Jack* emails: Dear Luke,
I read the Dennis Prager posts you put up. It is important to realize that what underlies all of these posts is Dennis Prager’s strong bias in favor of Israel. He thinks he is being objective, but everything is filtered through a Likudnik lens. Only a truly ignorant person would equate Iran to Nazi Germany or call it the most dangerous country in the world. Iran deals with North Korea because everyone else placed on arms embargo on it. North Korea was the only country willing to sell it missiles and missile technology. Prager ignores Iran’s demographics, something that David Goldman (who writes as Spengler and has about ten times Prager’s IQ and analytic ability) understands. (Incidentally, I am not a fan of Spengler, but he isn’t as dogmatic as Prager)
While I am not fond of Obama, I do think that on foreign policy, he is so much better than either McCain or Romney would have been. I don’t think Obama should have intervened in Libya. I think he should have pulled troops out of Afghanistan a long time ago, and I don’t think he should have let Victoria Nuland depose the Ukrainian president and usher in this confrontation with Putin. But if either McCain or Romney had been elected we would be in half a dozen more conflicts around the world. Prager sees things in Manichean terms: The US (in particular George W. Bush and the Neo-Cons) and Israelis (especially Likud) are good. Everyone else is evil. Countries including the U.S. and Israel have interests. Other nations have conflicting interests. That doesn’t make them evil. But if you call something evil long enough you lose sight of their fundamental humanity and can justify destroying them.
I know you are studying Torah. There is an important lesson in Genesis when Abraham goes to retrieve Lot from Sodom. God tells Abraham he will destroy the city and Abraham argues with him bargaining with God not to destroy the city if there are ten just men in the city. This is believe it or not one of the most important passages anyplace in the Pentateuch, the Holy Scriptures, the New Testament, the Talmud. Why? Because it tells us that it is unjust to destroy the innocent, the righteous, along with the sinners. We have to make a distinction. This is the underpinning of all of Criminal law, whether as evolved in England or in other societies.
You have reached the rather easy conclusion that it is far easier to explain the world by looking at how the sexes and races actually react and behave rather than how we want them to react through some bizarre world social construct. Now take the next step when confronted by Prager who is glib and simplistic and thinks he is a lot smarter than he is.
You may fear Iran and you may fear any deal Iran may make with Iran, and those fears may be justified, but don’t buy into the hysteria about Iran.
Likewise his crap about the Palestinians. You heard how he not only dismissed but put down Kahane. Now he has come to the same conclusion but wants to blame it on the Palestinians. What type of construct does he see where the Palestinians can coexist with the Israelis without being willing to be subordinate to them? He has no problem talking about that under Arab rule, Jews were in a kind of dhimmitude, but fails to see that being a second class citizen in Israel, is analogous to a Palestinian.
