As Mr. Berman pointed out, there may be a pro-Israel consensus among America's political elites, but there is certainly not one among the intellectual and literary elites. On the contrary, "a considerable opinion wants to see the abolition of Israel."The fascination of this statement is that Berman seems to acknowledge that the Israel caucus in the U.S. is now dependent on the financial backing of "political elites," the sort of financial backing that surely paid for that conference, and for Kirsch's New York Sun, for thinktanks, and for a lot of the presidential candidates' warchests. But meanwhile the intellectual and literary crowd has left the station. It is Berman's polite way of restating the Israel lobby thesis. This is an unstable situation. Or it is trench warfare. The big thinktanks and columnists on one side, the grassroots intellectuals and church leaders and college crowd on the other.
Kirsch's account provides ample evidence of Why we've left the station. There is not one word about the Palestinian condition, and as for the Israel lobby, now even embraced by center-right Jeffrey Goldberg, it is an antisemitic theory about a Jewish "cabal." The inevitable Ruth Wisse is put forward here as a model, urging Jews to be tougher still--god knows what she has in store for the Palestinians. Berman is presented as sagacious--this man who counseled war in Iraq because of suicide bombers in Israel--and as usual the U.S. and Israel are joined at the hip. Walt and Mearsheimer and Tony Judt are used as punching bags, not that these conference-organizers have the grace or intellectual confidence to have invited them. Judt's support for the one-state solution is presented as bringing on another holocaust, per Berman. The "abolition" of Israel, with genocide to follow. Kirsch reassures, that there is no contradiction between being an American Jew and being a Zionist. "So long as both countries remain true to their liberal values, the conjunction of Jews and power will not be a prospect to fear, but a reason to be proud," he concludes.
Liberal values: Iraq and the Occupied Territories. This is what others see when they consider the role of neoconservatism in American life. It reminds me of the old marketing parable, of the guy who comes up with the perfect recipe for dog food and yet it is a complete failure. Why? The dogs wouldn't eat the dog food. The American dogs have stopped eating their neocon dogfood.
Zionist Morality
By Robert Thompson
May 26, 2008, axis of logic
A dear Swiss friend sent to me, and to many others, an article written by Yehezkel Dror and published on Forward.com. Dror is described as being "the founding president of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute" and "professor emeritus of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem". This article is entitled "When Survival of the Jewish People Is at Stake, There's No Place for Morals", and it argues that to ensure the "survival of the Jewish people" any and every evil action is fully justified.
While I was well aware of similar views having been expressed by the Polish terrorist David Gruen (who called himself Ben Gurion), I have never before read anything so crudely and openly racist from a Zionist source. Mr Dror classifies all non-Jews as being of lesser value than "Jews", without clearly defining this word. It is not clear, for example, how he would classify the said David Gruen, who did not practise Judaism, since Mr Dror also attacks assimilation by "Jews" as happens in many countries around the world.
Curiously, Mr Dror insists, without explaining why, that it is necessary to have a "Jewish state" to ensure the survival of those whom he classifies as "Jews". This leads me to presume that he believes in a "Jewish race", as did Wilhelm Marr, Theodor Herzl, Adolf Hitler, and the Zionists. When I personally use the word "Jewish", I think of followers of Judaism, and fully understand that they are not all of one race, but that they share highly honourable beliefs and traditions received from men and women who have valued and passed them on over centuries. Similarly, I think of Christians as being followers of Christian beliefs and traditions, and I do not see why they should need to live in a supposedly "Christian" state to live as Christians. In any case, most of those who think of themselves as Jews live in many countries spread around the world and have not all gone to live in Palestine.
This brings us to the nonsensical question of whether a "Jewish atheist" (an oxymoron if ever there was one) is different from a "Christian atheist" or a "Muslim atheist", since by definition no genuine atheist can belong to any religious group. If one reads the so-called "Laws" of the Aliyah, enacted by the Zionists in Palestine, it is clear that for the founding fathers of the Zionist "state" a Jew is a member of a privileged racial group; religion has little to do with the said "Laws", except where they exclude anyone who has specifically joined another religion than Judaism.
Mr Dror's amorality is extreme, and he does not hesitate to justify any action to protect the racial "purity" of his chosen people, who are mostly not biologically descended from Abraham but from Caucasian tribes which adopted Judaism (generally known as Ashkenazim) to distinguish themselves from Christian and Muslim neighbours, later moving into eastern Europe. It would be interesting to ascertain Mr Dror's definition of "Jew" and "Jewish". But this is less horrifying than his clear statements that, in order for the "Jewish People" to survive, they are entitled to do anything, and need to have a "Jewish state". He particularly states that this is more important than "liberal and humanitarian values, support for human rights and democratization".
One point where I seem to agree with Mr Dror is that the Nazi killing of those whom they qualified as "Jews" should be condemned absolutely. But I doubt whether, as he suggests, there occurred a "killing only a few decades ago of a third of the Jewish people". On the other hand, the numbers killed are not as important as the sheer evil of the Nazi murders, and Mr Dror should bear this in mind. I also support the "never again" reaction to the Nazi horrors, since they can only be justified by the kind of evil argument put forward by Mr Dror and other believers in racial superiority.
His arguments put him, quite simply, on a par with Hitler and Stalin, who shared his lack of concern about morality. I recommend that everyone who wishes to understand Zionism should read this article dated 15 May 2008. The article does at least serve the useful purpose of revealing the true horror of Zionist beliefs, and explains why such people persecute the innocent indigenous people of Palestine.
Berman's comment may partially explain the increasing outrageousness of statements coming from the Zionist Jewish literary elite, who unlike Jews among the US political elite generally do not operate in Jewish funded think-tank-fortresses.
I discuss Anita Diamant's tribal bonding with Gordimer and Oz in link to eaazi.blogspot.com
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I did not go into detail, but Herzl seems to have expected that concern for African rights would prove the progressive credentials of Zionism, and Rafael Medoff noted in Militant Zionism in America that American Jabotinskians insisted on equal seating for blacks and whites at Zionist events.
Because I had watched the full version of the German Nazi film version of "Jud Süss" in a graduate course at Harvard, Kirsch's offhand comment about Veit Harlan's Nuremberg prosecution makes me a discussion of the commission of crimes against humanity by Hollywood directors and screenwriters would be timely.
When I first saw "Rules of Engagement" directed by Friedkin and written by Senator Joseph Webb, I said to myself, "Wow, this film topped 'Jud Süss' in inciting racial hatred."
'Schindler's List' directed by Spielberg and 'The Spartan' directed by Mamet are more subtle but equally evil in incitement of genocide or hatred.
Certain types of racial incitement seem to crimes except when directed by Jews against Arabs.
The past weeks I have travelled in two Muslim countries. In Istanbul, I came upon a rally by approximately 500 muslim university students. Although I could not understand the speakers, the placards left no doubt as to the subject "Israel, Palestine". On the sidlines were about 200 riot squad police, ready for action.
The small hotel(maybe 50-60 rooms)where I stayed in Cairo had 3 armed police guards at the entrance,24/7, and a metal detector. Same at Luxor, but minimal at Aswan.
Five times a day beginning, at 4.00am and the last at 10.00pm, no matter where you are, you hear the loud speakers from the mosque singing the prayers.Even in the poorest rural areas, where people live as did their ancestors 2000 years ago, the satellite dishes are popping up. The anger and resentment against Israel and the US for the injustice to their fellow muslims will fester. How long will Fortress Israel be able to withstand the tide?
Um, dogs? You are reminded of an analogous story in which the American people are dogs?
Beautiful.
Weiss wrote: ‘…Berman seems to acknowledge that the Israel caucus in the U.S. is now dependent on the financial backing of "political elites," the sort of financial backing that surely paid for that conference, and for Kirsch's New York Sun, for thinktanks, and for a lot of the presidential candidates' warchests.’
I assume when you write “political elites” you mean wealthy Jewish and Christian Zionists, within and without elected office, using their “private” funds to pay for these programs (even though in many cases the federal government acts as a launderer to redistribute taxpayer money to wealthy Zionists through various public/private enterprises — money that Zionists then use to finance the programs and candidates of which you speak). The implication of your paragraph is that Zionists basically aren’t really anymore respected in the US by those who understand its true interests, they are merely tolerated, and without their money to insulate them and buy the few friends they still have (often times with laundered taxpayer money) they wouldn’t be given the time of day. Isn’t this always the ultimate fate of money worshippers, whether Jew or goy? Tolerated with barely disguised contempt so long as they can spread around access to material, practical needs through their money? This is why Jewish materialists have evolved into master money men: once they abandoned God, their only means of the authority and respect they craved was by holding the material purse strings, whether as Capitalist money men or as Communist commissars. What a pathetic, ephemeral, and ultimately hollow position: tolerated for money, but secretly despised. And this is the dynamic they seek to impose on the world?
Weiss wrote: ‘Kirsch reassures, that there is no contradiction between being an American Jew and being a Zionist. "So long as both countries remain true to their liberal values, the conjunction of Jews and power will not be a prospect to fear, but a reason to be proud," he concludes. Liberal values: Iraq and the Occupied Territories.’
Not only that, but what about the Big Brother department of “Homeland Security” in the US? The US State Dept. anti-Semitism (thought crimes) unit? Censorship and free speech suppression through “1st Amendment zones”? Government spying on its own citizens? Extraordinary rendition? The entire Neocon-constructed domestic State “Security” apparatus modeled on the officially Jewish religious state…liberal?
America’s problems won’t cease by merely ending the Iraq war and cutting ties to Israel; the fix will also require the massive deconstruction of the State thought-control structure that got us into this mess, including the two-party system and the public school monopoly that wrote the Master narrative used to condition average Americans into accepting Neocon/Neolib predominance in the first place. Remember, the Neocons pose as “liberals” even as they bomb woman and children to save them.
True liberals (and conservatives) need to re-examine the historical meaning of those terms free from Jewish Zionist spin and word manipulation, and refresh themselves on why each, in its true form, essence and tradition, enjoyed such success. Jewish Zionist authoritarians don't use words to pursue the truth, they use words to disguise it, all as a means of manipulating themselves into positions of authority and money.
Ed,
Can you document this recycling of taxpayer money to Zionist causes/pockets? I am quite interested in you sources.
Ed,
Can you document this recycling of taxpayer money to Zionist causes/pockets? I am quite interested in you sources.
Ed, Can you document this recycling of taxpayer money to Zionist causes/pockets?…Posted by: peters | May 27, 2008 at 10:48 AM
Please refer to Martillo and Klein. Here is a summary:
“Friedmanites have been so prominent in the economic regime that the occupation has attempted to impose on Iraq that the common identification of Milton Friedman’s economic thinking merely with Cato Institute libertarianism looks incorrect. In today’s political intellectual environment Friedmanism looks more like an adjunct of Neoconservatism.”
http://members.aol.com/ThorsProvoni/Judonia1.htm
Martillo on Mondoweiss Comment board: "Naomi Klein identifies the Jewish roots of Friedmanism in The Shock Doctine but is unfortuately unwilling — possibly because of her own Jewish background — to push her analysis to its logical conclusion.”
Peter, here is a summary of The Shock Doctrine from Amazon.com:
‘Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine advances a truly unnerving argument: historically, while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times. As Klein demonstrates, this reprehensible game of bait-and-switch isn’t just some relic from the bad old days. It’s alive and well in contemporary society, and coming soon to a disaster area near you.
“At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq” civil war, a new law is unveiled that will allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves… Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly outsources the running of the ‘War on Terror’ to Halliburton and Blackwater… After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts… New Orleans residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be re-opened.” Klein not only kicks butt, she names names, notably economist Milton Friedman and his radical Chicago School of the 1950s and 60s which she notes “produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today.”…’
‘The neo-liberal economic policies—privatization, free trade, slashed social spending—that the Chicago School and the economist Milton Friedman have foisted on the world are catastrophic in two senses, argues this vigorous polemic. Because their results are disastrous—depressions, mass poverty, private corporations looting public wealth, by the author’s accounting—their means must be cataclysmic, dependent on political upheavals and natural disasters as coercive pretexts for free-market reforms the public would normally reject.’
link to amazon.com
Joachim, not much happened to Veit Harlan. He successfully argued he was forced, and was acquitted.
Ferdinand Marian (Jued Suess),who clearly did not want to play the part, but was forced by Goebbels, killed himself after the war.
Heinrich George, who played the duke, died in a camp.
The tricky Werner Krauss, who played all the Jewish characters beside Jud Suess, used this as an escape trick. He said he didn't want to do the job, and thought if he demanded to play all Jewish characters it would be denied. The trick was successful he got his "Persilschein"/was acquitted too.
But the most important part of the story is Stephen Greenblatt (one of my heroes anyway) for stating a simple fact, Harlan and his co-authors stole from Lion Feuchtwanger's novel. A simple fact that was denied over here, at least up to the time when I studied it.
Obviously nobody read the sources. Greenblatt may have. Only in Feuchtwanger's novel and in the Nazi film you find a one character
Mind you in the film he is moot. But he is there: The Mamluk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk
I should add the basic and simplistic argument. It ran something like:
Since Lion Feuchtwanger was a Jew and his book banned Harlan and his co-authors would have never used it.
Yes, they did. One has simply to open ones eyes, and study the sources.
I am not sure the Hollywood producers could make use Veit Harlan's defense to fend of charges of incitement to commit genocide.
In some cases like Exodus, the film received aid and funding traceable to the government of the State of Israel.
Making the connection between the various Hollywood films and later crimes against humanity would be difficult but probably not impossible.
Joachim, you probably have realized by now, I partly adhere to the Holocaust religion. I wouldn't call it religion though, I would probably use esthetical imagery: The Holocaust sits at the center the experience of human tragedy. I am German. But I was as shocked as Norman F., when I heard about what the victims, also the forced labor victims, received for years under the most vicious conditions.
So yes, I am open to learn.
But one thing is sure. I will never arrive at the conclusion that productions as Exodus and Jud Suess are in any way comparable. Jud Suess was produced in the same time frame as the pseudo documentary "Der Ewige Jude". Did you see that too?
A very good friend, a SPD member who was very close to Brandt once told me that the best thing to get topics into people's mind is via movies. So strictly why not.
But there is of course the other side of the Janus face, if one demands recognition of ones own victimhood one has to open up for other's.
At the center of "my experience of tragedy".
I mean the theatrical term way back to Greek tragedy.
I was not comparing Exodus to Jud Suess.
I was comparing Rules of Engagement to Jud Suess.
But in terms of Nuremberg Law, one has to show a connection between the propaganda use of a film and crimes against humanity.
It may not be a strict enough standard, but I would contend that one might be able to establish just such a connection with Exodus, with Cast a Giant Shadow, as well as with many subsequent films and definitely with Rules of Engagement.