So far everything I've quoted from the conference in NY yesterday on Jews uniting to end the war (six years after the war started) has been positive. Very forward statements from Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, Elizabeth Holtzman, and MJ Rosenberg. These people are saving the Jews from neoconservatism.
Now's when I get into the problematic stuff: the ways that progressive Jewish organizations were basically coopted by neocons on Iraq because the two groups share Zionist feeling. Jewish communal organizations will be dealing with this question for decades to come, you saw the first signs of it yesterday-- because one of the great foreign policy disasters in American history, the Iraq war, resulted in some measure from this Jewish collapse. Indeed, the neocons' support for the wicked occupation influenced liberal Jews to be indifferent to it.
This is of course one of the central concerns of this blog, and I thought to mention a couple incidents at the conference that show the problem in a petri dish.
Diane Balser is the head of Brit Tzedek. She spoke on a panel about Middle East policy and basically said, I'm more comfortable with the right than the left.
She said, “I have right wing relatives. Some voted for McCain even.” But when we discuss the issue of Israel/Palestine—“They are for the two state solution.” So that’s a good thing. She has many differences with them. “They may have anti-Arab racist feelings….. And most of them supported the war in Iraq.” And we have to make it clear that we are different from them on Israel/Palestine when we talk to congressmen. “This is very confusing to us.”
It was a sincere statement of confusion about who she's in bed with politically. I went up to Balser afterward and said, it interests me that you are engaged with these neocons. But there's also a tradition in Jewish life of anti-Zionist Jews and non-Zionist Jews--none of whom were included in the conference. None of whom you're engaged with. She said, somewhat dismissively, "They’re not for the two state solution." Well some of them actually are, I said; I am--just to end the cycle of violence (so long as it is a fair solution in the eyes of Palestinians).
Later I ran into Jane Toby, a non-Zionist. She told me she went up to Balser and said that she was for a one-state solution and Balser basically said she wanted nothing to do with her.
So: Brit Tzedek will talk uncomfortably with the neocons, or the ones who are for a two state solution, but not talk to the left. Because they and the neocons are joined in doing everything to preserve the Jewish state, even if it means overlooking or softpedalling apartheid.
Lilly Rivlin, the former head of Meretz USA, spoke openly of the dual loyalty issue, though she did not call it that. She said that Jews were largely silent on the Iraq war because "we don’t want to look at the fact that Israel has a different self-interest than America has.” This seemed to me a straight declaration of dual loyalty. I.e., a war is not in the US interest, and we know it, but we support it anyway or, are on the sideline, because of Israel... THIS IS PRECISELY WHY I BEGAN THIS BLOG: because my own relative said to me 6 years ago, "I demonstrated against the Vietnam war, but my Jewish newspaper says this war could be good for Israel." A war, I'd add, in which none of his children will serve.
Rivlin understands the ruination brought on by the neocons and their friends. She said, “I think the greatest threat to Israel are rightwing American Jews.”
The settlements are the biggest problem Israel has to deal with, and “the loud ones are American Jews. Until we deal with that, then there’s no movement.” And “the threat is a civil war.” And so Rivlin is saying exactly what John Mearsheimer has said, that the threat to Israel's future now is not from the Arabs so much as it is from within. Zionism must overcome the Zionist vision, as it is experienced by vision-quest ethnocentric American Jews who want to hold M-16s in Judea and Samaria.
I see Rivlin's understanding as progress. But not enough. When will progressive blue state American Jews, members of the richest group in American society, beneficiaries of the greatest minority freedoms in the world, understand that their true partners in Israel/Palestine are the Arabs. Arabs who want justice. Arabs who seek education and reform. Reach out to them. We can break down any wall together. Get over the fucking racism against Arabs. They are people too. And we will need them to overcome our religious fringe, as they will need us to overcome theirs. We can’t fight them on our own.
But imagine an Obama coalition of Arabs and Jews, modern people, wanting equal rights and self-government for all people in the spirit of Lincoln. It would be transformative. And it’s the only way. Jews cannot do this on their own.
What will the progressive Zionists lose? In the end, yes: they may lose the idea of a Jewish state. It's true, that is the understanding that the Jewish left has already come to, and that the prog-Zios aren't willing to make. But as the two-state solution fails to happen and fails to happen, and as apartheid happens and happens and happens for Palestinians, what is there to say for a Jewish state?
A year or so back at a panel I did with progressive Zionist Annie Roiphe, she scoffed at me over this, and said, if you are going to take a step back from the Jewish state, in a sea of hostile Arabs, then I can't be with you. I know why Roiphe said this, because she has a belief in antisemitism as a major factor in western life (as Doug Feith does). In fact Roiphe said in this Danny Pearl book, that she remembers Kristallnacht, "like yesterday." Well, I don't remember it like yesterday; that in the end is the real division here. Between Jews who believe that antisemitism in the west makes the Jewish state a necessity, and those who don't.
If you believe that the Jewish state is a necessity for Jews in the west, then you will always find yourself in bed with the neocons, and they will tell you that the Arabs are essentially Nazis and Israel is always in existential crisis. And if you don't believe these things, then you: were out on the barricades opposing the Iraq war, and now you: are willing to imagine Israel as a state of its citizens. Diane Balser's confusion is a profound one in American Jewish life today. And in the end it reminds us what the anti-Zionists warned us about 60 years ago: With the law of return (what counterpunch aptly calls the "iniquitous law of return") you are setting up a structure for dual loyalty in Jewish citizens of the U.S.
"Yesterday demonstrated the political limitation of Jewish communal organizations for me. At some point you are doing a potato sack race–or whatever you call that race where your leg is tied to someone else– with a neocon."
Another mondoweiss treat!
Best post I ever read here. Colossal. Congrats, Phil.
If Israel really existed within a sea of hostile Arabs it would have been defeated along time ago. The Arabs have been guilty of being to open to the idea of Israel – or at least there leaders have been. Hence the relative quiet from the Arab world as the Gaza prison continues in lock-down.
This point is a great summation:
"But as the two-state solution fails to happen and fails to happen, and as apartheid happens and happens and happens for Palestinians, what is there to say for a Jewish state?"
I still say that "Progressive Zionist" is basically equivalent to "Progressive White Nationalist". It's like a white South African in the '80s saying, "We want a more humane apartheid" rather than "We must put an end to apartheid."
The great divide between the liberal left on Israel and the radical left.
The radical left willingly condemns the liberal left on Israel, willingly calls them/us racists, complicit, "in bed". With the litmus testing, the only option is politically correct, OR politically incorrect. No relative appreciation, no respect for differences, no willingness to agree to disagree.
The liberal left stays away from the radical left. The radical left scares away the centrists that actually govern, and rationally make any SUCCESS at reform much more difficult.
Of course, there are those on the radical left that do speak respectfully to all, and without misleading (or misapprehending).
The radical left IS willing to march with far right fascists (American or Arab) on the themes of either pro-Palestine, or anti-Zionism.
Which is odder?
The radical left is odder, in that they willingly choose the path of exclusion (they're exclude, they exclude, their means of affecting the situation is by force from outside rather than convincing).
They could convince if they took the time to respectfully and convincingly disagree.
Even the one-staters would get people's ear if their focus was on CREATING the relationships and conditions that make a single state possible, rather than ONLY complaining about the current.
That sack race is getting interestinger and interestinger. Likud is a virtual certainty to win the forthcoming elections so guess who your sackmates will be.
It's not a new phenomenon that organized Jewish groups and Israel-firsters split with the rest of the progressive movement over war and peace issues. There is a long history of this.
Many church groups supported the nuclear freeze movement in the 1980's, but you could hardly find a synagogue among the long lists of sponsors — the Cold War was considered good for Israel and especially for its campaign to get Russian Jews to settle in Israel.
Jewish groups were likewise mostly absent from the anti-intervention activities in Latin America at a time when Israel was up to its neck in providing military support to Central American dictators and death squads as a US surrogate.
Conspicuously missing also in the anti-Apartheid campaign at a time when Israel had a close alliance with the racist South African regime and was teaching and learning how to apply some of its methods to its own treatment of the Palestinians.
This is not to say that there weren't very many individual Jews, then as now, active on the right (that is "left") side — but that they did not challenge their so-called tribal leadership on these issues. Nor are most wiling to do so now. . .
Since babelfish doesn't do Zioschmooze-to-English, I am trying to translate Witty's statements by hand. The going is tough, people.
–
They could convince if they took the time to respectfully and convincingly disagree.
For this I got:
Your impoliteness leaves us no choice but to exterminate the Palestinians and take all their resources.
–
The radical left IS willing to march with far right fascists
Radicals of every stripe are plotting in unison against the Jews! (?)
–
With the litmus testing, the only option is politically correct, OR politically incorrect.
The pH of anti-Zionism is decidedly alkaline, OR acid. (?)
–
The radical left scares away the centrists that actually govern
The status quo is eminently reasonable and just needs a few tweaks.
I'm guessing the 'radical left' you're talking about, Richard are those, like myself, who have lost faith in the Israel side to have an honest role in the peace process.
But that's what being able to see the systemic racism and fanaticism inherent in 40 plus years of Israeli occupation and belligerence will do to a person.
But for you it's the left that is obstacle to peace.
Maybe you'd like to offer an example of how the "radical left scares away the centrists that actually govern, and rationally make any SUCCESS at reform much more difficult."?
I know I'd love to hear you expand on that one….
Phil:
…as it is experienced by vision-quest ethnocentric American Jews who want to hold M-16s in Judea and Samaria.
Colin:
LOL Phil, that is insightful and full-on frakking hilarious. Thanks.
RE: "They could convince if they took the time to respectfully and convincingly disagree."
Witty, you mean the likes of Balser?
I might consider working more closely with those left wing Zionists who ARE willing to work with the radical left.
I might consider working more closely with those on the radical left who ARE willing to work with left wing Zionists.
So far, the dominant voices in both camps serve to exclude me and my desire to be part of a vibrant, diverse and humane left. I will say that on a personal level, most of the Zionists I run into are much more pleasant to deal with. But suggest that a just solution just might not require the dismantling of the Jewish state, right now, and then you get it with both barrels from the pro-Pal crazies: Zionist! Racist! Get out!
The thing that I don't understand about all this revulsion towards a one-state solution even amongst the most liberal folks is their apparent blindness towards what it really means.
Given that their argument is nothing less than the idea that jews are entitled to their own state if they want it, well then what possible objection can they have if, say, the Christians in the U.S. or Europe or whoever/wherever wanted to kick their jews out?
They say they fear anti-semitism, but my goodness is there a better recipe for justifying the expulsion of jews from their Diaspora homes than jews themselves—including those living in those Diaspora homes themselves!—justifying the exclusion of others from Israel?
@Sin Nombre
A two state solution does not mean that Israel will expell all Israeli Arabs into the new Palestinian state. (However, it does mean expelling all Jews from the new Palestinian state.)
The Jews just want a state where they can insure that the "past" won't happen again.
Michael W again – The Jews just want a state where they can insure that the "past" won't happen again.
Unless the victims are Palestinian instead of Jewish. Then it's fine.
Charles – I will say that on a personal level, most of the Zionists I run into are much more pleasant to deal with.
For some it's booze, for others it's schmooze. What can I say?
But suggest that a just solution just might not require the dismantling of the Jewish state, right now, and then you get it with both barrels from the pro-Pal crazies: Zionist! Racist! Get out!
LOL! The pro-Pal crazies. I'm not pro-Pal bub, I'm pro-Human. Pro-Human rights. Even yours! Everyone's!
I just happen to prefer truth to Zionist propaganda and schmooze. No offense intended, Charles.
ONE
.Which is odder?
The radical left is odder, in that they willingly choose the path of exclusion (they're exclude, they exclude, their means of affecting the situation is by force from outside rather than convincing).
TWO
What do you say to those who claim that a two-state solution is necessary
demographically in order for Israel to retain a Jewish majority and remain
a democracy?
I say they're full of sh-t. The people of Israel always were for the right of the Jewish people to return to the land of their forefathers – which included Transjordan. And now we have given 80 percent of this land to the Kingdom of Jordan.
Do you think that the Palestinians should live in Jordan, then?
No, I think that whoever wants to live in this land is welcome to live here.
With full equal rights?
With full equal rights as citizens. There will be one little state of the
Jewish people called the Land of Israel – Eretz Yisrael – which will have
a Jewish majority. Do I believe this? Unfortunately I do, because I'm not
so sure that anti-Semitism has subsided. And we will be forced to leave
what we call the Diaspora, and come to our own land.
Likud MK Yuval Steinitz has warned of the enhancement of Egypt's navy and
its current move to an open sea capability for which he says Israel must
prepare. Do you agree ?
Steinitz is quite a guy. And since I'm a seaman, I agree that the sea is
very open – which means it is not improbable that they may try to invade
from the sea. But our seamen are not worse than theirs. In fact, I think
ours are even better than the British, who are considered the seamen. The
bottom line is that we have to be strong and prepared, because we have no
choice.
@MM,
What do you think of Hamas? Are Kurds human too? What did you do for the Kurds?
All the Palestinians really want is a Palestinian state where they are in the democratic majority, a homeland in their land from time immemorial, an eternal safe haven for all their wandering people.
That's gotta be worth 30 billion for the next decade, a gift in cash
up front from Joe The Plumber and Sarah The Pageant Queen.
Michael W,
Go visit a blog focusing on Kurdish issues if you want to discuss Kurds. Stop the Zio–dissembling; everyone who reads this blog regularly is well versed in and totally bored with your AIPAC talking points.
PM
"I will say that on a personal level, most of the Zionists I run into are much more pleasant to deal with."
Elevator muzak (Richard Witty) is more pleasant to listen to than Bill Evans or Ornette Coleman (Ed / J. Martillo), as the latter require a commitment from the listener to reflect on and try to reach an understanding of what is being expressed. Elevator muzak, on the other hand, has little or no message, and is written to hypnotize the listener until he reaches his floor, or the doctor is ready to see him.
Solutions to seemingly impossible problems are rarely "pleasant". They requre first a deep understanding of the history of and background to the conflict, and secondly, a willingness to deal with the "other" as an equal. Concessions must be made on both sides – rarely are they "pleasant", but always necessary.
PM
The recession is a perfect blowback for the waste and debt of the war on terror. How fitting, that the crash will limit further financial support for israel. Which will force her to get along with her neighbours. It is American support that is ruining Israel's chance for peace – and for a Jew to be a respectable title.
This is like listening to a bunch of southern whites complain about the "uppity niggers" who commit many crimes, and then complaining that those coons are so sensitive to the truth.
Michael W. wrote:
"A two state solution does not mean that Israel will expell all Israeli Arabs into the new Palestinian state."
Well I think that's a valid point Mike although I think it's a rather limited one too, right? That is, okay, so these progressive jews who are against a one-state solution aren't really asking for a jewish-only state per se, but instead just a … "permanent majority jewish/jewish dominated state."
But that still isn't all that broad-minded, is it? All it does is change my question to asking how one can appeal for a "permanent majority jewish/jewish dominated" state—but then object to others in other countries looking to expel however many of their jews so as to create a sufficiently "permanent majority Christian/Christian dominated" state.
You then write:
"The Jews just want a state where they can insure that the 'past' won't happen again."
Well of course in the first place that doesn't go at all towards the issue of having a state that includes the colony of the West Bank and etc., which would seem an entirely separate issue. Although on the other hand it seems worth mentioning that for some partisans of Israel at least it doesn't seem to be all that separate. That is, it appears that for the sake of that colonization they seem to feel that risking a one-state solution—which they equate with the death of Israel of course—is absolutely worth it.
But yeah; I understand how the Shoah is the argument that lies behind so much of the idea of a separate jewish state. And I have unlimited sympathy for the victims of Hitler and their families who must feel it cruel when they express that sentiment you note. but then see it used by anti-semites to accuse them of harboring some kind of chauvinism. (When in fact it has seemed to me that with most such victims they have arrived at that sentiment via only a profound sadness.)
But the world can't be run on emotion, no matter how deep it's felt I don't think, and so I think you still have to look to reason and logic.
In the first place of course the Zionist enterprise was launched long before the Shoah, and I think you can indeed see that the hope and indeed many actions towards creating a jewish-only, "eretz/greater Israel" did indeed pre-date the Holocaust too, right? So to a big degree it can seem only an ex post facto rationalization at best (and a cynical opportunism at worst) to cite that horror too much, true?
Plus, the world has seen ethnic/religious/racial/tribal/class slaughters aplenty and yet we don't condone the idea that each and every victim class created thereby has the right to dispossess others of their lands and have their own exclusionary country so as to "insure that THEIR past can't happen again."
After all the central engine of the Holocaust was exclusionism, and so again endorsing just a different form of it, no matter how much more humane even, sure doesn't do much to stamp it out.
Look at Russia and many of its past component and even satellite countries like Poland: Courtesy of the Bolsheviks there was no less of a Holocaust that took place there especially amongst the Christian peasants. Millions if not tens of millions ntentionally starved to death and even turned into cannibals in the Ukraine alone, and so once again we have oceans and oceans of justifiable emotion, right? And no matter the historian it seems clear that the ranks of the Bolsheviks that started and then conducted all of same were way way disproportionately filled with jewish folks, and that this was especially true of the Bolshevik secret police and official torturers and famine-minder ranks, and others of the most bloody-minded sort like Trotsky.
So does this entitle peasant Christian Russians and/or those in the Ukraine or Poland to insist on being "permanent majority Christian/Christian dominated" states and to expel however many jews it takes to achieve this? All in the name of their very own deeply felt "never again" sentiment?
Obviously I think most people would recoil in horror at that. But it sure seems to me that a good deal of the Israeli exclusionism that we see advocated by its partisans condones exactly that, and so again I just don't understand how they believe that such condonation is in the long-term interests of the jewish people.
Can't really blame the Jews for wanting their own nation state. They were treated harshly by too many of their Christian neighbors in Europe and relegated to dhimmi status in the Islamic World. They finally took it upon themselves to find their own little corner of the earth where they would not have to worry about the majority populace having their way with them whenever they felt like it. There is much that insular Jewish behaviors did to contribute to the poor relations with some of their populations of their host countries, but for whatever the resons, Jews were often made to feel not part of the majority populace. hence the "Jewish Question" that vexed so many Jewish and non-Jewish scholars. The Dreyfus Affair convinced Herzl that the Jews would never be free from the terror of the masses, until they were to have their own land, their own self-defense army, and their own ability to create a moral and just society, free from the yoke of racism they were burdened with in Europe. Herzl would likely recoil at the extremist settlers and view them as corrupters of Zionism. The holocaust does not justify in any way the oppression of another people. But it does pose an incredibly powerful force among jews and non-jews to justify the need for a small state where jews are the majority and capable of defending themselves against the madness of other groups' crazies. That they have allowed their own crazies to gain power and influence is a problem that must be resolved, but anyone who really studies the nazis' and their willing executioner's, pursuit of killing and raping the Jews and too much of the world's indifference to this, can understand the Jews' need for a haven. The Jews are no better than any other group, but nor are they any worst. Any other group of people in the same situation would likely have come to the same conclusion, and if they had the means to do so would have created a haven for themselves. The Bosnian Muslims ethnically cleansed Bosnian Serbs who had lived in the Krajina for centuries link to srpska-mreza.com
but at least there seemed to be some karma involved here, as the representatives of the Bosnian Serbs did wonderful imitations of Nazis. I've yet to hear anyone in this forum complain about that ethnic cleansing. I don't think anyone would blame the Palestinians from ethnically cleansing Settler Jews from the West Bank once they gain control of it, given what the Palesintians have gone through at the hands of the Zionists. At the same time I find it not hard to understand why both the Jews and the Palestinians would want their own nations. Too few in either group seems to consider the other equal to them or equally human, and many in both groups demonize the other horribly. While it is the Palestinians living under the boot of the Israelis, the Israelis see themselves as the David to the Arab and Muslim world's Goliath, and feel perpetually at risk – and perhaps for good reason. Both groups are a bit disturbed. One state for both people is a beautiful idea that neither seems to genuinely want, especially the group that would constitute the minority. Rolling back the settlements (or better yet, pulling out the settlers and contributing the settlements to the new Palestinian state and creating home for the refugees)is necessary, but not necessarily sufficient for a lasting resolution.
"The Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, OBVIOUSLY, as Jews, but rather, as Stalinists, communists, and 'Soviet people'."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3342999,00.html
Reason, Sin Nombre, has nothing to do with the matters discussed on this blog. Entering here you are immersed in religion and emotion. It is a pure-denial universe where down-to-earth people eventually perceive they got too much down into the earth until beside the glittering sparks comming from the light at the end of the tunnel there came the unmistakable sulphuric scent of the roaring flames of hell. That's Mondoweiss, a lifestile for the willingly insane and pathetically hopeful…
I'm sorry, please do continue…
Someone with the peculiar nickname of Jesusmaker complains above in this thread that reading this blog is like listening to a bunch of southern whites complain about the "uppity niggers". This complaint reflects what I can only assume is a psychic inability to actually read the blog.
I agree. This blog sure does sound a lot like people complaining about a certain minority. Those "uppity Jews" influencing foreign policy. "Too much Jewish power". You keep complaining about it but the only thing you can do about it is resort back to "quotas", concentration camps, or expulsion.
All that is done here is complain. You guys say: "stop foreign influence on our government." Since when is influence by Americans (read Jewish Americans) foreign?
Acceptance that not everybody agrees with you is the first step. It will make you much happier.
Michael, the comparison between the zionist establishment Jews of the USA and the blacks of the USA is a moronic comparison. 'Blaming the victim' hardly does more than point in its general direction. It's so far beyond hypocritical that I assume you are really and truly moronic in saying you agree with it.
"You keep complaining about it but the only thing you can do about it is resort back to "quotas", concentration camps, or expulsion."
I have this strange condition, whenever I read one guy I feel the taste of truth in the words of another one. Michael words tastes like "fouled nests."
Now tell me what you think of the scene of a jew talking to americans like they are german war prisoners in chains: "all you can do now is complain." I think of the words of yet another mondoweissian sage from flyover lands: "poetic symmetry."
Michael W.:
Since when is influence by Americans (read Jewish Americans) foreign?
Colin Murray:
The origin of the 'influence' is domestic in origin, as you correctly point out, when exercised by Jewish Americans. The object or GOAL of the influence is foreign when it is designed to benefit a foreign government or a foreign political party or faction, at the expense of the American people, and yes, at the expense of Jewish Americans as well. Did you not think it through before you asked your question, or do you truly think we are all morons?
Can you please point out to me any other examples of Americans using their domestic influence to benefit another country.
ConNombre:
About as fine and persuasive a post as can possibly be made I think. And I see where you caught out the mistake I made responding to Michael W. where when he talked about jews wanting to avoid "the past" I just immediately thought of and talked about the Holocaust and not all the other torments history has inflicted on the jews.
I would still observe though that your fine argument still leaves the jewish/Israeli "exclusionists/exclusivists" (for want of a better word, and not meaning to be polemical at all) balanced on a thinnish reed at least from a PR standpoint I think. I.e., essentially admitting that no, they are not simply wanting what the world readily welcomes in other countries anymore, but are now arguing instead that their situation constitutes a … world-historical special case, so to speak.
Special pleading is always a tough thing to prevail at on the popular level, of course, and again even on the level of professional historians there's things like the experience of the Christian slavs under the Communists I mentioned. On the other hand there's no denying that there are many fine historians who would indeed say that the jewish situation still does constitute a world-historical special case, so I guess it's just one of those things that is beyond any final intellectual answer. I know that I was quite moved on both the emotional as well as the intellectual level after reading Abba Eban's great book "My People," although part of that may well have been the attraction you can't help feel for deeply humane intellectuals like Eban.
So even despite that I at least still couldn't shake the feeling that the "exclusionists/exclusivists" are swimming against the historical tide that will ultimately decide this thing as a practical matter at some distant point in the future I think. Anonymous for instance talks about how the jewish commissars weren't acting as jews in doing what they did to the Christian slavs, but that would be irrelevant in countering the point of other potential exclusionists/exclusivists such as those Russian or Ukrainian or Polish slavs. After all, when they say they want to create a "never again" situation just like the jews with an exclusivist Israel, their seemingly logical point would simply be that "it's irrelevant whose name we were murdered and starved in, we just know many of those who disproportionately did so and thus just like the Israelis want to exclude their past tormenters we simply want to exclude as many of ours as possible too."
Again then it seems to me to really just come down to whether one believes in the idea of collective guilt or not. If jewish folks are going to embrace it to justify the exclusion of Christians and Moslems and whomever because they were their tormentors before, then I don't see what's stopping everyone else from claiming collective guilt too, and as far as I can see that means war by everyone on everyone else. And it's always struck me as a particularly odd thing too for jewish folks to be embracing collective guilt given that it was that same exact sentiment that was used to justify so much of their torment by Christians under the insane banner that "they killed Jesus!"
In any event and again what a thoughtful post that was of yours and what a pleasure it's been talking with you and everyone else on this thread.
ConNombre, excellent post. Very wise and educated. Please post some more.
AND, RE: ""The Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, OBVIOUSLY, as Jews, but rather, as Stalinists, communists, and 'Soviet people'."
CORRECT ostensibly. Not obviously as Jews. But the leaders of the
1917 revolution knew what they were doing when they favored
Jews over white Russian elites (CZARists) and the masses, as their
choice implementers. Stalin learned that his communist superstate
would never effectively fight the invading Germans under the
banner of Communism–he had to allow in the orthodox Christian church and the feeling of patriotic blood and soil invaded
to gain his cannon-fodder.
It's always the goy masses who get screwed, every regime change in history.
Ah, yes, SinNombre, that's why Poland, Hungary, and Czech were emptied of "Zionists" and "cosmopolitans" in 1956 and '68. All that Jewish support for the Holodomor. Not that the USSR found luke-warm Jewish Commies inconvenient, and that White and Red have always been united against "The International Jew".
Israel exists because Jews got tired of getting it in the neck from both sides. And this blog is just another power-play.
Penalty! Excessive use of sarcasm. Go back three spaces to the jail space. No roll-and-move until some other player perceives the DENIAL card was laid face up at the top of the deck. If that doesn't happen you OBVIOUSLY are the game's fool. Pick your anonymous meeple monkey and return to your third world tree… and beware of the door closing on your tail… and pay no heed to the giggling… and go post in "here"!
Eurosabra wrote:
"Ah, yes, SinNombre, that's why Poland, Hungary, and Czech were emptied of "Zionists" and "cosmopolitans" in 1956 and '68."
Yes, disgusting. Crimes "justifying" crimes in an endless cycle with everyone blaming everyone else of having committed the first.
That's why I think maybe the strongest argument that exists for those who oppose a one-state solution and are jewish "exclusivists" or etc. isn't any special pleading about the uniqueness of jewry but instead a sort of statute of limitations plea. Regardless of what we think of it today, the world essentially established/recognized Israel as a state back in '47 or whenever and at some point there's a need to have some final resolution on things and that ought to be it. Indeed seems really strong to me.
The problem now of course is that it seems that the biggest endangerment to a two-state solution has been self-inflicted by Israel via its expanionism since '67.
@Colin Murray,
any policy, either foreign or domestic, is about the actions of our own government. It's what our government want us to do. Did foreign aid for Britain during WW2 not also a benefit of a foreign government. What's the difference between aid to England and aid to Israel? Well, one is the Jew among the nations, the other is …. idk … anglo-saxon.
Eurosabra, it just struck me that all of your arguments are perfectly reasonable, but they don't amount to justification for anything more than what was called at the time (disdainfully) a nachtasyl. I rather wonder whether, at least at some points in her life, Hannah Arendt might not have agreed with me: a nachtasyl is understandable, but it may pop up somewhere that is quite untenable, in the long term.
Rowan,
That's because I take after Left Palestinian nationalism to the extent that I make a claim for a secular state. If I want to go Mafdal, I can, but then it becomes a question of theocrat vs. theocrat. Or Chabad like my relatives, and wait for the Messiah.
Of all the Zionists here, I probably have the most-developed pied-noir consciousness, and, quite frankly, I expect a nachtasyl to be all that Zionism can be–lacking the manpower of the missing 6 million and their descendants. I don't know if an inclusive Zionism would have done any better, given the constant Islamist current in Palestinian political thought. Lots of political projects fail, Israel could, if it wanted, put paid to Palestinian nationalism on a more-or-less permanent basis, the way Islam uprooted Jewish peasant culture in the Galilee in the 630s-680s. That doesn't indicate anything other than a balance of material forces, though.
Eurosabra, Re: "Israel exists because Jews got tired of getting it in the neck from both sides. And this blog is just another power-play."
To some extent true. Zionism began with the trial of a Jewish French officer–the essential charge was dual loyalty. I am an American, born much later. In my whole life of plus-60 years, I fail to see
why (Gentile) American lives and treasure should be sacrificed on the altar
of the Jewish cross.
Please explain. And when you do, you should know I am from the American lower middle class, and we provide the bulk of the
US soldiers, as well as the bulk of US tax money.
Israel's relationship with the US, besides the '47 vote, began with the French embargo in '67. The military aid is at least partly a form of corporate welfare for American defense contractors who want Israelis to test their systems in-field, upgrade them, and then license the upgrades back to the US for less than the R&D and production costs. Christian Zionism is also THE major reason behind the "special relationship", a theological underpinning for a set of aligned interests which are no less real for being irrelevant to the great mass of citizens of both nations.
"the altar of the Jewish cross." Too cute. Do you think the Iraq war, a long-term project of the Bush family, is "Jewish" in origin? Really?
This is a sad case of a conversation getting lost in the archives just as it gets interesting.
Israel could, if it wanted, put paid to Palestinian nationalism on a more-or-less permanent basis, the way Islam uprooted Jewish peasant culture in the Galilee in the 630s-680s.
I can hear all the left-wing jewish historians asking, "do you really imagine that 'islam' drove out 'jewish' peasants with fire and the sword?"
Okay, for-profit free-lance militias of local Muslim feudal lords, trying to personally cash in on the Conquest.
It was ONE crucial step in urbanizing/exiling Jews, and it meant the final end of Jewish free-holding agricultural land ownership in Arab-Muslim Palestine for roughly a thousand years, which was a crucial element in constructing dhimmitude as restricted communal ownership rights, restricted personal rights. The origin of Falastin rests on conquest in Holy War.
I met Mark Cohen once and he essentially said the same thing to me, BTW. Totally unsurprising. Of course, left-wing Jewish historians dominate academe but the State of Israel has managed to survive despite them.
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Eurosabra wrote:
"Christian Zionism is also THE major reason behind the 'special relationship.'"
Oh this seems to me to be clearly mistaken. My perception is that it really has only been since Bush II's tenure that we have seen Christian Fundamentalist whooping for pro-Israel policies in anything like a big, possibly influential way. And thus in fact it seems to me even then less a matter of this always having been out there as a real factor than it just is that Bush and the Israel lobby found it useful to hype up the Fundies on the issue so as to provide Bush the most support possible for the policies he had already decided upon.
(This is not to deny however that it may well have been Bush II's *own* Christian Fundie fantasies that strongly contributed to his pro-Israeli stance, if indeed did not absolutely determine them.)
Otherwise though clearly the idea that Israel was a potential asset in the Cold War and was endangered in '67 and then especially in '72 was the real start of the "special relationship" insofar as it exists. And I can think of absolutely nothing after that and up until Bush II that supports your statement. If anything Carter was initially criticized by the Fundies terribly for appearing so even-handed in the way he treated Sadat; Reagan had the Israeli-skeptic Baker as his SoS; Bush I wanted to cut off aid to Israel until the settlements stopped; and Clinton can hardly be accused of being a tool of the Fundies.
It's been the Lobby, clearly, even during the Cold War since it soon became clear that Israel's real value to the U.S. and the West during same would have been minimal at best. Indeed … as it became clear that allying with Israel was probably even a net *detriment* to the U.S. and the West given that associating with it during that time only alienated so many other potential Western allies in the Mideast—and others in the Third World too generally given the way Israel is just so widely regarded as being so racist.
@ SinNombre,
I met a Christian Evangelical at the voting line on election day. There are 10 times more christian evangelicals than Jews. I was telling on how we need to make peace with the Palestinians and she was telling me on how they want to kill us and how it is prophecized in Ezekiel that the Arabs and Russians will invade from the North.
I strongly recommend reading Hobson's "Imperialism" – especially the bit that discusses the development of the british colonies in southern africa, the gold barons, and the city of london investor cliques. Look at the way they played the british political system to get the necessary military actions.
Speaking as an average American in the sense that I enlisted in the US Army at age 18 during the time of the Draft , I say, what should I support?