A lot of new people are coming to this blog-- and to leftwing and Arabist sites--because of Gaza. These new readers are outraged by the slaughter and don't trust the conventional guides. This influx represents a great opportunity for my side to offer our teaching on the matter.
In that spirit, I want to give my quick, back-of-the-envelope description: What is Zionism?
Zionism is one of three or four great Jewish revelations about society that came out of 19th century Europe. Freudianism was another, so was Communism. They all arose from inspired minds, and changed the world. They all spoke to real conditions, and in Zionism's case answered a great Jewish reality: antisemitism.
Theodor Herzl, the visionary of Zionism, was the Tom Friedman of his time, a man-of-the-world journalist in Vienna, who was shocked by expressions of antisemitism at the Dreyfus trial in the 1890s in Paris (the voices in the crowds reportedly saying "Kill the Jews"), shocked that a rising professional like Dreyfus could be falsely accused. Herzl's answer was for the Jews to leave Europe and go to Palestine. His book The Jewish State (1896), the most important document in Zionism, talks about the dangers of wild animals in the new land but doesn't really mention the Arabs.
And that problem is built into the DNA of Zionism: arrogance toward the indigenous population.
That Herzl was dealing with a real and important problem is reflected in the fact that Zionism was taken up with passion by my ancestors, who were fleeing pogroms in Russia, and later of course, in the Holocaust. The annihilation of Europe's Jews had the effect of providing the world's imprimatur to Zionism, in the U.N. partition vote of 1947--a somewhat ahistorical vote, inasmuch as it came at the very time that the settler/colonial model was being abandoned by the west.
But the Jews were unsafe in the west. The Holocaust proved that. Ergo, the Jewish state.
The two great weaknesses in Zionism as a political model are intertwined: 1, it ignored the local population's interests, and 2, in order to pull off that contempt, this minority relied on the support of a western superpower. The Jewish lobbying of English leaders in 1917, when the British were dependent on Jews for scientific brilliance (Chaim Weizmann's acetone was the basis of certain ordnance) and finance (Jewish bankers had choked the Russian government because of the pogroms), resulted in the Balfour Declaration. And the lobbying of U.S. leaders for the last 40 years has resulted in the continued expansion of Zionists in historical Palestine. The "settlements." The occupation. The blank check on ethnic cleansing and slaughter.
And so the tragic irony of Zionism is that an ideology that arose because Jews were unsafe in the west has desiccated and hardened, 110 years on, into a policy of utter dependence on Jews who feel completely safe in the west in order to attempt to guarantee the security of an unsafe population of Jews in the alleged Jewish homeland.
That tragic irony is writ through all the events of the last few years in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, notably Iraq/the neocons and now the Gaza Slaughter/Obama's silence. The great and terrible reality that Zionism responded to, western antisemitism, is over. Richard Perle has a house in the south of France; four of six participants in this Sunday's "Meet the Press" foreign policy table are Jewish; I have a nice crib myself.
Zionism has completely outlived its usefulness and applicability. In historic Palestine, there is apartheid. The main thing that sustains that apartheid in the west is the same thing that enables the Gaza slaughter: The Holocaust has had the (understandable) effect of making Jews extremely ethnocentric.
The great challenge to Jewish minds, and American ones, is to imagine a different way of Jewish being in the Holy Land. Yes we can.
Guess that was a pretty big envelope!
trying to put in a picture
or just a link?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iZAh1Ljaezc/SV0k_Dp_LsI/AAAAAAAAAKE/Hzy1lm-xnws/s1600-h/416365.jpg
jews were "extremely ethnocentric" before the Holocaust, before the pogroms, before Dreyfuss, before the Inquisition, before the destruction of the Second Temple, etcetera etcetera. Happy New Year, everybody!
Whatever the past journey of the Zionism, this is the effect:
Gaza hospital, male ward:
link to antiwar.com
rel=”nofollow”>Israel: Mythologizing a 20th Century Accident by historian Gabriel Kolko.
Kolko is now retired from York University in Ontario. He is American, and if I remember correctly, reads Hebrew. He wrote a history of the Vietnam War that even the Vietnamese said was the best and fairest ever. From the link above:
A state based on religion rather than the will of all of its inhabitants was at the end of the 19th century not only a medieval notion but also a very eccentric idea, one Herzl concocted in the rarified environment of cafes where ideas were produced with scant regard for reality. It was also full of countless contradictions, based not merely on the conflicts between theological dogmas and democracy but also vast cultural differences among Jews, all of which were to appear later. Europe's Jews have precious little in common, and their mores and languages are very distinct. But the gap between Jews from Europe and those from the Arab world was far, far greater. Moreover, there were many radically different kinds of Zionism within a small movement, ranging from the religiously motivated to Marxists who wanted to cease being Jews altogether and, as Ber Borochov would have it, become "normal." In the end, all that was to unite Israel was a military ethic premised on a hatred of those "others" around them â and it was to become a warrior-state, a virtual Sparta dominated by its army. Initially, at least, Herzl had the fate of Russian and East European Jews in mind; the outcome was very different. [...]
Excellent quotation MRW. In that context, Zionism suffers from the same problem as Freudianism or Communism: founded in highly intellectual environments, they all turned out to be better in theory than reality.
The hardest thing to admit about Israel is that it was probably a bad idea from the beginning, despite all the historical trevails faced by the Jews.
As MJ said: "a somewhat ahistorical vote, inasmuch as it came at the very time that the settler/colonial model was being abandoned by the west."
Bingo. Israel has never been on firm footing because it was a colonial solution. It still isn't on a firm footing, and no one, including Israelis seem to have any idea on how to get on a firm footing.
This is why they inevitably look to the "the world" in situations like this, to step in somehow and broker a peace which has never existed. They do it because they have no idea what to do themselves.
Despite the best PR efforts, I think this assault on Gaza is playing out differently, because the unending futility of it all is not lost on the American public.
But did Zionism arise because Jews were unsafe, or because intermarriage was perceived as a threat?
There are no reports of crys to "Kill the Jews" by any non-Zionist sources.
(By the way, the Balfour Declaration was bought with promises to bring the U.S. into WWI, in which Britain was then bogged down. This is a part of all standard histories.)
I've heard this joke:
Livni comes to Barak and asks him:
"How much do the Palestinians weight in Gaza?"
"50 kilograms on average" he replies
"Too much, they need to loose weight!"
3 months later Livni comes to Barak and asks him:
"How much do the Palestinians weight in Gaza?"
"25 kilograms on average" he replies with pride
"Too much, they need to loose weight!"
6 months later, Livni comes to Barak and asks him:
"How much do the Palestinians weight in Gaza?"
"8 kilograms on average" – he is really proud now…
"Too much, they need to loose weight!" She is livid and scary when she shouts.
9 months later Livni comes to Barak and asks him:
How much do the Palestinians weight in Gaza?
Barack looks a bit disconcerted and answers quietly: sorry, can't weigh them: they all escaped by mounting mosquitoes and buzzing off inland…
Now a question for you guys:
Is it a Gaza joke or Buchenwald concentration camp joke, adopted to current affairs?
Answers on the postcards.
"The great challenge to Jewish minds, and American ones, is to imagine a different way of Jewish being in the Holy Land. Yes we can."
This is a good point. But, there are NUMEROUS options.
One is the liberal ZIONIST view, that it remains still critical and in fact a liberation (rather than a suppression).
As it is possible to live in a democratic manner in land that was once foreign to whites, but is now firmly something DIFFERENT than when Native Americans lived here, it is possible to function in a democratic manner in a world that is now dominated by Jewish identity and culture.
Phil forms his conclusions from the world in which he lives. He lives in the suburbs of New York, in which Jews are accepted in the power structure, AS "loyal" Americans (his allusions to "dual loyalty" on an ethnic basis, not withstanding).
But, there is a Jewish world to which he is oblivious, in detail and in significance. That is the world of the European and Israeli Jews.
I just returned from a visit to my holocaust-surviving Hungarian Jewish mother-in-law, now living in London. Her community is largely of ethnically cleansed European Jews, those that survived REAL genocide.
Israel is similarly. The millions of Israelis are no longer European, Arab, Persian. They are Israelis. The memory of the holocaust is real. Of 10 families that you will meet in Israel, 8 have members that were RECENTLY lost in the holocaust (lost still in memory).
Its not the case in the US. Of 10 families, 2 will have members lost in the holocaust, so Phil can rationally claim that "Jews have emerged", while European and Israeli Jews can rationally claim "Jews are in danger".
A journalist should no better. He/she should learn more in their 54 years, than only their own experience, and than those that confirm his/her own prior worldview.
A complete investigation might yeild similar conclusions, or it might yeild very different ones.
Two major events/choices in Phil's and my life divided our understanding, from our very shared influences.
1. Having children – In my case, posing the question of whether I should continue the tradition and it what form. A decision that Phil never entered.
Maybe he chose to not have children. I know a few that felt that to have children would bias them, hold them back politically. I don't know if that was Phil's motive or not.
2. Getting to know intimately holocaust survivors and their families.
Progressivism from INVOLVEMENT in a family, a tribe's life.
And/or
Progressivism from freedom FROM family, from tribal sentiment.
and/or
Progressivism applied in the form of constantly reformed tradition (not rejected), incorporating ALL relevant tangible and psychological needs and structure.
Another important point about Zionism.
It was a constant reminder of the prospect for the counter-culture, that something new could be created.
Can it be created without harming others, or minimally?
Probably, and that is a New Zionism, that is possible AFTER Israel is accepted as Israel in its neighborhood.
Interesting joke from Eva the Polack. Did your father pick that one up at jedwebne or kielce?
Good job Richy.
I think Phil is just nit-picking details from the history of Zionism to fit his interpretation of Zionism and of Israel.
For someone who talks about Israel a lot, Phil sure does not know much about it. I criticized Phil on this before. Thomas Friedman actually interviewed the right wing religious Israelis/settlers. Phil just assumes that they are part of what was created Zionism a hundred years ago or so.
I've had arguments with right wing Zionists. Phil, you must know some. Have you ever tried to argue with them? You are a journalist, aren't you?
Richard Witty writes: "Israel is similarly. The millions of Israelis are no longer European, Arab, Persian. They are Israelis."
An excellent vision. But then you tip your hand:
"The memory of the holocaust is real. Of 10 families that you will meet in Israel, 8 have members that were RECENTLY lost in the holocaust (lost still in memory)."
So it turns out you really meant "millions of Jewish Israelis". Of the 10 families that you will meet in Israel, only 8 are Jewish.
Israel needs to reach the point where it can say that the millions of Israelis are no longer Jewish, Arab, Druze. They are Israelis.
The word "Apartheid" masks the severity of the totalitarian nature of the apparatus. Every citizen does what they are told (or sacrifices to refuse), and they do not retire when they leave the army. . . There is no turning one's back on the state!
Richard, what percentage of outside funds come to Israel from the European Jews whom you claim perceive the threat so deeply, compared to the American Jewish community which does NOT perceive a threat.
Seems to me that many American Jews are all too happy to keep Israel well-funded with a Jewish majority "just in case…" even if that means having to subjugate millions of Arabs for that safety net.
What price safety net?
FWIW, does anyone actually believe Israel ever stands a chance of being accepted in the neighborhood after the events of 2006 and 2008/2009?
'The memory of the holocaust is real. Of 10 families that you will meet in Israel, 8 have members that were RECENTLY lost in the holocaust (lost still in memory).' — Witty
'RECENTLY' meaning at least 63 years ago. What does this have to with today?
Probably 8 of 10 black families in the US have members or ancestors who were subjected to official discrimination. Would that justify them arming themselves and reclaiming their alleged ancestral home in the Congo? How would that go over with the Congolese, if the affluent African-American settlers used mortars, concrete walls and Apache helicopters to defend their expanding suburban compounds?
Sorry, Richard. The Gaza attack has nullified the Holocaust trump card. You can't play the victim when you've become a victimizer. It just won't wash. The Holocaust is as irrelevant as the French and Indian War now. The Holocaust and five dollahs will buy you a cup of designer coffee. Drink up!
You err in implying that I am "invoking" any card.
There is a difference in attitude and consciousness that Phil ignores, but is nevertheless important.
Phil's repetition is that Zionism is irrelevant in the actual modern world, which is a biased conclusion.
Another joke (sorry I have real need for a black humour, called in Poland "hangman's humour"):
Three children in a nondenominational Isreali school must face one last exam to be allowed pass to the next grade:
Little Rachel is asked: "Please spell MAMA"
"M-A-M-A"
"Well done, Rachel, you passed!! Congratulation!"
Then little David is asked: "Please spell DAD"
"D-A-D"
"Well done David, you passed!! Congratulation!!"
Now was little Ahmed's turn, and he was asked:
"Please spell THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DISCRIMINATION OF MINORITIES IN ERETZ ISRAEL
The problem with reaching a peaceful solution is the intrinsic injustice perpetrated on the Palestinians (and by extension on all Arabs and Moslems) by the very establishment of Israel, UN resolution or no UN resolution. It is awareness of this fact that makes Israelis feel unsafe inside any borders: 1948, 1967 or any other.
Of course, all colonial states, starting with the US, were founded on grave crimes perpetrated against the natives. Americans are at least being consistent with their history by condoning, justifying and aiding and abetting Israel's crimes against the Palestinians.
It is evident that the Zionist policy is to attempt to outlast Arab and world resistance, even if takes several centuries. They may yet succeed, but is there justice in this world?
Israel is similarly. The millions of Israelis are no longer European, Arab, Persian. They are Israelis. The memory of the holocaust is real. Of 10 families that you will meet in Israel, 8 have members that were RECENTLY lost in the holocaust (lost still in memory).
If you allow me, I will let Julia Chaitin answer:
There is often a conflation of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel policies
that makes discussion of either difficult. Feelings of persecution and
victimhood among the Jewish participants (which often have a real basis
in experience, but at times are based much more on perceptions,
stereotypes and fear of the "other", and not on direct experience) also
make it difficult to move from a discussion rooted in dichotomies to a
discussion rooted in complex understandings of anti-Semitic attitudes
and behaviors as opposed to stances against human rights violations, for
example, in discussions of Israeli policies and actions in the occupied
territories.
Another ongoing challenge that I have found in class/seminar discussions
with Jewish-Israeli young adults concerning the significance of the
Holocaust in their personal, familial, social-political lives, is their
tendency to see anti-Semitism everywhere among non-Israelis and
Palestinians who are very critical of the Israeli occupation of the West
Bank and many of its policies concerning the Palestinian civilian
population.
**************************************
Now again concerning your "dialogue" with your old friend Phil in his above linked note on Julia Chaitin's WAPO article:
YOU are opening the question of relevance of headlines?
Posted by: Richard Witty | January 01, 2009 at 09:19 AM
Phil was absolutely correct, the headline wasn't her choice. Her headline was: "The war that I did not request"
And here you can see that Phil's questioning of the headline seems to be obvious to the reader. One could in fact argue that the headline may have been choosen to pull the attention of the Israel right or wrong crowd.
Julia Chaitin – War Will Not Bring Peace to Gazans and to Israelis in the
Negev. – washingtonpost.com
Your attacks on Phil show one think quite clearly that "nomen" sometimes non est omen.
Eva:
You really are making all Poles look stupid (or should I say even stupider) with these jokes.
Its true that Israel has killed some terrorists and some bystanders in the past few days. I don't suppose any other nation has done this?
sorry!!!! I haven't managed yet to get the preview button back. If I allow Phil's javascript I have it but can't access it. At the moment I consider it a typepad beta bug.
The above was a bit too complicated tagwise to manage without it. ;)
Eva puts me in mind of something Winston Churchill said to Anthony Eden regarding Polish people. Eden questioned the ease with which Churchill wanted to let Stalin have Poland. Churchill replied
"the Jews appear to be gone now, without them there's no point. Nothing but senseless, cowardly animals in that country. Perhaps Russia will do them some good, give them some backbone."
one "thing", that should have been, I think!
I agree, Jim, the first joke feels like someone trying to laugh away the burdons of the past. It definitively fails and isn't funny.
is that really charles keating and jim haygood?
could we get this straightened out please?
glad to see ricarda wittone back, i have missed her.
The point to Phil is the INCOMPLETENESS of his analysis, so fundamentally incomplete as to utterly confuse otherwise rational conclusions.
One thing that many Europeans I've met have criticized is the presumption of many Americans to conclude that our isolated experience (by oceans) represents the reality of all relevant experience in the world.
This is another example of that, that Phil's generalizations of his American experience, applies in reality.
Another good post Richy.
I'm always amazed at how Phil could be so ignorant of even his own community. If he can't even understand his own community, how can he understand communities over seas.
The point to Phil is the INCOMPLETENESS of his analysis, so fundamentally incomplete as to utterly confuse otherwise rational conclusions.
Can I assume you are alluding to the article above? Why should he analyze when he tries to shortly give his new readers his mental position? Whatis needed in such a case is that he gives a short summery, a short policy statement. And that is exactly what he did.
One thing that many Europeans I've met have criticized is the presumption of many Americans to conclude that our isolated experience (by oceans) represents the reality of all relevant experience in the world.
This is another example of that, that Phil's generalizations of his American experience, applies in reality.
I am allergic to all kind of generalizations or stereotypes about any ethnicity or nation. Had I been you, I wouldn't have considered these Europeans worth my time. Or did they give you the impression they had much experience in the US or with American mind? And what exactly is that. Pragmatics? Optimism? Meltingpot? … New Jerusalem?
Phil doesn't generalize his American Jewish experience any more than e.g. Harold Bloom does:
The fate of an American Jewish culture that possesses no distinctive spiritual and aesthetic components is difficult either to describe or to prophesy. Leo Strauss provocatively observed that American Jewry was not part of the Exile while Israeli society was, hardly a judgment that a lifelong Zionist like Gershom Scholem could accept. In 2008, I wonder if Strauss's contention is still disputable.
If assimilation is defined as a minority's adoption of the customs, values, and habits of the majority, then American Jews are leagues beyond mere absorption into the cultural diffuseness of their country. I can no longer know (or care) which of my many students are more-or-less Jewish, and many of them do not know either. Should this be deplored? Increasingly I am uncertain. It is fifty-seven years since I came to Yale University as a graduate student and I am about to commence my fifty-fourth consecutive year of teaching at an institution that once made me uncomfortable because of my social and religious origin. In the twenty-first century there are no outsiders at our major universities, and my classes are filled by many Asians and Asian-Americans, who have replaced Jews as the most alert and able of students. The commonplaces of Exileâa constant sense of endangerment and exclusionâare now irrelevant here, but mournfully are all too apt for the prosperous but embattled state of Israel.
What you really object to, is that he shares his American Jewish experience with us non-Jews. That he insists that American should supporting Israel ever further into the disaster of the Iron Wall strategy. Israel backed by the US against the Arab world. If the world wasn't aware of this scenario, it surely is now. It is a recipe for disaster the way to the Samson option.
And the world knows the solution. There has to be a Palestinian state. War is not the road.
January 01, 2009
The Gaza Rules
By Victor Davis Hanson
The Israelis just struck back hard at Hamas in Gaza. In response, the United Nations, the European Union and the Arab world (at least publicly) expressed their anger at the killing of over 300 Palestinians, most of whom were terrorists and Hamas officials.
For several prior weeks, Hamas terrorists had been daily launching rockets into Israeli towns that border Gaza. The recent volleys of missiles had insidiously become more frequent — up to 80 a day — and the payloads larger. Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists were reportedly supplying their own training and expertise.
These terrorists point to the Lebanon war of 2006 as the proper template for provoking an Israeli counter-response that will bog down the Israeli Defense Forces in the streets of urban Gaza and ensure that Palestinian civilians are harmed on global television.
Watching both this week's war and the world's predictable reaction to it, we can recall the Gaza rules. Most are reflections of our postmodern age, and completely at odds with the past protocols of war.
First is the now-familiar Middle East doctrine of proportionality. Legitimate military action is strangely defined by the relative strength of the combatants. World opinion more vehemently condemns Israel's countermeasures, apparently because its rockets are far more accurate and deadly than previous Hamas barrages that are poorly targeted and thus not so lethal.
If America had accepted such rules in, say, World War II, then by late 1944 we, not the Axis, would have been the culpable party, since by then once-aggressive German, Italian and Japanese forces were increasingly on the defensive and far less lethal than the Allies.
Second, intent in this war no longer matters. Every Hamas unguided rocket is launched in hopes of hitting an Israeli home and killing men, women and children. Every guided Israeli air-launched missile is targeted at Hamas operatives, who deliberately work in the closest vicinity to women and children.
Killing Palestinian civilians is incidental to Israeli military operations and proves counterproductive to its objectives. Blowing up Israeli non-combatants is the aim of Hamas' barrages: the more children, aged and women who die, the more it expects political concessions from Tel Aviv.
By this logic, the 1999 American bombing of Belgrade — aimed at stopping the genocide of Slobodan Milosevic — was, because of collateral damage, the moral equivalent of the carefully planned Serbian massacres of Muslim civilians at Srebrenica in 1995.
Third, culpability is irrelevant. The "truce" between Israel and Hamas was broken once Hamas got its hands on new stockpiles of longer-range mobile rockets — weapons that are intended to go over Israel's border walls.
Yet, according to the Gaza rules, both sides always deserve equal blame. Indeed, this weird war mimics the politically correct, zero-tolerance policies of our public schools, where both the bully and his victim are suspended once physical violence occurs.
According to such morally equivalent reasoning, World War II was only a tragedy, not a result of German aggression. Once the dead mounted up, it mattered little what were the catalysts of the outbreak of fighting.
Fourth, with instantaneous streaming video from the impact sites in Gaza, context becomes meaningless. Our attention is glued to the violence of the last hour, not that of the last month that incited the war.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 to great expectations that the Palestinians there would combine their new autonomy, some existing infrastructure left behind by the Israelis, Middle East oil money and American pressure for free and open elections to craft a peaceful, prosperous democracy.
The world hoped that Gaza might thrive first, and then later adjudicate its ongoing disputes with Israel through diplomacy. Instead, the withdrawal was seen not as a welcome Israeli concession, but as a sign of newfound Jewish weakness — and that the intifada tactics that had liberated Gaza could be amplified into a new war to end the Zionist entity itself.
Fifth and finally, victimization is crucial. Hamas daily sends barrages into Israel, as its hooded thugs thump their chests and brag of their radical Islamic militancy. But when the payback comes, suddenly warriors are transmogrified into weeping victims, posing teary-eyed for the news camera as they deplore "genocide" and "the Palestinian Holocaust." At least the Japanese militarists did not cry out to the League of Nations for help once mean Marines landed on Iwo Jima.
By now, these Gaza asymmetrical rules are old hat. We know why they persist — worldwide fear of Islamic terrorism, easy anti-Westernism, the old anti-Semitism, and global strategic calculations about Middle East oil — but it still doesn't make them right.
Since Israelis predicated on the Holocuast by jews,even though that isn't really accurate.
Someone tell me. How many actual jewish survivors of the concentration camps remain alive?
I am not talking about those who left Germany during Hilter's "encouraged emigration" at the begining or those that got out,went to other countries and weren't in camps….I mean actual survivors.
A jewish baby born in 1940 would be 69 today, a 15 year old would be 83, a 20 year old would be 103. So there can't many real survivors left.
I read in the JP some time ago that Israel considers all jews who left Germany and all other Nazi controled countries to be holocaust survivors regardless of whether or not they were ever actually imprisoned.
That was in an article about Israel suing Germany for increased payments to Israel and the jews because of "inflation" and to pay for the "mental health cost" of jewish children and grand children of survivors of the holocuast.
It's time to shut down the holocaust industry ..the world is tired of it. Germany now has a third generation paying for what long dead nazis did. That is absurd and no doubt why incidents of jewish harrasment are on the rise in Germany. Anti semitism or justified resentment at having to pay and pay for what they and their generation were not responsible for?
I have argued for several years previously that anti-semitism barely exist in the US and is not nearly prevelant as some hysterical jews claim.
However as I said the other day after listening to c-span, and judging by comments made among people I know, Israel's rampages have now focused the public on the jews because US jews have made Israel their identity. I am not as cheerful as Phil about the place or future of jews of America any longer. I think they are attracting up some serious attention and resentment from the US public. And I don't think this is your run of the mill neo nazi anti-semitism, it's a reaction to Israel and US support of Israel that offends most Americans and they see that this policy comes primarily from political influence of US jews.
I fully expect zionist org and mouthpieces to respond to this growing public attitude toward them and their groups with the usual hysterics, condemnations of everyone and ADL and etc. attacks on everyone as they have in the past.
This will of course only inflame the public more now and make them resent the jews and Israel even more ..because ..people do eventually believe their own lying eyes even when the media and Orwellington, DC tries to tell them what they see isn't really happening…and people tend to get pissy when they are told they aren't seeing what they are seeing.
Fasten your seatbelts…it's gonna be a bumpy ride…I don't have a lot of faith in Obama handling this..the cat is out of the bag on Israel. The cat was out of the bag on Israel a long time ago in the rest of the world ,it's taken longer for the US but now it's here.
Will Obama try to placate the public and international community and still remain loyal to his Israeli backers? Probably so… and it won't work because Israel will push it to the hilt. I expect more fire works from Israel,they have already backed Obama down and now they will go for the gold.
That "Change" that people voted for?…that was real, that's what got Obama the votes, it wasn't just his being black and a novelty. The majority of the public wants Washington totally changed and now Israel has been included in that 'Change' in the usual Washington corruption that people expect. What will we do if we don't get that change? I have no idea either. But 2009 is gonna be make or break for the US.
Jews arouse hostility wherever they settle, not as individuals, but because they are members of the faith of JHVH, which is an utterly false and satanic faith. They should return to the faith God gave them, then they actually would be respected as the faithful descendents of God's first revelation of ethical monotheism, to Abraham, which they have foully betrayed with their JHVH cult.
A jewish baby born in 1940 would be 69 today, a 15 year old would be 83, a 20 year old would be 103. So there can't many real survivors left.
American: It makes sense to use the term for all that somehow escaped extinction. Why? It gets really complex on the ground here in Germany. Heinrich de Groot e.g. reports the part of the story of the couple of Selma and Rudolf Bruch that we know. Rudolf Bruch of (from?) Kempen was among the arrested during the "Kristallnacht" excesses. He was send to Dachau. His wife hands in their visa for Trinidad and a whole pile of other documents demanded. Her husband is released in January 1939. Then there is another documented trace. On December 1941 the couple is transported to extinction camp in Riga. Why didn't they leave? (Some who had left in 1933 even return …) And there are survivors that somehow managed to emigrate to soon die as a result of the maltreatment during an earlier arrest. So there victims among the survivors. Which category do you use for them? …
I read in the JP some time ago that Israel considers all jews who left Germany and all other Nazi controlled countries to be holocaust survivors regardless of whether or not they were ever actually imprisoned.
That was in an article about Israel suing Germany for increased payments to Israel and the jews because of "inflation" and to pay for the "mental health cost" of jewish children and grand children of survivors of the holocuast.
This morning a friend told me of the anti-Catholic sentiments as a result of the Thirty Years War. He learned about it when he was six. 300 years later. Obviously the trauma is passed on from generation to generation. The city of Madgeburg e.g. was destroyed as heavily as cities during WWII. The people were hunted and slaughtered like cattle.
Yes, we definitively need to look closely and carefully into these collective traumas and what new realities they create. The Holocaust AND the traces it leaves on the next generations via family histories has to be carefully studied. It needs longtime studies and treatment not fast shots.
i love how the jewish minds are so sensitive to their holocaust but choose to disregard the armenian holocaust and god forbid if anyone compares what the israeli jewish zionist are doing to the palestinians.
just remember what the world thinks of you, when you feel chosen.
its ingrained in your dna.
god forbid if anyone compares what the israeli jewish zionist are doing to the palestinians.
Samuel, you shouldn't pay attention to the people going around bragging about their being chosen. Quite obviously they have a shallow understanding of religion or mystical traditions.
If you are a Protestant you can tell everybody who are entitled to receive God's grace. What is the difference? The Jew has to earn it, the Protestant strictly does get God's love for free. But I am not a theologian. I am basing my fast statement on Eros & Agape or Agape and Eros, the English translation's title, which I admittedly read centuries ago.
I keep making stupid errors again.
"who" instead of "you"
It's a default control set, a counterforce against sounding like a smart-ass.
Posted by: LeaNder
"So there victims among the survivors. Which category do you use for them? …
The same category with the other displaced people in WWII. How about the trama of the London bombings on the British..the trama of the Russians in losing 25 million citizens..the trama of the French in being occupied, the trama of the Italians who had the SS move into their homes, the trama of the Japanesse citizens the US put into camps during WWII, the trama of everyone who lost family in WWII. Life is not fair, shit happens and war is hell..most people suck it up, move on and don't want to embrace victimhood as a way of life.
What people most think of the holocaust these days is that it has become nothing but a jewish extortion and blackmail racket. The jews need to let it go before it drowns them. The more the jews cling to their holocuast and use it as an excuse for their behavior the less people care.
I hate to be the one to break it to you but WWII wasn't about the jews,..it was a real world war…the jews were only incidential to the war and only half of the total number of the people who died in German camps.
The overwhelming presence of revisionist and even anti-semitic comment on the blog tends to undermine the stated intent of the author.
Its a shame to see that the AIPAC crowd still try to lable any critiscism as anti-semite. It cheapens the term.
But they don't, so the term retains great value.
great so you interviewed a bunch of drunken Am teens. Get a grip you people. The tragedy of the Palestinian people are the sad result of the Arabs using their own people to further one of their ultimate goals: to annihilate the Jews and the state of Israel. "Israel never does anything right, good, just or reasonable" in the view of your side; none of their compromises, none of the history is EVER marked by you. You are shameful and ridiculous. You are constantly on the wrong side of reason and history, because there is no perfect world, so you criticize and find fault with those more Righteous. I say this, not just as a Jew, but as an American who loves her freedom, and a person who gets to enjoy her God given rights of liberty, pursuit of happiness, equal rights for woman and people of all colors in this wonderful country. No it's not perfect. But your side goes after those, more evolved, we are the "progressives" who at least while we may not attain a good and "truly holy" (and by this I don't mean by any Religion's norm, but the ideal) society, we constantly struggle toward it.