The Times at last supplies details and context in the French “anti-semitism” case, a pretty good piece by Steven Erlanger that regrettably has an arch tone. The leftwing cartoonist Sine was fired by a satirical sheet for publishing a cartoon that mocked the fact that Sarkozy’s son is dating a Jewish heiress. I believe Sine used the word Jewess, which Sartre said (as I remember) is the most antisemitic word in the language. The usual alarums are raised, by Elie Wiesel and Bernard-Henry Levy. Some are comparing the case to the Dreyfus affair. I don’t see it. Sine is the one who has lost his job. And look at the Muhammed cartoons. We must be able to mock religions, especially with the old ones cracking and falling around us. Then there is the allegation that to mention Jews, money and politics in the same sentence is antisemitic. This is nuts. We have to be able to talk about these things, especially here, where Sheldon Adelson and Mel Levine from opposite sides are gathering rich Jews to try and sway the outcome of the next election.
I’m most interested in the gossip. So Sarkozy’s son, whom the Times likens to Belmondo, is dating a Jewish girl, daughter of an electronics tycoon. It is evidence of my themes, the new assimilation, the new establishment. Sine said that the young pol is thinking of converting to Judaism; apparently this is not true. Still I reflect that in the last couple of years, Anthony Lake, the foreign policy advisor who won’t go away, and Campbell Brown, the tv reporter married to Dan Senor (former AIPAC intern and spokesman for the Iraq occupation), have converted to Judaism. Maybe that’s a trend? Maybe it’s a story? Certainly it underscores what I said yesterday, that Zionism has become a social value in the new American establishment.
From Haaretz,
"Jean Sarkozy, worthy son of his father and already a UMP councillor, emerged almost to applause after his court case for not stopping after an accident on his scooter," Sine wrote as part of the cartoon's dialogue
"The prosecutor even asked for him to be cleared. You have to remember that the plaintiff was an Arab. And that's not all. He has just said that he wants to convert to Judaism before marrying his fiance, who is Jewish, and heir of the founders of Darty. He will go far in life, this boy!"
The jab at the younger Sarkozy came after he was taken to court for allegedly ramming his scooter into the back of a car and leaving without identifying himself.
The Sarkozy and Darty families went into uproar after the comments were published and threatened to sue the magazine.
The magazine's director Phillipe Val, characterized the column as "peddling a falsehood."
He asked Sine to retract the cartoon, and was reportedly greeted with the response: "I would rather cut off my balls."
This led Val to fire the veteran cartoonist for writing a cartoon with "anti-semitic undertones."
Phil,
I don't see your so-called anti-semitic "Jewess" anywhere. Chock one more up for European hypocrisy. We've got to protect freedom of expression when the cartoons are critical of Islam, but poke fun at anything involving Judaism and the knives come out. Seriously, I don't see even a trace of anti-semitism in his comments. It seems like he is criticizing the younger Sarkozy for being an opportunist, like his father. Oh! I forgot. Anti-semitism has taken on a new meaning, an obscure one that you won't really be able to fathom until the thought police are breaking down your door.
The term "anti-semitism" has been further diluted by this incident, and in standing up for his ideas, especially with a classic line like "I would rather cut off my balls.", Sine appears to be the only admirable one of the whole bunch.
PM
In French juive is no more anti-Semitic than Juedin in German, yidovke in Yiddish, or yehudiyah in Hebrew. The grammar requires feminine forms in refering to females. I have also discussed La Affaire Siné in my blog.
The Hard Right has a serious hard-on for all things Hebrew. Witness the latest drooling speculation over Eric Cantor. Hagee et al. have pretty much transformed American protestant churches into Noahide adjuncts of Kahanist “Judaism”. So really, why not just take the next step?
the jewish quota system of justice for those resisting this jewish popular conversion: palestinian muslim and palestinian christian properties into jewish property:
from lawrence of cyberia:
Killing By Numbers
The Independent ran an article on Friday about Shaul Mofaz, a contender for the Kadima party leadership and presumably, if it looks like Likud is a better bet for electoral success than Kadima, also a contender for the position of Defense Minister in a Netanyahu government. The article describes a briefing Mofaz gave in May 2001 (when he was Army Chief of Staff) in which he reportedly gave verbal instructions to the IDF's senior commanders in the West Bank that he expected from them seventy dead Palestinians every day.
The significant thing about that article is not what it says about Shaul Mofaz: I don't think he is at all unique among the Israeli leadership in his "kill-em-all-let-god-decide" attitude toward the lives of Palestinian people. The significant thing about this article is not that it happens to be Shaul Mofaz who is speaking, but that it shows very senior Israeli officers considering setting a daily quota of Palestinians to be killed. And that is significant because it confirms the testimony of Israeli servicemen who have come forward to describe how they carried out such a policy on the ground in the Occupied Territories during the al Aqsa intifada.
I've already blogged about Israeli soldiers who talked after the fact about killing unarmed Palestinians simply because on a particular night the IDF chain of command would issue verbal orders that any Palestinian found on the street is "sentenced to death".
And this testimony, from an Israeli (former) officer, specifically describes his experience of killing Palestinians in order to fulfil a quota [emphasis mine]:
Captain T. was the commander of an armed high-speed reconnaissance boat. His naval commanders expected him to have a brilliant military career. But soon after Operation Defensive Shield, T. handed back his equipment and went to India. He came home for a visit, and his mother turned to the Breaking the Silence organization to have an activist talk to him. His story, from the spring of 2002, can explain what can happen to a Palestinian family that goes out for a breath of fresh air on the Gaza shore. His words are quoted with necessary cuts and editing:
"After Defensive Shield two boats went down to the area of Sudaniya in the northern Gaza Strip. We had with us representatives of the navy, of the air force, of helicopter units, and of various participating combat units, as well as people from units on the shore, intelligence, etc. One of the senior officers told us that the Israel Defense Forces was acting in very extensively and said that he wanted 'two dead every night'; 'I want at least two "terrorists" every night,' he said, from the beach front. The feeling was of a revenge mission. We waited, two boats, at a distance of about 2,000 meters from the shore.
"We spotted a patrol on the shore going to the beach outside our target area, on the beach itself. About three to four people sat there at the beach and lit a fire, and we noted some action between the (patrol) group and the fire. We had no other identification of these people, no idea who they were, whether they were armed or not.
"When Naval Task Force 13 signaled that they saw weapons at the site, all of us (on the boat) felt very excited. Night after night boats returned from nightly duty without firing a single shot, and now we had such an opportunity. Our feeling was imbued by the aura of 'Defensive Shield,' the (suicide) attacks preceding it and the tension. No wonder I wanted to shoot. I said 'legitimate target' and had the concurrence of all other ranks up to the one giving the order. And we started firing. We continued shooting, aiming at hitting as many as possible, even those carrying the wounded. The problematic issue was that we didn't really know who was sitting around the fire. It could have been the kid brother of someone there, it could have been …we don't know. This happened every night.
"Another incident occurred in the southern area of Khan Yunis. Ten people went into a building. Again there was no discrimination between the armed and the unarmed, and you didn't know exactly who was inside. People started coming from the area to help the wounded and into this chaos we fired at figures running in all directions, to take out as many as possible. Like a video game, click, click, click. I wanted to shoot. In my eyes it was legitimate, otherwise I would have refused. I was crazed.
"It is highly probably that on the beach there was a child of 12 who was waiting with the narghile for his big brother to come back from guard duty. A person like that is not a legitimate target. I think that I am a war criminal. Supposing that people come to me now, and I'm on my trip, and they put me on trial at the International Court of Justice, what can I tell them? I know that I obeyed an order that is illegal in my eyes. If a relative were to come to me now, I would tell him: I am guilty. Your child was murdered for no reason because we wanted to bring two corpses every night."
– Not Just A Security Thing, by Akiva Eldar; Ha'aretz, 20 Jun 2006.
It is the actual killing of Palestinians to meet an arbitrary quota that is the really newsworthy aspect of this story, not whether Mofaz's part in formulating the policy "reinforces [his] image of hawkishness" as he positions himself for a run at the Kadima party leadership.
Sarkozy's sort of Jewish already, which makes the affair a little more complex, nu?
Phil,
Do you know of any Jews in this elevated social group who have converted to Christianity when they married a Christian?
If not, then is this such an equal society after all?
Phil,
Do you know of any Jews in this elevated social group who have converted to Christianity when they married a Christian?
If not, then is this such an equal society after all?
Phil,
Do you know of any Jews in this elevated social group who have converted to Christianity when they married a Christian?
If not, then is this such an equal society after all?
It's a Hollywood-MSM society, so of course not.
If anyone cared to read the Haaretz article on Sarkozy's son to the very end of the piece they would find that this revelation, which apparently came late to the father:
"Sarkozy's family can be traced back to the Jewish community in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki. Sarkozy and his brothers did not know of their Jewish roots until after their grandfather passed away in 1972." Haaretz 8.4.08
So what's the big deal about his son courting a Jew?
An interesting story of conversion from Christianity to Judaism and then from Judaism to Christianity can be found in a Commentary article by Meir Yakov Soloveichik. (Sorry it must be purchased.)
I have read that he is supposed to be the next "Soloveichik", and he has absorbed a lot of philosphy, theology, religious law, and scripture without much understanding.
The hyperlink indicates that I do not think much of "The Rav" (Joseph Soloveichik), and I am hardly impressed that Meir Yakov might be the next "Soloveichik".
MMMM, reminds me of Clinton's ugly hench lady (one of SOG's beauties)–also claimed not to know she was Jewish–the one who told us Arab children deaths were nothing to worry about, else "What good is the vaunted American military?"
Madeline Albright. A la Proust, you always drink in the scent of the madeline; it accounts for your serpentine sentences as you live in your cork-lined room, immune from the street noises.