Comments on: Delegitimization is moving fast. What next?

By: MHughes976

MHughes976 — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:55:03 +0000

The reasons for flinching from the label ‘anti-Semite’ are, I think
1. the desire to be humane in all one’s dealings
2. knowledge of how the least concession on anyone’s part to anti-Semitism would be exploited by Zionist propaganda
3 – most important, it’s not just Zionists or their propaganda. The overwhelming moral reaction in the whole Western world to World War II lay in the imperative ‘Never again!’ – meaning never again would we allow Nazi ideas, very much including anti-Semitism, to get the least grip upon us or to seem to have the least justification. This was all very reasonable and understandable. I once thought that I accepted this imperative without trouble. But I’m having trouble now with thinking that if Zionism enjoys massive support among Jews and if all the justifications for this morally prevalent attitude among Jews are mistaken then at least a little of the justification offered for anti-Semitism, that the morality prevalent among Jews is questionable, cannot be rejected out of hand. However moderately I try to put this the pain of breaking not just with Zionists but with post-war consensus that I have been accustomed to respect troubles me. So I keep looking for a way out.

By: MHughes976

MHughes976 — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:50:20 +0000

There is certainly a good case, as you say, for regarding Zionism as aberration – indeed as an inauthentic aberration invented by eccentric Christians, (Piterberg, Returns of Zionism and Rose, The Qu. of Zion). Should we claim that anti-Zionists cannot be anti-Semites because Zionists cannot be authentic Jews? That the former group within humanity called the Jews has all but abolished itself, leaving only a few hardy, stubbornly authentic souls? I would be glad to justify my flinching from the term ‘anti-Semite’ in any way that worked, but I suppose that many would say that this claim is nothing but an abuse of language.
However, suppose we don’t make this claim and accept that Zionist morality is pretty strong among non-Jews but actually prevalent among Jews. I really don’t see how we can spare ourselves the term ‘anti-Semite’ just by insisting that we don’t perform logically invalid ‘from some to all’ inferences. There’s no avoiding a negative attitude towards a group whose morality troubles us and I can’t take much comfort from the fact that this attitude becomes manifest at the individual level in dealing with most, rather than with all, members of the group. And there must be some impact at the individual level, even if it works out no more dramatically than going to some pains to keep off certain topics in company where discussion might become confrontation, which is how I mainly experience it.

By: potsherd

potsherd — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:36:36 +0000

As if more evidence were needed that J Street is a big fat bust.

This was supposed to be the organization that so many people were hoping for, waiting for – and it turned out to be nothing of the sort. Anti-Zionists should write off J Street entirely.

By: Todd

Todd — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:56:42 +0000

The last 5 or 6 posts are interesting, and I don’t understand the lengths some go to in order to convince themselves that they aren’t anti-Semites. I don’t see similar hand-wringing when criticizing other groups or cultures.

I can’t account for all people of any group, but I think it is pretty clear that organized Jewry is antagonistic towards traditional America. The issue is to what extent organized Jewish groups represent the Jewish community. My guess is that the major organized Jewish groups at least represent influential Jews very well. Why ignore the fact that groups have interests, and that many groups don’t fit together very well?

I’d also say that Zionism isn’t the only issue that causes friction between Jews and others. Whether Zionism is a popular outgrowth of the Jewish community, or not, isn’t the issue that some make it out to be. To me, the major issue is how well groups fit together.

Is anyone watching the C-span interview with Jeremy Ben-Ami? A caller mentioned the Israel lobby’s influence, entangling ties and the suppressed Sozhenitsyn book as negative aspects of Jewish influence, and all Ben-Ami could do is spin and throw out the accusation of anti-Semitism. A second caller mentioned AIPAC and entangling alliances, and all Ben-Ami could do is accuse the caller of not understanding how lobbying works, and make weak comparisons between AIPAC and the NRA and AARP–as if either group is an ethnic lobby working on behalf of their co-ethnics abroad, while spying and siphoning money from the U.S. economy. Ben-Ami also did the typical zionist excuse making for blowing money on Israel, when he went on to say that Israel provides jobs for the U.S. economy.Why should anyone view J-Street as anything other than AIPAC’s sister organization?

By: Chaos4700

Chaos4700 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:38:39 +0000

It made the Jews easy to scapegoat, yeah. That was definitely a deliberate choice in European culture, to move from merely burning them at the stake to pushing them into the role of money handlers (which medieval Christians by and large considered a “dirty” practice that no one going to heaven should ever get involved in)

What baffles me is that Zionist Jews almost seem to revel in that stereotyped role, play it to the hilt and then turn indignant when anyone points that out. And honestly, I have to assume that’s as much of an embarrassment to most Jews as it is an embarrassment for me, as a Catholic, to see yahoos like Erik Prince reveling in his role as a self-styled Templar.

By: Citizen

Citizen — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:03:44 +0000

Medieval Jewry were the only subjects allowed to charge interest and collect it in the King’s court; they were also the King’s tax collectors; they were also the only subjects
allowed to practice medicine; and the only subjects allowed to pass freely through any
toll gate as “the King’s property.”

How about the modern role? Here’s a quick sketch in the form of a recent book review: link to pulsemedia.org

By: potsherd

potsherd — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:05:15 +0000

Zionism – or so I hope – can be regarded as a temporary aberration. Historically, most Jews have not been Zionists. Zionist Jews are merely a small subgroup of Jews, considered in this light. To avoid condeming an entire people because of the activity of a small subgroup is not making exceptions, it’s making the valid distinction between a subgroup with pernicious values and the rest of the group.

As I see it, the error involves making judgments about a group as a whole. I think it can move in both directions: from the wholesale condemnation of the entire group to the condemnation of its individual members – or making exceptions of a few individuals. Or in generalizing from some individuals to condemnation of the whole group.

In medieval times, when Jews held the monopoly on moneylending, individual moneylenders engaged in usurious practices and caused suffering to their debtors. These Jews were hated and reviled for what they did, but this is not in itself anti-Semitic. Other moneylenders have been hated and reviled, with cause. But because the medieval Jewish moneylenders belonged to an identifiable and alien group, the public generalized and condemned the whole group, many of whom had nothing to do with moneylending – and that was anti-Semitic.

By: MHughes976

MHughes976 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:20:08 +0000

It’s clear enough that I am morally at variance with non-Jews who are Zionists, and there are plenty of them, and morally at one with, indeed rather admiring of, Jewish people who are anti-Zionists. And of course there are many Jews, living and from history, whom I like and admire.
If someone said a lot of bad things about a particular group and then added ‘but they’re not all like that’, thus making exceptions and so avoiding the fallacy of composition would we not say that he was ‘anti’ that group? Does there have to be a logical error as well as a debatable moral proposition in order for an anti or miso attitude to be formed? I think that the moral component of a moral view has to be decisive in how we classify it.
Historically I would have thought that anti-Semitism began among non-Jews who seriously disapproved of some aspects of the Jewish religion but were prepared to welcome converts. Antiochus Epiphanes would presumably have been anxious to find Jews who would compromise with his views of religious/patriotic unity. So I would say that anti-Semitism was in some sense born making exceptions and drawing distinctions, though it did later take forms that refused to make exceptions and demanded purity of blood, Spanish Inquisition-style.
The same question really about those who praise a group to the skies and then add ‘but I know many of them have faults’ – don’t they really have a pro or philo attitude towards the group in question?
I flinch of course from calling myself an anti-Semite. If I were Jewish I’m sure I would flinch from calling myself self-hating. But I can’t see that I can spare myself simply by saying that Spinoza was a great philosopher or Felix Frankfurter a great lawyer or by remarking truly that I’ve enjoyed many social occasions with Jewish people or going on at much more length, however sincere, in that vein.

By: potsherd

potsherd — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:02:07 +0000

I can’t agree that the label “anti-Semitic” can be applied to such cases.

The essential element of anti-Semitism is the fallacy of composition, in which characteristics are attributed to a whole class of beings, in this case, Jews. To say, correctly, that Zionist Jews are committed to an immoral principle is a judgment upon a group of Jews, but not upon Jews. Or, as it is often expressed, “The Jews.”

By: MHughes976

MHughes976 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:05:52 +0000

Maybe I won’t presume to speak for the Lord Himself, but I would say that the writers who give this story such very forceful expression exemplify a form of something that can be found in any kind of nationalism, that is rejection by nationalists of the nation for not responding with enough conviction or determination to the mission of the nation as given by God or by prophets and thinkers who speak on God’s behalf. So yes, this would be a kind of anti-Semitism on the part of committed believers in the Israelite mission. And you show from this example, I think, that there can be a kind of anti-Semitism that is not, from the point of view of those believers, wrong, which is philosophically interesting. But from that same point of view the kind of anti-Semitism of which I would be accused is very, very wrong.
I remember reading of a German nationalist (I can’t remember who) in the early nineteenth century, pre-Bismarck, who cried ‘I am a stranger everywhere!’ because no one seemed to think as he did.
Jacqueline Rose in her ‘The Question of Zion’ (Princeton 2005 p.139; I can give references sometimes) quotes Ben-Gurion in 1939 saying ‘Call me an anti-Semite, but we do not belong to that Jewish people’ – the people that was being persecuted, to its own supposed shame, by Hitler. Well, I suppose that there always has been a streak of anti-Semitism within Zionism, but that fact does not – should it? – make me less hesitant about drawing what seems like an anti-Semitic conclusion from the anti-Zionist premises that seem compelling.