Anti-Semites, go away

by on September 26, 2009 143

My post likening Israeli racists to the anti-mongrelization of the white race crew back in the Old South got a lot of comment yesterday, including anti-semitic comments. Chris Moore showed up, who runs Judeofascism.com, also someone quoting Kevin MacDonald. I know, I've quoted MacDonald myself, still, he chills me, I think he dislikes Jews. I zapped the Chris Moore comment for the same reason, I don't think he has anything nice to say about my original community; I don't want him offering his opinion of Jews on my site, he's got his own, and I zapped the Kevin MacDonald citation because I feel like it. I don't like the tone. I criticize Jews and Israel all the time, from a universalist perspective: that we too are part of the human condition and that if the pathologies I find so important are in this time and place peculiar, they are not racial or irremediable. So that's my mood. I don't like the spirit of those comments, and I'm trying to improve the site.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in American Jewish Community, Beyondoweiss

{ 143 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Donald says:
    September 26, 2009 at 10:44 am

    I’m glad you wrote this.

  2. Cliff says:
    September 26, 2009 at 10:51 am

    I think often when we talk about I-P, we do end up, sometimes in the ‘periphery’ of the debate, that Jews are a people w/ a long a complex history and are just as complicated as the Palelstinians and just as human. Now, I don’t think we dehumanize ‘the Jews’ in any comparable extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized on right-wing jingoistic blogs of the same vein as those run by Michael L-something.

    However, it’s still important to keep track of genuine hatred. Anti-Semites and Zionists have the same distorted view of Jews as this ‘monolith’. That’s where the term ‘self-hating’ Jew originates from. It’s totalitarian. Jews can be anything. They can be critical of themselves.

    I didn’t read Chris’s posts.

    However, Phil, why didn’t you make any posts singling out the commentators here during the Gaza massacre, who were openly threatening other commentators? Chris Berel. Or commentators who instigated fights w/ others and made passive-aggressive insults/etc. while essentially smirking at the suffering of the Palestinians? Suzanne.

    I mean, you single out Chris. I’ll take your word for it. But why not the much more prevalent anti-Arab racism and anti-Islamic bigotry?

    This is an intellectual feast as you put it, Phil. People are going to talk about Jewish identity. We should also talk about Palestinian identity and Palestinian nationalism. These are all interesting concepts.

    Sometimes in probing the truth, we will end up saying un-PC things, but we’re on the journey to the truth and you can’t avoid these un-PC things sometimes. They are roadblocks set up by the gatekeepers of the debate (like the Israel Lobby for example). So we have to deal w/ them and move on. I think this is a double standard. First you make a post for Witty – and we see daily how he is received. I’m not advocating anything be done to Witty, just making an observation about your breaking of the 4th wall posts like this, where you directly address us – the audience. You do it for your own reasons, born out of your identity. If it were truly universal you would have directly said something about Chris Berel, who was the most vulgar poster here. And since you banned people for potty-mouths, clearly you cared.

    Chris M. on the other hand, didn’t curse or spew vulgar rhetoric. He just had an opinion which you and others considered antisemitic. I can understand your POV but at the same time, I don’t think you’re being universal. You’re just like everyone else in this regard, where there are certain pressure points to your identity.

    I for example do not consider myself Indian even though I am Indian. I have no connection to India. I consider myself American…and I feel increasing solidarity w/ the Palestinians. I’ve gotten more and more interested in their culture/etc. as I’ve read of this conflict. And insults to Islam/Arabs/Palestinians bother me more than that to ‘India’ and ‘Indians’.

    I remember being called a ‘camel jockey’ after a basketball game in which my team won. It didn’t bother me. No racism ever got to me. It’s only now, that I look back that I’m upset…retrospectively because of how my attitudes toward Arabs have changed (that’s an Arab slur right? I dont think Indians get called that, but we’re both brown so to the morons out there, we’re the same)…

    • bob says:
      September 26, 2009 at 11:03 am

      First you make a post for Witty – and we see daily how he is received. I’m not advocating anything be done to Witty, just making an observation about your breaking of the 4th wall posts like this, where you directly address us – the audience. You do it for your own reasons, born out of your identity. If it were truly universal you would have directly said something about Chris Berel, who was the most vulgar poster here. And since you banned people for potty-mouths, clearly you cared.

      Do you mean this post?
      If you’re going to be vicious to Richard Witty, please go find your own blog

      • potsherd says:
        September 26, 2009 at 11:21 am

        An excellent post, and one that should apply universally, not just to R Witty. Viciousness should not be tolerated, addressed to anyone. Meanspirited, insulting comments should not be tolerated.

        I have been complaining about how hard it is with this WordPress software to carry on a coherent extended discussion, but after last night, I begin to see that there may be some advantage to this. The awkwardness of the interface may serve to discourage the random, drive-by sort of troll. If it were easier to comment here, the level of discourse might become intolerable.

  3. edwin says:
    September 26, 2009 at 10:52 am

    I did not read the article before offensive comments were deleted. The commentary on the site now is difficult to make sense of.

    On the flip side, I find that it is quite possible to drown in a sea of meaningless with a policy of absolute freedom to comment.

    I don’t think I would be willing to state that anti-Jewish racism is any worse or better than anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, anti-black, anti-American native racism – and that occurs on this site without deletion. [Such as conditions in South Africa or the United States have been overblown.] Still, given the topic of this site it is not necessarily unreasonable to make the distinction of which forms of racism are acceptable to present. Without allowing this type of presentation, the question of what is Zionism is unanswerable.

  4. Mooser says:
    September 26, 2009 at 11:05 am

    Thank you very much, Phil. I will never again make the mistake of thinking that you did not notice or care about those comments. The comments are so mean-spirited and mis-informed and they make me so angry, that it spills over towrds you. That will not happen again, and I apologise.
    And I stand on what I said: The persecution and wanderings and mixing of the Jews led to a great diversity of ways-of-being and ways-of-doing in the far flung Jewish communities and individuals. And I’ll say it again, and everything I have seen in my fifty odd years (my parents wouldn’t tell me when I was born, so they wouldn’t have to buy me a present or throw a party) bears me out: It is the great diversity of the Jews, in all matters, which has been the greates aid to their survival, not whatever insularity does exist. And any fair research would support that.

    At any rate, Chris did spur me to read up on Bolshoivism and the Russian revolution. Except for the girls have such great limbs, I’m not much of a ballet fan.
    And you can’t blame “the Jews” for Communism, either.

    At any rate (3.5% sound allright?) I consider your response to that thread a personal favor, and I will respond accordingly. Thanks.

    • wondering jew says:
      September 26, 2009 at 12:22 pm

      Very funny line: “my parents wouldn’t tell me when I was born…” Reminds me of Woody Allen’s line (paraphrase): “My relationship with M. is going nowhere. I’m going to have to stop seeing her if she won’t tell me the rest of her name.”

    • marc b. says:
      September 27, 2009 at 10:37 am

      I sincerely hope that Weiss’s editorial decision wasn’t “a personal favor” to Mooser, or influenced by his hysterical crusade to convert Mondoweiss into Jews Sans Frontieres. I visit both sites multiple times 5 days a week, but I wouldn’t do so if they were carbon copies, or, more particularly, applied the same editorial standards. How many occasions did Mooser swear off this site on account of the looseness of its editorial policy, only to return the next day engaging in the same arguments with the same people? And then he is stunned to learn that they exhibit prejudices that were on display 24 hours earlier. Mondoweiss is the only site that permits this type of freedom. If the discussion sometimes degenerates into hyperbole or racism, and if this offends certain delicate sensibilities, then exercise some self-control and don’t read the comments.

      As for the decision itself, I didn’t read the offending comment, so I can’t offer a criticism of the appropriateness of the decision in this particular case. In my opinion, however, Weiss undermines his credibility and the value of his site (and it is his site) by allowing his personal prejudices to infect his editorial decisions. The comments section has improved vastly since the registration process was instituted, since, apparently, anonymity is more important to the various brave Zionists playing secret agent and anti-Semites whose sole purpose was undermine the value of the site by transforming the debate into verbal mud wrestling. But for all of the slurs, the racism against both Jews and Arabs, threats of physical violence, the misogyny, why this? Is it a sign of a new editorial policy, or of Weiss’s caprice? And a thread dedicated to defending Richard Witty? I missed that before, but it’s preposterous. Witty consistently makes ignorant ( and I don’t mean this in the pejorative sense) commentary, criticizing reports and articles he has admittedly never read, suggesting that the conduct of the Palestinians and Israelis are equivalent, bemoaning the injustice and inhumanity of BDS, the discomfort or inconvenience experienced by the targets of the movement being of greater concern to him than the prevention of murder. The fact that his delivery is monotone and his text free of ad hominem doesn’t make his message any less reprehensible. (And candidly, since the comparison has been made, Witty would have been shooed away from JSF after a comment or two if some people want to use that site as the universal standard.)

      As I was taught in law school, there is justice and there is the appearance of justice, which imply equitable treatment or the appearance of equitable treatment. This decision seems to fail the test on both accounts.

  5. Evildoer says:
    September 26, 2009 at 12:47 pm

    Thank you, Phil, for this post.

    Mooser, As a socialist/communist/anarchist, I would kindly ask that you do not “apologize” or “explain away” the so-called “Jewish responsibility” for communism.

    Of course, Jews do not own the spirit of justice, equality and solidarity. The history of the radical left goes back to the diggers and levellers of the English revolution, to the sans-culottes of the French Revolution, to the Parisian Communards, etc. and it continues in such non-Jewish contexts as black US churches and Latin-American liberation theology. It is down but far from out, as it vibrates in every place where human beings toil. Some Jews played an honorable part in that unfinished odyssey. They have my admiration and gratitude.

    Nor does the fact that Jews were over-represented in the many revolutionary movements of the turn of the last century, and neither that they are sometimes over-represented in modern radical circles, including in the Palestine solidarity movement, something PEP and wealthy Jews basking at the center of the modern American establishment can take credit for, as they often shamelessly try.

    But neither there is anything here to apologize, for either Jews, leftists, or those who are both. The revolutionary heritage in imperfect, and includes many mistakes, crimes, oversights, confusions and false starts. These failings are a discussion worth having with those who share our commitments. And one thing one can say about leftists is that they have always been eager to analyze their mistakes, sometimes to the point of boring everybody to death. But there is absolutely nothing there for which an apology is owed someone calling himself, with slight spelling mistakes, “Amerikkka First.”

    • DG says:
      September 26, 2009 at 1:41 pm

      Surely you must be mistaken, Evil. Mooser assures us that Jews have NEVER been collectively responsible for anything in history. (And even if they did, it most definitely never had ANYTHING to do with their ideas of Jewishness.)

      • Cliff says:
        September 26, 2009 at 2:06 pm

        Zionism is a construct of Jewish identity. Of course an interpretation of ‘Jewishness’ is to blame.

        Mooser probably thinks Islam is a ‘religion of peace’ (and Judaism is about ‘social justice’ as the lovely and intelligent Anna Baltzer has stated, even though I do not agree any religion fits this description) and that America only lost it’s way due to evil Bush! Oh and the Founding Fathers meant ALL men were created equal!

      • Mooser says:
        September 26, 2009 at 3:47 pm

        “Mooser assures us that Jews have NEVER been collectively responsible for anything in history”

        Please tell me what the Jews are “collectively responsible for”. Please, go right ahead. I’m all ears.

      • DG says:
        September 26, 2009 at 5:18 pm

        “Please tell me what the Jews are “collectively responsible for”. Please, go right ahead. I’m all ears.”

        “We would all like to see the quote which can substantiate that.”

        I bet you’re wishing there was a comment edit facility right now, aren’t you?

  6. America First says:
    September 26, 2009 at 1:29 pm

    Phil’s view that Jewish “pathologies” are “time and place peculiar” is worthy of discussion. Professor Israel Shahak makes a strong case that Zionism is not de novo but is just one instance of Jewish hostility toward gentiles. The title of his excellent book says it all:

    Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years

    link to biblebelievers.org.au
    History, Jewish Religion:

    • DG says:
      September 26, 2009 at 1:47 pm

      You’re a glutton for punishment, America.

      But in a spirit of solidarity, here’s a quotation from Two Hundred Years Together I believe your opponents should meditate on:

      Indeed, there are many explanations as to why Jews joined the Bolsheviks (and the Civil War produced yet more weighty reasons [e.g., the mass pogroms detailed in Volume II, Chapter 16]. Nevertheless, if Russian Jews’ memory of this period continues seeking primarily to justify this involvement, then the level of Jewish self-awareness will be lowered, even lost.

      Using this line of reasoning, Germans could just as easily find excuses for the Hitler period: “Those were not real Germans, but scum”; “they never asked us.” Yet every people must answer morally for all of its past — including that past which is shameful. Answer by what means? By attempting to comprehend: How could such a thing have been allowed? Where in all this is our error? And could it happen again?

      It is in that spirit, specifically, that it would behoove the Jewish people to answer, both for the revolutionary cutthroats and the ranks willing to serve them. Not to answer before other peoples, but to oneself, to one’s consciousness, and before God. Just as we Russians must answer — for the pogroms, for those merciless arsonist peasants, for those crazed revolutionary soldiers, for those savage sailors. …

      To answer, just as we would answer for members of our family.

      For if we release ourselves from any responsibility for the actions of our national kin, the very concept of a people loses any real meaning.

      • Psychopathic god says:
        September 27, 2009 at 8:29 am

        @ D:

        For if we release ourselves from any responsibility for the actions of our national kin, the very concept of a people loses any real meaning.

        So — Goldstone’s conclusions apply equally to Grandma Ida and cousin Bernie in Boca Raton??

      • Danaa says:
        September 28, 2009 at 11:12 am

        D.. this was a great quotation. For being so true as well as perceptive. Even though in our individual-worshipping age we cringe at the thought of collective responsibility, the concept has elements of merit. maybe not in the biblical sense of REALLY holding all responsible for the actions of a few (the massacre of the inhabitants of shechem comes to mind). But in a deeper sense – of ACQUIRING responsibility by refusing to acknowledge miscreants of the past.

        Someone here said before – referring to the Turks – that there will be no peace (ie clear conscience) till they come to terms with what their forebeares did to the armenians. By the same token, America, australia and canada went quite a distance acknowledging the great wrong that was done to the native Indians. It does not make it right, but it shines some light on how far a society has come along in its thinking, without absolving the deeds themselves. For that reason, every new immigrant to America should partake of that penance, and is humbled somewhat by what that means. Now compare that to the steadfast refusal by israel – and many jewish people – to even admit that a great wrong was done to the Palestinians. Or that Jewish individuals had something to do with the early bolshevism.

        And PG – to your query I’d say that grandma Ida in Florida bears a measure of responsibility for Gaza, as long as she joins those who villify Goldstone report for daring to tell the truth. No absolution for uncle bernie either.

      • Shmuel says:
        September 28, 2009 at 11:29 am

        Danaa – I’ve been reading your posts with great interest. I agree about national responsibility. In fact it is probably the reason I am still obsessed with Israel/Palestine, seven years after having left Israel and built a life far from its nastiness. Your analogy (Turkey, “New” World) is a good one, although I would make some distinction between someone who actually joins the collective through immigration – in which case the adopted nation’s ghosts come with the shiny new passport – and someone who happens to be connected to the collective in some other way. The responsibility that a new immigrant to Israel takes for Israel’s baggage is not the same as that of someone who happens to have been born a Jew (or a Turk or an American or a Catholic) in some corner of the globe. That is not to say that there is no responsibility, but that its degree and nature might be somewhat different.

        It goes without saying that active support for and identification with Israel bear another degree of responsibillity.

      • Shmuel says:
        September 28, 2009 at 11:37 am

        As for Ida and Bernie, it is obvious that they bear responsibility (equal? nearly equal?) if they join the chorus of Goldstone-bashers. The interesting question is how much responsibility they bear if they are neither supporters nor opponents of Zionism. Where does that responsibility come from? Just being Jewish? Belonging to a temple? Their not-so-close relationship with cousin Sammy’s boy in Herzliya? Their somewhat-closer relationship with cousin Becky’s husband who’s a bigwig in Aipac?

      • Shmuel says:
        September 28, 2009 at 11:49 am

        Sorry for the multiple posts. Just one more thing – Ida and Bernie certainly bear responsibility for Israel’s actions as Americans. None of Israel’s actions would be possible without ongoing economic, political and “moral” support from another relative: Uncle Sam. The question is whether they bear additional responsibility as American Jews.

      • Citizen says:
        September 29, 2009 at 9:46 am

        Since Witty often talks of the Jews as a people aka community–he should internalize
        the Solzinitsen quote.

        Re: “Ida and Bernie certainly bear responsibility for Israel’s actions as Americans. None of Israel’s actions would be possible without ongoing economic, political and “moral” support from another relative: Uncle Sam. The question is whether they bear additional responsibility as American Jews.”

        I tend to think NO–they are responsible as Americans, same as all Americans.

    • deb83 says:
      September 27, 2009 at 9:18 am

      Thank you so much for that link. I haven’t finished yet, but much of what is in this book is new information to me since I have begun to study the I/P conflict. We tend to see others behavior from our own worldview and I have not been able to grasp the treatment of the Palestinians by Israeli jews and supported by American jews. This historical information is important to know.

  7. VR says:
    September 26, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    The chief insult is that all of the ills of given systems lie primarily in the psychological makeup of the Jews, that it is endemic to their cognitive processes. Just one more step and you come up with genetic defects, some form of chemical imbalance and the like.

    Chris attempts a grand shift away from fascism and its consequent even of the Holocaust by marrying Bolshevism or Communism to the horrid event. In so doing he wishes to save his corporate conglomerates “free enterprise” which has raped the world in various modern and older imperium. That is the fascism which marries the state with its corporate agenda so the two are indistinguishable, the corporation being the “infant” at the breasts of state – and the state or the government system merely being the franchise of a moneyed elite (as has always been the case in the USA). He acts as though these corporate interests are isolated, but they even partnered through corporate channels in order to facilitate the murderous machinations of the Holocaust – that because they could not conceive of the fact that they would be challenged by the people -

    HOLOCAUST CORPORATE CONGLOMERATE

    Secondly, by shifting the the Holocaust away from fascism to communism etc., and than claiming Jewish predominant role, he puts the blame for such on the victims. However, it not only does this, it place the official imprimatur on the genocidal process by claiming that Bolshevism or Communism is the ultimate system to fear and since it “predominantly” consisted of Jews according to these adherents you should fear the Jews. But not only this, but it gives the green light to reek murder, and mayhem in any corner of the planet to stamp out any peoples movement with prejudice so the fascist gravy train can keep rolling and be made safe for the Fortune 500.

    His twisted view moves forward from there to claim that Zionism is a communist pariah, rather than an equal fascist enterprise. Ignoring the fact that Israel has the same 10/90 principle of wealth disparity, or that it is a carbon copy of other settler states but in the main mimics the USA. That Zionism smothers the righteous cry of the Palestinians who are a genocidal target, with a sort of Holocaust hegemony to blunt the moral authority of the suffering victims. In so doing Zionism says that it is OK to start a genocidal process on whomever, as long as you do not goose step.

    Micheal on the other hand is just a run of the mill Zionist sympathizer. Who actually had the gall to propose the ridiculous scenario that the early indigenous population of the USA hated the settlers because of racist animus, rather than the acts of violence against them in the stealing of their land and the unleashed genocidal process. Which just goes to show how far these ideological idiots will go to maintain the consistency of their delusional lies.

    HOME SWEET HOME

    • Mooser says:
      September 26, 2009 at 3:55 pm

      “Who actually had the gall to propose the ridiculous scenario that the early indigenous population of the USA hated the settlers because of racist animus, rather than the acts of violence against them in the stealing of their land and the unleashed genocidal process.”

      Yeah, I noticed that, too. Why don’t we take it to the max? Let’s! : It was actually the African slaves in America who were the racists! Sure, it works like this: See, it was their anti-white racism which kept them from giving their owners full value for the “payment” of bringing them to America and giving them the opportunity to work! It’s easy to prove! Look, don’t you get a raise when you excel at work? Well, if those slaves had goven those good owners their full measure of productivity, they would have freed them, paid them wages and made them citizens! And they didn’t, so it must be cause the slaves anti-white racism prevented them from knowing what a wonderful opportunity they were being presented with!
      Good-bye white liberal guilt! Glibertarianism has cured me forever!

    • Psychopathic god says:
      September 27, 2009 at 9:26 am

      @ V:

      “psychological makeup of the Jews, that it is endemic to their cognitive processes. “

      One has to consider how those conclusions are arrived at: neocons have a powerful presence on the national scene; you can’t tune in NPR or Fox or C-Span without hearing a Jewish name and voice providing, and shaping, the narrative. After a while, you have to be stupid not to start to make generalizations about who is controlling the microphone, what their perspective is, how they came to it. The ubiquity of Jewish voices in media far outweighs the proportion of Jewish people in the US population. When not only the same worldview but even the same words and talking points are heard being spoken by the campus reporter for Hillel, Jewish women sipping chai at Starbucks, articles in the local edition of The Jewish Chronicle, local events organized by UJC, seminars sponsored by the local Jewish Community Center, bus-ins to Washington organized by the regional AIPAC committee, national events organized by groups funded by Sheldon Adelson — you’ll forgive me if I start to generalize: Jews think alike.

      In his book on Jewish identity, Natan Sharansky says the Jewish perspective is shaped by the story of Exodus, which is a myth, using that word in its academic meaning. For young Jews, that story is conveyed through the Leon Uris version –young Jews imbibe as the reality of Jewish identity the emotional dramatization of a mythological event.

      I was labelled an antisemite for quoting the dialog Dmitri Simes and Jacob Heilbrunn shared in a discussion of Heilbrunn’s book , “They Knew they were Right,” a former insider’s guide to neoconservativism link to c-spanarchives.org
      (paraphrased);

      the way people like William Kristol share is a mindset…a worldview, that neoconservatism is a “mindset,” one associated with utopianism and Bolshevism and expressed itself in the latest group in “an aggressive foreign policy”, largely shaped by Robert Kagan’s disdain for Europe which he impressed on William Kristol.

      Simes’s concluding words in the interview were

      ” “I do remember there was a country called Russia, where emmys mollie this group of public intellectuals came to power. That country was called the Soviet Union. I also do remember that there was a …
      Among the Bolsheviks and one part of the Bolsheviks was a utopian called with global ambitions, for whom Russia was essentially an instrument. When a group like that has an impact on American politics, when people who share this mindset become advisers to president, there is something to think about.”

      i’ve started and stopped this comment 3 or 4 times; I have no idea if it hangs together or makes sense — like a blind man patting an elephant, looking at 7 lines at a time of an attempt to make sense of 5 years of researching neoconservatism and its relationship to Jewry, Judaism, zionism, and Israel may, just may result in some overgeneralizations that many call bigotry, or even antisemitism.
      But I’m gonna hit the ‘submit’ button anyway — I like the idea that to participate on Mondoweiss, Phil demands this nod to Islam — I submit.

      • VR says:
        September 28, 2009 at 12:49 am

        Well Psychopathic god I think the answer is a bit simple, Jews are influenced from above by their leaders, just like Americans in general can be frothed up by their leaders lets say – for a war. Yet, we would not blame all of the American people for what their ruling elites do in government, would we? You speak of all of these predominant voices yet do not seem to piece together the fact that they are guns for hire from above. You tried to reduce it to two old Jewish ladies “sipping chai at Starbucks,” but merely pinpoint the symptom and not the cause.

        You see how a massive array of propaganda can influence the general population but cannot bring yourself to believe that it might influence a group that is the constant object of such media bombardment internally. In this society as many others we are taught to revere authority figures. People trust what they consider to be authoritative, essentially this is what they believe in.

        For a further explanation see my post below at 9:38PM.

    • Citizen says:
      September 29, 2009 at 10:02 am

      To what V said, most of which I agree with, I would only add that the American public has been educated in the
      detailed perils of Fascism much more than those of Communism, most have never
      heard of McCarthy, but all have heard of Hitler the madman; there is a connection between Weimar Germany’s justified fear of the reds and the rise of Hitler that has never been taught in the USA’s formative schools, nor depicted by Hollywood or TV. V aptly points out the slippery slope contained in Chris’s accounting, but he does not address the historical lesson for all of us that is presented by the current
      USA and Israeli’s system and their respective elites. It’s a tough job. Any takers?

      • Shmuel says:
        September 29, 2009 at 10:17 am

        The “justified fear of the reds” in Weimar Germany is not so clear-cut. I recommend Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies for a fascinating account of the cultural and social background of National Socialism – including of course the fear of bolshevism and its instrumentalisation.

  8. americafirst says:
    September 26, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    “Time and place peculiar” interpretation must also meld into the problematic nature of a Diaspora outlook then adjust for some means of transcendent spiritual-political. On the whole, I appreciate Israel Shamir and Otto Weininger’s views on the subject more than those of Weiss, although I appreciate the latter’s contributions.

  9. Donald says:
    September 26, 2009 at 2:45 pm

    I don’t think the anti-semites are going to go away.

    It’s not surprising to find out that much of the concern for Israel’s crimes against Palestinians and much of the disgust with people who defend those crimes is just going to be used as fodder for some other type of hatred. There’s no difference between the obsession some around here have with real or imagined flaws of Jews and the obsession the Islamophobes have with Muslims.

    What is it about people that makes them want to think this way? They become the thing they hate.

  10. DavidF says:
    September 26, 2009 at 3:03 pm

    “I know, I’ve quoted MacDonald myself, still, he chills me, I think he dislikes Jews.”

    Phil, I think this quote is very important.

    First of all, it is true. Kevin MacDonald definitely does not like Jews. After doing decades of research and writing three books on the subject, he decided that Jewish interests conflicted with his own ethnic and cultural interests.

    So what?

    Why should you care whether MacDonald *likes* us or not? If Kevin MacDonald were committing or advocating doing physical or legal harm against Jews, the situation would be different.

    My point is that I think many Jews make themselves sick assuming that any critical thoughts or words reveal violent intent.

    I think it is essential for Jews to understand the ways in which their institutional activities conflict with those of non-Jews, and that is impossible without making an honest attempt to understand intelligent critics’ points of view.

    • Donald says:
      September 26, 2009 at 3:10 pm

      I’d be worried about anyone who dislikes an entire ethnic group. We call such people “bigots” and it’s not a compliment.

      I’m not familiar with this guy, but there’s nothing wrong with someone writing books about the way, for instance, organizations composed of members of some ethnic group operate and what sort of harm they do. To take a different example, one could probably write books about the influence (mostly bad I’m sure) of rightwing Miami Cubans on US foreign policy and politics. If the author, however, “disliked” Cubans in general, I’d take his analysis with a grain of salt.

      • DavidF says:
        September 26, 2009 at 4:08 pm

        I’m not very interested in what names someone is called, or their likes or dislikes. I simply care how good the arguments and sources are.

        Incidently, there have been some fascinating public correspondences between MacDonald and paleoconservative Jewish scholars Paul Gottfried and Eric Kaufmann.

        However, neither side would probably please most readers here! They all agree that organized Jewish organizations were leaders in promoting multiculturalism and modern liberalism in general, and that these ideologies have had disasterous effects on the West. They argue over the scope of the Jewish role, the degree to which Anglo-America’s demise is self-inflicted, “Suicide–Or Murder?”, etc.

      • Donald says:
        September 26, 2009 at 10:58 pm

        “I’m not very interested in what names someone is called, or their likes or dislikes. I simply care how good the arguments and sources are.”

        I’ve occasionally said things like that as a way of slapping down someone being PC, but it’s taking a valid point too far. It also smacks of posturing. I do that too.

        If someone is a bigot then you can’t trust him. That may not matter if you are an expert in the area he is writing about, because you can see for yourself where he is leaving out facts or twisting them to make his point and he might have interesting things to say. But if you’re not an expert you’re going to have trouble filtering out the lies.

        Benny Morris is an example of a bigot worth reading, but my impression is that the closer you come to the present, the less reliable he is. But he is a fairly extraordinary person even so–there are few bigots who write books (like “Israel’s Border Wars”) which portray their own side as murderers. In that case he’s writing against his own interest, so it’s probably safe to trust him.

        In general, though, Morris is the exception–if he weren’t, his work on the atrocities in Israel’s early days would have been done by others long before he got to it. Most bigots I wouldn’t trust at all, not on subjects which touch on their obsession.

      • LeaNder says:
        September 27, 2009 at 5:46 am

        David F, you may want to take a look at this: Multiculturalism and the Jews. Admittedly I haven’t read it yet, but I can recommend the author. Multiculturalism versus melting pot really seems to be a different issue in the States compared to Canada.

        That may not matter if you are an expert in the area he is writing about, because you can see for yourself where he is leaving out facts or twisting them to make his point and he might have interesting things to say.

        That would be my main point. You can write quite convincing tales. That’s why I don’t read him, I haven’t the time to dive into the literature he uses, or Russian and Polish history more closely on the issues he deals with.

        True, it may make sense to look at the complex dependencies of collective view on groups versus their inner perception. But what makes self-interest the most interesting issue in this context? Isn’t this both a human and an economic first principle?

        I am not familiar with the exchange you mention, could you give more information about it? I only watched him in exchanges on an list in scholarly exchanges. And this is still on my mind: What is ethical about implicitly demanding “all” Polish Jews had to essentially fight both Nazis in the West and Russians in the East, instead of partially helping the Russians against what they considered more evil and the time? I think we are confronted with this imagery of “the Jew” as a traitor among nations, based on his theories quite often now.

        How would you describe a national, ethnic interest? An ethnic, national identity? E.g. versus e.g. the extreme position that every person is unique, sometimes acting on a flee or fight pattern, whose main aim is to survive?

        When I lived in Berlin there was a funny slogan, I occasionally found on walls:

        Ausländer rein, Rheinländer raus.

        Meaning: Foreigners in, people from the Rheinlands out. The pun plays on aus = outside and the homophone rein/herein = in and Rhein, the river, which give the name to the part of Germany I live in. Obviously Rheinländers have a distinct character, observed from outside.

        I consider nationality as a construct, there’s more going through my mind on the issue but its not yet organized well enough to present. Mainly outside perceptions and inner ones and the complex interrelation of the two.

        What do you think his aims and interests are? How would he define the American national character or interest versus the Jewish?

      • DavidF says:
        September 27, 2009 at 9:50 am

        LeanNder,

        Thanks for that source, I’ll check it out.

        Here is an excerpt of Gottfried’s review and replies.
        link to csulb.edu
        Others are available on Macdonald’s “Replies to my critics” section on his homepage, including links to a discussion by John Derbyshire on *Jewcy*.

        *What is ethical about implicitly demanding “all” Polish Jews had to essentially fight both Nazis in the West and Russians in the East, instead of partially helping the Russians against what they considered more evil and the time? I think we are confronted with this imagery of “the Jew” as a traitor among nations, based on his theories quite often now.*

        I need to make it clear that MacDonald is an evolutionary psychologist, not an ethicist or a philosopher; he makes this quite clear in his writings. He studies the ways different human groups compete for resources and promote the groups’ survival over time.

        “How would you describe a national, ethnic interest? An ethnic, national identity?”

        Well, since a nation (an ethnically similar group that intermarries) typically shares more genetic material, cultural beliefs, etc., than those outside the nation, it is in an individual’s genetic (and often social and religious) interest to favor the interests of members of their own nation in preference to outsiders. The national interest would be in promoting the survival and reproduction of its population.

      • LeaNder says:
        September 27, 2009 at 10:16 am

        MacDonald is an evolutionary psychologist

        Meaning essentially a Darwinist? Right? That may well be another reason that keeps me away. I read quite a few of theses written under the Nazis, none of them managed to not pay homage to Darwin in at least a sub phrase. In a way he had a scientific god status.

        I have to vote now. I realized I actually read most of what you allude to. I am familar with Derbyshire, I read some of his answers to his critics and I simply forgot Gottfried’s name.

        …(Do you know Edward Albee’s Seaside?)

      • LeaNder says:
        September 27, 2009 at 10:17 am

        “few of theses written”

        quite a few theses written …, I am in a hurry.

  11. ehrens says:
    September 26, 2009 at 3:09 pm

    Excellent post. The enemies of my political opponents are not always my friends.

  12. Mooser says:
    September 26, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    Don’t forget the pretzel logic in this one: The Jews survived 200o years of persecution, there fore they must be insular and only out for each other’s good against the gentiles.
    Just because something seems to have an attractive melodramtic logic doesn’t make it true. Gosh, maybe it was the insularity and tribal-mindedness of the Jews which got them persecuted, and the fact that they could overcome those tendencies which made their survival possible?
    But that wopuld be awful, wouldn’t it? We can’t have that, can we? I mean, after all, if it turns out it wasn’t the insularity and tribla mindedness which helped the Jews survive, than I don’t have a good excuse for my own insularity, prejudice and tribal mindedness! And what will I do then?

  13. Frankie P says:
    September 26, 2009 at 7:00 pm

    DavidF,

    Thank you for making the following excellent point:

    “I think it is essential for Jews to understand the ways in which their institutional activities conflict with those of non-Jews, and that is impossible without making an honest attempt to understand intelligent critics’ points of view.”

    Now look at Bullwinklemooserwitz’s statement to Chris from yesterday’s thread:

    ‘Does it ever occur to you Chris, that certain Jews, say Zionists, have a vested interest in making you believe all Jews are like them? What are they going to say, “No we Zionists only represent a part of the Jews, some don’t believe Zionism is the answer to our problems, others have Jewish religious objections to Zionism, etc”’

    I enjoy Mondoweiss, and I admire Jewish commenters like Mooser and V who speak out against the crimes of Israel, a country that claims at every turn, to represent them.
    However, Mooser and V should also admit that no matter how much they hammer the fact that Jews represent “a great diversity of ways-of-being and ways-of-doing in the far flung Jewish communities and individuals.”, when the chips come down on Israel, the overwhelming majority of Jews in the US, Israel, Europe, Canade, etc. seem to support the oppression and war crimes. Those that don’t seldom if ever get a microphone or inch of column space to air their views, and are ostracized by the greater Jewish community. Why is this? Does this issue need to be addressed by Jews?

    DavidF, you should go further than saying that Jews should “understand” the ways; they should then become more proactive about opposing those institutional activities if they think them wrong. Mooser with his straight legs down to the pegs on his motorcycle says that the “persecution and wanderings and mixing” of the Jews led to the abovementioned diversity, but was the persecution born entirely from Gentile hate of Jews, anti-semitism? Could DavidF’s “institutional activities which conflict with those of non-Jews” have played a part? Is this an issue that can be talked about? Am I an anti-semite?

    FPM

    • Frankie P says:
      September 26, 2009 at 7:06 pm

      My last question should read:

      Am I an anti-semite for asking these questions and raising these issues?

      FPM

      • Call Me Ishmael says:
        September 26, 2009 at 10:23 pm

        “Am I an anti-semite for asking these questions and raising these issues?”

        My unsuspecting experience from yesterday would indicate that Yes, you probably will be labeled an anti-semite by some of the hypersensitive “anti-Zionists” who comment here (people whose political views dovetail pretty closely with my own, by the way). Anyhow, thanks for a thoughtful comment.

    • syvanen says:
      September 26, 2009 at 9:15 pm

      Frankie says:

      when the chips come down on Israel, the overwhelming majority of Jews in the US, Israel, Europe, Canade, etc. seem to support the oppression and war crimes. Those that don’t seldom if ever get a microphone or inch of column space to air their views, and are ostracized by the greater Jewish community. Why is this? Does this issue need to be addressed by Jews?

      Egad man have you not been paying attention? What the hell do you think Phil and Adam have been doing here for the last year? Not to mention what MJ Rosenberg has been saying over at tpm. Not to mention any number of other Jewish bloggers at a dozen other sites. This issue is being addressed. Right now we are dealing with a secondary problem arising from this discussion: namely it has opened a forum for the classical antisemites to come in and spread their hate. Unfortunately, though they are a distraction, we must deal their dreck. Please do not defend them, they deserve to scrubbed and shunned from this discussion. Look up “lenin” and “useful idiots” to see how your contributions are being received.

      • Frankie P says:
        September 26, 2009 at 9:51 pm

        syvanen,

        “I enjoy Mondoweiss, and I admire Jewish commenters like Mooser and V who speak out against the crimes of Israel, a country that claims at every turn, to represent them.”

        Which part of that statement didn’t you understand? I have great respect for Phil Weiss and Adam for the work that they are doing here. I also have great respect for what MJ Rosenberg has been saying over at tpm. There are quite a few Jewish blogs that deal with the situation, all to be admired in my opinion.

        “Those that don’t seldom if ever get a microphone or inch of column space to air their views, and are ostracized by the greater Jewish community”

        I don’t see the Jewish community with open arms, embracing sons and daughters like Phil Weiss and Adam Horowitz, Tony Judt, MJ Rosenberg, Richard Silverstein, Norman Finkelstein, Naomi Klein and the like, thanking them for pointing out other viewpoints that highlight the “great diversity of ways-of-being and ways-of-doing in the far flung Jewish communities and individuals”. I see the greater part of the Jewish community, especially the organized segment which claims to speak out in the name of Jewry as a whole, attacking them as “self-hating Jews” and placing them on SHIT lists, doing all they can do deny them tenure, gainful employment, and respect.

        “This issue is being addressed”
        Yeah, on the lens of a microscope, where nobody can see it.

        FPM

      • syvanen says:
        September 27, 2009 at 1:31 am

        Hey Frankie baby. My apologies if I misinterpreted your intent. I pointed out that Phil, Adam etc are a Jewish voice that is very critical of Zionism. Unfortunately, they cannot make their case without the classical antisemite scum crawling out from their sewers to show their “support”. For those of us interested in this discussion these vermin must be resisted. Within that context you pop up here and start criticizing Jews in general. Sorry if I was wrong, but given the context, I lumped you in with rest of the vermin.

      • Call Me Ishmael says:
        September 27, 2009 at 3:21 am

        Syvanen, I can’t help but notice how often you use terms like “anti-semite scum” and “vermin” in reference to some of the contributors of comments to this blog. Where I come from, that would be considered evidence of serious ill feeling.

        Don’t be coy, mensch! Please tell us whom you have in mind with these epithets so that we can avoid having our minds contaminated with their “scum”.

    • Donald says:
      September 26, 2009 at 11:12 pm

      ” the overwhelming majority of Jews in the US, Israel, Europe, Canade, etc. seem to support the oppression and war crimes. Those that don’t seldom if ever get a microphone or inch of column space to air their views, and are ostracized by the greater Jewish community. Why is this?”

      I’d be interested (no snark intended, I really would be) in any actual data people have on this, because I don’t know how many American Jews do line up behind Israeli war crimes and how many are disgusted by them.

      But as for your question, to the extent that it happens it’s a normal, unfortunate human response you find in any group. I’m Christian and used to go to conservative evangelical churches–you certainly didn’t hear much about how evangelicals in America often supported some really nasty killers in Third World countries (and of course we also got a sanitized Christian Zionist version of what Israel was doing). We heard much more about evangelical Christians being persecuted in various countries. It was “Christian good, rest of the world bad” all the time.

      Americans tend to be like this. One reason no American administration is likely to pressure Israel on war crimes is because we’ve got a pretty ugly record in that department ourselves–how many high-ranking Americans ever stand trial for war crimes? Is this a big issue with most Americans? And when it is, you often find that it’s Democrats who are willing to see Bush and Cheney tried, but would be horrified if someone said that Obama was also a potential suspect.

      Again, that’s human nature. People tend to overlook or excuse the atrocities committed by people in their own group, whether that group is defined as their ethnic group, their religion, their country, or their political ideology. So I’d expect some Jews to behave this way regarding Israel, even if I knew no more about Israel than, say, the civil war in Sri Lanka. It’s how people are. Why would anyone think it would be different with Israel/Palestine? Why do you think Jews are worse than gentiles when it comes to indifference to war crimes?

    • Shmuel says:
      September 27, 2009 at 1:36 am

      “I think it is essential for Jews to understand the ways in which their institutional activities conflict with those of non-Jews, and that is impossible without making an honest attempt to understand intelligent critics’ points of view.”

      Which Jews? All of them? The one’s who support and/or participate in such “institutional activities”? The one’s who agree with them? Which activities? Which non-Jews? Which non-Jewish “institutional activities”? This is an example of an argument based on generalisation and false premises – for which I can find no other explanation but prejudice or ignorance.

      “when the chips come down on Israel, the overwhelming majority of Jews in the US, Israel, Europe, Canade, etc. seem to support the oppression and war crimes.”

      Where do you get the idea that the opinions of the “overwhelming majority of Jews” differ significantly from those of their non-Jewish fellow citizens? Like non-Jews in the countries/continents you mention, most Jews don’t know or care very much about Israel either way. Don’t mistake the shrillness of a few for the views of the many.

      • Call Me Ishmael says:
        September 27, 2009 at 3:04 am

        “Which Jews? All of them? The one’s who support and/or participate in such “institutional activities”? The one’s who agree with them? Which activities? Which non-Jews? Which non-Jewish “institutional activities”? This is an example of an argument based on generalisation and false premises – for which I can find no other explanation but prejudice or ignorance.”

        Shmuel, thank you, at least, for not calling Frankie an anti-semite. Could I suggest that you substitute a word like “Catholic”, “Baptist”, or “Lithuanian” in your passage above? Read it out loud and see how silly it sounds.

        People speak of various religious or ethnic groups, or nations or peoples, all the time in the aggregate without dark suggestions of prejudice being thrown their way. Can you explain why “Jews” (OK to use that word?) should be an exception?

        BTW, I hope you didn’t mean it when you said above that you were quitting this blog. Your contributions are valued.

      • Shmuel says:
        September 27, 2009 at 3:56 am

        CMI – I guess we have different ideas of what’s silly. Catholic and Baptist are slightly, although not completely different, because the terms themselves imply a certain religious, organisational and possibly ideological orientation that Jew does not. Lithuanian is perhaps more to the point, although Lithuanian-Americans are not a particularly well-known group. I suggest Arab, and will insert the word in the original statement I was quoting, and you tell me if my questions still sound silly:

        “I think it is essential for Arabs to understand the ways in which their institutional activities conflict with those of non-Arabs, and that is impossible without making an honest attempt to understand intelligent critics’ points of view.”

        Generalisations about religious or ethnic groups can be useful, although they can also be racist. It all depends on what is being said and it what context. I do not believe that Jews should be an exception to anything – for good or for bad. Anti-Semitsm is just another kind of racism as far as I’m concerned.

        When I said in a related thread that I would not be responding in future, I meant to a certain kind of post. For the most part, I enjoy the discussion here, and I’m glad to hear that my contributions are appreciated.

      • tree says:
        September 27, 2009 at 5:36 am

        How would you react to the statement if “whites” was substituted for “Jews”? This is a real question, not a rhetorical one. I too value your contributions here.

        “I think it is essential for whites</b to understand the ways in which their institutional activities conflict with those of non-whites, and that is impossible without making an honest attempt to understand intelligent critics’ points of view.”

        I wouldn’t have a problem with that statement in the context of race relations in the US. And frankly, I wouldn’t have a problem with a similar statement with the word “Arab” inserted if it was made in a discussion about politics and power in Arab countries. (Assuming of course, that the statement was backed up with intelligent examples, rather than just a vague or racist spew.) But I can appreciate hearing alternate viewpoints on this.

      • Call Me Ishmael says:
        September 27, 2009 at 5:50 am

        “Anti-Semitism is just another kind of racism as far as I’m concerned.” – Shmuel

        It’s good to see that we can discuss differences of opinion about sensitive issues without a lot of name-calling.

        Well, to be sure, I don’t recognize the validity of “race” as a category for subdividing mankind, even when individuals within a group are physically recognizable as members of a specific gene pool (which is generally not true of Jews). Like you, I don’t like to make exceptions for Jews, so I am reluctant to consider anti-semitism as “race”-based. (I grew up in the Deep South many years ago and am well acquainted with that kind of prejudice because I was involved in the fight to eliminate it.}

        Nor do I think of Jews as being coreligionists because most of the Jews I know, and have known, are irreligious (like me). I do think of Jews as being common heirs to a religious tradition (again, like me).

        In truth, I don’t think of Jews as being much unlike me at all. So what do I think “Jewish identity” really means? At the risk of offending some, I think that being Jewish means being an accepted member of a “tribal” culture with significant historical continuity. That culture for many cohorts may contain overlays of religious feeling and “racial” consciousness.

        I hope it goes without saying that I am cognizant of all the sources of existential fear that afflict modern Jewry, both in Israel and the Disaspora.

        Back to the question: What do I think anti-semitism is. Too delicate a matter to treat thoroughly so late at night, but I would like to disagree mildly with your statement I quoted above. I don’t perceive anti-semitism (in America) as being “race”-based. It is different from the kinds of “racial” prejudice I grew up with in the Deep South, a bigotry directed toward disadvantaged and recognizably distinct groups. From my viewpoint as an “other”, it seems to me that such anti-semitism as exists in America is based on political, economic, and perceived class differences. It does not appear to me to be (even potentially) as physically and economically threatening as the kinds of “racial” hatred I have seen so much of. But it is appreciably more complex and variegated.

        If I can end on an upbeat, I think the evident fears of anti-semitism I have noticed on this blog of late are much over-blown, beyond any real danger. Of course, the danger is there, but it doesn’t really help anything to exaggerate it.

        Here I think I should stop, although I could say much more to clarify my meaning. But I really am concerned about trampling on the fragile sensitivities of folks like Mooser and Syvanen, who might be offended that I give too much thought to matters of Jewish interest – when we all know there is no such thing as “the Jews”.

      • Shmuel says:
        September 27, 2009 at 6:17 am

        Tree – As I wrote, context is important. “White” is pretty different, because there are majority-minority and historical issues at play. I’m not even quite sure what a “white institutional activity” would be – unless we’re talking about a clan meeting, in which case the statement would obviously be a gross generalisation.

        I agree that such a statement (substituting the word “Arab”) could reasonably be applied to power and politics in Arab countries, but I was referring to the context of the original statement, as I understood it, i.e. a minority group within American society.

      • Shmuel says:
        September 27, 2009 at 6:48 am

        CMI – When I wrote ant-Semitism is a kind of racism, I thought about explaining exactly what I mean by racism, but assumed that the term would be understood in its most general sense – that is bigotry against a specific national/ethnic/religious group. I would also call Islamophobia a form of racism, when Islam is quite obviously not a race. There will be large rally against all forms of bigotry in my city in a couple of weeks’ time, under the general heading “Stop Racism”. In fact the very concept of race is considered unacceptable in the local language (Itallian), while the term racism is still widely used. So in fact, our apparent disagreement is just a matter of semantics.

        Regarding the issue of anti-Semitism as addressed recently on this blog, I don’t believe that any of us who have written about it really believe that it is one of our worst problems. I am sure that Mooser, v…, syvanen, Phil and others are far more concerned about discrimination against Palestinians and countless other groups, than they are about Jews right now. I tried to explain in another post, why it is that anti-Semitism bugs us in this particular context. The subject also receives far more attention than it deserves here, because this is a blog dedicated primarily to criticism of Israel and its supporters. Believe me that any resemblance to Zionist paranoia and instrumentalisation of anti-Semitism is purely coincidental.

      • Shmuel says:
        September 27, 2009 at 3:44 pm

        CMI, tree – I’ve given your words some thought while going about my business today, and you are right. The above generalisation about Jewish “institutional actions” can be useful, and need not stem from ignorance or prejudice (as I asserted in my first comment). Guess I was a bit wound up following yesterday’s Jewish bolsheziocon nonsense. Thanks for setting me straight.

      • tree says:
        September 27, 2009 at 5:40 pm

        Thank you very much for that kind statement, Shmuel. It illustrates another reason why your contributions here are valued. Not because you necessarily agreed with what CMI and I were trying to say, but because you were willing to listen to what we said and give it some consideration even though you disagreed with it at first.

        I can totally understand how you got caught up in the polar sides yesterday. Its a subject that it is hard to discuss without it degenerating into name calling on all sides. (Which is not to say that you participated in the name calling, because you clearly didn’t.) We were dealing with multiple voices yesterday, many with different perspectives, but it is often far too easy for anyone to assume that all other voices one disagrees with are saying the same thing, when that is not really the case. But I suspect that such discussion can be helpful towards moving attitudes and assumptions from all sides, as long as the discussions aren’t simply reflexively shut down, or forced into polar patterns of “all” or “none”.

        I want to thank CMI for clearly and calmly articulating his viewpoint here as well.

    • Citizen says:
      September 29, 2009 at 10:28 am

      I think this is the core question MacDonald’s work tries to address:
      “…the “persecution and wanderings and mixing” of the Jews led to the abovementioned diversity, but was the persecution born entirely from Gentile hate of Jews, anti-semitism? Could DavidF’s “institutional activities which conflict with those of non-Jews” have played a part?” Whatever you think of him, assuming you have actually read him, you gotta admit his courage is manifest in how virtually alone his POV is in academia. In compariosn, White people as a collective historical actor, and Christians, have
      been constant critical topics in those ivy halls for many decades.

  14. Psychopathic god says:
    September 27, 2009 at 2:18 am

    I’ve become an antisemite and it’s tearing me apart.
    The antisemitism that tears me apart is not born or “bigoted simple answers…contact with some Jews, and say, “Ah-ha, now I know what all Jews are like!”
    No, not at all.
    I lived with Jews, who cared for me as I cared for them, each of us cherishing the other as an individual, our own NGO: PSL: People sans labels.

    Then I received a flier with the picture of a mushroom cloud on it, that said, “Nuclear Iran is a threat to humanity.” The flier invited me to a speech by Patrick Clawson, and it was sponsored by an “interfaith” coalition comprised of 12 Jewish organizations (UJC, AIPAC, ADL, etc.) and one minister of a post-office-box based Christian ‘church.’
    The Christian minister gave the invocation, then left the hall.
    I had just viewed “Gandhi” another time, and the image of Col. Reginald Dyer was fresh in my mind — maybe that’s the wrong word to use, fresh; the image tormented me, such a passively, unthinkingly hateful man.
    Patrick Clawson presents the same, red, lean, lanky physical appearance as Dyer, and the same moral vacuity.
    Clawson heartily endorsed the image and the legend on the flier: Yes indeed, Iran is a threat to humanity, he orated, laying out his points and his examples and his proscriptions.
    Nothing that he said squared with the Iranian people I knew, the Iran I had visited, the history I had studied, the authors whose book signings I had participated in (Walt & Mearsheimer; Parsi; Baer; Kinzer; Dr. Ramazani; Hooman Majd). Now I had a problem: what to believe: the favorable ‘prejudice’ in my mind about Iranians, planted there by the Iranians I had met; or the image of Iran that Clawson painted on behalf of Jewish groups — Jews, who I was also favorably ‘prejudiced’ toward? What was going on?

    I work through such conundrums by digging, researching: I read almost everything Clawson has written — he is prodigious. I read several online histories of the Jewish people — Virtual Library, AISH.org — maybe that’s all I need to say: Rabbi Ken Spiro and AISH.org are not Jews like MY Jews, the ones I knew and cared for: he is arrogant, scarey, delights in Jewish exceptionalism and wallows in Jewish persecution narratives. But I didn’t stop there: I listened to several series of lectures on history of Jews: Prof. Ruderman; Chai Cherry; Amy Levine, Liulevicius; Teo Ruiz; and read some more: Michael Oren; Robert Kagan; Amos Elon; Abba Eban, everything Karen Armstrong has written.

    But I still have a problem: what my brain is learning about Jews unsettles my favorable prejudice toward Jews.
    As some have observed, there’s no one so committed as a convert, and I was becoming converted to attitudes towards Jewish people, based on reading and do-it-yourself learning, that opened up new and troubling realizations: Hebrews lived prosperously in Egypt for almost 500 years, before perhaps as few as 600 or at most 6000 Hebrews fled from Egypt, taking with them all the Egyptian bootie they could carry (per Prof. Eric Cline); Jews were so comfortable in Babylon that 70% of them stayed there, after Cyrus told them they could return to Jerusalem and financed them for 200 years. In fact, Jews remained a force in Babylon/Baghdad until into the 20th century! The Romans did not ‘ethnically cleanse’ Jews from the Levant, they were kicked out of Jerusalem, they still lived in Palestine and all throughout the Roman Mediterranean world. Jews collaborated with Muslims in Andalusia for several hundred years; Jews also collaborated with Barbary Pirates (Michael Oren, are you listening?); Jews became part of the Ottoman empire — the same Ottomans from whom the first Zionists bought Palestinian land!

    Why did Jews propagate narratives that were contrary to the facts that I was learning from Jewish scholars?
    Then someone gave me a Hasbara manual. hmmm, glorifying Israel is an established modus operandi. Why do they have to deceive people?

    Clawson was a low point at the beginning of this trip. A more recent stop on the journey was another low point: Abu Laish Izzeldin spoke at a nearby synagogue. He refused to surrender to hate or anger. Doggedly. Determinedly. Even when three or four members of the audience came to the mike and said things like, “I’m a holocaust survivor; Jews managed to create a homeland for themselves, the Palestinians have no one to blame but themselves for their refugee status.” And, “Why don’t you Palestinians move to Jordan.” and “Palestinians started the Gaza war; they brought it on themselves.” A man whose daughters were killed even as he was preaching peace — Jews said these things to him.

    So this is how I got stuck in antisemitism. Like Brer Rabbit, the deeper I go into the brier patch, the more stuck I get.

    Please, Jews, please don’t harm Iran. Don’t sanction Iran. Stop threatening Iran. Stop stealing Palestinian land. To paraphrase Golda Meir: Don’t make me hate you.

  15. Call Me Ishmael says:
    September 27, 2009 at 2:36 am

    “I don’t know how many American Jews do line up behind Israeli war crimes and how many are disgusted by them.”

    My feeling is that currently there is not a lot of difference in this regard between American Jews and non-Jews. Here are some very limited data from my own experience:

    I emerged years ago from a Christian evangelical community, in which my extended family is still submerged. They are woefully ignorant of real conditions in Israel and Palestine, and so find it easy to be inflexibly pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian. The same can be said of most of their friends. This stance would be much harder for them if they knew the truth.

    I have politically-aware Jewish friends with whom I often discuss questions of this sort. They say that they are often shocked to realize how little many of their Jewish friends and acquaintances actually know and understand about Israel/Palestine.

    So I think the real obstacles here are ignorance and misinformation. Malevolence is not the issue.

    • Psychopathic god says:
      September 27, 2009 at 9:40 am

      thank you Ishmael; quite accurate:

      I think the real obstacles here are ignorance and misinformation.

      But my experience tempers unqualified acceptance of the second part:

      Malevolence is not the issue.

      If “malevolence is not the issue,” why do predominantly Semitic or philosemitic agencies censor and silence attempts to elucidate and educate with facts and opinions that criticize or differ from or contradict the talking points of zionists and christian zionists ? What is that impulse, the impulse to control the message and to silence any contradictory perspective? Certainly its effects are malevolent, if not its initial intent.

      • Dan Kelly says:
        September 27, 2009 at 12:46 pm

        If “malevolence is not the issue,” why do predominantly Semitic or philosemitic agencies censor and silence attempts to elucidate and educate with facts and opinions that criticize or differ from or contradict the talking points of zionists and christian zionists ? What is that impulse, the impulse to control the message and to silence any contradictory perspective? Certainly its effects are malevolent, if not its initial intent.

        Exactly.

      • Call Me Ishmael says:
        September 27, 2009 at 3:21 pm

        Pg and DK:

        Perhaps I should have said “malice” rather than “malevolence”, because I was referring to the unfortunate condition of ignorant and misinformed ordinary citizens.

        To wit: Malice is not the problem with these deprived souls.

        Certainly, I agree that the operations of our media organizations have immensely malevolent effects on the I/P dilemma (as well as on our national propensity to make war). Malevolent intent? In my way of looking at it, often yes.

  16. Richard Witty says:
    September 27, 2009 at 5:39 am

    For those that are confused about Zionism, I would recommend that you actually read about it. Read about it from a historical perspective, NOT for the purpose of supporting or contesting a judgement of the current situation.

    I’m reading “The History of Zionism”, by Walter Laquer. It is well-written, not biased from what I can discern, descriptive.

    • Call Me Ishmael says:
      September 27, 2009 at 6:37 am

      Richard, I assume you are speaking mainly of political Zionism and not the older religious Zionism. (Both?)

      I have a book of essays about political Zionism written by well-known Jewish dissidents like Chomsky, Buber, Freud, and many others. Unfortunately, I loaned it temporarily to a friend and can’t remember the title right now. I’ll get it back soon and can let you know about it if you like.

      At the time I let it go, I was reading an essay by Deutsch called “The Non-Jewish Jew”, which I found exceedingly interesting because it described how extremely creative Jews on the “cultural edge” have tended to be since the Emancipation.

      I’m not trying to change your devotion to Zionism, but I do believe that more exposure to Jewish criticisms of political Zionism might possibly benefit you.

      • Richard Witty says:
        September 27, 2009 at 8:06 am

        Ishmael,
        Reading a selection designed to oppose Zionism is NOT reading widely.

        Read the actual Zionists and the history of how it originated.

      • America First says:
        September 27, 2009 at 10:24 am

        That’s Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky’s (favorable) biographer.

      • Donald says:
        September 27, 2009 at 12:23 pm

        Reading the actual Zionists would probably be a good idea, if one has time, if one also reads the critics. I quoted one of the actual Zionists yesterday, Ahad Ha’am (sp?), who wrote a quite damning passage about the behavior of Zionists in 1891.

        If you don’t have time (and so far I haven’t), then reading someone like Tom Segev is a good substitute. His book “One Palestine, Complete” is if anything a bit harsher on the Arabs. I don’t think he intended it to be, but unless my memory is faulty he does not point out what others have, that Zionists are the ones who introduced the modern methods of terrorism into the I/P conflict–car bombs in Arab marketplaces, for instance. Of course Arabs were also guilty of atrocities, usually acts of brutal mob violence against Jews (including children).

        Anyway, whatever its unintended flaws, “One Palestine, Complete” gives a fairly realistic view of both sides in the late 1890′s through the 1940′s and if you only had a limited amount of time, I’d suggest including it on one’s short reading list.

      • Richard Witty says:
        September 27, 2009 at 3:13 pm

        Segev is interesting, but is a man with a thesis, like Pappe.

        They select material for the purposes of their thesis. They are a good third or fourth read.

        Better to read an non-biased survey.

        There is so much exageration and misrepresentation of Zionist writings stated here, by people that have only read critics of Zionism.

        The history is compelling, and not simple.

      • Chaos4700 says:
        September 27, 2009 at 3:23 pm

        You want a tip, Richie boy? Read David Ben-Gurion’s diary.

    • Psychopathic god says:
      September 27, 2009 at 9:42 am

      unfortunately, Laquer occupies the same “unbiased” space as Bernard Lewis.

  17. America First says:
    September 27, 2009 at 10:20 am

    Meanwhile:

    Swiss arrest Polanski on US request in sex case

    link to news.yahoo.com

    Would a gentile get away with such a vile crime for decades? Would such a gentile be publicly celebrated by other gentiles in a gentile field?

    • Cliff says:
      September 27, 2009 at 6:17 pm

      I don’t think so. Absolutely not. However, isn’t Michael Richards Jewish? He was blasted.

      Although, he was mocking a black person. So two factions within the identity politics game going at it. Plus, it was pure racism.

      W/ Polanski you could say people feel sorry for him and that he’s very talented. I dunno.

      There are plenty of examples where Jewish identity isn’t brought into the picture. There was a recent murder attempt on a Muslim by a Jewish man in NJ I think. No article referred to the Jewish guy as a Jew. It was revealed later.

      However, Muslims are ALWAYS pointed out as being Muslim.

      • Citizen says:
        September 29, 2009 at 10:53 am

        Michael Richards is not Jewish, I read somewhere back when that event took place.
        On Cable TV news–FOX I beleive, a pundit did make the point that if Polanski was not
        a “white man” he’d never have gotten any breaks, and would not be in the news today.
        No mention at all of his being Jewish. He raped a 13 year old kid.

      • Cliff says:
        September 29, 2009 at 11:02 am

        I definitely doesn’t have to do w/ his ‘whiteness’

        he’s a famous hollywood director, an a-list director who has the right connections (the right ones, he’s not Mel Gibson, who is famous and talented but doesn’t have the ‘right’ connections) – meaning ethnocentric Jews

        so how will they attack his identity? of course focus on ‘whiteness’

        yea, i’m sure whiteness helped Mel Gibson. i’m sure blackness helped Will Smith out last summer when the ADL/JDL and every rag mag in the West tried to make it seem as tho he approved of Hitler.

  18. America First says:
    September 27, 2009 at 10:38 am

    Phil is an idealist, Kevin MacDonald a realist. One of the benefits of Obama, Sotomayor-Ricci and Gates-Crowley is that people are now seeing the harsh reality of multicultural America. In the main it’s not about singing kumbaya (as Pat Buchanan quips) or Phil’s “universalist perspective.” It’s about every ethnic group except white gentiles aggressively advancing their own interests at the expense of white gentiles, and increasingly at the expense of one another. It’s exactly what MacDonald said a decade ago.

    • Chaos4700 says:
      September 27, 2009 at 3:25 pm

      …What? That’s your idea of a “realist” perspective? No offense, dude, but that sounds like it could have been quoted from Stormfront’s discussion forums.

    • Cliff says:
      September 27, 2009 at 6:23 pm

      Stormfront?

      I’m waiting for you to blast Finkelstein as well for ‘the Holocaust industry’ and how many White Supremacists liked his book as well! Wait, you won’t because you’re a fake.

      Tell me why Kevin M. is a racist? Explain. That card is so goddamn overplayed and the people doing it – LIKE YOU – always like to completely white-wash identity politics in this country. Mooser too.

      • Chaos4700 says:
        September 27, 2009 at 6:30 pm

        You know what? You go right on agreeing with America First when he says “It’s about every ethnic group except white gentiles aggressively advancing their own interests at the expense of white gentiles, and increasingly at the expense of one another.” The only thing that’s really looking white-washed right now is your world view.

      • Cliff says:
        September 27, 2009 at 6:44 pm

        Our political culture FACILITATES identity politics.

        I am in no way trying to equate ‘White’ identity w/ that of ‘Black’ identity within the context of identity politics in America.

        Like for example, Blacks were kidnapped, enslaved, persecuted, etc. Of course they will have a close-knit community and be in solidarity w/ one another and thus, form groups that are trying to support themselves.

        Every group has their own interest. I remember seeing this YouTube video of a pro-Immigration rally w/ a bunch of young Hispanics.

        They were so disrespectful – so were ‘the Whites’ in the video – but what struck me is how they flippantly and in an ironic tone waved the American flag around ‘w/ pride’.

        I’m Indian. I am a second generation Indian. My father had to work very hard to make it here. He started out as nothing and ended up providing my family w/ everything. We live very very well off thanks to his hard work.

        I am not anti-immigration.

        But there are GENUINE grievances people will have w/ ‘other groups’ living amongst them. Just as MacDonald says, you can be anti-immigration but pro-diversity. It doesn’t mean you HATE Hispanics for example. There are economic reasons and political reasons to be anti-immigration.

        Surely, much of Israeli Jewish society is deeply racist, but at the same time a Palestinian right of return would completely change the POLITICAL character of the State.

        Now when we compare that situation to America’s w/ illegal immigrants – there is one glaring difference. We are a very diverse society. There is a Mexican State.

        There is no Palestinian State. Furthermore, 800K Palestinians were driven out of THEIR homes and land. They aren’t the Native Americans, they aren’t all but exterminated. There are 5 million refugees.

        So why is it, that ethnocentric Jews and Zionists here are all lovey-dovey about immigrants into America but not in I-P?

        There are moralistic reasons, political reasons, tactical reasons, ideological reasons.

        We do not need to just scream, ‘racism!’ all the time.

        I said this in another post, but there are too many roadblocks in this discussion. TOO MANY.

        And we will never become enlightened or just grown intellectually until we deal with EACH and EVERY one. So this is good that we’re talking about it. It’s at the same time good to talk about Jewish identity, something broad. Or talking about whether MacDonald is a ‘racist’ and whether his ideas are as well, something more specific.

        I mean what the hell do you people want to talk about? This stuff is UNAVOIDABLE. You want to censor any and everyone who broaches the issue? You couldn’t avoid it if you tried. We end up walking right into it.

        As Phil said, this conflict is an intellectual feast. It highlights so many universal issues affecting people everywhere.

      • Chaos4700 says:
        September 27, 2009 at 7:57 pm

        You know honestly, I have absolutely no clue where you’re going with this, Cliff. For the record, just to set things straight, I’m a fifth generation German-Polish American of Roman Catholic upbringing.

        The fact is, when you say that the prominence of minority Americans comes at the expense of white Americans, like it or not, you are toeing the white supremacist line.

        Also? You say “…at the same time a Palestinian right of return would completely change the POLITICAL character of the State [of Israel]” as if it were a bad thing. You remember just what it took to make that state in the first place and that doesn’t simply fade into the background. I’m the descendant of German Catholics and Poles. I think I know what I’m talking about when I say that a state that aggrandizes itself with ethnic cleansing and religious/ethnic “purity” is going to be inherently of a heinous political character. And I know enough about Indian history to know that you should maybe have the same awareness vis-a-vis Pakistan.

      • Cliff says:
        September 27, 2009 at 8:31 pm

        I compared Hispanics waving the American flag at a pro-Immigration rally, to the ‘right of return’ of REFUGEES!

        ‘pro-Immigration’ is not the same thing as ‘pro-right of return’! That’s my point.

        Now, the next point I made was that you do NOT have to hate ‘the other’ to want to preserve your own interests.

        And I don’t care if I’m toeing the blah blah line or not. Like I said earlier, I want you to bash Norman Finkelstein as well for ‘The Holocaust Industry’ which was also ‘TOED’ by the White Supremacists.

        Only you won’t! Want to know why? Because you afford Norman much more intellectual capital than you do Kevin MacDonald. You are patient w/ Norman and you realize his tongue-in-cheek humor and often offensive rhetoric is not intended to be hateful but to underscore the enormity of the injustice he is observing.

        I just watched Norman’s documentary, American Radical.

        It was good but I thought it should have been longer and dealt even more w/ his personal life. Also, I felt not enough people who knew Norman were brought into the documentary. It just felt ‘light’. Good direction, but I wanted more.

        ANYWAYS! There was one scene, where a girl – supposedly of German descent – went up to the mic during a Q&A and confronted Norman on his rhetoric. Norman had apparently – earlier – referred to some people in the audience and Israel as ‘Nazis’.

        This girl began to cry 5 seconds into the question. She said it was extremely offensive. She said it was hurtful to the survivors and to the Germans as well.

        Norman proceed to say he didn’t care for her ‘crocodile tears’. The Jewish people in the audience began screaming and booing. And it was a ruckus for a bit, then he went into his speech about how due to the Holocaust and his parents, he will not be silent about blah blah and how the girl should cry for the Palestinians.

        This documentary isn’t a love letter. Norman is his own worst enemy sometimes and I say that as someone who deeply admires him. I do think he has a messiah complex though…and his dramatic resignation from the Free Gaza March is proof of that. I just don’t know why he’d leave, it’s too important.

        Have you read ‘the Holocaust Industry’? There is much more ammunition in that book to play this bullshit racism and bigotry card than in MacDonald’s books. MacDonald is an evolutionary biologist. He has written books on other groups as well!

        These identities are SOCIOLOGICAL. They are not INHERENT.

        I can’t believe you just said:

        The fact is, when you say that the prominence of minority Americans comes at the expense of white Americans, like it or not, you are toeing the white supremacist line.

        I am not saying this. I am saying that THEY are saying this. That’s THEIR point of view and I think you can preserve your ‘groups’ interest while not hating ‘the other’. This is not about refugees returning to their land after an injustice. This is about people from one country, coming to another illegally.

        And let’s forget ‘White America’ for now and just say ‘America’.

        Jews are a minority.

        How many Jews support Israel? How many of them are Zionist? How many does it take to constitute meaningful support?

        Surely most of the organized Jewish community supports Israel.

        Is our support for Israel in OUR interests? Is it IMMORAL to support a racist, Apartheid State? We did so w/ SA. We supported the Indonesian occupation of E. Timor.

        Every single group – whether it’s ‘the Whites’ or ‘the blacks’ or ‘the Jews’ has a certain amount of political capital. Furthermore, their power functions in different ways.

        Of course these groups are all competing w/ one another. That’s what the whole goddamn concept of LOBBYING is about.

        Now if someone says a Jew is born a Jew. Or that a Black is born a Black. BOTH in the sense that a BLACK or a JEW is going to behave like X simply because they were BORN [that identity] then they are being racist.

        If someone says that due to the social pressures and variables within a given community – an identity forms that is in line w/ ‘the group’ (doesn’t have to be all, but a group within the group) – then that is NOT racist.

        Read his book, you tell me what is racist. Maybe Phil can do a post on it.

        Actually, if Phil took the time to read the book and gave his sincere opinion and he STILL thought poorly of MacDonald I would seriously reconsider.

        See I don’t give a shit when ethnocentric Jew and Zionist like Alan Dershowitz or Abe Foxman or Caroline Glick or whichever fascist slime cries ‘antisemitism’.

        If someone who is SINCERE and is a HUMANIST is calling me out for racism, then I will have to check myself. Because then the accusation is meaningful and not just a damn card to play for people who are intellectually lazy.

      • Chaos4700 says:
        September 27, 2009 at 8:48 pm

        Probably, the reason I don’t call out Norman Finkelstein? I agree with him. The Israelis are behaving like Nazis. They are abusing the horror that was the Holocaust for financial and political gain. Take this interesting quote from David Ben-Gurion:

        “If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.”

        See, some of us have family in Germany. Some of us have family in Poland. Some of us have family where were American soldiers, who fought against the Nazis in both those countries. And some of us, like me, are all three.

        So don’t give me a goddamn lecture about what the Nazis are like and who has the authority to speak about that. Because I have blood on al sides of that equation, thank you very much.

      • Cliff says:
        September 27, 2009 at 9:54 pm

        See, some of us have family in Germany. Some of us have family in Poland. Some of us have family where were American soldiers, who fought against the Nazis in both those countries. And some of us, like me, are all three.

        So don’t give me a goddamn lecture about what the Nazis are like and who has the authority to speak about that. Because I have blood on al sides of that equation, thank you very much.

        What the hell? Did I GIVE you a lecture on what Nazis were like, Chaos?

        Do you know when people say that phrase? The ‘so don’t you lecture me about [something the person was challenged on but in fact knows a lot about]‘ line?

        When someone challenges them on that point! And I didn’t, you buffoon.

        Did I say you weren’t an expert Naziologist? That wasn’t implied in anything I’ve written to you so far and it surely wasn’t an explicit challenge made to you.

        I related the excerpt from American Radical to present the picture of Norman from the view of that possibly German girl in the audience. I then referenced the booing and the blah blah. Norman comes off looking like a bully. His rhetoric is irresponsible. That girl doesn’t look like a plant, she might have been truly hurt and he could have relayed his point WITHOUT alienating those people.

        And that [incoming caps-lock key rage] is my GODDAMN POINT!

        You afford a person like Fink, who is a good scholar and someone I respect, a lot of leg-room. EVEN THOUGH, he is very polarizing ON PURPOSE. He doesn’t have to be.

        And on a superficial glance – which is EXACTLY how much you know about MacDonald and what appears to be the extent to which other people here know him – he, Fink, could be just so easily dismissed. In fact, MORE SO! His rhetoric alone is enough for the other side to dismiss him.

        All of my ranting has had one point:

        You and other people here are blasting MacDonald when you aren’t blasting Fink. You aren’t doing that to Fink because you’ve taken the time to understand his point of view.

        After doing so, you could reach a middle ground – a more nuanced perspective which is arrived at through patience and not pressing the ‘OH NOES, HE’S A RACIST’ button.

        I’m saying, you could do the same damn thing for MacDonald by going through his work FIRST and then presenting a reasoned argument as to why he is a racist and a White Supremacist or at least someone who is A) aware that those people support him and B) has no problem w/ said support.

        I’ve recently watched an interview w/ him on YouTube and the interviewer seemed racist to me.

        But at the same time, Fink has been interviewed by people who bring up ‘Judeofascism’ (it’s from a Q&A after one of his lectures) and he didn’t label THEM racists or whatever right off the bat. Fink gave them leg room – as did MacDonald.

        When I was talking about those intellectual road-blocks that we run into while we debate, this is what I meant. You cannot – CANNOT – avoid issues of identity politics.

        And this gate-keeping going on is ridiculous. There is some poll I ran across that compared attitudes of Palestinian and Israeli youth towards each other.

        The Israeli Jews were comparatively MORE racist than the Palestinians.

        However, there was also a poll that showed Palestinian youth by and large do not think the Holocaust happened.

        Now is there any person here who would hold that against them? I mean, there is racism. Then there is years of fighting each other that leads to hatred. There is institutional racism. There is hatred of your oppressor.

        Do you now, not support the Palestinian cause because a lot of them do not believe the Holocaust happened?

        Are they NAZIS for thinking this?

        We spend intellectual capital on people we try to understand. We do things out of principle. That takes intellectual capital too. Chomsky defended Faurrison only when his case became a legal issue.

        But the same idiotic ‘OH NOES, THAT’S RACIST” verbage you’re expressing here, was used AGAINST Chomsky. People started saying the guy was a denier himself! (Werner Cohn said he heard Chomsky say that he was ‘agnostic’ on the Holocaust.)

        And a lot of people didn’t want to know the details. They didn’t care that Chomsky only supported Faurisson’s right to freedom of expression and ONLY AFTER it became a legal issue because Chomsky didn’t believe the State had the right to regulate thoughts and opinions.

        How did he get to this point? Where he’s supporting a Holocaust denier’s freedom of speech?

        Why was this issue something he cared about?

        Fink is superficially dismissed. When you read his work, subtract his rhetoric, what is the conclusions? According to the ‘dean’ of Holocaust studies, Raul Hilberg, Finkelstein’s findings were MODERATE.

        You haven’t even read MacDonald’s work. You don’t consider that ‘Whites’ can have their own sense of identity as well. Actually, nevermind, you just label them supremacists. Oh but as Svyanen would say, there are only White supremacists and not Jewish supremacists.

        This is such bullshit. And really it’s a shame that we’re censoring that Chris guy and not the people who were insulting the malnutrition of Gazan children or Michael L who says Palestinians DO NOT EXIST!

        No, when it comes to Jewish identity or Israeli apologists like Witty, we roll out the red carpet.

        Oh, but you think the Israelis are Nazis! I think you’re a fake. You go all out on the Israelis, call them Nazis. And then you’re broke. You’re all out of political capital. It’s like Univ. professors who are harsh on Israel but fanatically anti-Antisemitism to a 1984-level. Like Angry Arab – check out his webpage. The guy is great but when it comes to antisemitism he takes the same exact shallow perspective on the subject.

        He does this because he’s a chickenshit. He needs to be careful because he doesn’t want to lose credibility. It’s like Fink and his rhetoric. In the documentary Mersh is interviewed. Everyone knows Mersh is very classy and calm. He is an endearing guy. He says he thinks Fink has done good work but as an academic you have to pay close attention to your rhetoric.

        And I think the basic point to draw from that is that we are all playing this bullshit game where we watch what we say so as to avoid being pulled down by rhetorical traps and diversions. Fine enough. I wouldn’t want to make a comment like ‘There is no Palestinian people’ and not have the intellectual fortitude to deal w/ that line every single time I debate. And I’ve seen it happen. It happens on both sides.

        We cite something someone said and we say ‘that’s proof!’ – Witty does the same thing. And I called him out on it. You did too.

        See it’s not bad in and of itself. But it’s more like supplemental evidence. It’s icing on the cake. You have to present a substantiated argument and then end w/ a quote that is ominous/prophetic/revealing and damning.

        Like if the Zionists said they were actually the thieves and the Palestinians were the indigenous inhabitants (Ben-Gurion said this didn’t he?) – and you quoted this AFTER you went through the historical record, it would be a nice compelling finish.

        Other times, these quotes can hurt you.

        Fink has to always explain his support for Hezbollah. It’s very easy to say ‘crazy Leftist professor supports terrorist group’ and that line can have a lot of traction in the mainstream.

        But someone like YOU (and me), Chaos, would immediately suspend you judgment and look into it. You’d then learn that Fink supports Hezbollah within one context and does not care for their political ramblings on a great many issues, like ‘the Jews’ and such. Fink thought it was a good symbolic victory for the Arab people after Israel had attempted to conquer Lebanon again. 1000 dead civilians. Civilian infrastructure destroyed. This is the context that would be missing in the mainstream, going along w/ Fink’s support for Hezbollah.

        You would spend intellectual capital on Fink to figure out what he meant. You won’t for MacDonald. You haven’t read his books.

      • Chaos4700 says:
        September 27, 2009 at 11:02 pm

        So apparently attempting to engage you on an intellectual level is pointless, given that you think that somehow spamming us with excess verbiage somehow disguises the fact that you’re lambasting us with some sort of pointless moral equivocation.

        I don’t consider that ‘Whites’ can have their own sense of identity as well? Did you miss the part where I pointed out that I’m, you know, White? Gee, far be it from me to have any sort of insight into my own family of ethnic groups, huh.

        I don’t really understand why you’ve got yourself all worked up into a tizzy when I confronted you about your roundabout defense of White American entitlement. But frankly, I don’t suppose I care. Technically I think we’re on the same side of the whole Israel Palestine thing, but I can’t really tell. When you aren’t going around in circles, you’re hurling epithets at me.

      • Call Me Ishmael says:
        September 27, 2009 at 11:06 pm

        “… there are too many roadblocks in this discussion. TOO MANY.

        And we will never become enlightened or just grown intellectually until we deal with EACH and EVERY one. So this is good that we’re talking about it. ”

        Bravo, Cliff, for asserting that. I agree.

      • Cliff says:
        September 27, 2009 at 11:31 pm

        Chaos, you said this:

        The fact is, when you say that the prominence of minority Americans comes at the expense of white Americans, like it or not, you are toeing the white supremacist line.

        Which was in response to me, saying this:

        Our political culture FACILITATES identity politics.

        I am in no way trying to equate ‘White’ identity w/ that of ‘Black’ identity within the context of identity politics in America.

        Like for example, Blacks were kidnapped, enslaved, persecuted, etc. Of course they will have a close-knit community and be in solidarity w/ one another and thus, form groups that are trying to support themselves.

        [...]I am not anti-immigration.

        But there are GENUINE grievances people will have w/ ‘other groups’ living amongst them. Just as MacDonald says, you can be anti-immigration but pro-diversity. It doesn’t mean you HATE Hispanics for example. There are economic reasons and political reasons to be anti-immigration.

        Surely, much of Israeli Jewish society is deeply racist, but at the same time a Palestinian right of return would completely change the POLITICAL character of the State.

        Now when we compare that situation to America’s w/ illegal immigrants – there is one glaring difference. We are a very diverse society. There is a Mexican State.

        There is no Palestinian State. Furthermore, 800K Palestinians were driven out of THEIR homes and land. They aren’t the Native Americans, they aren’t all but exterminated. There are 5 million refugees.

        There is no roundabout argument here.

        And the reason I write a lot is the same reason Fink has to go into detail explaining his support for Hezbollah. The things I say, have to be explained clearly. I can’t help that you’re so thickheaded to take the time to answer me point-by-point.

        You’re so utterly childish that you said:

        So don’t give me a goddamn lecture about what the Nazis are like and who has the authority to speak about that. Because I have blood on al sides of that equation, thank you very much.

        I mean, what the hell are you even referencing here? This same sort of bullshit, fake, moral outrage is ingrained in evidenced in your earlier post:

        …What? That’s your idea of a “realist” perspective? No offense, dude, but that sounds like it could have been quoted from Stormfront’s discussion forums.

        Yea, dude, it’s like Stormfront. Again, tell me why you don’t blast Fink? It’s like I keep saying and you keep ignoring, you probably read Fink’s books or watched his lectures.

        All in all, you’ve spent the time to understand him.

        You reflexively bash MacDonald. That same tired, ‘Leftist’ (in a bad way) moral outrage.

        Just like how you assumed I was ‘lecturing’ you on something? Yea, what exactly? Why don’t you point it out to me, where in my post, did I even IMPLY that I was ‘lecturing’ you on ‘the Nazis are like’?

        Wtf does that even mean, seriously? ‘What the Nazis “are like”? Yea, Chaos, I’m telling you the history of the Nazis and how to identify them.

        You are intellectually shallow. That’s the bottom-line. Read Kevin M’s book before you start imitating Dershowitz mud-slinging. You’re no better than Zionists in their game of emotional blackmail.

      • Chaos4700 says:
        September 28, 2009 at 7:42 am

        You know, it really doesn’t matter how many flowery expressions you couch your personal attacks in, when you put “bullshit” in your own writing, your own writing becomes exactly that.

      • Cliff says:
        September 29, 2009 at 11:32 am

        That’s rich.

        Yet another reason to ask you to explain your support for Fink then? Fink’s rhetoric is far worse/undemocratic/polarizing than mine.

        But of course, that’s superficial. It’s superficial to comment on someone’s rhetoric alone and ignore the substance, unless the rhetoric is the substance.

        Fink is a careful scholar, and he is an advocate. He is a powerful supporter of the Palestinian cause. There is no one else like him in the movement who passionately defends Palestinians so publicly.

        His rhetoric is a weapon. It is a weapon to counter the intellectual dishonest of Zionism and Israel’s supporters here in the West. He reveals his opponents hypocrisy by being vicious himself.

        You sound like those tribal/ethnocentric Jews and Zionists who were offended by ‘The Holocaust Industry’.

        I’m no Finkelstein, but my argument is quite clear.

        You haven’t read MacDonald’s book. Has ANYONE here read it? Could anyone here provide their own criticism of this book (no copy-paste) and explain why he is a ‘Jew hater’? I’m so sick of this sense of entitlement. That’s what it comes back to.

        You dismiss what I say, because I made a simple and true point: you spoke to soon. You reflexively and superficially (in that typical ‘Leftist’ – bad – way) denounced MacDonald without having done any homework.

        We’re supposed to be caring about the Palestinians. Not having academic discussions on antisemitism. Jewish identity even strangles the Palestinian cause. More gatekeeping.

        Jeffrey Blankfort – a Jewish anti-Zionist – has perfectly illustrated this issue in an essay in ‘Politics of Anti-Semitism’.

        But yea, what I said was bullshit, because I called you out on your….bullshit. You’re so deep, Chaos.

    • Citizen says:
      September 29, 2009 at 11:03 am

      OH-oh, you’re not supposed to recognize the obvious. Identity politics is preached
      constantly, except white males cannot do so because blacks were once slaves, all browns came from the deprived and oppressed Third World, and there’s still no female US President. White males must now pay the price, and have been doing so for quite a while now–especially the working class and lower to middle class white males.

  19. marc b. says:
    September 27, 2009 at 11:07 am

    Really, AF, I wouldn’t know Kevin MacDonald from Ronald McDonald, but Patrick Buchanan is an ass. He criticizes WWII as a war that could have been avoided, yet was part of the cheerleading squad for Vietnam. He has placed himself in the ‘America First’ camp, yet he was part of an administration which did as much as any administration to open relations with China and Chinese commerce. He had the gall to suggest on public TV that Iran had packed the Iranian airbus shot down by the USS Vincennes with cadavers and provoked the shoot down as a ploy to undermine US credibility as a peace keeper in the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war. Why anyone would rely on him as a source of information or inspiration is a mystery.

    • America First says:
      September 27, 2009 at 6:35 pm

      Buchanan was dead wrong on Vietnam. The US had no more business there there than Iraq. But it was in America’s interests to normalize relations with China. The Chicoms were evil and murderous toward their own people, but did not threaten us. That normalization did not lead immediately or inevitably to flooding the US with Chinese products and throwing our people out of work. That development would await later, free-trading Republicans, ie both Bushes, whom Buchanan was right to oppose on that issue.

  20. stopaipac says:
    September 27, 2009 at 11:52 am

    Marc, Kevin McDonald is a racist of the worst sort. hates non-white people and Jewish people.

  21. marc b. says:
    September 27, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    Thanks. Enuff said. And I hate people who hate “non-white” and “Jewish” people.

    • Call Me Ishmael says:
      September 27, 2009 at 4:16 pm

      That’s too much hate. Hate is a force that engenders reciprocal hate; for every force there is an equal and opposite force (from high school physics).

      To the point: I doubt that either of you have any real evidence that McDonald “hates” Jews. I know that I don’t know about that, although I have read part of two of his essays. Didn’t give me enough to surmise his personal feelings about his study population.

      I’m going to guess that you probably don’t “hate” McDonald because you have hard evidence that he “hates” Jews, but rather because you really, really do hate what he writes about his subject population – his analysis and conclusions – because it indiscriminately, implicitly sweeps into its scope a whole bunch of your favorite people and, in your opinion, presents them in a bad light.

      That kind of “hate” I understand. But I do think that the mere fact that a goy social scientist chooses to study a certain prominent sub-population in our society and comes to conclusions you don’t like is not sufficient evidence that he “hates” the members of that population, or his study population as a whole.

      There would need to be further evidence to justify your distortion of your own character with “hate” for another.

  22. javs says:
    September 27, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    It would be a fact if you are to say the crimes against humanity go without any justice as they always do in the case of the aparthied israel a rogue state full of people needing to be deprogrammed from the brainwashing idiology of this cult.
    It would be fact if you considered the international courts and united nations a sham in the regards it is to protect the victims and prosecute for the victims of these crimes.
    Besides the ww2 tribunals whom else have they actually gone after in the usa or aparthied israel whom by the way never opened up their nuke program. Why should there not be a prosecution of these people ? did the cult makers (usa zionist christains and jews do it without presidential help) no. then why are these presidents still not locked up along with the others. CRIMES against humanity is a big business for the governments like usa and aparthied israel. Hopefully a rogue element will detonate the nukes and wipe all the middle east off the map, I only wish all the cronnies from the usa where there at the same time…seating will be limited at massada you all better reserve a spot for the cronnies too. I only imagine how people that have realized they have been lied to will react after all this time and crime has been committed in their names with their taxes from people they voted in, but that voting here is no different than the third world countries we run…its all a sham to control people with religon and beliefs.

  23. DG says:
    September 27, 2009 at 4:47 pm

    Most people here at this site are in solidarity in their opposition to Zionism. If the conversation stayed at this level, I don’t think there would be many of these flare-ups of so-called “antisemitism.” The problem seems to arise whenever someone, directly or implicitly, raises the question of the roots of Zionism — is it a hijacking of true Jewishness or the expression of supremacist ideas that were always there?

    Obviously such a line of inquiry is going to be controversial. So controversial that personally I don’t think that our society is currently equipped to talk about it. We’ve lost the ability to have a conversation about Jewishness. The necessary concepts and vocabulary have atrophied through enforced disuse since the Holocaust.

    But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still an important subject. How can one hope to defeat any ideology without examining its roots? So even though for now people (including myself) might be better off biting their tongues when the subject comes up, I hope we are all continuing to think about it and searching for new ways to talk about it.

    Phil wrote, “If the pathologies I find so important are in this time and place peculiar, they are not racial or irremediable.” Everyone (I hope) agrees they are not racial, and as optimists we have to agree they are not irremediable. But technically his sentence doesn’t quite make sense as written. I suggest what he meant to write was, “If the pathologies I find so important are NOT peculiar to this time and place, still they are not racial or irremediable.”

    • syvanen says:
      September 27, 2009 at 5:32 pm

      The problem seems to arise whenever someone, directly or implicitly, raises the question of the roots of Zionism — is it a hijacking of true Jewishness or the expression of supremacist ideas that were always there?

      The question of the roots of Zionism quite legitimate. To suggest that it is an expression of Jewish supremacist ideas is not. This is stereotyping Jewish character in what we mean by antisemitism. The blow up Friday began with Chris linking this universal Jewish character to Jewish Bolshevism and the neocons. He fully deserved his thrashing and to be banned from this site. That does not mean that people like you who try to defend him are antisemitic, but you do seem quite insensitive to those who are.

      • tree says:
        September 27, 2009 at 5:58 pm

        But Zionism IS an expression of Jewish supremacist ideas. This does not mean that every Jew is a supremacist, or that the only threads of Judaism, or “Jewishness” more generally, are supremacist ones, or that Jews are the only people who have ideas that put more worth or value on their own affinity group than others. But the idea of Jewish supremacism exists, and it exists among a certain subset of Jews, just as white supremacism exists, and it exists among a certain subset of whites. And Christian supremacism exists among a certain subset of Christians. To deny that any of that exists is not a refutation of Chris but rather the polar companion to Chris’s statement that such Jewish supremacism is universal. And on top of that, the argument that Jewish supremacism doesn’t exist among some Jews, or have some limited basis in Jewish scripture, is entirely counterfactual to reality, just as Chris’ argument of universality was counterfactual.

      • Cliff says:
        September 27, 2009 at 6:31 pm

        I think syvanen is a racist against White people! ‘White’ supremacist?

        This is ridiculous. And it shows how hijacked the Palestinian cause is. We are falling over ourselves talking about Jewish identity with such care as if we’re handling delicate china.

        OF COURSE Zionism is a construct of Jewish identity. To deny that is just a flat out whitewash.

        It’s like saying that there is nothing wrong w/ any of these three religions – it’s just how people ‘interpret’ it. Yea, I’ll agree that there are certainly ‘good Jews, Christians, Muslims’ but if anyone follows religion to the letter they will be unable to fit into a modern society. So clearly, these ‘good’ ones are being judged as good within our own sense of right and wrong as outside non-believers.

        And then there is all this talk about Jewish identity. Like any other group, these are self-fulfilling prophecies. Why did they settle on the name ‘Jew’? Who picked out that name? It’s all a man-made idea. So criticizing it is doing so as a sociological phenomena.

        People should be allowed to criticize anyone’s identity. Their customs, their traditions, their culture, etc.

        There is a respectful way to do so.

        You’re all sounding like that dentist from Seinfeld who converts to Judaism and then the next day whines about how ‘his’ people have suffered for 3000 years.

      • Psychopathic god says:
        September 27, 2009 at 8:50 pm

        Why did they settle on the name ‘Jew’? Who picked out that name? It’s all a man-made idea. So criticizing it is doing so as a sociological phenomena.

        “Judaism in Persia’s Shadow,” by Jon L. Berquist:

        “How did Judaism’s transformation into Yehud, the Persian colony, affect its ideology, its self-understanding, its religion and its rhetoric, and how did this new form of religion work both to maintain and to oppose the society in which it took this shape?” … [p. iv]
        …The destruction of Jerusalem (587 BCE) resulted in the removal of certain Jerusalemites to Babylonian territory, but within two generations (539 BCE) the Persian Empire defeated Babylonia and offered opportunities for some of the exiles’ children and grandchildren to migrate to the Jerusalem area. This intermingling of the separated strands that derived from monarchic Judah continued in the post-exilic community [of Yehud] under Persian rule for about two centuries, until Persia’s defeat in 333 BCE.” [p. 4]

        ‘Jew’ emerged from Persian ‘Yehud,’ meaning Judaean. The tribes of Israel disappeared; the tribes of Judah survived, but were defeated by Nebuchadnezzar.
        Turns out Jews owe Persia a significant debt of gratitude. Perhaps bombing Iran will erase the debt.

        It’s all a man-made idea. So criticizing it is doing so as a sociological phenomena.

        Agree completely that Judaism, Jewry, Abraham, Israel, Jesus, Christianity, Islam, Zionism, are least toxically and most beneficially studied and discussed in anthropological, sociological, and historical contexts. Many of the instances in which Jews claim singular persecution ‘just because they’re Jews’ can be attributed to economic grievances or other geopolitical events, and did not target Jews uniquely — for example, Andalusia’s Muslims were expelled from Spain simultaneously with Jews.

    • Call Me Ishmael says:
      September 27, 2009 at 6:41 pm

      “How can one hope to defeat any ideology without examining its roots?”

      D, although I am sure your question was addressed mainly to the Jewish participants, I would like to offer some observations.

      If the goal you have in mind is defeating political Zionism, I’m afraid that’s a long lost cause. As long as there is a “Jewish State of Israel” there will be Zionism, in Israel and around the world. And Israel is not going away unless it foolishly destroys itself. Here in America, there will always be a strong Zionist movement in support of Israel. Even J Street is Zionist. In Israel, even what Ha’aretz now derisively calls “the extreme left peace camp” is Zionist. To paraphrase Charles Krauthammer, “Look around you; everyone you see is Zionist.”

      The goal should be to alter and channel Zionism to better purpose. If a two-state solution is still possible, go for it! If not, then bring pressures to bear to ensure that the Single State will be a democracy, a nation with equal rights and protections for the current Palestinian population of Israel and Judea-Samaria-Gaza combined.

      But I think I understand your emphasis on defeating the ideology of Zionism. To do so would deeply undermine the foundations of the Zionist political movement in America, where its greatest strength lies.

      Defeating the ideology that supports the political movement is a task that can be undertaken only by Jews themselves. Helping to weaken the Zionist political movement in America is something the rest of us can also engage in. (I know this last statement will cause alarm bells to sound in the heads of some readers.)

      The only way to put effective pressure on the Zionists in Israel is to weaken the Zionist political movement in America. That much can be done.

    • DG says:
      September 27, 2009 at 10:14 pm

      I wrote, “I hope we are all continuing to think about it and searching for new ways to talk about it.”

      Syvanen wrote, “Zionist supremisim is just another manifestation of the Western imperialist’s mindset.”

      Hmmm, actually I was hoping you might show a little more courage than that. (Jewishness does exist you know. It’s a large body of ideas. Ideas have implications. You’re allowed to think about them.)

      • Cliff says:
        September 27, 2009 at 10:26 pm

        You are not allowed to think about Jewishness. Zionists aren’t Jews! They are all Europeans and learned everything from those Christians! In fact, Zionists are Nazis! They learned everything from the Nazis!

        Jewish identity has no part in it at all! Oh and when you talk about the Israel lobby, only mention the Christian Zionists!

        Right, syvanen – aren’t you Jewish yourself? Or married to a Jewish person? Maybe that’s why you’re so completely phony.

        Zionist supremacy is just another manifest of ‘Western’ imperialism? Alright, and where did this European invention come from? Did it come out of thin air?

        Are Jews, God’s Chosen people?

        How about those Holocaust survivors berating the guy who lost all of his family in a rocket attack by Israel during Gaza? Are they ONLY Zionists?

        What is Zionism?

        This is whitewashing and you, as well as Mooser and all the other apologists here – are transparent.

        No, it’s not ALL Jews and no Zionism is not THE construct of Jewish identity but rather A construct of Jewish identity.

      • syvanen says:
        September 27, 2009 at 10:47 pm

        Jewishness does exist you know. It’s a large body of ideas. Ideas have implications. You’re allowed to think about them.

        WTF are you trying to say, “Jewsisness does exist you know” Please define this concept of “Jewishness” that encompasses say Zionism, Bolshevism, the American neocon movement, or any number of enterprises where Jews are disproportionaltely represented.

        Keep in mind that this definition will distinquish between the Jews involved in the last two categories and their non Jewish participants. While you are at it perhaps you could provide some insight into the uniquely Jewish contribution to say such things as finace capital, philharmonic orchestras, theoretical physics, retail drug stores, the textile industries, denistry to name just a few areas where Jews are disproportionally represented.

      • Chaos4700 says:
        September 27, 2009 at 11:14 pm

        I can tell you with some authority that this conversation with Cliff isn’t likely to go anywhere sensible. I’m starting to think this is some form of elaborate performance art.

      • Call Me Ishmael says:
        September 27, 2009 at 11:34 pm

        Syvanen, your style of attack has seemed vaguely familiar to me and I’ve been trying to remember where I have seen it before. Now I recall: It was on the Ha’aretz talkbacks a couple of years ago, before they tightened up on their free-for-alls.

        Your methodology is identical to that used by the apologists on Ha’aretz.com (English) in their slashing defense of Israel against criticism by leftists like me and others. Similar techniques were used on those boards by Zionist fanatics.

        Did you get your training as an apologist on the Ha’aretz boards?

      • Cliff says:
        September 28, 2009 at 12:11 am

        I only said that Zionism was a construct of Jewish identity. And it certainly is.

        Who here said all Jews are Zionists or that Zionism is THE construct of Jewish identity?

        That’s another issue.

        And Chaos, I can’t help it if you don’t read my posts. You straw manned me and the other guy. You haven’t read the book whose author you are denouncing. And here you are accusing me of trolling (virtually). Fuck off.

      • Chaos4700 says:
        September 28, 2009 at 7:44 am

        See? And I’m supposed to be the childish, shallow one, huh.

  24. syvanen says:
    September 27, 2009 at 6:22 pm

    Of course I was talking about the supposed universal and uniqe Jewish character. Zionist supremisim is just another manifestation of the Western imperialist’s mindset with the substitution of Jew for white. Not a big difference and the implicit racism is not unique.

    • tree says:
      September 27, 2009 at 6:38 pm

      Then you were “replying” to something that was not said by D.. and assuming that he was “defending ” Chris, or agreeing in toto with Chris’ viewpoint simply because he disagreed with yours. Sensitivity is a plus for everyone involved, except when over sensitivity to one’s own concerns leaves one insensitive to others.

      Of course the racism is not unique. Not much in the world is. But to deny that it exist is just as insensitive as claiming it is universal. And D.. made no statement indicating that he believes in either the uniqueness or universality you are ascribing to him.

      • syvanen says:
        September 27, 2009 at 9:42 pm

        Sorry Tree but D.. was dancing vey close to the line between “open discussion” and overt defense of antisemitism. Part of my reaction was some things he said in defense of Chris Friday night. That thread is so thoroughly purged right now it is hard to reconstruct. He may not at all be antisemitic but he definitely keeps open a discourse that gives it an opening. So tree I guess you support an open discussion into the expression of [Jewish] supremacist ideas that were always there? Eh, eh, wink, wink you know that alien Jew thinking stuff.

      • Call Me Ishmael says:
        September 27, 2009 at 10:17 pm

        Syvanen, I’m curious to know if you see your role here as Gatekeeper, responsible for sniffing out any putative odor of anti-semitism. Do you have an appointment from the proprietors?

        I was glad to see that you did make one substantive comment just above. I hadn’t seen anything from you before except your extensive detective work.

      • tree says:
        September 28, 2009 at 3:09 am

        He may not at all be antisemitic but he definitely keeps open a discourse that gives it an opening. So tree I guess you support an open discussion into the expression of [Jewish] supremacist ideas that were always there? Eh, eh, wink, wink you know that alien Jew thinking stuff.

        From my perspective, a closed and shuttered discourse, or the denial of any discourse at all, is much more likely to lead to anti-semitism than an open one. You can’t lead someone away from anti-semitism, or any kind of bigotry, by insisting that certain subjects can not be allowed to be discussed. Frankly, such a shutting off, or instant name calling without listening to what is being said, is much more likely to convince some people that anti-semitism isn’t so bad after all. (And to my mind, it is no worse than any other bigotry, but any form of bigotry is a bad thing.)

        What I see here is too many people having knee-jerk reactions to any criticism of Jews or Jewishness, inferring that anyone who is not Jewish and makes such a criticism is applying it universally to each and every Jew and/or positing that it is some genetic trait. I haven’t heard anyone here make those points, but I’ve heard a lot of strawman arguments against points that were not made.

        Open discussion is a good thing, regardless of where it leads. I suspect that some people believe that any open discussion of the topic will lead to anti-semitism, which will necessarily in the end lead to oppression and pogroms, and this is why they feel the need to shut down discussions. But I believe that such thinking is not only faulty but is at its root just as bigoted as the anti-semitism it fears. My two cents worth.

        And I seriously doubt that either D.. or Cliff were talking about “alien Jewish thinking stuff”. I believe you are knee-jerking and assuming you already “know” what they are saying and therefore don’t have to actually listen to what they do say. I may or may not agree with their perspectives 100%, since it is hard to tell in a forum such as this exactly what others’ thought processes are, but I see them as making valid and non-bigoted points that are worthy of more than name-calling in response. I believe they are attempting to apply the same rules of acceptable criticism for other cultures to Jewish culture and are thus arguing AGAINST the idea that Jews are alien or exist outside of the rules that apply to all others.

      • Call Me Ishmael says:
        September 28, 2009 at 3:29 am

        “But I believe that such thinking is not only faulty but is at its root just as bigoted as the anti-semitism it fears.”

        Wow, Tree, you knocked it out of the park with this one. Well said!

  25. VR says:
    September 27, 2009 at 9:38 pm

    I think syvanen’s post above (6:22PM) is closest to reality, and how those in power maintain their positions of authority in the USA is via how the system has always worked. So if you’re going to address the the system in the USA that is nothing but a franchise for the moneyed elite and their corporate instruments.

    Just like in the system in America so in Israel, it has a 10/90 split in income just like the United States (actually it is getting exponentially worse). As long as this elite from the US side and Israel are allowed to predominant in the state(s) apparatus there will be no remedy to the conflict.

    Systemically in the various organization of Zionism in the USA and in Israel (outside of the progressive ones) you have the same scenario – a moneyed elite who hold sway and finance henchmen for Zionism. Some think J Street is going to address this, I do not, because you cannot have any impact with silence or as I have said bfore the “lack of” argument – at best you will get what they have in Israel, a right like Likud that cheers when Palestinians die and and a left that shoots and cries.

    So actually the situation is much more complicated than merely addressing the state side contingency or just Israel, because there is a confluence of interests involved. We are going to have to address the very foundations of these rogue states. It is only obvious, the USA does what it wants via the system all over the world and tells the people to go to hell – Israel does what it wants and tells what is a growing group of resistance to go to hell. This is why only a world response will offset what is endemic to these systems, and that through BDS – it has to be on a global scale.

  26. VR says:
    September 27, 2009 at 10:04 pm

    Syvanen, if you want to see the post intact with all of Chris’s comments you can go to the Judeofascism.com where he has preserved a link with the whole intact (I think, I saw it but do not know if it has all the comments, it claims to).

    What is sort of amusing about the sites definition is that he claims Bolshevism and Socialism for the Jews, but calls his site Judeofascism…lol Anyhow, I trust that we all understand here that these systems (US and Israeli) cannot exist without an elite which incites and moves the whole. Even if you look, lets say, at the UN which is supposed to be a world body it is beset with a predominant Security Council (which I addressed Micheal the little Zionist troll when he appealed to the League Of Nations seeing something viable in the creation of Israel under the site where the trouble started).

  27. seth says:
    September 27, 2009 at 11:36 pm

    Philip, thanks for writing this.

  28. Todd says:
    September 28, 2009 at 12:04 am

    “I criticize Jews and Israel all the time, from a universalist perspective: that we too are part of the human condition and that if the pathologies I find so important are in this time and place peculiar, they are not racial or irremediable. So that’s my mood. I don’t like the spirit of those comments, and I’m trying to improve the site.”

    What does anti-Semitism even mean? Who is harming Jews in the U.S.? Phil constantly talks of Jewish influence, chauvanism, clannishness and the sense of Jewish superiority that he was raised with, so how is it anti-Semitic to then bring up the existence or effects of those traits?

    I don’t believe that supporting segregation is anywhere near on par with supporting what was done in Palestine over the last 70+ years, or that historical white racism in the U.S. is primarily a southern ideology–which is what Phil apparently believes by the constant posts and comparisons to Zionism.

    I also don’t know what it means to criticize from a “universalist perspective.” I wonder if the terms “cracker” and “redneck” are terms of universal criticism? My guess is that any derogatory terms for Jews would just be considered ethnic slurs, and proof of anti-Something.

  29. javs says:
    September 28, 2009 at 1:13 am

    I would suggest all the scholarly people with all this info go to the internationalcriminal courts and help prosecute the usa past and present administrations and place santions if not co operated with and the aparthied state be dismantled at once with complete right of return for the 18million + people including the reparations (just as the jews recieved and still do after all these years) , this is the only fair conclusion to come to. the sites as this are only as good as the people with the information, and if the people with the information do not “do the right thing and help prosecute) they should hang up these sites for what they are “USELESS” and just as a person whom is tied to a murder even though he did not commit it , you all are guilty as ever for letting these inhuman people scheme and murder.

    • Call Me Ishmael says:
      September 28, 2009 at 3:10 am

      Javs, thanks for this comment. You make some very good points here. We need action, not just talk.

    • Citizen says:
      September 29, 2009 at 11:27 am

      I don’t disagree with you, Javs, so what do you think the average American do about it
      other than vote the usual lesser of two evils and contact their congressmen to make their view known? It would be helpful if the USA had a political campaign system
      paid for exclusively by federal taxes coupled with free TV access for political candidates on a 24/7 channel. As it is, special interests pay the campaign bills and congress pays those pipers and sings their tunes. AIPAC rules.

      • Citizen says:
        September 29, 2009 at 11:29 am

        And I definitely think, in case I didn’t make it clear, that Bush and Chaney and those involved in turning torture into a policy and Homeland Security into eavesdropping
        on private USA citizens en masse–should all be tried and put in prison.

  30. Frankie P says:
    September 28, 2009 at 3:05 am

    Phil Weiss:

    “I zapped the Chris Moore comment for the same reason, I don’t think he has anything nice to say about my original community; I don’t want him offering his opinion of Jews on my site, he’s got his own, and I zapped the Kevin MacDonald citation because I feel like it. I don’t like the tone. I criticize Jews and Israel all the time, from a universalist perspective: ”

    You didn’t even have the balls in your post to mention that you had banned him from the site, significantly impacting the free speech principle that has been one of the most
    attractive things about this site. Now, let’s preempt syvannen and mooser and v and their leftist stream – I am not defending what Chris Moore said, but Phil Weiss has let a lot of racist bullshit flow from the mouths of Zionazis on this site, and I’d like to know how many he has banned. Pancake jokes about Rachel Corrie, etc. Phil, did you ban them? Have you banned Joachim, or just taken the link to his site down? People on this site be forewarned: you can criticize Jews here, but only on Phil Weiss’s terms, which he labels as a universalist perspective. Say what you will, but Chris Moore had something to add to this site. You may not agree with ANY of his conclusions, but he was obviously well versed in a lot of history and contributed facts to the discussion.

    FPM

  31. Frankie P says:
    September 28, 2009 at 3:10 am

    Todd,

    “What does anti-Semitism even mean? Who is harming Jews in the U.S.? Phil constantly talks of Jewish influence, chauvanism, clannishness and the sense of Jewish superiority that he was raised with, so how is it anti-Semitic to then bring up the existence or effects of those traits? ”

    It’s becoming more and more clear that the definition of anti-Semitism in this mileu is not a question of WHAT you bring up, ie “the existence or effects of those traits”, but
    WHO brings them up. Phil will allow folks who share his worldview or who are part of his “original community” to criticize, but those who he feels may hold views too “cracker” or “redneck”, he’d rather not see you here on his site.

    FPM

    • Todd says:
      September 28, 2009 at 10:52 am

      Phil has always been very concerned about the condition of Jews, and as far as I can tell, what he calls “universalism” doesn’t mean anything.

      I understand why any Jew would be uneasy about anti-Jewish hostility, but where are the threats in modern America? It’s not uncommon to see Jews voicing hostility towards whites, Christians or traditional America–that’s just a staple in modern America. I just tire of the claims by many Jews that there is no such thing as Jewish power, influence, cohesion or shared interests that may conflict with the interests of other groups.

      David nailed the issue in an earlier comment when he stated that the real point is the size of Jewish influence in relation to the corrosive elements that are already present within the majority culture. Absent a manifesto or chronicle, we can only guess at what is really going on.

      • Cliff says:
        September 28, 2009 at 10:59 am

        Just look at American film. We never see stereotypes of Jews or even unflattering portraits of them.

        In fact, we are consistently reinforced w/ positive imagery of Jews when their identity is pertinent to the story.

        Meanwhile:

        link to youtube.com

        If you want to see how hypocritical race relations are in this culture, compare images and portrayals of Arabs and Muslims to Jews.

      • marc b. says:
        September 28, 2009 at 11:16 am

        Cliff, I see stereotypical Jewish characters in film and TV all the time. Often the caricature is of the ‘loveable loser’, but in some cases the stereotype is critical, even anti-Semitic. I recall an episode of ‘The Wire’ in which the ‘scumbag’ lawyer was clearly a ‘Jewish’ character. What this means exactly is another question.

        The representation of Muslims in the media is dishonest and vile, but it isn’t legitimate to compare Muslims treatment with that of ‘the Jews’. Now that most Americans have gotten over Vietnam, and the Cold War is past, someone had to replace the Vietnamese torturing Chuck Norris and his buddies in the tiger cage. Americans seemingly need someone to fear and hate to feel complete.

      • Cliff says:
        September 28, 2009 at 12:00 pm

        marc, I see what you mean. I also recognize those stereotypes (the loveable loser/bookworm type).

        however, you should read the book ‘Reel Bad Arabs’ or watch the video version (which isn’t as good, since there is so much material to cover). this isn’t merely picking on a new political enemy.

        although i definitely think that our stereotypes of minorities and ‘the other’ reflect our politics as well

        and finally, while i did not mention contemporary imagery of jews, my point is that of comparative analysis. jack sheehan points out this comparison (not specifically Jew vs. Arab, but Arab vs. all other stereotypes in American culture).

        when we move to the next filter of our critical thinking – which I implied, the ‘extent’ to which we are bombarded w/ one image or the other – there is no question, that by and large the stereotypes of Jews are far far far less negative and outright hateful than that of Arabs and Muslims.

  32. DavidF says:
    September 28, 2009 at 7:48 am

    I have come to like and respect the overwhelming majority of regular participants on this blog. The issues that we discuss are very volatile, and have a lot of baggage attached to them; I think we have done surprisingly well at maintaining a civil relationship with each other. I am sorry that this arrangement seems to have broken down.

    I am disappointed that Chris was targeted, as I certainly do not think he was among the more divisive posters, and I have found him to be consistently civil to his many opponents, however offensive they may find his ideas. Chris wrote in a blunt, polemical style, but he hammered at questions that most many well-meaning liberals avoid in discussions amongst themselves.

    I think that what made Phil and some others most uncomfortable was Chris’ direct challenge to the progressive vision of history and human nature. He constantly reminded readers of the inherently destructive nature of universal movements, which demand the sacrifice of particularistic and traditional social structures to which many peoples are deeply attached.

  33. Todd says:
    September 28, 2009 at 10:32 am

    “v… September 28, 2009 at 12:49 am
    Well Psychopathic god I think the answer is a bit simple, Jews are influenced from above by their leaders, just like Americans in general can be frothed up by their leaders lets say – for a war. Yet, we would not blame all of the American people for what their ruling elites do in government, would we? You speak of all of these predominant voices yet do not seem to piece together the fact that they are guns for hire from above. You tried to reduce it to two old Jewish ladies “sipping chai at Starbucks,” but merely pinpoint the symptom and not the cause.”

    Large segments of the American population gets the blame for what its leaders have done, and that is just a feature of what America has become. I would call such programs as affirmative action a case of large numbers of innocent Americans being punished for what ruling elites have done. Using the term “white racism” speads blame around without regard for the fact that many whites are harmless and never benefited from being white, or were even considered superior in any way by white elites.

  34. javs says:
    September 28, 2009 at 5:22 pm

    I would not suggest that today I stand on a bridge with a box of paper for sale, however the fact that innocence is not justified by ignorance, the duration that has elapsed in this judgement day (so to say) for the wrong done and just undo it by having a mass exodus out of Palestine all together. If it were the other way around it would never have happened in the first place that some made up fables are factually a reason to commit genocide on behalf of an intire people or race or religon and when resistance is still ongoing to it they are labled the terrorist…it is like the world blaming the jews for being in the wrong place at the wrong time in WW2. All Supporters are guilty as ever, and a good place to start would be a petition to either dismantle the international criminal courts and the un, etc if this is not brought to justice and repaired, there is just too much damm evidence that a cult is within the usa’s government that has manipulated positions to obtain this result we all see today, so they may need to be dismantled and unseated from positions as supporters as well with cable and tv commercials running on all stations continuously for years till an entire deprograming of the people can be achieved…and reparations R/R.

  35. Call Me Ishmael says:
    September 28, 2009 at 9:30 pm

    This particular comment board will probably draw to a close soon. I think it is appropriate to cap it with a quote from Solzhenitsyn, taken from “Two Hundred Years Together, 1795-1995″:

    “There cannot be a question upon earth that is unsuited for contemplative discourse among people. To converse broadly and openly is more honest — and in our case it is also indispensable.”

    (I found this thanks to D.. at his link provided above, @D.. September 26, 2009 at 1:47 pm)

    Yes, Philip Weiss, “in our case it is also indispensable”.

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