I'm dashing. I.e., this will be semi-coherent.
The most important political Jew of the last century and more was Theodor Herzl, who struggled against all odds to start the Zionist movement for a Jewish state, based on his shock at conditions for Jews in Europe. I'm reading his Diaries now. Herzl went to Palestine once in 1899. He couldn't wait to get out of the country. He was going chiefly to hook up with Kaiser Wilhelm while the emperor of Germany was in the Holy Land. And he did; he had an audience with the Kaiser, and intrigued with Suldan Abdul, too, the head of the Ottoman Empire.
Herzl loved the Great Game of international diplomacy. He wanted to engage, as a Jew, and he did. He marshalled Jewish money and journalistic connections to serve his ends. The Kaiser joked to him about Jews having all the money; and Herzl absorbed anti-Semitic insults with a frozen smile.
But Herzl didn't like Palestine. He saw Arab beggars everywhere. It was hot and feverish, and swampy, he wanted to get away as quickly as he could.
In a day or so I'll hook up with a mixed group of Jews and non-Jews, some Arabs too, some Christian activists. We're not playing the Great Game. We're close to the ground. Some of the group have been there a dozen times, out of a spiritual commitment to peace in the Middle East.
Myself I'm going as a journalist, a friend of Palestinians, and a Jew deeply engaged by Jewish history. Herzl's engagement with the powerful was borne of his own experience, and reaching for every tool he had at his disposal; but his method is alive today in the Israel lobby, which depends on money and elite influence. Herzl helped the Turks to persecute the Armenians in his day, and polluted the European press with anti-Armenian reporting, so as to advance his agenda; that's how little he cared about Asian human rights. And of course the coming century saw genocides of the Armenians, and later, on a larger scale, of the Jews. So Herzl was a visionary.
To move forward, Jewish history will need require the visions and creativity of a lot of Jews who are close to the ground, and working with non-Jews, and who can look at Palestinian conditions with the same compassion that Herzl brought to Jewish conditions in Europe. I feel excited that I'm participating with a mixed group in this important work, feel excited to be engaged by my community's history, and feel excited to believe that we will change American policy.
The Kaiser joked to him about Jews having all the money; and Herzl absorbed anti-Semitic insults with a frozen smile. Is it an "anti-Semitic insult" to say that "Jews have all the money"?
It's not anti-Semitic to say you are a moron.
Hasn't the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Bernie Madoff put an end to the myths that (a) Jews have all the money; or (b) they have some special gift with money; or (c) have exaggerated ethnic soiidarity? Bernie Madoff, anyone?
It wasn't barren, but it was underdeveloped, but most importantly, it was inhabited. This "barren waste land" talk is propaganda that helped fuel the "We made the desert bloom." Israel's economic success is a parasitic one: they've destroyed the economies of several Arab neighbors and they built their nation on American tax dollars. With all the money we've given them from 67, we could've made Somalia bloom.
Herzl helped the Turks to persecute the Armenians in his day Actually, he helped the crypto-Jews of the Ottoman Empire do it: The Bey boys from Salonica. They were Sabbateans, but called themselves Donmeh, which meant outwardly Islam, Judaism at home. (Wikipedia's definition of all this is BS) Ataturk was one of them as well, which is why Turkey never became a Moslem country until 2007. Read: Hillel Halkin: Ataturk's Turkey Overturned http://www.nysun.com/opinion/ataturks-turkey-over...
Here is Halkin's original article printed in The Forward in January 1994, and wiped clean from The Forward and Lexis-Nexis: "WHEN KEMAL ATATURK RECITED SHEMA YISRAEL "It's My Secret Prayer, Too," He Confessed" By Hillel Halkin http://report-abuse.lahana.org/blog/SHEMA%20YISRA...
It is certainly a stereotype and obviously inaccurate. I think it's offensive, however I don't know if it rises to the level of anti-semitism. I guess it depends upon how you define it. There are plenty of poor Jews. Indeed, Israel has one of the highest disparities in income in the industrialized world. When I was an undergraduate I met Jewish students who started out with nothing like the rest of us. Correcting for bias in educational level (Jews are more educated on average than the general population), I suspect that Jewish wealth is not significantly different from gentile wealth. One certainly can't condemn people for working hard and getting an education. Some people spend their early twenties getting drunk and smoking dope. Of course they are going to make less. I think the difference is in the patterns of political giving amongst the wealthiest Jews and the organizing that guides it. If wealthy gentiles gave similarly to organized anti-Zionist lobbies, I bet their spending and commensurate political power would dwarf the Lobby's.
hi mythbuster, this is BluePearl from tpm.
Phil, Another interesting article to read about Herzl, and the world he inhabited in which he created Zionism, is by historian Gabriel Kolko (Jewish, BTW) called: "Israel: Mythologizing a 20th Century Accident" by Gabriel Kolko http://www.antiwar.com/kolko/?articleid=11058
Regarding Herzl, a quote from Daniel Doron "…contemporary Jewish capitalists like Baron de-Hirsch and the Rothschilds rejected his vision and even militated against it, Herzl bitterly accepted some of the largely anti-Semitic prejudices against (Jewish) great capital and its inordinate political clout." From the book "Becoming Eichmann": When Hausner took Eichmann to task over the Madagascar plan and Eichmann again posed as a champion of Zionist aspirations, Hausner lost patience. He wanted Eichmann to admit that the origins of the plan were rooted in anti-semitic thought, but instead Eichmann traced its lineage to Theodor Herzl, whom he had read about in Adolf Bohm's history of Zionism. Herzl believed Madagascar should be the Jewish homeland but the Rothschilds believed it should be Palestine (they knew about oil). Chaim Weizmann worked on behalf of the Rothschilds.
Goldman Sachs makes them all pikers; check out how many former and present Goldman Sachs people are running the show now & check out the Fed's Board. Jews don't have "all the money" but Wall Street certainly makes them a might force to be reckoned with–GS contributed to both sides of the aisle at the top level during the presidential campaign last. Bernie M broke an insider's gentleman's agreement, was the exception that proves the rule being an equal opportunity predator.
Three paragraphs from Kolko:
I don't think it's anti-semitic, it's just wrong. Go ask the Ethiopian Jews how much money they have…
Great to see you. This site is even better than MJ's posts for giving detailed information about Israel/Palestine. I'm surprised it's not constanty patrolled by the Hasbaraniks.
He's just the biggest of the affinity scams. Remember Ponzi preyed on Italian-Americans.
You missed out on the Gaza invasion of Hasbaraniks. It's gotten much better since then and the only person who trolls regularly is Richard Witty.
Where is the basis of this claim? "Herzl helped the Turks to persecute the Armenians in his day, and polluted the European press with anti-Armenian reporting, so as to advance his agenda…" How did he help to persecute Armenians? How did the pollute the European press with anti-Armenian reporting?
When I read a couple of biographies in the 60s I came away with the distinct idea that Herzl was a pawn for the Russian rabbis.
I'm sure every Jewish investor who put money with Madoff had heard of Ponzi. So why didn't they think it could or would happen to them?
You can read about it in the London Times archives. I dont have the links, although I have copies from the archives somewhere. Presumably, its in the book Phil is reading. Try Google, since Phil is flying. I’m sure you now how to use it. Yair Auron, THE BANALITY OF INDIFFERENCE: ZIONISM & THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE. Trans. from the Hebrew by Maggie Bar-Tura. New Brunswick, NJ/London: Transaction Publishers, 2000. 485pp. by Henry Morgenthau III http://z.pe/5K0
Zionists, Turkey and Armenians: a story of taboos, distorted truth and unholy alliances Hagop Kassardjian The Daily Star, 7/2/03 http://z.pe/5K0
Or this from the Studia Hebraica, Issue no. 5/2005: http://z.pe/5K0
Herzl described what he was doing in his diaries. Isn’t that what Phil is reading? Furthermore, the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica chronicles those diaries in its section on Zionism and describes how Herzl and the Zionists cut a deal with the bloody Sultan to use Jewish control of the press to downplay and mis-characterize the massacre of the Armenians in return for Palestine. You can also find this deal mentioned in Herzl’s book The Jewish State. The horror of the Armenian Genocide is like nothing I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t the killing, or the numbers. It was the extraordinarily inhumane and cruel way they went about it. They didn’t want to just kill them; they wanted the time before their deaths to be an even greater horror against humanity. Taking them off a train and leading them to gas chambers would have been a kindness by comparison. Ambassador Morgenthau Sr.’s description to President Wilson about the methods used by the Beys, “The Young Turks,” takes your breath away. And a morally-decrepit intellectual in the body of Theodore Herzl is running around cutting deals on their horror to secure a lock on Palestine.
Bring compassion with you and from you and your trip will be very fruitful. But do it with eyes open, without pandering, and without rationalization. And, talk to people that differ with you.
Phil, Adam, will Mondo be tweeting from Egypt/Gaza?
But we like witty. He is our very special troll-lite. Plus he has the hang of hasbara 201. Come to think of it, what happened to eurosabra? (or eurohasbara…). long time no see. Some of the others it's real easy to live without.
Not likely. Phil will be heading out the Middle East, I'll be staying back here to watch the store. I'll be posting and tweeting from here and Phil will be posting when he can.
Well, the Ministry of Absorption doesn't pay for overtime unless the IDF is killing lots of Palestinian children.
I'm sure many of them are thinking that right now. The true downside of tribal solidarity. We are all in danger when we assume that some one who shares our history or traditions won't screw us. As a Roman Catholic, I can tell you we have lots of lying douche-bags in my church. And I would never assume someone is honest just because they are a ring-kissing Papist like me!
Good advice. I've heard that on Birthright Israel trips, the American Jewish teenagers spend a lot of time talking to Palestinians under occupation. (laugh track.) Sorry, I'be been misinformed. Talking to the guy who brings your room service doesn't count.
Safe trip, Philip.
Completely happening Chomsky: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090601/chomsky
Ambassador Morgenthau Sr. was a staunch anti-Zionist, as were most important American Jews at the time, including New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs. http://z.pe/5tO [“Protest to Wilson Against Zionist State” and signed by 31 Prominent US Jews. Morgenthau quit as President of the Free Synagogue because it’s rabbi Stephen S. Wise, championed the cause of Zionism. http://z.pe/5tO ] In his letter to Wilson, written from Turkey, Morgenthau Sr. describes how the Young Turks studied the torture techniques of the Medieval ages with a vengeance, specifically the barbarism of the Spanish Inquisition. Note: Spanish Inquisition priests invented the slant-board technique we know as waterboarding. Morgenthau tells how the Young Turks studied and used every barbaric method they could find against the Armenians, including all the S&M stuff the Catholics were famous for in Spain: racks, chains, spikes, anything metal that could penetrate. The word ‘genocide’ hadn’t been invented then. Morgenthau called what was happening to the Armenians, if I remember correctly, either the barbaric or horrific ‘elimination of a people’.
Travel safe. Thank you for what you are doing. Do you need anyone to carry your bag?
Thanks for spending the time to type all that. I'll look through the links.
John Berger read Ghassan Khanafani's "Letter from Gaza" for the Palestinian Festival of Literature which is on from 23 May to 28 May. You should listen to it Phil. The most striking thing that occurred to me when I met Arabic speakers in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan was the genuine greeting of 'Welcome" they extended to me. Mind yourself Phil and peace with you.
You wouldn't because you are not tribal. You compare apples and oranges when you compare RC mentality to Jewish. Even an assimilated, liberals like Phil refers to "My People" and admits promoting and feeling more comfortable with Jews than with Gentiles, though that didn't stop him from asking the public at large to fund his trip. I guess tribalism is only carried so far.
Colin Murray's argument and claims are highly misleading. The Jewish financial elite is highly exploitive and grasping. It does not share even with Jews of lesser means while supporting Jewish communal institutions seems primarily to benefit the Jewish plutocracy. As a result, large disparities in wealth are historically common in Jewish communities, but even less wealthy Jews are typically better off than the non-Jews among whom they live. In the case of Israel, practically all the Jews are better off than the native population, which, in the case of those not plundered and expelled, lives at the bottommost rung of the economic ladder. After publication of The Bell Curve I looked at a lot of the underlying data and concluded that Herrnstein and Murray had ignored the effects/benefits of social networking, which in the case of Jews tends to verge on or cross the boundary into corruption and criminality. In other words Jews do well in business and finance because they cheat. In the case of Israel, the wealth of Zionists comes from parasitizing the USA and robbing the Palestinians and therefore represents a new height in Jewish cheating. In the past commitment to a common religious law formed the basis of Jewish networks of trust. Nowadays Zionist commitment forms the basis of corrupt Jewish social networking. Thus abolishing the State of Israel, eradicating Zionism, and seizing all assets associated with abetting Zionist terroris eliminates two problems for the USA: 1. US foreign policy and terrorism difficulties resulting from supporting Zionist criminality and 2. The financial meltdown, whose roots lie in Zionist ethnonational financial warfare. Gladwell Supports Hegemonic Zionist Discourse
The Madoff story is very different than you imagine. He was convicted of defrauding $50 billion from investers. The way a Ponzi scheme works is by paying "return" to early investers from later investers contributions, RATHER than from income from the actual transactions of the entity. The beneficiaries were not literally criminals, but of the $50 billion that were taken from victims, $45 billion went to the early investers. Some of the early investers that benefitted, were ALSO repeat investers some of whom then claimed that they were bilked. Madoff's scheme was NOT off the scale. He paid his early investers 18%, while his investments were making 12% on simple index funds. His success at investing was plausible. EVERY invester group appeals to a limited audience of their contacts. Its the same in politics. To the extent that you think you are getting reliable information from Phil, Adam, respondents on this blog (say an 18% return), but really the value of the information is only (12%), you are being fed a Ponzi scheme, among your limited contact community.
Correct that "convicted". He's pled guilty.
It is anti-semitic because it is innaccurate, and the purpose of promoting a falsehood is to demean as a group. If you wish to contest "collective punishment", it is not appropriate to engage in it, especially as a means to oppose it.
Keep in mind, that Herzl, just as Mark Twain, didn't look at the region with our eyes, but with the perception of their time. He comes from a very dynamic and polarized society. From this point of view the ME looks static, undynamic, underdevelopped. He is missing his European comfort. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_(philosophy) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_(philosophy) He may not have been fair, but would you be? How do our times shape your perception?
Actually, Birthright Israel trips are sponsored by diverse organizations with varying itineraries. I do not believe that any of them include sessions with racist Palestinians who just want to vent bile toward Israel and denounce Zionism. But there are plenty of visits with Arab communities included on several of the itineraries. Just curious, do you always speak with a lack of knowledge? Or is it just on the subject of Israel that you are ignorant? In any event, your snarky comment doesn't address the fact that Richard, as a "journalist" should go with some objectivity in mind. I doubt it will happen, given his prior track record. But one can always hope.
The best to Phil. It's a pity they couldn't go both.
This is only obliquely related, but I cannot send out any responses or messages to anyone on Twitter. The area to do so has been grayed out since shortly after I sent out my Twitter Account and sent out some posts to the Israeli Consulate, and a few other hasbara twitterers.
It is not inaccurate according Wiki "Among whites, Jewish Americans rank first in household income, personal income and educational attainment among white Americans". Michael Steinhardt has also said the same thing.
I subscribed at the same time. Asking the Israeli Consulate a nitwit question too. But strictly, it seems I am not a fan of twitter. Something about it is not intuitive. Well actually I didn't use it much. I somehow prefer Friendsfeed. But I am not really using that either only watching others. I think what confused me was that I didn't noticed the consulate answers to my questions, since I didn't quite understand where they showed. It was the only time I actually used it. In case this is a minor case of paranoia, no harm meant ;), try this: You mean the dropdown menu were you can select whom to send a direct message is empty? You can't select the addressee? I am on Firefox 3, with the NoSript addon. Two Javafiles are required to see the subscribed accounts there: twitter itself and googleapis.com. If don't allow them, I can't send direct messages either. Have you allowed them?
Well, Laurie, I guess that's true. After all, there's far less "trailer trash" amongst Jews in America.
The fact that there are plenty of poor Jews does not logically invalidate the assertion that Jews have all the money. Obviously, not all Jews have all the money, only the rich ones. And, in finance, the big fish eat the smaller ones, and so ad infinitum. The really top-level big fish stay out of the newspapers altogether; they use proxies to do their dealing. As a matter of fact, books about modern Jewish history are full of accounts of wealthy and even modestly well-off Jews worrying about the social effects of influxes of poor, eastern European Jews; first, in Germany, then in England, then in the US. This is precisely the motive they give for, e.g., the Rothschilds' consistent support for zionism. By the way, I have just been looking at an electronic copy of Ferdinand Lundberg's 1968 book, "The Rich & The Super-Rich", which I obtained with some difficulty from an obscure Tasmanian online library. In those days, there was still an old-fashioned "Anglo-Saxon Establishment". I'm not so sure that there is any more. Lundberg is best known for coining the terms "finpol" & "pubpol", which I hope are self-explanatory.
apparently you don't live in NYC.
RE: "a few thoughts ahead of my trip to the Middle East" MY COMMENT: Try not to 'Rock the Casbah'!
Whatever happened to the wonderfully sleazy Suzanne?
"has been grayed out" I had troubles with the typepad software at last winter. Suddenly the boxes were you enter your name and email were "grayed out". I checked quite a few things before, I suddenly realized. It was absolutely fine, I only needed to enter something, e.g. my name and what "grayed out" before, and thus felt unaccessible immediately disappeared. Maybe its something as simple as that.
jim, you have to understand that the troubles in Russia weren't that far off for Western Jews. Vast masses left Russia then, and of course one had to help and provide support for them over here. Western European countries didn't take them in at the time. But it surely was a transit station. I read a short paper published under a pen name from 1894. It was hard to get my hands on it, since it almost falls apart. It was a leaflet printed on the same cheap paper of the newspapers at the time. The title: Antisemitism and Zionism. The author was a librarian and quite active in the Zionist scene, he later moved to Israel and helped found the Israeli university library system. But he published also short introductions into e.g. English or other foreign languages, and I think he did since he discovered it was needed. What happened in Russia wasn't so far away for Western European Jews, they witnessed waves of refugees from there and somehow had to provide help for them. A pawn for the rabbis sound a bit simplistic considering the larger context.
They are very sincere in their welcome. And they are very sincere when they slit your throat.
If you want to know the reality of Birthright Israel trips (paid for indirectly by us taxpayers though the goal is to make all Jewish American kids Israel Firsters), read what Birthright Unplugged has to say–that's the organization founded by prior BirthRight kids who realized they were taken on a propaganda trip, the kind the old Czarina of Russia knew so well.
Like Mossad agents. Learn from the master.
I know quite well what Birthright Unplugged is. It is a propaganda group that encourages deception to allow anti-Israel idealogues to use the Birthright's program to support anti-Israel activities.
Joaquin, "Jews do well in business and finance because they cheat." appears to me clearly to be an anti-Semitic statement. You create a single group, all of whom are Jews, and all of whom act the same.
It is inaccurate. I have money in my pocket; I am not Jewish. Am I not understanding what you intended to express?
Can we be a little mature about this please? (A lot coming from me, the F-bomb specialist, I know, but c'mon!) Seriously, I think we understand that Joachim does not mean ALL Jews. Even all Zionists are not bad yet we constantly say 'Zionists' blah blah blah. We do not distinguish because people can understand that we are implying the hardliners. Especially when we consider what the ideology means for the Palestinians. Similarly, when Joachim goes on and on about the stuff he writes about he's building the context/the periphery and you should pick up on who he means. It's just semantics. Something a Zionist would pick at to 'score points'. I'm so fucking sick of the Antisemitism card. It's like Blacks getting upset when you point out that their crimes are disproportionate to their population in the US. True. Now, does that mean it's inherent to 'Blackness'? No. The social institutions that surround them as well as that cycle/etc. are the problem. They are inherently that way. Similarly, Jews are not inherently going to behave a specific way. Some Jews are called self-hating Jews. Some do not consider themselves Jewish like Adam Shapiro. These identities are social constructs. A Jew could just so easily be labeled a Snarfologopus. Or we Christians could be called Pastafarians. What does the name matter? It's just a label to encompass all the abstractions that constitute 'Jewishness'. So of course, if you have no connection to the religion and you do not identify with the behaviors/opinions of the group then how can you consider yourself 'Jewish'? And even then, people can often 'feel' Jewish but not 'feel' Jewish in accordance to another group within the larger group – hence, the larger group (Zionists) calling the smaller group, self-hating Jews. It's just so simplistic to play the racism-card. There is a lot of truth in racism quite often. The point where it becomes racist is when you conflate and when you INTEND to conflate. I don't think Joachim intended to do so.
Joachim probably means Ashkenazi Jews. It's true, Jews have money and when people say Jews they usually mean the Ashkenazis. Not Ethiopian. Not Mizrahi. Not blah blah blah. Crudely put, the 'white European ones'.
Birthright is definitely a part of the indoctrination route Zionist Jews take. They should live amongst the Palestinians and accompany them while they work their lands and witness the Nazi inbred settlers and the corrupt IDF in action.
Barrel-roll is a real asset to the ZioTrash. Racist/idiotic/etc.
MRW, another credible source corroborating the Young Turk-Sabatean hypothesis is Rabbi Joachim Prinz' "THE SECRET JEWS" (1973). http://www.joachimprinz.com/books.htm If true, the Turkish alliance with the US and Zionism makes sense.
There have also been some extremely influential Sephardi banking dynasties. At one point, in the mid-nineteenth-century I think it was, France was divided between the spheres of influence of Sephardi banks (in the south-west) and Ashkenazi ones (in the north-east). This led to manipulated regional political conflict.
I love this! "Israel's [...] destroyed the economies of several Arab neighbors and they built their nation on American tax dollars." You can't MAKE this stuff up!! Hilarious!!! The Arabs have never been able to establish a modern working economy. If not for oil, they would still be stealing each other's camels, just as they have been for centuries. Israel built an economy IN SPITE OF Arab terrorism and hostility – oh, and some of your antisemitic sanction. I take it that you are really jealous, eh? ''With all the money we've given them " YOu must be talking about the Pals. Bill Clinton sent HALF A BILLION DOLLARS to Arafats terrorists – and they couldn't even establish a system for flushing toilets! Between the US, UNRWA and the EU, the PLO is by far the most lavishly funded terrorist group in the world. And what do you have to show for it? WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN! If only you knew the real facts…
Witty will be back soon. He's praying at a US military graveyard in honor of Memorial day. He found the usual one Star Of David gravestone among thousands. I heard he's taking pics of it with his cell phone. Imagine if the proportion of dead
Initially I had no problem sending out msgs public or private on Twitter. Now I cannot do either–the options are grayed out. I checked their Help stuff & nothing addressed my problem.
It's not anti-semitic but it's uhhh not really accurate…
And Bernie Madoff should put paid to this if nothing else. Most of his investors have no money at all.
Typical comment to be found here.
"The point where it becomes racist is when you conflate and when you INTEND to conflate." Thank you for your comment, Strahl. There are parts I'm not sure I understand. I'll continue to think about all of what you said. It is a subject of concern to me. Sometimes, I feel like a plaintive child, tugging at a grown-up's coat, whining "I don't understand." I assume the role of skeptic, but my words come from that feeling. In this situation, I felt I didn't understand the details included in the generalization. I think that response may be shared by others who don't share Joachim's experience, understanding and knowledge. I want to understand what he is saying. His conclusions seem valuable. How do I judge whether they are if I don't understand the basis on which he reaches them? I acknowledge my limits in this; some of what he says will remain beyond my understanding. I will disagree with some part of what I understand, surely, My question was driven by his obvious desire to inform, and the storehouse of knowledge and understanding he has to share, with the hope of greater understanding. It would have been better to address Rowan's question, but I couldn't quite isolate an element to which to respond.
Equally obvious to me is that Jews do not have all the money, not even the rich ones. That, at the moment, is one of the few obvious aspects here. Perhaps this a situation in which what I do not understand is not important; better, perhaps, is to accept "This is what some people believe."