I'm reading a surprisingly-good book, The Vanishing American Jew, by Alan M. Dershowitz. Dershowitz can be angry, or mean, but in 1997, when he wrote this book, he had a more open spirit. The book is surprising because Dershowitz and I agree in many ways. Ours is a spectacular time in Jewish history. Jews are highly influential, Jews dominate in many prominent American fields, from the movies to newspapers. Support for Israel is a "secular religion" for Jews. And fighting for Jewish survival against their enemies is a "sacred mission" for Jews like Dershowitz. And oh yes: the Israel lobby is a potent force in public life.
Dershowitz could say all this because it was not controversial when he wrote the book in 1997. It was pre-9/11; and 9/11 changed everything. 9/11 put Israel front and center as an issue in American foreign policy. For me, it forced me at last, in my late 40s, to overcome what Dershowitz correctly diagnoses as the remarkable illiteracy among Jews about Jewish history. I began to study my people's fascinating history.
Many of Dershowitz's arguments actually support the view of Israel's critics: that Israel depends on American support and that American Jews feel a "sacred" bond with Israel because after the Holocaust, Jewish survival is The most important goal. When you read this book, you understand how Dershowitz could pooh-pooh concerns about Palestinian human rights at a Brandeis event earlier this year and refer to the pre-67 border between Israel and Palestinian lands as "the Auschwitz line"--a danger to Israeli lives.
For Dershowitz, Jewish survival is a hugely emotional issue. He feels it threatened by assimilation; he wants to retain the Jewish specialness in American life, that "influential" Jewishness that plays such a large part in our culture and doesn't really mix. I think this is a false and parochial hope: for as Jews changed America and derived incredible success, America has changed Jews, inevitably assimilating them. But that's a different issue from what I'm addressing here.
This fall Dershowitz will be mobilized against Walt and Mearsheimer, as he mobilized against them a year back. And the question that arises, the vulnerability in Dershowitz's legalistic argument, will be that many of the things the brave profs will address--Jewish influence, the degree to which secular American Jews are loyal to Israel in a religious way--are ideas that he himself promoted when they were not controversial. Now that these ideas are being fought over in foreign-policy circles, I am sure Dershowitz will abandon them (as I pointed out Dershowitz's righthand turn re the lobby a year ago).
I think this gets to the heart of my quarrel with the feverish pro-Israel crowd. In a competition between the truth and support for their people, they will side with their people because of memories of persecution. They will never see the Palestinian Nakba as an important event; and in that sense their views are pre-modern. Theirs is a variation of the old role in black culture of a Race Man: "those Race Men who are always clamoring everything for the race, just for the glory of being known." Dershowitz is the Jewish version.
Sad that people like AD always view things as a zero-sum game. For Israel to win, Palestinians must lose (or vice-versa). Perhaps it's an attorney's view, but that seems to be fossilized thinking that can only perpetuate the tragedy.
"The more complex societies get and the more complex the networks of interdependence within and beyond community and national borders get, the more people are forced in their own interests to find non-zero-sum solutions. That is, win–win solutions instead of win–lose solutions…. Because we find as our interdependence increases that, on the whole, we do better when other people do better as well — so we have to find ways that we can all win, we have to accommodate each other…." Bill Clinton, Wired interview, December 2000
The same notion could apply to assimilation. Why is assimilation necessarily bad? Is Phil Roth (perhaps not the best example) any less a Jew, any less a vital human being, because he is assimilated? How would less assimilation have strengthened his contribution to our culture? Or, for that matter, Jerry Seinfeld, or Leonard Bernstein, or Louis Brandeis?
I'll go on to ask exactly what the contribution of non-assimilated Jews is. Take the Hassidic community centered around NYC: what do they contribute to "American" or world culture? Not that they HAVE to contribute anything; I'm all for local coenobitic culture. By contributing their prayers, they accomplish much good that is unseen on the material stage of the world. But it seems somewhat nostalgic to think that we can, or would want to, return to a world of non-assimilated groups. Enclaves of segregated religious communites? Isn't that…medieval?
And unless my reading of Isaac Bashevis Singer is WAY off, even non-assimilated shtetl communities were plagued with the usual array of human foibles and suffering.
The argument regarding assimilation is more complex, undoubtedly, with a view towards education and trans-generational transmission of traditions. That is why, for decades, American Catholics thought it critical to have separate school systems. But is assimilation, too, always a zero-sum game? The Faith suffers in direct proportion to openness to other cosmological approaches? Or is it possible that the Faith will be strengthened by contact with other cultures?
Why should a True Faith be threatened by contact with other belief systems? Isn't Truth a light unto itself?
A vague question, sorry, but it seems germane. Dershowitz's 1997 angst seems misplaced: more and more young Jews are returning to "traditional" norms of custom, and embracing their history. Judaism is not a dying faith. "Your descendants will be as countless as grains of sand!" Is the promise no longer in effect?
I realize I may be viewing things through a skewed lens, and apologize if my comments amount to little more than unwelcome kibbitzing.
"And, again, we see the wearing pattern continue where failure to manifest dual loyalties makes one a bad Jew, but any suggestion of the existence of dual loyalties is anti-semitism."
link to matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com
Must-read Haaretz interview with Australian-born Jewish American James D. Wolfensohn, who was president of the World Bank for 10 years (1995-2005) and then spent 11 months as the Middle East envoy of the Quartet (the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations) on Gaza and why we are were we are today. Quick highlights:
"… I remember seeing the greenhouses with the chairman and looking at the fruits and everything, and there was a joyous atmosphere: 'Boy, we're about to get this going and we're going to have hotels by the beaches and we're going to have tourism and it's going to be fantastic, and the Palestinians really know how to be hosts.' But in the months afterward, first of all Arik [Sharon] became ill and the current prime minister came in, and there was a clear change of view."
At that time, Wolfensohn recalls, powerful forces in the U.S. administration worked behind his back: They did not believe in the border terminals agreement and wanted to undermine his status as the Quartet's emissary. The official behind this development, he says, was Elliot Abrams, the neoconservative who was appointed deputy national security adviser in charge of disseminating democracy in the Middle East – "and every aspect of that agreement was abrogated."
The non-implementation of the agreement naturally had serious economic consequences. According to Wolfensohn, the shattering of the great hope of normality, which the Palestinians experienced so deeply when the Israel Defense Forces and the settlers left the Gaza Strip, brought about the rise of Hamas. "Instead of hope, the Palestinians saw that they were put back in prison. And with 50 percent unemployment, you would have conflict. This is not just a Palestinian issue. If you have 50 percent of your people with no work, chances are they will become annoyed. So it's not, in my opinion, that Palestinians are so terrible; it is that they were in a situation where a modulation of views between one and the other became impossible."
**********
"… In 2005, Wolfensohn's access to the G7 leaders may have made it easier for him to extract from them a commitment for a $9-billion package to ameliorate the situation of the Palestinian economy. However, he says, afterward Condoleezza Rice and Elliot Abrams made it very clear to him that intervention in peace negotiations was not within his purview. "I had to fight my way into the November [2005] meeting when Secretary Rice announced the six-point plan. I was there with Javier Solana when it was announced, and what I didn't realize was that that was the death penalty, because after that the Israelis and the Americans took apart that agreement one by one, and I knew less and less what was happening. And my team of 18 people was fired. So I was left with no office and no people, and even though they asked me to stay on, it was pretty clear to me that the only thing to do was to get out."
Asked whether the disengagement plan was not one big mistake, because of its unilateral character and because Israel has been attacked relentlessly from the Gaza Strip since its implementation, Wolfensohn waxes nostalgic for Ariel Sharon. "I don't think it was a mistake, if it had been followed by the second part of the disengagement – to create a self-sustaining entity that could be the first step to Palestinian statehood that could allow the Palestinians to live their lives and develop a sense of national integrity. That was an opportunity that was missed, and at the heart of it was Arik [Sharon]. He was an unlikely negotiator of peace because of his record, but I have to say that personally I found him very pragmatic. I can't say that he was fond of Palestinians, but he knew that for the future, you couldn't have an Israel full of Palestinians. That demographic imperative made it essential that there would be some kind of two-state solution."
*********
"… Wolfensohn carefully avoids giving a reply to the question of whether the continuation of the conflict and the worsening of Israel's situation are liable to produce a regime with apartheid characteristics. At the same time, he notes that Israel has for some time been suffering from a brain drain, and adds that when the country reaches junctures of major decisions, the strength of the security establishment always overcomes that of the civil forces in society.
"The expenses on military and intelligence in Israel are probably greater than in any democracy I know of, and I can understand that, given the situation, but as a continuing characteristic of the country, I don't think it's hopeful. To me it is so bloody sad that all the creativity you have in Israeli youth has to go through this experience in the army, risking their lives," Wolfensohn says, casting his gaze far beyond Central Park. "Israeli youth finish high school and spend two-three years in the army, and then go to Thailand and other places and smoke pot to get over it, then come back and start their lives when they're 24. I don't think that's an ideal way for the next generation of Israel to live their lives."
link to haaretz.com
**********
Those who keep on complaining about Kassam rockets from Gaza should remember this interview of a Zionist who at least had good intentions (or so it seems). Sabotage is the name of the game of the neocons. Elliot Abrams. Enough said. Maybe the citizens of Sderot should sue him (and a few others)?
"…the strength of the security establishment always overcomes that of the civil forces in society."
Interesting. The Military-Industrial Complex, seeking always to maximize profits, at the expense of humanity. This is the true enemy, the concept of "do unto others that which brings the most profit, regardless of the cost in lives and suffering." We must heed Eisenhower's words if we are to dismantle these "structures of sin."
Dershowitz's Talk In Cambridge, MA
By Joachim Martillo
thorsprovoni@aol.com
9-29-2005
On September 18, 2005, Alan Dershowitz gave a talk on his new book, The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved at Congregation Eitz Chayim (Tree of Life) in Cambridge, MA (see below).
This reform Temple located in a charming Cambrigeport neighborhood has a heymish atmosphere more usually associated with Eastern European Orthodox synagogues. It feels a lot like the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring in Brookline, and the two memberships probably have a lot of cultural similarity and overlap. If the audience for Dershowitz' presentation is typical, the members are becoming older and greyer, have a left-wing or radical intellectual heritage, but are moving toward the right along with the entire American Jewish community even if they want to think of themselves as progressive activists. The membership of Eitz Chayim was probably never as anti-Zionist as the Arbeter Ring, which belongs to the tradition of the Jewish Bund, but at one time there was probably a fairly strong anti-Zionist contingent. It was not in evidence at Dershowitz' lecture.
Dershowitz gave his talk in the temple auditorium in front of the Aron Hakodesh, where the Scroll of the Torah is housed. The hall was practically full (probably more than 100 people). A reporter for The Boston Globe attended, but no article has appeared in that paper as of September 27.
Dershowitz did not present much material not contained in his book, and reading the book is probably more efficient than actually making the effort to see him in person. The Boston Public Library has at least eleven copies of it (but only six copies of Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah, which provides careful analysis of Dershowitz' claims in The Case for Israel). Dershowitz told the audience that the profit from the sale of this new volume in Dershowitzian oeuvre will go to assist needy college students in the purchase of textbooks.
Of course, as far as can be determined, Dershowitz has never made the payment that he promised for finding factual errors in The Case for Israel.
Dershowitz did not present any new ideas in his talk. He merely made frequent assertion that the vast majority of reasonable Palestinians accept the self-evident rationality of his two-state plan. After reading the five basic elements of Dershowitz' framework for peace (p. 2, The Case for Peace), no one should be surprised that Dershowitz is unable to provide the name of any Palestinian that agrees with him.
Here are elements 2 and 5 (the quote marks belong to Dershowitz):
2. Some symbolic recognition of the rights of Palestinian "refugees," including a compensation package and some family reunification, but no absolute "right of return" to Israel of the millions of descendants of those who claim refugee status — a questionable "right" whose exercise would produce the great wrong of returning the Jewish state into yet another Muslim Arab state. All Palestinians should have the right to "return" to what will become the Palestinian state.
5. An end to the singling out of Israel for demonization and delegitimation — and to the hatred directed against the Jewish state and its citizens and supporters — by international organizations, many academics, religious leaders, and media pundits; and the normalization and acceptance of Israel as a full and equal member of the international community.
Dershowitz' bigoted refusal to acknowledge that ethnic Ashkenazi Eastern Europeans uprooted the native Palestinian population when they stole the territory of pre-1967 Israel makes it impossible for him to use the term refugees without quote marks.
Dershowitz' peace proposal reduces to forcing the ethnically cleansed Palestinian population to forfeit basic human rights of property and residence and to find homes elsewhere while murderous genocidal racist thieves and interlopers go unpunished, and the rest of us are not even allowed to discuss the villainy of Dershowitz, of his fellow racist Ashkenazi Americans and of murderous militaristic Zionist colonizers, who routinely use Palestinian children for target practice (according to the casualty statistics supplied by Israeli and non-Israeli human rights organizations).
For Dershowitz "peace" means that all the stolen property should remain in the hands of robbers, that the criminals should be granted amnesty, not only for past outrages but for what they are going to do. His "peace" puts native non-Jews in open-air prisons surrounded by tanks and checkpoints. His "peace" requires that all non-Jews in the US and in Palestine should accept second-class status to Jews while racist anti-Arab anti-Muslim Neocons dictate governmental policy, which includes using American youth to commit genocide and torture throughout Arab and Islamic countries, despite the wishes of the majority of the American population.
When Dershowitz elaborates his solution, he consistently places the onus of the conflict on the native population, whose right to democratic self-determination was thwarted by the British Mandate for Palestine with the connivance of the racist Zionist leadership. He insinuates that the native Palestinian population is guilty of some sort of original sin for rebelling against Zionist colonization, for ineffectively seeking aid from the Germans during the 40s — something the Zionists did very effectively during the 30s, for very infrequently stating the facts of Zionist ethnic cleansing/re-folking (Umvolkung) in Palestinian Authority textbooks(*), and for reacting violently to Zionist depredations during the post-1967 occupation.
Occasionally, Dershowitz admits flaws in Zionist behavior (like the "relatively minor" prejudice and bigotry found in Zionist textbooks). Yet he is certain of the moral superiority of ethnic Ashkenazim and Zionist colonizers, and Dershowitz asserts that in response to every violent act that Palestinians commit (almost invariably in reaction to some Zionist outrage) Israel has the right (or maybe even the absolute obligation) to steal even more land in addition to the territory that Zionist colonizers stole in 1947-8. The Zionist occupation forces generally do much worse than steal more land when Palestinians reply to Zionist provocation. The IDF shoots up towns, bombs residences, kills civilians, destroys farmland, and walls up towns. The situation in the Occupied Territories approximates Nazi-Occupied Poland just before the mass murders began.
While discussing Finkelstein, Dershowitz made a very obscure claim that he really did not justify collective punishment against Palestinians of the sort that German Nazis applied to the Czech village of Lidice, and he also tried to prove that he really was not anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian because he intervened with the Harvard administration so that a student organization would be able to fly a Palestinian flag on Harvard campus last winter. Dershowitz expects his readership to overlook the vicious murderous Eastern European volkisch racism that underlies the Dershowitzian ideas, argument and proposal.
While American Poles, American Italians and Americans of other ethnic groups generally do not manipulate or exploit America for the sake of their racist tribalism, racist ethnic Ashkenazim like Dershowitz and his Harvard colleages, President Lawrence Summers and Professor Ruth Wisse, have no problem with the sacrifice of American values and principles for the sake of militant Jewish exceptionalism and aggression.
Rarely does Dershowitz allude to the bigger picture like the anger of the whole world against the US for pandering racist ethnic Ashkenazi Americans in supporting Israel. Can anyone take the US government seriously when the US proclaims support for democracy, anti-racism, and human rights but supports a perverted criminal ideology like Zionism, which is inherently antidemocratic, racist and opposed to the very concept of human rights?
Dershowitz made a point of condemning the Somerville Divestment Project (SDP) for singling out Israel, and he parroted the ridiculous and vacuous logic of the subversive and racist Boston Israel Action Committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). Dershowitz is apparently unaware of the traditional activism and history of Somerville, which lead in the anti-slavery movement and which has divested from other human rights abusers in the past. Dershowitz never explained how his support for undermining American democracy would lead to "peace" in the Middle East, nor did he explain why he thought that Americans should be forced against their will to pay the tab for Israel's existence.
Dershowitz' reply to a questioner during the discussion period betrays the true nature of Dershowitz' "solution" to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The attendee, who claimed to have worked in Israel for the last decade and to have witnessed many human rights violations, pointed out that the organized Jewish community and many individual American Jewish scholars have condemned American individuals and corporations for being invested in 1930s Germany, which was a human rights violator not much different from Israel today. He concluded by asking Dershowitz whether it was wrong to reject a standard for Israel that Jews want to apply to non-Jews. Dershowitz rather lamely replied that Israel was not like Nazi Germany and therefore should be exempted from the human rights yardstick. Dershowitz accords to Israel a privileged status that excludes it from the scrutiny of non-Jews. Dershowitz's answer is a good summary of the book, whose whole purpose is a justification for preserving the privileges of Jews shamelessly living on stolen Palestinian property.
Are the only parties to the conflict the native Palestinian population and the criminal Zionist colonizers or should we perhaps be asking whether an ethnic fundamentalist state whose ideology differs little from that of 1930s Germany (except for the obvious ethnic substitutions) should be permitted to exist in the twenty-first century? The US destroyed Baathist Iraq in a matter of weeks. The US could probably abolish the Zionist state of Israel in a similar timeframe with no comparable negative consequences and at much lower cost.
Dershowitz made it clear several times during his talk that he reserves special enmity for intellectuals like Tony Judt, Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky and Susan Blackwell who work to undermine the legitimacy of the racist ethnic Ashkenazi exceptionalist mindset. There is probably an element of self-preservation in Dershowitz' hatred of these people. If the anti-exceptionalist point of view becomes dominant in the USA, Dershowitz, Summers, Wisse and their intellectual bedfellows could find themselves the next generation of denizens of Guantanamo and similar concentration camps, where they could be interrogated or tortured according to Dershowitzian principles to determine the extent of their anti-American conspiracy to support Zionist terrorism.
(*) PA textbooks rarely deal with the issue at all. Dershowitz does not read Arabic and is simply repeating the standard Zionist disinformation and demonization that racist ethnic Ashkenazim disseminate in the USA. See ifamericansknew.org for a study of Palestinian textbooks.
ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Congregation Eitz Chayim's Adult Education series continues Sunday, September 18, from 10:30-12 noon (come early for bagels and coffee) with Alan Dershowitz speaking on his latest book, The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved. President Bill Clinton has this to say about Prof. Dershowitz's new book: "The simple chord that resonates through the complex scenarios described in The Case for Peace is one of decency and respect — for Palestinians, for Israelis, and, ultimately, for humanity itself. . . Hopeful and wise, the blueprint for stability presented in this book is among the best in recent years." Alan Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a leading appellate lawyer in the defense of individual liberties. His many books include The Case for Israel (2003), the #1 New York Times bestseller Chutzpah, and The Vanishing American Jew. His talk is cosponsored by Porter Square Books as part of the new Cambridge Jewish Community Authors Series. After Prof. Dershowitz's presentation, all are invited to stay for coffee and good conversation with Eitz Chayim leaders and members, to learn about our long-time Cambridge non-denominational, egalitarian community, children's school, celebrations, membership, and more! Eitz Chayim is located at 136 Magazine Street, Cambridge (in Cambridgeport). For more information, call, email us, or visit our website. All are welcome!
136 Magazine Street Cambridge MA 617-497-7626 info @ eitz.org link to eitz.org
Perhaps part of the problem in acknowledging Jewish influence is that influential Jews know their influence is almost always wielded in destructive ways. I suggest a read of Kevin MacDonald's trilogy to examine that trait, especially *Culture of Critique* which is the third and final of that series.
Here's an example of how that influence is used in media. Actually, two from the same Jewess. Please take a moment and view how she breezily dismisses the dominant cultures most treasured beliefs in favor of her comforts, then roars back with a self-righteous put-down of any fools who would hold journalists such as herself to any standard of objectivity-
here:
link to blog.penelopetrunk.com
and here:
link to huffingtonpost.com
MacDonald and many others repeatedly show that this amounts to a parasitical destruction of prevailing norms, beliefs, and cultures. It is so now, as it always has been. Tikkun Olam means down with Western "tyranny", and onward/upward with the navel-gazing hyper-critical culture of the chosen race.
Did you know that Dersh was once an advocate of Israeli Arab rights & represented Fawzi Al Asmar in his legal battle for equality within Israel? Al Asmar wrote "To Be an Arab in Israel" (1972) and Dersh wrote a forward. I once owned the book & unfortunately it's been lost. I'd give a lot to have it now & quote liberally fr. it to point out Dersh as a turncoat to his former values. Norman Finkelstein told me he wrote about this in Chutzpah.
It is to me an open question to what extent Dershowitz is a liability rather than an asset to the Israeli cause. Perhaps he serves to shore up the faith of the already converted but those who stumble on this 'advocatus diaboli' in their attempt to get to know more about things are probably put off.
It is a bit like being invited to explore the erotic qualities of a woman whose breath alone keeps one at the most respectful distance.
"always clamoring everything for the race"
Compare the large part of the population that identifies with sports teams, athletes, celebrities etc. These folks also derive a sense of self from externals. But the consequences of chauvinistic nationalisms like zionism are much deadlier.
I strongly disagree with Phil on these words "In a competition between the truth and support for their people, they will side with their people."
The people in Phil's quote do not chose to support their people, they choose to support financial interests of the Israeli establishment, its militarized industry and the land-owners.
I am Jewish and very pro-Jewish. For me that means, most of all, as I said many times before – that new generation of young Jews grow up as engineers, scientists, musicians, architects, etc, but not prison guards, torturers and child killers. That the new generation of Jews maintain the good and diminish the bad in our traditions, both religious and secular and further deepen the Jewish humanism, which, in recent years suffered terrible losses in the hands of people like neocons and Dershovitz.
And I am against turning Jewish people into criminal occupiers and prison guard nation for the sake of the few who managed to profit from Israeli land ownership, its political power, arms trading and its sleazy world politics.
To be pro-Israel in its current configuration is to be anti-Jewish, like to be pro-Third Reich in 1930-ies was anti-German.
Or, to extend your analogy, people who are pro-Bush, pro-Homeland Security, in favor of nullifying the U.S. constitution and thwarting the intent of Madison and Jefferson are anti-American.
one of the oldest liberal arguments aginst the religious right is to say "how christian is…" some intolerant statement or other. How "jewish" is advocating dual loyalties? of course we put God before country if we are theists, but I don't think i would consider someone who "took orders from the vatican" to be genuinly catholic. More to the point, as phil points out jews in america have a good thing going. jews in israel haven't had a moments peace and never will. maybe the israelis should start looking to america for guidance, particularly on dealing with non jewish neighbors
You don't understand lester my friend. It is the US that is becoming Israel. And really fast.
Some day Americans will wake up and wonder how this could possibly happen, to grow up in America and end up living in Israel…
Humor department–
According to the National Review, our president actually said this: "There is such a thing as the universality of freedom. I strongly believe that Muslims desire to be free just like Methodists desire to be free."
(from Rowan Berkeley's Naqniq site– link to naqniq.wordpress.com )
The real crunch that is coming is Israel's losing the capacity to exercise its power at will in the Middle East. Iran's atom bomb is really a symptom of that loss of power Where we are going to see real strains in the relation of Jewish *activists* (important distinction) and the great mass of American citizenry, is when Israel loses its monopoly of atomic weapons in the Middle East. This no more means the devastation of Israel than Stalin's obtaining the atom bomb meant the devastation of the USA. But it means a need to have constant and open communication and "making nice".
The Persians, though strict in their religious practice, are eminently rational. They are just as rational as Khrushchev's USSR. They would not start an atomic exchange that would mean the annihilation of their country. The biggest problem brought on by the Iranians having a bomb would be that all the other countries in the region would want one too. That would not mean an atomic free for all, but it would mean that Israel's freedom of action would be forever curtailed. It would be impossible for the USA to encourage Israel to continue a war like the one against Hezbollah last summer until it "finished the the job". Any action by Israel that could remotely lead to a general war in the Middle East would have to be snuffed out at the first whiff of smoke. This would certainly cramp their style, and many Israelis would not tolerate that restraint.
link to seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com
"Ours is a spectacular time in Jewish history. Jews are highly influential, Jews dominate in many prominent American fields, from the movies to newspapers. Support for Israel is a "secular religion" for Jews."
When polls are taken to evaluate the level of antisemitism in any country the "trick" question that the pollsters always ask that is supposed to infallibly "out" or reveal the hidden antisemite is, "do you think Jews are too influential?"… Anyone who answers "yes" to that question is automatically classed as an antisemite.
Now, if that is the litmus test, then as Iraq disintegrates and draws the rest of the Middle East into its vortex and a possible (probable) war with Iran puts oil at $200 (by then about €33) and sets off a worldwide economic depression, most people in the world, including not a few Jews themselves would answer the "trick" question, "yes".
And THAT is what really worries me, because, as Phil correctly points out Jews are fundamental in American life and if people begin to take a general and even well reasoned (they lost their job because they can't afford the gasoline to get to work) dislike of Jewish people, then that will rend the fabric of American society as terribly as it did the fabric of German society and Spanish society before it.
link to seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com
Chomsky on Democracy Now talking about Dershowitz:
link to desertpeace.blogspot.com
Dershowitz has been brazenly lying since at least as far back as 1973. In his 1973 exchange with Noam Chomsky in the pages of the Boston Globe, he transparently falsified a court decision, as can be verified by anyone who reads the correspondence.