A friend justly took me to task for opening the door on the self-hatred issue, saying this is the blackmail that Israel's defenders often use. I'm reminded of something Noam Chomsky said, in a piece by painter Menachem Wecker, a year or two back:
self-hatred to a piece by the late Israeli foreign minister and United Nations
ambassador Abba Eban, who wrote in Congress Bi-Weekly in 1973, “One of
the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the
distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all.”
“That is a convenient stand,” Chomsky remarked to me. “It cuts off a mere 100
percent of critical comment!”
At the time I was often in the NY Public Library, and dug up Eban's typically high-flown accusation:
anti-Semitism says that the right to establish and maintain an independent
national sovereign state is the prerogative of all nations, so long as they
happen not to be Jewish. And when this right is exercised not by the Maldive Islands, not by the state of Gabon,not by Barbados…
but by the oldest and most authentic of all nationhoods, then this is said to
be exclusivism, particularism, and a flight of the Jewish people from its
universal mission.
I do not believe that any argument however sophisticated, can
probably change the convictions of Noam Chomsky or of I.F. Stone, whose basic
complex is one of guilt about Jewish survival. They feel themselves associated with our unpardonable audacity at not
having been destroyed or eclipsed or, more accurately, at not having been
merged into some homogenized universalist utopia.
Unfortunate that Eban never cared about Arabs' human rights. For my own part, I can't be as dismissive as NoCho (I'm working at that one). Unlike Chomsky, I do get into people's personal motivation all the time. I accuse the neocons of dual loyalty, of having an unspoken religious agenda. It only seems fair that when they challenge me about self-hatred/assimilation, that I be open with them about my Jewish heart and its many transgressions. Also, I think it is true that some of the things I say out of a "universalist" impulse reflect the fact that I was raised in a very tribal atmosphere and found it claustrophobic. I would like to be honest about all this, even if someone accuses me of bootlicking the goyim. Besides, I have confidence: All these cats is going out the window, tomorrow!
The way that accusers use the term "self-hating Jew", is to differentiate between loyal and disloyal.
Like ALL invocations of disloyalty, its an over-simplistic definition, that doesn't match reality.
Phil's expression of shame or guilt as to Jews' collective behavior, seems to me to be an attempt at pride of one's culture, not an expression of contempt for it.
That assesment of pride is based on the degree that Jews succeed in healing the world, in transforming it from a world of harrassment to a world of conciliation and enjoyment.
So, if its a great goal, the next question would be how to do it well, effectively, in which relationships primarily, at what social scale primarily?
And, to consciously consider what two steps backward accompany three steps forward?
"Self-hate" itself is a discussion for self-inquiry, therapy. When one hates themselves, that is not all that enjoyable or productive.
I believe that humans ARE tribal beings, as well as universal humanists, that we do have families that we are intimate with, and communities of families that are predisposed to support us and the flipside to oppose our enemies.
I am by nature DUALLY LOYAL, (many more than dually) and proud of it.
“One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all.”
Jewish thought patterns along those lines for centuries — NOT innate racial hatred of Jews in gentiles — are the real root of Western (and probably Arab) anti-semitism. We all know Zionism, which perhaps started as a legitimate Jewish sovereignty movement, has devolved into an ethnic racket. In fact, all Jewish communal movements seem to similarly devolve as the despicable and tenacious money-worshipping Jews glom on and interweave themselves. The community then becomes a vehicle for their chicanery and abuses (why it allows this is perhaps related to the sneering, anti-gentile Talmud) which spurs a gentile backlash and — voila! — you get anti-semitism. (Black criminals screaming racism to cover their crimes is a comparable phenomenon, and itself a primary source of racism.)
Back in the mid-1960's there was a coffee table book titled The Family Of Man. Not a line or picture in it supported any tribe. It was give to me by an America-Jewish girl, who felt she had to marry a Jew as to do otherwise would break her parents' heart.
She hated the David Dukes of the World.
Do trailer trash have parents?
Kapo guilt.
Witty: "I am by nature DUALLY LOYAL, (many more than dually) and proud of it."
This is one of the main reasons, I suspect, so many people around here get so upset with you. You appear to care far more about Israel than you do the United States and then you justify this on the grounds that everyone has dual loyalties. But most people don't. Most dual-loyalty types are Zionists on the left and neo-conservatives on the right. Everyone else puts America first. It's only Zionists who, when America is at war, run off to fight for Israel instead.
"She hated the David Dukes of the World. Do trailer trash have parents?"
As you recognize, anon, tenacious white activist David Duke is merely the flip side of the tenacious Jewish Zionist activist. But does this make him white trash? No more or less so than the Jewish Zionist activist is "Jewish trash." But he has been construed as white trash in the media, whereas the Jewish Zionists have been celebrated by media. What they all are is supremacists, even including black supremacists like Reverend Wright, who similar to Jewish Zionists, apparently believes atrocious treatment of whites is totally justified (ie black on white crime, which has reached astronomical numbers).
They all are also the enemy of good social order, and law and order, which makes them all the enemy of progress. They long for the primitive, simple world of clear cut tribal lines and vicious tribal conflicts because they are primitive people. And primitive peoples inevitably get ground into the ash heap of history, almost by definition. History does discriminate — not necessarily against races, but against intellectual primates, and against those races that embrace primitivism. "Progressives" should recognize that’s how progress is made.
Ed, I totally agree with you. I fully realize the term "trailer trash" or "redneck" is similar to "kike" or "yid" or "coon" or "jungle monkey" or "pollack" etc.
Nobody despised the polish jews more than the german jews.
Maybe we need a new pool of fresh fish for the Jerry Springer show?
Just to even things up–so we all can laugh while it hurts.
Both Ed and Witty make interesting points.
I agree with you, Richard. I also have many loyalties. Along with my family, friends and country, and Jews in general, I am loyal to the idea of the rule of law and my religious beliefs. They are often in conflict.
The main problem with Zionism in the US is that it involves using the blood and treasure of this nation to achieve personal political goals in another nation, without regard to whether it is good for the US. This is a problem no matter who does it. Don't even get me started on the disasters Cuban exiles have caused in our Cuban policy!
If one wishes to heavily lobby the US to start a war with Iran because its "good for the Jews" one will have to contend with dual-loyalty accusations. What happens when what is defined as "good for the Jews" is not good for America?
Thanks for linking my article; I really appreciate it. You make some very important points here as well.