Comments on: Former Dutch Premier Says He Is ‘Ashamed’ of Support He Gave Israel While in Office

By: Charles Keating

Charles Keating — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

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?

By: Klaus Bloemker, Frankfurt

Klaus Bloemker, Frankfurt — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

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.)

By: samuelburke

samuelburke — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

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?

By: Klaus Bloemker, Frankfurt

Klaus Bloemker, Frankfurt — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

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?

By: SAMUEL BURKE

SAMUEL BURKE — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

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

By: Ed

Ed — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Charles, in earlier comments you said Hitler had the right idea (more or less). Now you hate him? What's the deal?

By: LeaNder

LeaNder — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

" 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.

By: syvanen

syvanen — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

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.

By: LeaNder

LeaNder — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

"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?

By: Klaus Bloemker, Frankfurt

Klaus Bloemker, Frankfurt — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

- inherent anti-semitic disposition in gentile mankind ?
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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.