Only in Haaretz. Here is a profile of the “Dutch Jimmy Carter,” a former premier of the Netherlands, Andreas Van Agt, who has accused Israel of terrorism and describes his awakening:
[H]e became vocal after 1999, when his “eyes were opened” during a traditional Catholic pilgrimage trip to religious sites in the Holy Land.
“I’m driven partly by my shame for not speaking up for the Palestinians when I was in power, and partly by some striking experiences I had when visiting the Occupied Territories in the recent past,” he says. “People often ask me how come I’m so outspoken now, but did not speak up when I was in a position of power. And it’s true, I never spoke up for the Palestinians, except for when Sabra and Shatila happened. And even that was in soft terms.”
Van Agt says he is still “ashamed” that he made effort to sooth matters for Israel after the 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Christian militiamen in an IDF-controlled area of Lebanon. “That was my inclination, that was how I was mentally structured vis-à-vis Israel at the time,” he says.
But much more than Sabra and Shatila, it was the story of one Palestinian young man from Bethlehem which put Van Agt on his present course, according to the ex-premier.
“In one of my visits to Bethlehem I heard a story, which now I know is just one of many,” Van Agt recalls. “It was a story horrendous humiliation of a Palestinian student trying to get to university for a collective exam. His story, which the university president told me, struck me like lightning.”
At the last IDF checkpoint on the way, according to the story which Van Agt says he heard from the university president, the student was pulled over and ordered to climb out of the window. “Then the humiliation began. He fell down and was then ordered to walk on hands and feet and bark. Then the soldiers laughed about the Palestinians all being dogs.”
That story, Van Agt says, served to undermine his former conviction that “everything which Israel does is what it needs to do for its survival.”
Amazing that this story is in the Israeli press. Maybe Israel can save itself? Who will help?
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{ 17 comments }
Every day Americans are every bit as negligent as any average German (circa 1940's, early '40's) about what their government is allowing to happen, and supporting. The Germans had the press, totally controlled, and many families had a radio–given to them by the government an programmed by same. Americans have less excuse. They have the advantage of later world history, cable-tv, the internet, free press, etc. Many have offered the theory the Germans had a special anti-Semitic disposition–Goldhagen gained famed saying so…. What's the American character? Perhaps some new Goldhagen will offer us the vision?
Well, Haaretz is a good paper. Why? Because the original publisher Salman Schoken was a German Jew. I was at the Schocken Museum in Jerusalem and saw Salman`s personal library. All the furniture that had been shipped from Berlin in 1934.
Please don`t take me as a chauvinist for claiming Schocken as a German.
(He was a Zionist.)
all aboard the freedom train…
thanks to jimmy carter and all the others who have had to suffer the wrath of the zionist for years on end.
are you sure this isnt some latent psychological deprivation that goes by the name of antisemitism?
It's by coincidence that my comment follows Charles Keating's.
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There is indeed no such thing as "a special (inherently national) anti-Semitic disposition". Where should it come from? When you think this argument to the very end one would have to claim that there is an inherent anti-Semitic disposition in gentile mankind. Where should it come from?
complicity has a price…the conscience bears the weight of shame.
shame:
1 a: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety b: the susceptibility to such emotion
2: a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute : ignominy
3 a: something that brings censure or reproach; also : something to be regretted : pity b: a cause of feeling shame
Charles, in earlier comments you said Hitler had the right idea (more or less). Now you hate him? What's the deal?
" take me as a chauvinist"
Well it sounds a little chauvinist, but then actually the only articles by our dear Axis-of-the-Good member, Hendryk M. Broder, I admittedly enjoy reading are his occasional portraits of German survivors. So I forgive you.
Klaus wrote:
"When you think this argument to the very end one would have to claim that there is an inherent anti-Semitic disposition in gentile mankind. Where should it come from?"
No it is inherent in human nature. Two factors:
1) xenophobia or fear of the outsider.
2) envy of success.
It is not just antisemitism but was also seen in the oppression of the Armenians in Turkey, the Indians that settled East Africa during the British colonial period and the Chinese in Indonesia (remember 1965).
I am sure there are other examples.
"No it is inherent in human nature. Two factors:
1) xenophobia or fear of the outsider.
2) envy of success."
Could you relate these factors to the American experience with the noble red man, and the black slaves? Since you have already attempted to put it into the larger human context?
- inherent anti-semitic disposition in gentile mankind ?
_________________
I remember an article by Uri Avnery some time ago where he said that the Zionists believed in such an inherent characteristic of the gentile nations. In due course there will be new anti-Semitic governments and discrimination and persecution of Jews. That's why Jews must have their own state and can't live in the diaspora – according to this logic.
David Harris, president of the American Jewish Commitee, often talks about anti-Semitism as "the world's oldest social pathology" as if it were some inherent mental illness of the gentile nations.
He may be right or it may be the other way round: anti-Semitism is by and large the sound reaction to a social pathology called Judaism/Zionism.
"Charles, in earlier comments you said Hitler had the right idea (more or less). Now you hate him? What's the deal?"–Ed
Well, Ed, you qualified your statement about my POV ("more or less"), so what are you driving you at? Please be more specific.
I will say I think "anti-semitism" is rooted in economic insight plus political propaganda tactics, In back turn, look to historical
ethnic economics,
Turnabout is Fair Play
Excerpt: Israel and American Society
by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)
The only real weakness of the Zionist virtual imperial system comes from the mechanisms of societal control that Neocons have created
Only Americans deny to any significant degree that Israel is a murderous terrorist state that is founded in genocide and that casually commits crimes against humanity as a matter of state policy.
As gas prices rise over the summer, Americans may become more open to hearing the truth, and then the [oligarchs, intelligentsia,] staff and organizations of Judonia will become vulnerable to accusations of giving material support to terrorism and of inciting genocide.
If Jews and Jewish organizations do not receive exactly the same treatment as Muslims and Muslim organizations accused of giving material support to terrorism, Jewish officials like Mukasey and Chertoff will be vulnerable to accusations of enforcing one set of laws for Jews and another for non-Jews.[lxxiv]
Well look at it this way Klaus. If anybody should be an expert on genocidal anti-semitism it's a kraut.
"Hating the Jews more than necessary"
Well Sword of Gideon, 'anti-Semitism' is a question of definition to begin with. You can define it (as the Encyclodedia Britannica does) as 'ranging from mild dislike of Judaism and Jews to violent hatred'.
Or you can define it, as the Israeli sociologist Natan Snyder did when he was at a conference in Berlin: " Anti-Semitism is hating the Jews more than necessary". (Actually, he said that that was the definition of the New Yorkers that he liked best.)
The Nazis sure enough 'hated the Jews more than necessary'.
But to call Jimmy Carter 'anti-Semitic' doesn't fit Snyder's defintion.
"Well look at it this way Klaus. If anybody should be an expert on genocidal anti-semitism it's a kraut."
True, Billy Boy, but if this genocidal drive is an essential German feature, than it is really quite easy for the Jewish diaspora. Just stay away from Germany and everything will be fine.
Klaus, I remember the first article by Nathan Snaider I read (FR), or more precisely my absolute resistance. I really had to force myself to read it to the end.
Essentially he said: Israel can't be both Jewish and a democracy; and he wrote, Jewish policy is endangering the diaspora; since the diaspora's rights are based on constituional rights which Israel denies non-Jews.
It was an interesting experience. Most often my reader-resistance seems related to arrogance, or bad style, but this was a very unique experience that did not "obey" any known rule.
Did Hitler have the right idea? – Ed
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Well, he admired the Jews for having kept their 'race' pure over the millenia by strictly adhering to the principle of endogamy. So he modeled the German 'Volksgemeinschaft' accordingly by outlawing intermarrige.
This must have been the right idea since leading Zionists in Germany welcomed this idea in the face of high German-Jewish intermarrige rates in the 1920s.
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