Jack Ross went to a Rabbis for Human Rights conference in Washington today and reports that Avraham Burg was asked a question about whether he's a Zionist, and said, he's always tempted to make a joke about this question then stops himself, but that today he was too tired to stop himself: "What makes you a Zionist? Your mother was a Zionist." Loaded/interesting.
Many of Burg's statements were non-Zionist. He said that all the Jewish anti-Zionists prior to partition shared fears that proved true about the effects on Jewish identity of a Jewish nation, a nation like others, in the fallen world. After partition, Burg said, both sides were claimed by their extremist elements. Kidnaped. Stockholm syndrome. (I think this describes my relationship as a young journalist to Marty Peretz, who briefly paid me for work.) Brilliant point. Suggests that it's time for the reasonable to at last make common cause.
Burg was for the two-state solution, because there's no better solution, besides a war between the settlers and Hamas. But to leave it at two states would be shortsighted. Burg spoke of a Mediterranean union.... Reminds me of Saif Ammous's line: How can you be wildly excited by the idea of a kidney-shaped Palestinian state with Gaza on the side? You can't be. No liberal democrat can be.
I like a lot of what he says.
"Your mother is a Zionist." is very loaded indeed, especially for a former speaker of the Knesset.
There's nothing extremist about the Palestinian demand for decolonisation, any more than the Algerian or South African demands for decolonisation. Nothing could be more ordinary or quotidian.
Yes, except for the element of collective superiority complex and paranoia
mixed up with post-traumatic stress disorder cultivated. Oh, yeah,
the guilt complex too–on the part of the diaspora, chosen with free will.
as the rabbis over at jewsagainstzionism.com have said for generations now, zionism has replaced judaism in the hearts of zionist jews.
israel is to the palestinians what the third reich was to the european jews.
deal with it.
israel is to the palestinians what the third reich was to the european jews.
deal with it.
Would you please support the statement by some analogies? What in your opinion makes Israel similar to the Nazis?
And please leave out the easy Nazis=racist; Israel=racist equation.
Do you have one or two examples were Western States react more benevolent against a threat? How is Israel different in this respect?
This is what happens under partition. Cf. Ireland and India.
This was actually a semi-conscious strategy on the part of the British. Rather than turning a whole country over to a trans-communal popular movement (like the sailors' mutiny in India) they handed two separate countries over to reactionary communalist elites.
And then the blowback, of course…
I have said this on a previous thread, and could say it on many of them without straying from what appears to be their topic: the obsessive comparison between zionists and nazis as regards degrees of guilt and turpitude. The question of whether 'analogies' are 'true' already betrays its own excessive demands on discourse. The idea that Nazi Germany constitutes a paradigm or Ideal Type of 'Evil' underlies the effort behind these rhetorical 'analogies', whichever 'side' they purport to be on. It is however necessary to de-throne the Nazi régime from this Ideal Type status, and indeed to avoid such Ideal Types altogether, since they have no basis in reality and really only serve as a focus of conceptual idolatry. Besides, and not unimportantly, either way you compare them you emphasise the supposed 'uniqueness of the Jews' : whether as 'good' or as 'evil' is secondary.
LeaNder, here's one take (among many easily available on the net) laying out why (and to what extent) the analogy to NAZI Germany in regard Zionist Israel is deemed acceptable by critics:link to tlaxcala.es
BTW, I'm sure you know R. Heydrich publicly declared himself a Zionist.
"After partition, Burg said, both sides were claimed by their extremist elements. Kidnaped. Stockholm syndrome."
Oh really? Which elements would that be? David Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and Ariel Sharon, with their aggressive raids into Jordan, Gaza, and ultimately on to Suez? Lavon and his bombing of American installations in Egypt? Certainly. That is, the Israeli Labor (or what was to become Labor) government.
And on the other hand? Dazed Palestinians trying to survive in refugee camps? No, maybe Nasser claiming Suez from Britain. Oh yeah–Palestinians sneaking back into Israel to harvet their crops–that must be it.
Yes, there were raids. And then there were RAIDS. Benny Morris's Israel's Border Wars is perhaps his finest book.
Now I remember. David Makovsky of WINEP says that the assassination of Abdullah in 1951 is what proves that "Jews came in peace, Palestinians wanted war."
The extremism, if you want to call it that, was with those who proposed and supported partition in the first place.
Also, LeaNder, I'm sure you know the kidnapped Eichmann publicly remarked how similar
NAZI and Zionist ideology was; both preferred the transfer solution–Israel still does, and so has done all it could all along, to help the Pals want to transfer. Eichmann said at a later point Hitler decided
to exterminate rather than simply ship the Jews out. Of course Israel
does not have the choice Hitler had to outright exterminate in an industrial way because (even after 60 plus years it is more dependent that was the 12-yr Third Reich. It has to worry about bad-PR more than Hitler did while he was in total power.
Imagine if Hitler had to worry about the internet by-passing his standard issue
Volk radios for more information.
anon, you either want that the topic can be discussed or you insist that this comparison must be used. … Is this so hard to understand?
BTW, I'm sure you know R. Heydrich publicly declared himself a Zionist.
I am sure you can give us a citation or the context? I am aware of rumors he is of Jewish ancestry, spread by dubious historians. The go all the way back to snitches during the Nazi period.
Max Nordau surely was infected by the cultural thought of his times. … Is this any wonder? Are you a monad completely independent from what people around you think?
anon, you either want that the topic can be discussed or you insist that this comparison must be used. … Is this so hard to understand?
BTW, I'm sure you know R. Heydrich publicly declared himself a Zionist.
I am sure you can give us a citation or the context? I am aware of rumors he is of Jewish ancestry, spread by dubious historians. The go all the way back to snitches during the Nazi period.
Max Nordau surely was infected by the cultural thought of his times. … Is this any wonder? Are you a monad completely independent from what people around you think?
BTW, I'm sure you know R. Heydrich publicly declared himself a Zionist
I am sure you can give us a source?
Just in case you are taken in by some dubious historians. There was a myth that Heydrich was Jewish or had Jewish ancestry. This rumor goes all the way back to snitches in Nazi times.
Sorry, it didn't show up. Usually it does immediately.
LeaNder. Heydrich said it publically–this is relatively common knowledge here in the usa–last night it was declared on the History
Channel for those of us with cable TV. BTW, the content of the History Channel is well vetted by the Powers That Be in the USA.
The program also discussed the lie by political opponents that Heydrich had Jewish ancestry.
This program was for mass public consumption, part of the series
on the SS.
Are you a monad, completely out of touch with the rest of the world due to your guilt-ridden new German state monopoly
on what can be discussed in your media?
Otherwise, LeaNder, I don't know what to make out of your comments, such as: "anon, you either want that the topic can be discussed or you insist that this comparison must be used. … Is this so hard to understand?"
Enlighten us, Herr LeaNder.
LeaNder. Heydrich said it publically–this is relatively common knowledge here in the usa–last night it was declared on the History
And what do you think he meant by it?
Ok, I found traces of the story: It is cited by Guido Knopp (our history channels man) et al's book (translation) SS: A warning of History.
Let me translate all I can find in a speedy search:Heydrich + "Ich bin ein Zionist"(I am a Zionist)
Original:Heydrich hielt nichts vom pöbelnden Antisemitismus eines Julius Streicher, … »
Als Nationalsozialist«, sagte er zynisch, »bin ich Zionist. …
Translation:Heydrich thought nothing of the coarse antisemitism of Julius Streicher, …"As National Socialist", he said cynically, "I am a Zionist".
It is by the way well known that he called for the harassment of Jewish non-Zionists.
Please, LeaNder, read Rowan Berkeley's comment and try to understand it.
(I don't mean this in any insulting way. I just have the sense that you could benefit from it.)