jewish patrimony can now become the patrimony of the same governments which have destroyed, looted and harassed their now extinct Jewish communities.  CPAC is charged with the important job of protecting patrimony of antiquities. But by passing this type of MOU, CPAC would in fact be endorsing the opposite of what its mission tries to achieve: preservation of historical property by its proper owners. This MOU seeks to make the American government unwittingly collude with the thieves who stole, destroyed and defaced the Jewish-Algerian patrimony in the first place. Not a single one of the Middle Eastern and North African countries from Morocco to Yemen, from Iraq to Egypt has earned the right to call thousands year old Jewish patrimony their own. Not after expelling their Jewish population, confiscating what was rightfully Jewish property, desecrating, looting, destroying synagogues and purposefully building skyscrapers on top the cemetery where Ms. Waldman’s grandparents are buried, like in Tripoli, Libya. 

Carole Basri- Ms. Basri is of Iraqi-Jewish heritage.  She authored a law review article about the harsh treatment of Iraqi Jews.  The property of Jews living in MENA countries was expropriated under color of law.  Such laws are against our own scruples as well as the UN Declaration on Human Rights.  There were originally 1 million Jews in Arab countries.  Jewish artifacts do not fit the definition of ethnological objects under the CPIA and should not be subject to detention and seizure. Jewish people were city dwellers and the cities where they lived were neither pre-Industrial nor tribal in nature.  The U.S. Government should not work with governments that have forcibly removed their Christians and Jews. 

Cari Enav interjects that new Libyan restrictions do not mention Jewish property so such property should be excluded from any import restrictions.  Kate FitzGibbon states that Jewish property is still included in the Libyan MOU because most Jewish property cannot be distinguished with what is otherwise described as Ottoman in the import restrictions.  That is why an explicit exemption is required.  All this could be avoided if the State Department followed the CPIA strictly and did not consider Jewish artifacts to be ethnological in nature. 

Honduran Renewal

There were three (3) speakers:  (1) Rocco Debitetto (Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD)}; (2) Kate FitzGibbon (CCP and GHA); and (3) Peter Tompa (IAPN and PNG).   No speakers representing the archaeological community appeared.

Rocco  Debitetto- AAMD supports the renewal with reservations.  Honduras needs to be held to account in Article II.  There needs to be long term loans.  The designated list is too broad and needs to be reformed to ensure that only archaeological and ethnological material as defined in the CPIA are covered.

Kate FitzGibbon- CCP and GHA oppose renewal of the MOU.  Honduras has been given blanket restrictions for 15 years.  It has not used this time productively.  Most of the budget for cultural heritage preservation stays in the capital rather than being used to protect sites on a local level.  The US House of Representatives has asked for an accounting of self-help measures as part of its authorization of funds.  Too much archaeologically sensitive land is being illegally used for cattle farms with nothing being done about it.   No more than $600-$700 is spent on sites per year.  There is little or no market for Honduran artifacts in the US. 

Peter Tompa- This MOU renewal raises the same issues for coin collectors as the recent Ecuadorian request.  Honduran historical coins cannot be considered either archaeological or ethnological objects. They were produced in industrial processes not consistent with them being ethnological objects.  Such coins circulated along with other Spanish Colonial coins throughout the Americas and beyond including the United States.  They should not be subject to restrictions. 

Karol Wight asks about AAMD’s recommendations.  Mr. Debitetto indicates a major one is one point of contact for loans.

Jim Willis asks Kate FitzGibbon about illegal exports from Honduras. Ms. FitzGibbon states it is difficult to answer that question because there is a lack of information. 

Bulgarian Renewal

There were three (3) speakers:  (1) Kate FitzGibbon (CCP and GHA); (2) Josh Knerley (AAMD); and (3) Peter Tompa (IAPN and PNG).   No speakers representing the archaeological community appeared.

Kate FitzGibbon- The Bulgarian designated list is all-inclusive and needs to be reformed to comply with the CPIA.  It includes many repetitive items that are not of cultural significance like coins, necklaces and beads.  Bulgaria has sorely neglected its archaeological sites.   Substantial EU funds have been wasted in archaeologically unsound rebuilding projects.  Very few Bulgarian artifacts aside from coins are of interest to collectors.  Coins are mass produced and not of cultural significance under the CPIA.  Bulgaria has not satisfied Article II of the MOU’s requirement that export permits be issued.  There is a lack of rigorous police enforcement. 

Josh Knerly- There is a major problem with the designated list.  The designated list can only restrict items authorized under the MOU.  Here, the MOU only authorizes restrictions on ecclesiastical objects from 681 AD forward, but the designated list restricts ecclesiastical items dating from the 4th Century AD.  This highlights much greater problems in how designated lists are prepared. 

Peter Tompa- Tompa produces a ruler to make a point.  A ruler goes from one inch to 12 inches.  We can all agree that some things like murder would be “12” on a scale.  But what about looting?  Many people would consider it a “1” on a scale, akin to a traffic violation.  That certainly is the case in Bulgaria where there are large numbers of treasure hunters and where the authorities themselves have been involved in looting.  Given this reality, it makes no sense to continue the MOU which only denies American coin collectors access to the same sorts of coins available elsewhere including Bulgaria itself.   If CPAC nonetheless approves a renewal, it should reform the designated list to limit restrictions on coins.  Moreover, CPAC should recognize that EU countries like Bulgaria are bound by EU export controls.  CPAC should recognize legal exports from EU countries of coins on the Bulgarian designated list.

COMMENTARY: If this isn't indicative of a total breakdown in the legislative process, then the process is not assailable.  I find it painful to believe my own conclusion within the Democracy that I have spent the majority of my 75 years defending in the U.S. Military and in various civilian leadership positions.  What the situation has come down to is that opponents of MOUs on incidental items of cultural heritage, those who have read and support the current legisation (CCPIA) protecting those items, have been marginalized by bureaucratic manipulation in support of a vicious and monied advocate for cultural dominance.  Isn't it ironic that a law that defends private ownership and trade is used in an orchestrated attempt to destroy it?  All the good that has come from ancient coin collecting over the past 600 years and more is being slandered and dismissed by this Marxist academic coterie with a self serving agenda.  The fact that no academic members bothered to comment in this Virtual meeting, is simply confirmation that it isn't necessary.  Do they oppose? No, they support.  Why then do they not comment?  Because they know full well what the outcome will be and don't even want to waste the time expounding on their views.  They certainly, do not want to waste any time in a debate since they feel they have already won the day.  Isn't that the very height of arrogance?  It is not too far afield from the arrogance that German citizens experienced in the 1930s.  Ironic also, is the fact that supposed liberal idealogists could be so close in reality to the repressors of the past.  I have repeatedly called in public meeting at the State Department for the rule of law.  That call has been ignored.  When will Congress finally have enough of this and end the disaster in Foggy Bottom? <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:8.0pt; margin-left:0in; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} p.MsoFooter, li.MsoFooter, div.MsoFooter {mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-link:"Footer Char"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; tab-stops:center 3.25in right 6.5in; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} span.FooterChar {mso-style-name:"Footer Char"; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-locked:yes; mso-style-link:Footer;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:11.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:8.0pt; line-height:107%;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} -->