The Joe Klein dual-loyalty assertion is being debated everywhere, including here by Shmuel Rosner, who goes thru some formalities about being an Israeli so he can’t comment then promptly tosses that aside to speak as a member of the Jewish community, and to imply that Klein is using religion against those with whom he has policy differences. Klein has refused to back down–
“You want evidence of divided loyalties? How about the ‘benign domino theory’ that so many Jewish neoconservatives talked to me about – off the record, of course – in the runup to the Iraq war, the idea that Israel’s security could be won by taking out Saddam, which would set off a cascade of disaster for Israel’s enemies in the region?”
Klein was equally bracing when it came to the violence of the Clinton machine, in Primary Colors.
The amazing thing about this argument is that time and again, thru the Walt and Mearsheimer skirmishes, Jews wrung their hands (wringed?) over the dual-loyalty canard. But this duck keeps popping up again (from Eric Alterman and John Judis, among others) because it truly describes the hearts of the neoconservatives. As Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz told us long ago when they shifted parties, they were for a strong military because the U.S. had to protect Israel. Then their son and son-in-law became actual policy makers, and brought their parochial beliefs to the White House, and shut up about their Israel agendas. Klein is a blunt man, god bless him. This conversation is coming into the open.
Related posts:
- John Judis Scooped Joe Klein on ‘Dual Loyalty,’ But You Can’t Find His Piece on TNR Site
- By all means, let us have the dual loyalty debate
- Another Achievement of the AJC: ‘The New Republic’ Joins Me on Dual Loyalty Issue
- Fleshler Exonerates Neocons of Dual Loyalty. Why He’s Wrong…
- Annals of Self-Censorship (In ‘06, Judt Hinted What Klein Said Re Dual Loyalty)
{ 41 comments }
(On Kristol and Podhoretz' children/in-laws)
Adult sons are independant. They express their own views.
It irks me horribly when you alternate between political ideology (specific neo-conservative theses) and "Jews" as the reference of "dual loyalty".
There is a BIG conflict between the description of neo-conservatism as applied in the middle east as an advocacy of universal commercialism and neo-conservatism as applied in a more racialist or single entity reference as protection of Israel.
My understanding of the neo-conservative thesis is that protecting Israel is a means to stage and support the universal commercialist approach, and NOT the exagerated fetish of cause.
Walt/Mearsheimer's and your "realism" is sadly unrealistic, confusing both "cause" and correlation and "cause" and context.
The most plausible of Rosner's comments:
"Here are my ten cents: Klein comments are really a trap. Saying that Joe Lieberman supported the war in Iraq because of disloyalty to America is basically saying that no Jewish person can ever support a policy that can be perceived as beneficial to Israel. If Condoleezza Rice supports the war – that's legitimate. If Paul Wolfowitz supports the war – it's not. They might have the exact same motives, but Klein will differentiate between the two because one is not Jewish and the other is Jewish."
To paraphrase, "SHUT UP" if you are Jewish and neo-conservative. Isn't that a racially based effort at censorship, worth avoiding constructing?
I'm Jewish but NOT neo-conservative. Nevertheless, I resent the racial screen, as Rosner articulated (who is Jewish and I think neo-conservative).
Liberals and neo-conservatives rationally share a few sensitivities, even while we differ on more.
Saying that Joe Lieberman supported the war in Iraq because of disloyalty to America is basically saying that no Jewish person can ever support a policy that can be perceived as beneficial to Israel.
No, it is you that is forcing the false choice.
He is not saying all jews are bias or disloyal. He is only saying THESE jews are.
And then this is backed up with lots of documentation, the paper trail for which is a mile long.
I think, for once, Rosner has good points (I usually loath his blog), saying, among other things:
Imagine Klein, back in the late Nineties, writing this:
"The fact that a great many Jewish officials in the Clinton administration plumped for this Oslo process between Israel and the Palestinians, and now for an even more foolish summit at Camp David between Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. diplomatic leverage and money, to make the world safe for Israel."
Can you imagine him writing such thing? Can you imagine him blaming the many-many Jewish members of the Clinton administration for tilting the American agenda toward the peace process only because they want to help Israel?
The dual loyalty charge assumes that people that consider strong Israel and peace in the Mideast good for America are automatically loyal to Israel more than to the US. This is wrong. In promoting the war as a means to pursue American interests in the Mideast the neocons (and others) were surely misguided (we can now say this having the advantage of the hindsight) but they by and large did not do so to hurt America's interest or safeguard Israel at expense of America. I stress the advantage of the hindsight: it is impossible to separate our view of the war from seeing what it turned into. While Phil had a very good post about the fact that war was unjustified even if it did not go as bad as it did, this does not change the fact that before the war many people – not only neocons – thought the war a good idea for American interests. Cynical, but true: America is not some virtuous force that starts only justified wars and supports only benign regimes. See this Joseph Massad's opinion.
That the war did go bad, of course, changes everything. People need a scapegoat and lo and behold: it was only the Jews who pushed for war; those gentiles who pushed for war were all misled by the Jews etc.
As much as I respect Joe Massad, his preference to discount the Israel Lobby (or as I would say — the Zionist Virtual Colonial Motherland whose public face) to focus on the USA is simply ahistorical and too narrow-scoped.
The Israel Lobby has a whole history before 1947, and it is to a large extent in E. Europe, somewhat in Germany and for the most part in the UK.
I discuss the development of the Zionist Virtual Colonial Motherland and its associated imperial system from http://members.aol.com/ThorsProvoni/JudoniaComplete/JudoniaCompleteA.htm#_Toc199522938 onward in my document on The Israel Lobby and American Society.
I know it still rough, but I can make a good argument that Massad's position is far too limited and that he needs to learn far more about modern European Jewish history, culture, sociology and politics.
The hyperlink is Judonia, Balfour Declaration and Afterward.
Joe Klein on Time.com: "You want evidence of divided loyalties? How about the 'benign domino theory' that so many Jewish neoconservatives talked to me about – off the record, of course – in the runup to the Iraq war…"
I'm glad to see that mainstreamers are starting to distinguish between Jewish Neocons and Christian Zionist Neocons, which goes to motive. Jewish Neocons are motivated by personal support for Jewish nationalism, whereas Christian Zionist Neocons are motivated by dispensationalist eschatology. Economic Neocons are motivated by empire, greed and shock doctrine. How to distinguish, and get to who is motivated by what and why? The more descriptors, the better.
Witty doesn’t want the distinction made, and plays the race/anti-semite card: "SHUT UP" if you are Jewish and neo-conservative. Isn't that a racially based effort at censorship, worth avoiding constructing?’
What do Jewish Zionists like Witty have to gain by suppressing descriptive information? It allows them to obscure the real motives for the Iraq war, for example, and maintain plausible “American interest” rationales. A Jewish Neocon is clearly more likely to be motivated by a Jewish nationalist agenda, and pursuing a foreign nationalist agenda from within (and sometimes even without) government means treason, whereas as an eschatology motivation is religious, and an economic motivation can be plausibly argued as an American interest.
In short, Witty wants Jewish nationalists in government to be able to continue to pursue Jewish nationalist (Israeli) interests at the expense of American interests and lives without being singled out and investigated for treason.
Ed, I think you are right regarding the different motives different groups had in the run-up to the war (I myself said just that).
But I think you are wrong about Witty's motives. Actually, not knowing Witty let me speak for myself.
Do I care for Jewish neocons? No, I actually despise most of them: I despise their line of thinking, their support for immoral policies and disregard of human life, their suspect racism etc. Do I care if they are singled out and investigated for treason? Only insofar as rule of law is concerned. I think it is a very slippery slope. Treason is not something that can really be proven. How do you distinguish between position that conflates American and Israeli interest and one that pursues only Israel interest? Do you single out only Jews? From here it's one step to Stalinist purges of enemies of the people on the one hand and to massive anti-Semitic campaign on the other. Innocent people are sure to suffer.
I do wish with all my heart that people like Feith, Pearle and Podhoretz lose whatever influence they have and become personae non gratae in policy circles.
"People need a scapegoat and lo and behold: it was only the Jews who pushed for war"
No, it wasn't only Jews who pushed for war, but it was only Jewish nationalists inside government who pushed for war on behalf of the Jewish nationalist (Israeli) agenda.
"Prove it," might come the response. That's what criminal investigations are for. No wonder so many Jewish Zionists in Congress (and non-Jewish politicians who have taken Israel lobby money) aren't interested in thoroughly investigating the Bush administration and its push for war. They know exactly where any investigation will lead: right to their front doors.
This is a situation where both the FBI and the CIA are required to step in and start investigations of their own whether the executive and legislative branches want them to or not. This is exactly why the Founders set up a divided government: for purposes of accountability in cases of public corruption and treason.
"Treason is not something that can really be proven."
It most certainly can. Start here:
"The idea was that America has a war on terror and that the only actual place for coping with it is in the Middle East and that a fundamental change would come through a change in leadership. We had to start somewhere. The objective was to change the face of the Middle East." — Israeli Meyrav Wurmser, wife of Dick Cheney's Middle East advisor David Wurmser, on how the neocons sold America's corrupt and gullible leaders on the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The Wurmsers, along with other Jewish nationalist Bush administration figures such as Richard Perle and Douglas Feith , wrote a report titled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996. Many of the report's recommendations, including the removal of Saddam Hussein, were later pursued by Bush/Cheney.
In the run-up to the Iraq war, Feith worked with Jewish Zionist Paul Wolfowitz in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans assembling specious "evidence" against Iraq relating to WMD and ties to 9/11 that turned out to be baseless.
"Treason is not something that can really be proven." Peter D.
Apparently Israel felt it could in the Mordechai Vanunu case.
"He was subsequently kidnapped in Rome by Israeli agents and smuggled to Israel, where he was tried and convicted of treason. Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement." Wikipedia
"Treason is not something that can really be proven." Peter D.
Apparently Israel felt it could in the Mordechai Vanunu case.
"He was subsequently kidnapped in Rome by Israeli agents and smuggled to Israel, where he was tried and convicted of treason. Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement." Wikipedia
"Treason is not something that can really be proven." Peter D.
Apparently Israel felt it could in the Mordechai Vanunu case.
"He was subsequently kidnapped in Rome by Israeli agents and smuggled to Israel, where he was tried and convicted of treason. Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement." Wikipedia
Yes, Ed, fabricating evidence to justify a push for war is certainly an offense, should be investigated and punished. If Feith, Wolfowitz etc end up in jail for that, I will only applaud it! I was against framing it in treason clause. Even the examples that you brought – Wurmser, Clean Break – can be argued as conflating American and Israeli interests. I will admit, that I hope that as the world moves more and more to post-state stage – where individual states lose influence while confederations of states such as the European Union – and, I pray, one day, the confederation of Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon (or something along the lines) – become more and more common, we'll find that blatant nationalism in disguise of patriotism, which is the root of so many evils and wars, will become obsolete. "Treason" strikes me as a relic from the thinking of the old days: you're either with us or against us. What if I am a cosmopolitan? If I care about a life of an Arab as much as about a life of a Jew or an American or a Chinese? What if I refuse to go to fight an unjust war? You see what I mean when I distrust the term treason? Again, I am not against pursuing responsibility for the people who pushed for the war, used lies and propaganda to advance their interest etc, just be careful with this witch hunt approach.
Laurie, Vanunu case was and is a disgrace, I totally agree with you.
Sorry I don't know why the triple posting. I'm using the 'go back one page' button, maybe that has something to do with it.
Its a straw dog to ask me or Peter to defend Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith.
Individuals only.
The idiocy is the generalization of "dual loyalty" referenced to Jewishness or sympathy for the goal and experience of Israelis.
"Ed",
If you disagree with their arguments, then address their actual arguments.
Summarize what THEY think (not the words that you or others select to demean their conclusions). In doing so accurately, you will either:
1. Agree with them.
2. Understand where they are coming from, agree to disagree, and convince others on the basis of reasoning, that alternative perspectives are more effective.
Ridicule is a lame approach to argument. It leaves ANY that adopt your conclusion on thin ice, never questioning one's own assumptions (thereby becoming more confident in one's own understanding), always at best believing rumors or conforming groupthink.
Sadly, I've not even heard a concise and respectful summary from Phil. As if the straw dog or the sideshow is the content of discussion.
Dialog on the content is the point.
Ed,
If you think the ethnic association or sympathies of those in government is the content, then you are in the range of purges, McCarthyism and worse.
Re Peter D's opinion: if America is as evil as Joseph Massad says it is, then maybe all Americans should slit their own throats?
Jim S., no. Practically every other country in the world has many "black stains" (what they used to call them in Soviet Union) like that. Big countries – Russia, USA, China – usually get away with it (Russia, for example, just in recent years killed countless Chechen civilians and razed the city of Grozny – one of the worst war crimes of the last generation), while smaller offenders – Israel, for example, face more scrutiny (in Israel's case mitigated by the Lobby). I don't think Americans or anybody should slit their throats. People should strife to be informed, forgo petty nationalism and work towards securing a better future. As I said, I hope the post-state world will make many of these evils disappear.
Jim S., consider this: Family wiped out by US. The US media doesn't inform you of that. Is it also the Israel Lobby work?
Peter D: “I think it is a very slippery slope…Do you single out only Jews? From here it's one step to Stalinist purges of enemies of the people on the one hand and to massive anti-Semitic campaign on the other. Innocent people are sure to suffer.”
Witty: “If you think the ethnic association or sympathies of those in government is the content, then you are in the range of purges, McCarthyism and worse.”
—–
I call what both of you are doing “Hiding Behind the Jews.” It’s a common ploy engaged in by criminals who don’t want to be investigated.
It goes something like this: 1) devise a criminal plot; 2) enlist a Jewish cabal in the criminal plot; 3) if or when you are implicated or caught, tell the world the plot cannot and should not be investigated because of the “slippery slope” implications of prosecuting the Jewish cabal — the whole thing might lead to “anti-Semitic scapegoating” and “McCarthyism or worse.”
Sometimes the criminal parties are entirely Jewish, but the technique is the same. And often they will additionally mask their conduct with humanist rhetoric in an appeal to bleeding heart liberals, airheads and useful idiots.
Non-criminal Jews should be outraged by this, because not only are they being used as cover for a criminal enterprise, but they are being implicated in the criminal enterprise when the criminal Jews say an investigation might result an anti-Semitic backlash, which is suggestive that the Jewish criminal conspiracy is vast, and perhaps even involves a majority of Jews.
Jewish Bolshevism, Jewish Zionism and Jewish Neoconservatism have all employed this technique at one time or another. And as I have noted before, the tragic irony is that all of these movements have resulted in incalculable harm to non-criminal Jews.
Jews, of course, are some of the shrewdest people in history. But in modern times, their primary weakness and Achilles heel is an inability or an unwillingness to see fault and intolerable conduct in their co-tribesman, and call them on it. It’s hard to know whether their religion indoctrinates them to turn away from Jewish criminal conduct, or whether it is a group survival strategy. Whichever the case, it’s a self-defeating characteristic.
Ed said: "But in modern times, their primary weakness and Achilles heel is an inability or an unwillingness to see fault and intolerable conduct in their co-tribesman, and call them on it."
I said: "Yes, Ed, fabricating evidence to justify a push for war is certainly an offense, should be investigated and punished. If Feith, Wolfowitz etc end up in jail for that, I will only applaud it!"
Phil Weiss has this blog, this discussion and I participate in it. Now, judge for yourselves whether Ed is attributing to me a position I do not hold or not.
Now, Ed, you go further, suggesting that I, somehow, am a part of the cabal. I hope all your evidence is of that manner, because I just gained more confidence that you have little idea what you're talking about. You're, of course, are free to believe whatever you want, but trust me, you are delusional.
Am I afraid of an anti-Semitic backlash? You bet, as you would be,if you were a Jew.
"forgo petty nationalism and work towards securing a better future. As I said, I hope the post-state world will make many of these evils disappear." Peter D
Do you support a one state solution then to the Palestinian/Israel conflict? It seems it would be a step in the right direction given your sentiment.
Peter D, I don't know whether you are part of a cabal or not, but your rhetoric is consistant with that employed by those who are.
If you are not, I'm doing you a favor by pointing this out, as you may not be aware that the true cabal's use guys like you for cover and laugh about it.
Laurie, in principle I have nothing against the one-state solution. If you read my comment above, I say "I pray, one day, the confederation of Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon", which is not the same, but close. However, I am skeptical the one state solution is realistic for now (meaning, at least one generation forward). Yes, it would be a more just solution from historic perspective and it might be the only solution left because of Israel's policy of settlement expansion. But if the two state solution is still feasible, it will be less bloody for both sides. Look at Lebanon or my other favorite example – Belgium on the brink of a split – I just don't see how on earth the one-state solution will work given the current situation in Israel/Palestine. Both people need some time of peaceful living side by side but separate, I think.
Ed, and your rhetoric is consistent with "Blame the Jews" paradigm, by which people, who screw up or are just anti-Semitic, find a way to blame the Jews for anything. And often they will additionally mask their conduct with humanist rhetoric and care for non-criminal Jews to appeal to bleeding heart liberals, airheads and useful idiots." So what?
Peter D. good response. What you say is reasonable. I would support a two state solution if the green line is respected, in other words, Israel must relinquish all settlements. Negotiations would begin from that point.
"Ed, and your rhetoric is consistent with "Blame the Jews" paradigm, by which people, who screw up or are just anti-Semitic, find a way to blame the Jews for anything."
There you go again, hiding behind "the Jews."
The Jewish Bolsheviks murdered millions of Christians. Now if the Christian majority behaved the way you are behaving, it would see criticism of Bush by left-liberal Jews such as yourself as an anti-Christian plot, and a precursor to another holocaust, and rally around Bush.
But few are doing this, because they have objectively judged Bush and his "Christian" henchmen as charlatans, incompetents, and generally malign, moneyed elites only concerned with their own glory and bank accounts. The Bush administration’s efforts to blame a liberal plot for their problems are falling upon deaf ears.
You, on the other hand, have been conditioned, pavlovian style, to start reading conspiracies into efforts to hold Jewish charlatans accountable for their crimes, and urging we not start down that "slippery slope." After all, "From here it's one step to Stalinist purges of enemies of the people on the one hand and to massive anti-Semitic campaign on the other." Besides, ""Treason is not something that can really be proven."
Nonsense. NOT holding Jewish criminals accountable for their crimes ultimately results in anti-Semitism, just as NOT holding Christian criminals accountable for theirs results in anti-Christian attitudes.
When the Israelis prosecute Jewish criminals, are they engaging in anti-Semitism? Of course not. But when gentiles do, it’s a slippery slope.
Peter D, your Jewish supremacist attitudes are showing. You simply don't like the idea of non-Jews holding Jews accountable for their crimes against humanity, even when they are Jewish charlatans and criminals. It offends your supremacist religious sensibilities.
The "Jewish" Bolshevics.
Very odd conspiratorial approach "Ed".
Classic.
I usually ignore you and others that harrangue about "Jewish Bolsheviks" (a few in the posse here).
I think its a better approach than to "dialog" with you.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Anti-semites everywhere:
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1791
Circumstantial evidence is usually key in civil and criminal legal actions based in part on intent, scienter, fraud, consiracy etc.
Few eventual suspects ever walked around during any time in question with their core inner motives plastered on their face
like a cheap halloween mask.
If Rosner ever made a logical arguement I would fall over.
His pitiful attempt to say that you can't accuse jews of dual loyalty because non jews supported the Iraq war too…is so simplistic and illogical it hurts my eyes.
Obviously he has never heard of MOTIVE…you know that reason for which you do something or support something?
The MOTIVES of the jewish zionist and the gentile neo's were different. The jewish zios and the zionist community supported it for Israel…the gentile neo supported it for varous other reasons.
Since their MOTIVE in backing the Iraq war and now egging on an Iran war was their support for Israel they do have dual loyalties ..if you can even call it "dual" since spending US blood and treasure was for Israel in their mind.
–The "Jewish" Bolshevics.
Very odd conspiratorial approach "Ed".–
Witty, obviously you have never read The Jewish Century by Jewish historian Yuri Slezkine, in which he refers to Bolshevik Jews as “Stalin’s willing executioners” and acknowledges their rapturous murder and oppression of millions.
http://www.vdare.com/misc/051105_macdonald_stalin.htm
This is obviously going to be dismissed as “conspiratorial” by Jewish Zionist activists of the left-liberal bent such as yourself working on a similar formulation in the Mideast and America, but headquartered in Israel instead of the Soviet Union.
Just as neo-Nazis will often dismiss the Nazi-perpetrated holocaust because it makes a Nazi revival more difficult , Jewish Zionist “liberals” also seek to dismiss the Jewish Bolshevik-perpetrated one in the Soviet Union (similar to their ongoing dismissal and denial of Palestinian and Arab suffering as a result of Jewish Zionism and Jewish Neoconservatism which — thus far — is on a much smaller scale than that imposed by the Communists on millions of Christians and dissidents over decades, but they’re working to change that).
Jewish ideologues also want to suppress the Soviet holocaust because they want the world to believe that the Nazi (big H) Holocaust was “singularly evil” and incomparable to anything before or since, and thus justifies all Jewish behavior no matter how murderous, degenerate or loathsome indefinately. After all, they are only trying to survive. If they have to murder or subjugate a few hundred thousand to do so, its only out of the survival imperative, not malice.
This, of course, ignores that the Jewish Bolshevik holocaust was perpetrated before the Nazi one, and contributed to the latter. But were the Nazis able to get away with saying “well, the German people were only trying to survive.” They were not, and the Zionists should not be able to get away with making similar arguments either, but they are. Why is this?
(One other important characteristic to note about Jewish Zionist “liberals” is that they are only liberal in countries in which they are in the minority. Look at their behavior in Israel, where they are in the majority. Not very liberal, is it?)
Slezkine came rather late to the subject of "Judeobolshevism."
Yale University Professor Benjamin Harshav writes in Language in Time of Revolution,[469] p. 42-46. (1993):
[See also The Jewish Century[470] by Yuri Slezkine (2004), The Pattern of Ethnic Ashkenazi Genocidalism: The Jewish Century by Yuri Slezkine,[471] and Nakba education vs Holocaust disinformation for Americans.[472]]
Harshav’s passage is subtly dishonest. It suggests that Soviet Jews did well until Stalin started to liquidate them. In fact, Stalin had lots of people killed, who were in the vast majority non-Jews.
After the purges of the 1930s, the upper ranks of the Soviet Communist Party were probably more not less Jewish. After the Soviet recognition of the State of Israel, doubts appear to have increased at the highest level of the party about the true loyalties of many Soviet Jews and many Jews were purged, but the most reliable Soviet Jews remained in leadership positions in lesser but disproportionate numbers, and until the execution of the Rosenberg’s the Soviet Union like the State of Israel to this day seems to have had little difficulty in recruiting foreign Jews for subversion or espionage. (See The Americans' Vanunu.[473], [lxxiii])
Reliable Soviet Jews did quite well after the fall of the Soviet Union, and six of the original seven top Russian oligarchs have Jewish ancestry. (See Oligarchs.[474])
I asked IAS Mathematics Professor and former Harvard Fellow Vladimir Voevodsky about discrimination against Soviet Jews. He laughed at me and then told me that his division at Moscow State University had about 200 hundred members of whom only two truly had no Jewish ancestry. Of the rest, only two were Jewish by nationality on their Soviet papers, and Voevodsky seems to have been reporting hardly an unusual situation in Soviet Union.
Lies have been part of the genetics of Jewish politics, activism, and self-defense organizations for over a century.
For the record, while individual Soviet officials may have been hostile to Jews, the Soviets collectively were not anti-Jewish even if they were anti-Judaism in the context of general hostility to religion and even if they were exceptionally anti-Zionist possibly as a result of the historical competition between Communists and Zionists for membership in Czarist times. In addition the Soviet government had real problems with any sort of nationalist activities that strayed from strict Soviet parameters.
The Refusenik Movement was just one of the many scams associated with Judonia.
What makes it hard to decipher: You can't equate a goy and a jew–the respective religions make a big difference, one ethnic to the core, the other, a matter of principle–like the idea of USA citizenship. Proposition nation versus ethnic nation. Hitler would be proud of the Jewish nation or "people."
Is there an American "people."?
If not, why not? If not, is this a good thing?
E Pluribis Unum.
Ed:
“The Jewish Bolsheviks murdered millions of Christians. Now if the Christian majority behaved the way you are behaving, it would see criticism of Bush by left-liberal Jews such as yourself as an anti-Christian plot, and a precursor to another holocaust, and rally around Bush.”
Ed, your knowledge of Russian history is either shaky or selective. Early Bolsheviks indeed had many Jews among them (most were later eliminated by Stalin) and Jews in CheKa (precursor of NKVD and later KGB) were indeed known as some of the most ruthless commissars. However, the millions murdered Christinas you refer to were never victims of ethnic or religious extermination. Bolshevism was a class and ideological struggle. (Actually, from 70000 to 250000 Jews were murdered in years after the Bolshevik Revolution, mostly at the hands of forces opposing the Bolshevik – the White Army and independents like Petlura in the Ukraine). The Jewish elite of the Bolsheviks was exterminated under Stalin. In 1937 the head of NKVD Yagoda was replaced by no less if no more horrific Russian Yezhov (who proceeded to purge all Jews from NKVD) and then by Georgian Beria. The only Jew left in politburo under Stalin by the end of the thirties was Kaganovich (although many others had Jewish wives).
The idea that criticism of Bush is an anti-Christian plot and somehow a precursor to a Christian Holocaust is paranoid and absolutely ridiculous (I doubt you yourself believe this nonsense).
Ed:
“You, on the other hand, have been conditioned, pavlovian style, to start reading conspiracies into efforts to hold Jewish charlatans accountable for their crimes, and urging we not start down that "slippery slope." “
Wrong, I repeat, hold them accountable as much as you like. But make sure you’re doing in a framework of law and things that can be proven. If you can show they fabricated evidence – and we know they did – throw the fuckers in jail (if there is a law like that). If you can show they passed secret information to another state (Israel) – go ahead!
You really did not get my position, Ed. I was not against holding the neocons accountable. I am against using ideological arguments to persecute people, second-guessing their motives based on their ethnicity, invoking amorphous terms like treason and dual loyalty.
Ed:
”When the Israelis prosecute Jewish criminals, are they engaging in anti-Semitism? Of course not. But when gentiles do, it’s a slippery slope.”
Israelis prosecute them not as Jews but as criminals, that’s the main point! There is not an ethnic or religious element to that, how cannot you see that? Gentiles are free to prosecute Jews if we are talking about identifiable offences and not sweeping witch hunts. That’s all.
Ed:
Peter D, your Jewish supremacist attitudes are showing. You simply don't like the idea of non-Jews holding Jews accountable for their crimes against humanity, even when they are Jewish charlatans and criminals. It offends your supremacist religious sensibilities.”
Ed, you are again talking out of your butt, sorry. I am absolutely not a Jewish supremacist. I despise Jewish supremacists and take them on whenever I have a chance. My own parents always stressed to me the crimes that were committed by Jews (like Bolshevik crimes in Russia.) About eradication of Jews from the top of the Communist Party by Stalin my mother used to say she did not feel sorry for even one of them. I don’t believe in any racial supremacy and I find that people that do, do so usually out of some weird inferiority complex. I find this stupid. In fact, I don’t even understand people who say they are proud to be Jewish (say). What does it mean? Some say: Jews contributed so much to the sciences, music, arts… So, I say, are you being proud because of somebody else’s achievement? What kind of merit is it of you if Einstein was Jewish? A person can be proud only of things he or she him/herself accomplished, otherwise it’s just asinine unwarranted feeling good about yourself. Here I actually err on the opposite side: while not feeling proud of Jewish achievements, I (irrationally, in most cases) do feel ashamed when Jews do bad things. I feel ashamed about the Bolsheviks and the Zionist terrorists and the neocons, among others.
No, Ed. It is just easy for you to cast me in one of stereotypes for Jews that you conveniently created in your brain: “if he says this – he must mean that” and other such crap. You do so without knowing anything about me and in direct contradiction to things I actually said.
Peter D's understanding of Soviet history reflects the coverup carried out by Jewish academics like Richard Pipes, who distorted the facts rather as his son Daniel Pipes mangles Arab and Islamic history.
Please read my previous comment.
The identification and systematic mass killings of class enemies by Soviet forces and security personnel disproportionately led by Jewish communists were often an expression of Jewish prejudices as Slezkine suggests in his book.
It is ever so much fun to watch the conspiracy theorists dress their stuff up in its finest garb and pretend that it is meaningful.
Ed, you have got to come up with better stuff. This "Jews are really shrewd, but we got them this time material" is just weak.
Joachim, I did not see in your comment or on your site a comprehensible proof of this point. That Jews were overrepresented in the security apparatus is indisputable (a lot of it is blown out of proportion by anti-Semites, who see Jews everywhere. Even the Pole Dzerzhinsky becomes half-Jewish. If you read Russian, see this link, for example).
Jews, indeed, are often overrepresented in just about every side of every issue for various reasons – I believe it is mostly the proverbial "shpilkes in tukhes" combined with education and urge to over-achieve, in a nutshell – which usually makes them the objects of hate from all these different sides, as in the words of Prager and Telushkin in “Why Jews”:
”[…]Jews found themselves in oft-repeated modern Jewish horror story of being hated by both far Left and the far Right[…] (here more…)
I will try to get my hands on Slezkine and see his arguments. Still, the fact that the repressions and purges did not subside but greatly intensified once the NKVD was purged of Jews (and these guys were real good at discovering all the hidden ones) confirms that the problem was not the Jewish presence in itself.
Do you claim that Holodomor, for example, was a Jewish genocide against ethnic Ukranians? What is your evidence, besides the fact that some Ukranian anti-Semites claim that and that there were Jews – just as there were Ukranian and Russians and Poles – among the commissars who confiscated the grain from the Ukranian peasants? Even the well-known anti-Semite Solzhenitsyn who would’ve happily jumped on a n occasion like that totally denies it (in Russian) (in fact, denies the fact of premeditated genocide).
If I have time I will post a more detailed response.
Btw, "Holo" in Holodomor (Голодомор) does not have anything to do with "Holo" as in Holocaust. Holodomor comes from "голод" (famine) and "мор" (death, with overtones of mass death). Just for the record…
Proof that ignorant racist rednecks come from every background and every nation. We should cut military support for this rogue nation immediately. 'Nuff said.
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