My wife and I were driving out to get Indian takeout for the
Christmas party we were hosting when we passed the hunble house of one of our
favorite friends, this very lowkey guy who does web design for a spiritual sort
of thinktank. I said to my wife, you could have married him, right? And she
said, that’s about the only kind of WASP I could marry. I asked her about it, and she said that she had always been somewhat anti-WASP. That she had
wanted to marry out of her tribe because no one had ever placed a high value in
her culture on the “Life that is not examined is not worth living,” which is
the sort of life she wanted to have. She said that Jews do that more. She
tended to find WASPs assumptive and smug. I said maybe it was a class thing,
and she said, No she felt it was part of the culture. I was somewhat surprised
but also freed by the comment. I feel a similar impatience with my native
culture. It has its own kind of arrogance, a sense that because we’re the
leaders of education and media and free inquiry, and we’re righteous outsiders, we don’t
have anything to answer for. There is no sense of our own American reality, no accountability
for our effect on foreign policy and world history due to the Jewish state, and
when two professors try to bring it up, they get screamed at, called
antisemites. I’m saying I couldn’t have married a Jew who was ethnocentric, not
unless they were openly challenging the Jewish state’s brutal treatment of
Palestinians.
I also wonder if this isn’t all rationalization; if my wife
and I aren’t temperamentally the kind of people who would want out of our native cultures
out of pure curiosity no matter where we were from. Sometimes I imagine being Irish Catholic,
or in the Latino immigrant culture. I think I’d want out in a hurry. The mixing
up’s more interesting to me.
Here comes my obligatory comment on how it is really cool that here in Yoo Ess of Ey we have various cultures living, working, eating, shopping together.
Except not really.
What I see in my midwest town is the ghettoization of America.
Latino neighborhoods, serb neighborhoods, polish neighborhoods, blacks, WASPs, all living their separate lives in their separate little (or big) slices of the city.
Sounds like you're speaking about Chicago – aka the balkans.
http://www.topix.com/forum/world/serbia/TUQ27FI0818J5OORA/p8
Philip,
I married a wonderful jewish girl who opposes the occupation and seeks justice in Palestine, but I could very well have married a wonderful WASP girl I dated for two years in college. We split in order to pursue our careers on different coasts, but if it wasn't for the distance we would have likely married. We are still friends. She ended up marrying a terrific jewish guy she met in graduate school and they have three lovely children together. She actually converted to judaism because she wanted the family to all have one common religion and she wasn't a big believer in jesus as the messiah. She told me once that she knew always knew she was going to marry a jewish guy because she had repeatedly fallen in love with jewish guys in junior high and high school. She was the farthest thing from ethnocentric. Like you I couldn't imagine marrying an enthnocentric person. My wife is the farthest thing from that as well. We both love jewish culture, but we have equal amounts of admiration and love for other cultures. We are terrible universalists. If we had to chose a religion we'd be unitarians, but since we have this ancestral monotheistic religion we go with it. We have far more in common with our non-religious universalistic non-jewish friends than we have with ethnocentric jews. We have many jewish friends who are like us in their lack of ethnocentrism. The folks I often feel the most connected to are other assimilated ethnics from the east coast – jewish or not.
I guess I fit right in at this blog, since I am the product of a long and happy marriage between a Lebanese and a WASP, and now I am happily married to a half-Wasp half-Jew.
My hubbie is completely non-ethnocentric and has not a Zionist bone in his body; I feel some kinship to my Arab identity but it's all so fragmented – I'm certainly not eager to bond with right-wing Lebanese Christians, but I'm not a Muslim, and I am not Palestinian so the fellow-feeling with them can only go so far before it bumps against old wounds from the Lebanese civil war, etc. etc. Egyptians call me Khawagaya, or lady foreigner.
In fact if I delve too deeply into my Arab/Lebanese side, I come upon my essential American-ness. I have a few core strands of WASP nature – but I don't feel comfortable in an all-WASP environment – I'm too ethnic.
Oakland CA works well for me. We went to CHristmas eve service at a local Presbyterian church and I felt right at home – the place was as multi-ethnic as you could imagine; most of the folk were bohemian social justice types; nobody looked rich but everybody looked well-educated (but there could be a rich Scot or two in the crowd, dressed like everybody else in unremarkable middle-class garb); the ritual was casual but selected from the best of the ancient traditions of CHristmas. And they made it clear that all levels of faith or not-faith are welcome, along with gay/lesbian families. The church also supports the Near East School of Theology in Beirut, – the old WASP mission connection that linked my Lebanese father to my WASP mother.
Next day we went to Christmas dinner at my mother-in-law's house and the Christians were outnumbered by secular Jews 2 to 1. Long live Berkeley… When I total up my inner circle of friends I find that Jews outnumber gentiles in about that proportion.
However at grad school (MFA 2007) I noticed that the younger generation writers I like are all South American professors' children. In my generation I hang out with liberal, non-ethnocentric Jews, but of the generation fifteen years younger, I gravitate towards Peruvians, Argentinians, Uruguayans – all second generation intellectuals like me. They had to make new lives for themselves in the USA and perhaps their identity conflicts mirror my own.
Here, here! Philip. Lets hear it for assimilationists, and the even braver cross-racialists (white, brown, black, yellow, red, etc). There is no faster way to understanding between different people than love on a personal level. And the children of such unions! energetic symbols of their parents love.
This is not only about Jews and non-Jews, Phil: this involves all races and two in particular: male and female! Let the sparks fly as they surely will when an immovable object meets an irrisistable force. Good luck to all!
I'm definitely a Jew. I accept and adopt the ethical responsibilities particularly of being a Jew, and for the purpose promised (to be part of a nation of "priests", which I interpret as catalyst for positive change).
That self-definition obviously puts me at odds with those that regard being Jewish as simply an ethnicity, or simply entitled to a piece of land.
But, it is NOT assimilated.
I don't regard assimilated as a virtue.
There is a definition of "what I am" that is by common values. "We" are those of good heart.
There is though also a definition of "what I am" that is transmitted by blood, parenting (inter-generational teaching), that is unique to Jews.
Unique does not mean better, though as I work for that Jewish transmission (my part of it) is the best that can be done, I assume that if others similarly take that responsibility seriously, that Judaism as a culture of that, will get to very good (in all senses of the term).
Enough of the "walking apology".
I don't understand two things in the praising of intermarriage. And this is not regarding the personal choices of Phil or the people above– this is about when intermarriage and assimilation are raised to a virtue. Here are the two things:
1- The lack of concern that Jewish culture continue. I am concerned that Palestinian culture continue. There are centers and programs in P-I on the challenge of being a minority in Israel to the continuation of Arabic language mastery, one form of cultural continuation. As a minority culture, one has to fight to not be erased. That does not have to be each person's goal and passion– but Phil, you cannot frame the debate about intermarriage and assimilation without reference to that, anymore than one can have a conversation about Palestinians in Israel without talking about threats to culture. There, the threat to cultural is not necessarily assimilation. Here, it is. But we care about them because we do not want the world to become one homogenous mass. Phil and to other intermarried people– I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but when you have children, and then they have children, there's a good chance that they won't have any knowledge or attachment to Jewish culture. That means it's gone. Unless you work to preserve it. That can occur within any kind of marriage, but it isn't a given, and is an issue to be discussed.
2- A complete blindness to the power situations of minorities, including Jews, in the US and the world. Here is the thing, Phil: when you present the situation of Jews as if it were equal to any other minority situation– as if it were the same as that of Indians, Latinos, and other minorities in the US– you are actually leaving unspoken an important cultural power differential. And we all know what happens when we don't speak about power differentials.. it's because they actually affect what we're talking about. I couldn't speak of Arabic and Jewish culture in Israel as being on the same power plane, and if I did, I would do violence to my subject. I'm again sorry to be so blunt, but that is what you are doing, Phil. The power differential is this: on a global scale, what kind of power does that culture have? And by power, I mean power to reproduce, to continue– we're going to ignore the idea of power as ability to convert others. Does Native American culture have the same kind of power on the global scale as Wasp culture, or even Indian culture does? They don't, and that's why there's a UN task force on indigenous culture– not because it's better than other cultures, but because it has less power to survive, and we agree that cultures surviving is of value. So: on the global scale, does Jewish culture have the same power to survive that Wasp culture has? That, I'm sorry, even Lebanese culture has? If we're honest, we'll agree that it does not. And if we're truly honest, we'll see that it does not, not /because/ of assimilation per se, but because of this difference of power. Being the majority in a given situation has inherent power. But pretending that assimilation does not occur in this situation of -power- is ludicrous and actually quite immoral.
That doesn't mean people can't choose who they marry, who they love. But if you are raising something to a cause for celebration within the Jewish community, and if you are doing it without an awareness of the power of a majority versus the power of a minority, then you are committing intellectual violence. It doesn't matter if it's to your own kind or to another– Alan Keyes isn't more or less morally culpable because he commits violence on his as opposed to another community.
Sadly, what you illustrate, in fact, is the own power that the majority holds upon your community– because you are able to speak freely and fluently in the American public –as if– Jewish culture and predominant Wasp culture were on the same power level, in the US, and globally. The fact that you can so easily ignore the powerlessness of your community is a very apt expression of how smoothly power hides itself and how smoothly it shapes the minds of even the powerless.
Lisa – I believe you may have written the most thoughtful and interesting post on Phil's blog in some time.
Thank you. I hope that Phil will repond to your comments. You may want to email him as well, as I've not seen him respond directly to poster's comments before.
Lisa:
have you checked out KEVIN MacDonald's blog especially his article entitled Stalin's Willing Executioners.
Do so. It will give you another perspective.
I want Jewish political power reduced because Jews use it to wage wars that are against the interests of the US majority. You speak reverently about Jewsih culture: do you include Wall Street and Hollywood in that culture? Would you not agree that those two industries are destroying America? Wall Street by demanding that the Fed print money to bail them out…hmm manufacturers are told to just outsource or go out of business when they go bankrupt
and Hollywood….do you let your children watch its violence and celebration of sensuality?
Honestly…just curious…..
I'm confused by Lisa's references to power with regard to the relationship of the Jewish community to the traditional American elites, esp the WASP elite. I think what Phil has been trying to argue eloquently in this blog is that Jews have arrived, have a place at the high table of American meritocracy. I disagree with elements and nuances of his argument, but I think it's fairly demonstrably true that the American Jewish community is at this point well-positioned within the US polity and are in proportion to their numbers at least as powerful as any other elite constituency. No conspiracies, no cabals – just American political life. I'm not trying to be too simplistic about this, I know the traces of anti-semitism within the WASP and other elites even today, but these are no longer effectual. Jews have – to their credit, let me be clear – opened every door and have little cause to think that they will be falling from these heights at any point in the near future. So I'm truly baffled by the kind of handwringing displayed and hidden within the argument of power Lisa has proposed.
Now I better appreciate the emotive strength of tribalism — including the anxiety that one's present "culture" will someday die. I myself feel this most acutely with regard to languages — not religious traditions, which in any case are mutable and which even now are unrecognizable innovations upon the supposed origins they claim (this is true for all major monotheistic faiths). I think this is what lies below the anxiety around Jewish assimilation in the US – a notion that one's "people" are dwindling in numbers, an argument that is based on a ethnicist (or even racist, in a sense) notion of the quality and value of people based purely on their identity and blood. I don't like this argument, but I find it understandable, it has its own coherence and seems to link the modern era to past ones, giving us a sense of solidity within the storm of history.
But tribalism is embarrassing in a liberal democratic context, is it not? It overlaps with nationalism, ethnic particularism, and as I said above even racism. But if we can find a way to reconsider tribalism, maybe there will be a route for discussing assimilation without resorting to – I'm sorry to put it in these terms – somewhat hysterical claims of cultural erasure, of power differentials and so forth, when little evidence of these are to be found.
Dear Kevin,
Perhaps I did not make clear how I am defining power. I wrote: "the power of a majority versus the power of a minority"; that "being the majority in a given situation has inherent power"; and then I further defined that power as "power to reproduce, to continue".
Now, you hint that this may be, while understandable, at bottom "ethnic handwringing", and even more "even racist". What I am proposing is that definitions of racism must be placed within structures of power, including the power of majority versus minority cultures. I think you're right that it /can/ veer into racism. I think, frankly, that I do not do that- anyone who knows me personally knows that I am as passionate about Arabic culture as some people here seem to be about white American culture. However, that "ethnic", "tribal" concern, as you call it, is also a necessary corrective to structures of power that make it easier to take on the majority culture rather than continue a minority culture.
It's easy to ignore this difference in power when you are not in the minority. But I think that a situation where certain groups enjoy privileges and other groups do not is inherently a situation of power. Power does not have to come from malice, though it might.
Now, what are the privileges that a Christian American might enjoy, that I do not? Well: the treaty on indigenous peoples makes clear that not only all individuals, but groups of people as -collectives- should enjoy the following rights.
And I would assume that if human rights belong to people because they are human, then they should not be easier to exercise for some than others. IE: differentials to access, differentials in effect, are as much of a problem as differentials in kind. If poor people have a theoretical right to education but are impeded from exercising it because of their economic situation, then in my opinion at least, those rights are not sufficiently protected. Inequalities in access to rights is a problem.
So then, what rights? The Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples states that not only individuals, but -collectivities-, have not only the right to practice their traditions and customs, not only the right to manifest them, but the right to retain their distinctiveness, and transmit it to future generations. The question of "cultural survival" is a question of rights, then.
Now, I really do agree with you that this question becomes racist when a community tries to use this principle to deny others those same rights. It also becomes dangerous by virtue of who adopts it. The danger comes when it's used to as a tool for privilege, for exclusion, for power– and being used for power often depends on if the powerful are using it. So this kind of critique of concerns for Jewish cultural survival would in Israel, I think, be rightly termed racist. But not in America, because in America the minority-majority situation creates inherent power differentials.
Now, you seem to think that Phil has shown that there are no power differentials, concern for them is purely tribalist, ethnocentric, etcetera. But I hope that we've agreed that concern for cultural survival is not, in the hands of the powerless, inherently racist. And I think we can agree that relative power deprivation is as much a topic as absolute.
So. Then let's look at it on two scales: American, and global. In America, is it as easy to maintain a WASP cultural identity as it is to maintain a Jewish one? The question is ridiculous, because American majority culture and identity are WASP. To learn more about what it's like to maintain a Jewish identity, you'd need to learn more about Jewish cultural studies, not (I'm sorry) from Phil's blog about the misuse of power by certain Jewish political elites. It's definitely doable. But it's not as easy, it is an issue.
On a global scale, it's the same. Is it as easy to continue the "practice, development, and transmittal" of Jewish cultural traditions as it is to maintain those of French or Lebanese cultural institutions? This becomes an argument for Zionism, but we are going to reject that politically, at least in current /policies/ of Zionism, because of the implications for the "practice, development, and transmittal" of certain other cultural traditions, specifically Palestinian. Not facetiously- really. But that quote, "practice, development, and transmittal" of culture– that is a UN declared human right. Do Jews enjoy it to the same degree that Chinese do?
I agree with Phil's overall point that Israel is not solving the problem well. But attempts to erase the problem will not work. And assimilation, cheri, is a real shit of a solution. I would not support a UN declaration about assimilation as the solution for minorities worldwide– not Arabs in France, not Latinos in the US, not Palestinians in Israel, not Jews in America. And, frankly, neither would anyone else.
But this view that Jews talking about their cultural survival is the same as someone getting up and talking about "Christian white culture at risk!" — well. Within Israel, then I'd say yes. In America and on a global scale, no. But Phil, and others, aren't talking about internal Israeli politics, they're talking about America.
And unfortunately, diminishing the concern with Jewish cultural survival as so much "tribalism" and "ethnic handwringing" is a common technique to pretend that the plane is even. Used by no means exclusively used towards Jews. Maybe it's just a natural human reaction to admitting that one's society has hidden inequalities.
Have you read Amos Elon's "The Pity of It All"? I'd recommend it.
Hi Lisa,
you seem very sincere but do check out the Kevin Macdonald blog. I cannot agree with "
The question is ridiculous, because American majority culture and identity are WASP…."
To me we are fighting wars on behalf of world Jewry and allowing unlimited Jewsih-inspired migration so that WASP power and culture will be destroyed. If you think that assertion is ridiculous pls note that English is a dead language in Miami and much of California.
A class in Shakespeare is not mandatory at some Ivy League schools.
Jews may welcome the dimunition of WASP power thru racial changes, and strict policing of PC standards but what if jews have miscalculated? What if you are destroying the core that makes the US stable? Have you read the Putnam report on plunging levels of trust as diversity rises?
What is replacing the disappearing manufacturing jobs? Note that the elites in Japan, China and Germany have a different attitude towards manufacturing jobs….why is that Lisa?
What do Hispanics think of Jews? Can be they co-opted to pass on the billions to Israel every year?
Why do you think that euro-americans are entitled to all of the USA? Natives were living here before you came over and killed most of them and drove them on to reservations.
Educate yourself anon22
link to mexica-movement.org
Hi Tonto:
I appreciate the clarity that you bring and what your goals are.
There are many lies and injustices in the world, but the worst of all the lies and injustices that have been committed on humanity are the ones that have been committed by people of European descent.
It's a simple fact. Look it up, if you dare to look the truth! We have long list of the worst and most immoral crimes committed collectively by the European descent people of our planet. You can look at what they did to Jews and Gypsies during World War II. But that's just recent. They have gone around the world committing monstrous crimes against the non-white populations of the world.
On this continent they killed 70 to 100 MILLION HUMAN LIVES, 95% of our population was savagely killed by using biological warfare in the form of Smallpox. Smallpox is the ugly little secret behind "white success" in "conquest" of our continent. Europeans stole 100% of our lands
and all of their wealth of resources.
These crimes were committed casually by Europeans because they felt that they were a superior race and that all other races were inferior, and that all other races had no rights to their life, property, freedom, or to their humanity.
They claimed that their gods Yahweh and Jesus gave them the world to plunder, rape, and enslave. European kingdoms, Christian churches, and all of their people participated in and profited from the European crimes of the last 500 years.
ALL OF THIS EUROPEAN WHITE SUPREMACY INSANITY IS CALLED RACISM!
Based on that racism, that white supremacy, Europeans committed the following crimes:
THEY HAVE STOLEN MORE LAND THAN ANYONE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.
What happened to the Judeo-Christian “Thou Shall Not Steal"?
THEY HAVE ROBBED MORE TREASURIES AND GRAVES, AND ENSLAVED MORE PEOPLE THAN ANYONE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.
THEY HAVE DESTROYED MORE CIVILIZATIONS THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.
THEY HAVE KILLED 70 TO 100 MILLION PEOPLE IN WHAT IS CALLED "NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA", USING SMALLPOX AS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION, KILLING 95% OF OUR POPULATION. THEY HAVE DONE MORE OR LESS THE SAME IN AFRICA, ASIA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS.
What happened to the Judeo-Christian "Thou Shall Not Kill"?
THEY HAVE ACTED LIKE PARASITES ON THE REST OF HUMANITY FOR THE LAST 500 YEARS: ENSLAVING, STEALING,RAPING, AND PILLAGING OTHER NATIONS AROUND THE WORLD.
What exactly is so Judeo-Christian about that?
EVEN TODAY THEY ARE STILL STEALING OTHER PEOPLE'S LANDS AND RESOURCES, SUCH AS THE OIL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND OTHER PLACES AROUND THE WORLD, BASED ON THAT WHITE SUPREMACY.
AND NOW As more and more of these crimes become known to the rest of the world, we find that White supremacists feel no guilt or shame in all of these crimes that their race has committed.
They can pretty much drop the "I'm a Christian" pretense.
In fact they are proud of what they see as the white man's superiority in committing these crimes. Very much like the Nazis of Germany.
And they have the nerve, the shameless racism to call non-whites "RACIST!" for pointing out these crimes of the white race, these crimes against humanity, these white supremacist crimes that are still going on.
THE WHITE SUPREMACISTS HAVE SOME SORT OF DEFORMED MORALITY that can justify Hitler and lynchings, and stealing lands and continents, and enslaving people, and massacres, and Genocide, and racism, and still find a way to blame the victims of the crimes when we complain and denounce the savage nature of their crimes, the immorality of their crimes, the inhumanity of their crimes.
European descent people are the one group on Earth who has the longest and most cruel history of racism and injustices against all of the non-white people of the world —–and now they have the nerve, the audacity, to call us racists
for pointing out their crimes.
And they claim to be civilized and to be Christian.
We haven't seen civilized or Christian from Europeans at any point from 1492 on.
No one in the world comes anywhere near to the amount of racist crimes committed by Europeans (slavery, land theft, mutilations, massacres, rapes, and massive genocide based on racist hate and white supremacist ideology).
We know that there is good and bad in all races, but the disproportionate amount of unrestrained evil committed by the European actions of the last 500 years cannot just continue to be swept under the rug. That rug now has a powerful stench that is piled to the sky.
All Europeans and people of European descent continue to profit from the crimes of the last 500 years, so they can't just say, "That's so long ago, let's just forget it" and keep all of the stolen items from the non-white people of the world. That may work for a six-year-old schoolyard bully to say, but not for adults and nations and not in a world of truth and justice. Plus, what did Europeans around the world tell Jews who had lost their land 2,000 years ago? "It is their land and they deserve to get it back!" You can't have some rules and logic for white people and a different set of rules for non-white people. THAT'S CALLED RACISM!
We know that not all European descent people are white supremacists. But you, who are not racists, have the duty to control your racist brothers and sisters before they cause another world holocaust or bring about more of the evils of white supremacy and racist injustices. You, the good white people have an obligation to restrain the more evil components of your race. If you fail in that obligation, you are again part of that evil.
"Plus, what did Europeans around the world tell Jews who had lost their land 2,000 years ago? "It is their land and they deserve to get it back!" You can't have some rules and logic for white people and a different set of rules for non-white people. THAT'S CALLED RACISM!"
Cluephone for mister fake AmerIndian. EUROPEAN WHITE Jews are the ones who stole Palestinian land. Why no sympathy for the non-Europeans who are having their land stolen today and living under a brutal injust occupation? Why is white European racism propagated by Jews in Israel OK by you? Why is it OK by you to ethnically cleanse Palestinians when it is really no different from the ethnic cleansing of the American Indians from the North American continent?
BTW, 2000 years ago the majority of Jews lived outside of Judea. And even after the failed revolt that was crushed by the Romans, Judaism still flourished in the Galilee, and produced the Palestinian Talmud. For much of the last two thousand years, individual Jews, if they so desired, could "return" to the Holy Land. What they didn't, and don't, have a right to do, though, is to oppress and remove those who are not Jews who were living there and are living there now.
You and I can trace our DNA back to Africa. Does that give us the "right" to move there and forcibly displace Africans who are living there now? No? Then how is that different from white European Jews forcibly displacing the Palestinians. For someone who claims to be a member of an indigenous culture you have a sorry lack of empathy for other indigenous cultures who were harmed by white Europeans. You are either a member of a different tribe than the one you pretend, or perhaps you are just an ignorant red apple.
I'm doing my part to fight racism and supremacy. Why are you making excuses for it when Jewish supremacists in Israel are the ones setting up different rules for Jews and non-Jews?
I was curious about "tonto's" post as well and found it while looking on the original link posted. See link to mexica-movement.org
The concept of reconquering a past homeland makes perfect sense to these folks, as it is what they would like to do. Don't you get it? They identify with the Jews, as the victim group from way back. One could argue that the difference between them and the Jews is that they had and have an actual homeland(s), while the Jews were basically a stateless people and looking for a homeland when the world was already settled.
Not for nothing, and to your point, I couldn't help but think that if you replaced "European" with "Jew" in the post above it would mimic very closely what many of the people post here.
Seems to me like Tonto is traumatized by MacDonald's overly anti-Jewish attitude and tone of WASP entitlement to the continent. I also find MacDonald's violin a bit tiny and absurd, considering history. (He is nonetheless a terrific researcher and his paper on Zionist actors in the U.S. is comprehensive.)
But our friend Tonto is also more than a little racist, attributing pursuit of power through violence as inherent to whiteness. (Ever heard of the Aztecs bud?)
I enjoy Phil's analysis but I do think sometimes his Jewishness causes him to conflate tribalism and ideology. The tribalism, in and of itself, were it not leading many to uncritically support genocide, would be ok. I have no problem with Jews in powerful positions, especially if they have arrived by meritocratic means.
The only thing that matters to me is Zionist ideology. I do not want to see the United States' foreign policy commit atrocities, and waste trillions of dollars that are needed in this time of impending economic and ecological disasters, because of some people's personal commitment to the racist, colonialist project in Palestine.
European descent people are the one group on Earth who has the longest and most cruel history of racism and injustices against all of the non-white people of the world …
We haven't seen civilized or Christian from Europeans at any point from 1492 on."
Interesting you should use the year of the reconquest – the effort of the Indigenous Iberian peoples to drive out the Moor, as a reference point…and you apparently are also unaware:
a. one million europeans were enslaved by Arab/Muslims
b. Muslims took OUR land – and we had to drive back -spain in the west and Turkey in the east (which was Greek and Christian)
c. Mongol hordes tried to conquer us and attacked much of East europe…
not civilized? what do you call white Chrisian efforts to eliminate slavery, still practiced by non white, non christians?
i could go on but your ignorance is astounding.
Tonto – I read through some of the pages on the website you provided. Not sure how seriously to take it. Do you really believe that Americans of European desecent are going to return to Europe? Is this all about gaining reparations?
Just curious – How would you address the issue of the large non-European-descended Muslims living in Europe at this time now?
correct link
http://www.counterpunch.org/hayden07202006.html
I Was Israel’s Dupe
By TOM HAYDEN
Alexander Cockburn writes: Twenty four years ago Ariel Sharon’s artillerymen bombarded Beirut, causing huge terrible civilian casualties, just as Israel’s bombs are doing today. The destruction was so savage that NYT’s Beirut correspondent Thomas Friedman complained bitterly in an indiscreet in-house memo when his editors axed the word “indiscriminate” which Friedman had used to describe the bombing. I published that internal memo in the Village Voice and Friedman thought he was going to lose his job. Standing next to those Israeli gunners and cheering them on were Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, eager to promote Hayden’s political career in California.
As a product of a French Jew/Chinese mother and an English/Irish Latino father, it is refreshing to hear your viewpoint on cross-cultural influences and the freshness that it brings to relationships and understanding. If we are to survive as a race (that's the human race) then we must empathize with the other tribes and different viewpoints. Thanks for your thoughtful posts.