What did I do on my vacation? I stood on a hillside in northern Israel crying with a bunch of Jews. You can see a few of us in the picture above, a week ago today. Miriam’s at the left, then Rabbi Brian Walt, then Emma, Emma’s mom Alice Rothchild, and our guide, Hannah Mermelstein.
Why are we crying? Because we’ve just listened to Adnan Mahamid, below, 
explain to us that he used to live right on this beautiful spot in the Palestinian village of Lajjun, until 1948, and the Nakba, when his family was uprooted. He ended up in nearby Umm al-Fahm, also in Israel. Being an Israeli citizen, he’s always wanted to return to his village and build a future for his children and grandchildren.
But Israeli authorities have blocked his people again and again, and tied them up in the courts. When Mahamid first stood before us on his old land, he started to cry, too.
They planted trees on the Lajjun village lands. You can see the trees behind Mahamid and below, too. And beyond that, the plowed fields? Those are the lands of the sprawling Israeli kibbutz, Megiddo.
One reason we’re crying is that several of us helped pay for the trees. The Jewish National Fund told us we were making the desert bloom. In the top picture, Rothchild is telling Mahamid that we will do what we can to make things right.
It’s weird to be around people who are grieving over events that happened 62 years ago. But the grief is understandable– if you were lied to about what happened. A lot of American Jews are now going through this process. They’re discovering what the founding of Israeli involved, and what the ongoing life of the Jewish democracy involves, for Palestinian citizens like Mahamid, and Palestinians under military occupation who have even less freedom.
You can say we’re not connected to the here-and-now. And I agree. We’re struggling with a Jewish legacy. But there’s a beauty in these pictures, too. We’re liberal American Jews with an incredible sense of freedom. We spent that day on a bus traveling around Israel, seeing other sites like Lajjun, and the whole time we talked and argued about the uses of the Holocaust, the U.S. extermination of the Native Americans and how that bears on the Palestinian problem, what it means to be a minority culture, and whether it’s necessary to have a Jewish state.
I don’t know how these questions are going to be resolved. But the beauty of these pictures is that liberal American Jews are bringing their experience to this situation at last: our knowledge of how a modern society protects minority freedom. And maybe instead of accepting the Israeli Jews’ version of why things must be the way they are over there, maybe we can lead them.
And remorse over planting 200 trees, is not the same as deciding to pursue a radical alternative that denies the tears of thousands of others.
Choices between two difficult options are common in real life.
How many trees did your money plant on stolen soil, Witty?
Forget the trees, prioritize the naitonal future of Israel. You can plant more trees anyway…If you may not be able to plant trees again in your entire life…charge the experience for the good of the whole Earth, and thank the LORD for the opportunity to plant, and also not to plant …
Is it not Jewish to be prayerful?..
But why male models?
Who’s denying any trail of tears, Witty? Today isn’t 1850, or 1890, the end of the American Indian Wars–it’s 2010–65 years after 1945, Nuremberg, and its progeny international laws.
Thank you for sharing this with is. This is why I retain my respect for Jewish culture — I understand that what Israel is doing in no rational way reflects what Judaism is really about. It’s merely a European colonial enterprise with Stars of David spraypainted on it.
I have a feeling that if we take an accounting of “Jewish culture” and the “Jewish community” insofar as it relates to putting the pressure on Israel which will be effective we will see just how far we will have to go, and how many completely (for Jews as a community) new resources will have to be developed, to achieve an aim of changing Israel.
Which is daunting, but it certainly highlights the challenges.
I was getting all discouraged, (my outlook, of course is completely tied to the current state of my digestion, I know that.) because in Phil’s and in other posts, I keep feeling that Phil is counting on the Jewish community (which is, well, what, exactly, as it relates to a project like this?) for things it doesn’t have, or is not able to give.
To which the answer is, of course “You got another option besides trying, even if we have to remake the “Jewish community” from the ground up? And looking at what the Zionists accomplished, it can be done.”
Actually (God I hate that word) it may be more a matter of, I hope, bringing out and developing aspects of the Jewish community that are there, and in the majority (as if that mattered, as the Zionists have shown us) but have been shunted aside or silenced by the Zionists as they grabbed for the shofar.
And there is the fear, ever growing, that if we don’t do something about Israel, the Gentiles will, and we won’t like it. (Just kidding! Kidding!)
Heh. :)
In all seriousness, though, I do sincerely think that the vast majority of Jews, and Jewish Americans in particular, would be appalled if they did see what was really happening in Israel. And I think more of them are getting wise to what’s really going on.
Now, granted, it’s an example of a British Jew rather than an American Jew, but I still take heart in this impassioned speech by Sir Gerald Kaufman:
link to youtube.com
And then of course, there’s people like you, Phil Weiss and Adam Horowitz, Max Blumenthal, Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin, Anna Baltzer, and what I will tentatively assume are the majority of commentators here, who are examples of what it really means to be Jewish American (and just Jewish, or just American, for that matter).
“In all seriousness, though, I do sincerely think that the vast majority of Jews, and Jewish Americans in particular, would be appalled if they did see what was really happening in Israel. And I think more of them are getting wise to what’s really going on.”
Do you believe that very many people do not know what it takes to physically remove people from their homes, make war on them and then attempt to pacify them? Seriously, this has been going on for over 60 years. How can many Jews know exactly what was involved in atrocities committed by other people throughout history, but not what has been done to the Palestinians in their names? I don’t buy it!
Well, to be fair, you have a point and there is something to be said for willful, deliberate ignorance. The “land without a people” myth might be born out of naivete but that doesn’t make it any less onerous.
I think sometimes, people need to be forced to see the truth they choose to hide from.
If the German people didn’t know what was going on in the extermination camps, it’s not surprising that American Jews (or any other Americans, for that matter) don’t know what’s going on in Gaza and the West Bank.
Here’s one Gentile who won’t give you any grief, Mooser. No kidding at all.
Joe Sestack is mounting a primary challenge for Arlen Specter’s senate seat in PA (that’s Pennsylvania, not Palestine). He’s making the rounds in town halls, and I went to one the other day.
Most of the participants were black people, and their concerns were for their own community: jobs, jobs, jobs; unemployment; imprisonment of too many black males; drug and alcohol addiction; failure of education….
And me.
I asked Joe if he would support increased US congressional travel to Iran, and if he would support creation of Iranian culture centers in the US.
Joe snorted.
I mentioned that Michael Scheuer had appeared on C Span recently and declared that Americans need to have an open discussion on the US relationship with Israel.
Sestack’s response: “(the quote marks mean this is a direct quote) I love Israel; I’ve been there 8 times.”
“I LOVE ISRAEL; I’VE BEEN THERE 8 TIMES.”
(as usual, I did not have the presence of mind to respond: WHY? What is it about a state that dropped cluster bombs in Lebanon in 2006; that used internationally proscribed white phosphorus against civilians in 2009 — what is it about this state that you find so lovable?) Does it make you love Israel that, in 2006, Israel detained, harshly interrogated, and kept incommunicado and without charge or counsel, a Canadian-American professor link to petitiononline.com
Do you LOVE Americans as much as you LOVE Israel?
Sestak also related that, as a starred admiral, he had commanded a ship that patrolled the Persian Gulf. He said he worked with very professional Iranian naval officers, but that:
The noive of those Revolutionary Guards: harrassing an American warship patrolling PERSIAN waters! How dare they!
What would Admiral Sestak have done if an Iranian warship with attendant helicopter gunships patrolled the Chesapeake Bay!!!
No, Mooser, no kidding, you have nothing to fear from Gentile legislators; they’ve been appropriately trained; they answer to the AIPAC dinner bell.
In an attempt to bring the wannabe senator up-to-date, at the end of the town hall I suggested to Sestak that Israel was in a state of fragmentation and instability.
He responded: “Israel made a huge mistake when it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. That has made Israel — and the US — MORE insecure, not less.”
So much for up-to-date.
Lebanon 2006 and Gaza 2009 have not yet happened for Joe-Sestak-who-loves-Israel.
sigh.
To my black friends and neighbors, who were rather bored with my questions about Israel and Iran: how far do you think $15 million EACH DAY would go to educate your sons and daughters? That’s one day’s worth of US taxpayer money to Israel. Do you think that if the United States spent that money on its own citizens rather than on war machines and warring states, that maybe black children could become as smart and as accomplished and as successful and as Nobelish as Thom Friedman crows that Jewish people are?
PG, thanks for sharing that incident in your life, and painting so well why the USA is the Titanic.
My parents contributed to the planting of hundreds. If I were alive when that effort was in process, I would have hoped to contribute to the planting of thousands.
You confuse a tragedy for some evil.
The Palestinians experience was a tragedy. The planting of trees was a wonderful action.
Yeah, and the Nazis made some fantastic technological advances as well. And I heard Mussolini made the trains run on time, too.
You seriously don’t get that bulldozing a village to plant a forest is a crime, do you? To say nothing of the crime of extravagence even having this fake forest is. Israel uses five times as much water as the Palestinians, collectively, and most of Israel’s water now comes from beyond the Green Line.
In a sense, these trees are the perfect symbol for you. Superficially, there’s poetry when you look at them, but when you understand what sort of ugly actions it took to plant them and continues to take to sustain them, what has to be stolen from innocent people to justify their existence when they have no place being there on that land at all…
Yes it is very tragic to be bulldozing homes of other people in such violent pursuit in the name of ‘national security’; but because you made the ‘mistake’ of bulldozing under the state of of belligerence, you will give away you right to establish a nation? You may be able recompense for such tragedy, but no one will ever again give Israel a chance to reestablish their nation called by the Romans – Palestine…
I’m sorry zamaaz, but who were these ‘Jews’? When did they own a nation in what is Palestine? And how do Jews today have a claim on this land when the Palestinians were already living there?
You’re just a religious wacko. God isn’t a realty agent.
Cliff, please check the batteries in your irony detector. You need a fresh set and your meter must be perfectly calibrated around here.
Mine is beeping , and the corrugated arms are waving: “Danger, Mooser! Irony alert!”
Yours has corrugated arms?! Dammit, I shouldn’t have settled for the cheaper model. Not the least of which being, it fails me sometimes too. :)
The planting of trees on Palestinian land is a tragedy, and is a criminal action. It’s theft. You are a thief, Witty.
“You confuse a tragedy for some evil.”
Ah, no, you confuse the evil of ethnic cleansing with a tragedy that has no human agency causing it.
Planting trees is good if you ignore the context. Context included, it’s someone stealing land and then planting trees. Your parents presumably didn’t know the context. You do.
Ethnic cleansing is such a dirty word. It’s forceful relocation to allow the Palestinians to realize their aspirations for self-government.
Beautifully phrased. I congratulate you.
I bet you could make a fortune in PR until your clients realised you were taking the piss.
Don’t congratulate me RoHa, I’m only highlighting what I find. BDS is just terror light. You want to be a terrorist?
Better and better.
But just in case anyone thinks you are being serious, I should point out that the Palestinians didn’t need any relocation to realize self-government. They just needed the British to stop getting in their way. The Zionists did need the relocation to create their ethnically-based state.
“You want to be a terrorist?”
If terrorism means “disbanding the state of Israel”, then I’m in favour of it. Israel was evil in conception and evil in creation, and it is evil in conduct. There is no excuse for its continued existence.
But just in case anyone thinks you are being seriousRoHa, why do people want to know if a quote was uttered by Colbert or O’Reilly before reacting I wonder.
I have no idea. But then, I have no idea who Colbert and O’Reilly are, either.
I should try to spell that out, for my own benefit if nobody elses. Bill O’Reilly is an american rightwing shockjock.
Stephen Colbert parodies O’Reilly (on comedycentral television,
it’s available online).
To some extent Colbert can say the same things as O’Reilly, but it’s not enough.
as Frank Zappa liked to put it, you have to put the eyebrows on it. That is to fully develop the cliche. You have to make the framing more explicit.
Colbert does it for laughs, but the value is, if you make the framing more explicit you can observe it better. If it’s implicit it just sneaks up on you.
“The Palestinians experience was a tragedy. The planting of trees was a wonderful action. ”
A wonderful action for the express purpose of erasing even the slightest trace of Palestinian existence? Thank you for being honest.
Witty – Phil’s pet commentator – is an expert at giving good PR to evil.
Calling Richard Witty! Richard Witty, come to the nearest white Torah-phone, there is a message for you”
Gosh, seems simple to me! Why, if there is an unintended “tragedy” which could be taken as evil, why that’s just another reason to make it right to the greatest extent you can! For that you needed a Torah, you schmuck?
And I would bet if you check Dial-A-Talmud, they would tell you that the fact that people are mad at you for what is actually a “tragedy” doesn’t release you from your obligation to right the wrong.
Of course, that’s if you want to be all Jewish about it, or do I suffer from “forced assimilation”?
“Of course, that’s if you want to be all Jewish about it, or do I suffer from “forced assimilation”?”
There you go Mooser – THAT is the correct view. Who is assimilated? Those who have taken the colonial, national rhetoric and attended atrocities. It has nothing to do with Judaism, zero – and the reversal of saying that Zionism is the opposite of assimilation is a lie. You hit the nail on the head Mooser, slam it again.
Evil is disguising an act of hate as an act of good.
I am always astonished at how hostile and belligerent the west bank setters are. In their hearts they must know what they are doing is wrong. So they bluster. They become more hostile and more intransigent. Now they are even threatening Netanyahu for not building fast enough. This cannot end well.
I just hope it ends sooner than later. The Palestinians have been putting up with this treatment for over sixty years. This is by no means a new or anomalous phenomenon.
“‘The Palestinians experience was a tragedy.”‘
So was the Holocasut. They are also great crimes.
Why did the JNF plant trees on Palestinian land?
Israel’s original founders were almost exclusively European. They’re basically transforming the very landscape of the Holy Land to “westernize” it.
Any of them escaped from Sobibor? Its eerie how many actions of the Israelis are reminiscent of the Germans. At Sobibor extermination camp, the Germans planted trees to conceal evidence of genocide. You’re literally walking on the ashes of the victims there.
In Israel, you’re walking on the ashes of the victims’ homes.
when you’ve got an hour, listen to the conference Richard Silverstein hosted in Seattle last month: link to edmaysproductions.net
you will hear from Jewish sources that Israel deliberately formulated the “Iron Wall” policy — brutalize Arabs enough, as a “pedagogic” exercise, and eventually they will learn that Israel is tougher than they are; then there will be peace.
You will hear from the lips of Keith Weissmann, AIPAC functionary who help formulate the policy in 1995, that
1. America was harmed by sanctions imposed by Clinton on Iran starting in 1995 at the insistence of AIPAC; and that
2. Sanctions have never, ever been effective and nobody expects sanctions against Iran to be effective;
3. Israel is NOT afraid of a nuclear armed Iran as such. (maybe Ian Lustick made this argument, not Weissman). listen yourself; prove me wrong.
“Making things right” is important.
In order to make things right, you need to understand what actually occurred and when, which includes then a more thorough specific inquiry. It does not discount the comments by the Palestinian woman, but it does regard those comments as complete, nor authoritative.
If there are wrongs (likely), the next question is the appropriate remedy.
Certainly, demonizing planting trees is not the remedy. If there were individuals that had title to homes, whose homes were destroyed, they should be at least compensated.
I think Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, Lebanese should PLANT MORE TREES.
In both Israeli and Arab culture the planting of trees is the means of either/or assertion of property. “I claim”, that sometimes is in harmony with legal title and sometimes conflicts.
I used to live here, is not the same as legal ownership. Its an open question.
“But Israeli authorities have blocked his people again and again, and tied them up in the courts. When Mahamid first stood before us on his old land, he started to cry, too.”
Just what we need, a lecture from an accountant on the law. (Especially law as practiced inside Israel and on the OT.)
…said Germany to Poland.
“I used to live here, is not the same as legal ownership. Its an open question”
For God’s sake Witty, I still have some feelink for a fallow Jew, no matter how low he has sunk. Don’t you have any friends? Maybe a Rabbi of your acquaintance?
Do yourself a favor and get someone whose opinion you trust to read your comments, and let you know if you are doing yourself (or Zionism) any good.
Are your comments here really what you want for your testimony?
This is stupid. Seriously.
Us: “Ethnic cleansing is a crime.”
Witty: “You really shouldn’t demonize planting trees.”
Us: “…we’re talking about land that was taken by military force, and trees, grasses and shrubs being planted that are, literally, not native. There was a Palestinian village that was razed and these trees were planted over it to hide the crime.”
Witty: “You really shouldn’t demonize planting trees.”
Can anyone else imagine Witty as a German, standing outside a concentration camp, saying, “You really shouldn’t demonize hard labor and medical research.”
From the Hasbara Handbook: Promoting Israel on Campus (from the World Union of Jewish Students):
It’s an interesting read. This particular section makes some truthful observations (about both sides).
However, since it’s the Zionist perspective, it will frame the rhetorical advice in Zionist politics. Note the use of the word, ‘disputed’.
The handbook outlines the seven basic propaganda devices:
-NAME CALLING
-GLITTERING GENERALITY
-TRANSFER
-TESTIMONIAL
-PLAIN FOLKS
-FEAR
-BANDWAGON
Another excerpt:
Here’s an important and quite Machiavellian tactic, called transfer. I’ll only reference the part that stuck out to me:
The entire handbook is a good read.
Mentioning Joseph Goebbels at this point is almost superfluous, isn’t it?
I went to a book event featuring Walt & Mearsheimer couple years ago; brought along my copy of the Hasbara Manual and laid it on the table next to my chicken salad (a little dry).
Every table was salted with two or more members of a local synagogue; all had tri-fold fliers with their talking points laid out….
The Hasbara Manual did not endear me to the synagogue members at my table. Or maybe it was the chicken salad.
But Prof. Walt was interested in the book and asked me to send him a copy. I did.
Witty: “You really shouldn’t demonize planting trees.”
Oh well, there goes the digestion. Phil and Adam, how can you be this cruel to an old man?
Bulldoze the ugly settlements and plant more trees there.
Somehow, in Israel, planting trees is always something that is done on Arab land, to confiscate it. Anyone defending this activity has crossed the line from mere hypocrisy to evil.
“It does not discount the comments by the Palestinian woman, but it does regard those comments as complete, nor authoritative.”
Witty is in love with that word “authoritative”. In his lexicon, accounts of Zionist crimes are never “authoritative”. One can take them into account, but that’s it. Taking them into account means that maybe, the Israeli authorities will investigate (quietly) and then we can listen to what they have to say (now that’s authority for you).
“Certainly, demonizing planting trees is not the remedy. ”
Yes, Witty, it’s all about the leftist proclivity for demonizing Zionist trees. Will the anti-botanicalsemitism never end? Stop the madness.
Conversely, Witty takes it as a document of Scripture that Hamas was digging a tunnel into Israel, that this tunnel was an existential threat and even though the tunnel wasn’t an immediate threat, let alone whether it was really aimed at Israel, this act constitutes a violation of the cease fire and justifies Israel’s use of an air strike.
It’s just another example of the blatant racism and hypocrisy in his rhetoric — one set of privileged rules for Jews, another set of rules for everyone else (and arguably, a special set of rules reserved for despised Palestinians)
Authoritative meaning what can be known, as distinct from what is rumored or speculated.
Its an IMPORTANT distinction in addressing current events and where they fit in.
Its also an important consideration in deciding what to do, how to live.
I’m sure that you’ve noticed in the world, that many many important concerns that should compel a response, just don’t. In the world of energy conservation, that is sickeningly tragically the case.
I know why, as my home is not up to the standard that I would like. In my case its lack of discretionary funds. Relative to Israel, its lack of materials, lack of a path, lack of a venue.
In my case, its also repugnance to name-calling. I don’t want to be associated with it in a march, in an article, in a blog post.
Thats why Max Blumenthal’s films evoked such a reaction, in me and in many others.
Consistently, Witty, you’ve shown that you equate “authoritative” purely with sources that are either Zionist Jewish in nature, or support the agenda of Zionism. Even long-standing respected human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are condemned by you as “not authoritative.”
And it’s pretty transparent as to why.
” Even long-standing respected human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are condemned by you as “not authoritative.”
And it’s pretty transparent as to why.”
Exactly.
If you take an objective look at the relative status of international institutions, official ones and NGO’s, I think you’d have to conclude that Israel’s dismissal is too common, closer to the norm than otherwise.
EVERY state, every faction, every community distracts from the eye, and as the international institutions are still in a transition to actual “authority” (in this case consented sovereignty), its just an objective observation.
Good work would include assessing what characteristics are necessary to improve their universal standing, rather than just throw the term “international law” around cavalierly.
International law is important to develop and to authorize, but the process has a long way to go, and by opportunistic condemnation before due process, it goes backwards, not forwards.
You mean like how Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka all contradict human rights NGOs? Quite a prestigious category into which you ascribe Israel, Witty.
How when laws favor Israel, you consider them “absolute” — like the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank — and when the laws are against Israel, suddenly they acquire a strange sort of fog of vagueness they didn’t have three seconds ago?
Due process? You mean like the USA congress condemning the Goldstone Gaza Report without reading it so it has not been processed effectively via the UN? Not even worthy of bringing in Goldstone to testify to our congress?
You want we should give you a 3 billion dollar blank check annually too, Mister Witty? Would that help your lack of discretionary funds?
Certainly, demonizing planting trees is not the remedy.
Why do you keep ignoring the contect. Planting trees is a surely an innocent enterprise, but erasing a village and then planting trees hoping in a few decades no one will remember them is a rather different story.
It rests firmly on one basic idea. The Palestinians/”Arab Israaelis” don’t matter. They do not have memories, and if these memories don’t matter.
This is an interesting comment: It does not discount the comments by the Palestinian woman, but it does regard those comments as complete, nor authoritative.
vaguely a Palestinian woman. Why not Adnan Mahamid.
It does not discount the comments by the Palestinian/”Arab Israeli Adnan Mahamid, but it does regard those comments as complete, nor authoritative.
Is that too close. What s incomplete or non authoritive about his story?
Trees have been used as weapons by the Zionist movement and its real-estate arm – the Jewish National Fund – from the very beginning. There was an Israeli TV report a number of years ago on one the JNF’s favourite methods of forcing Palestinians to sell their land. They would buy adjacent land and plant tall trees, so as to block out the sun and make the field worthless to its Palestinian owner. Worked like a charm. Planting trees as placeholders for Jewish settlements or as a way of eradicating “cleansed” Palestinian villages are some other methods employed by that great Zionist “environmental” association.
Another “environmental” weapon used by Israel with great success is the “green zone” which effectively prevents Palestinians from building on their own land (or demolishing their homes once they have been built). These areas are suddenly zoned for construction as soon as the land is sold to Jewish developers, or expropriated for their benefit.
So trees and green zones and the environment can be potent weapons, whether one “demonizes” the ethnic cleansers who plant them (directly or by proxy), or not.
Some resources on Zionist environmental warfare:
Apartheid Israel: The Jewish National Fund
The Jewish National Fund: Confiscating Bedouin Lands
Green Zone (video clips)
Don’t forget forbidding Pals from planting or maintaining edible fruit trees on their own land by placing a “military security” zone over them. That’s going on now as I type.
Thanks, Shmuel, for answering, while I still hope Richard at least noticed it. But then, for him Israel is the reason for the success of US Jews (which I somehow doubt) and maybe for this reason he can’t allow himself to look at the single not anonymous man: “a” Palestinian woman, and distance himself even further by changing the gender.
On first sight this sounds peculiar: They would buy adjacent land and plant tall trees, so as to block out the sun and make the field worthless to its Palestinian owner.
Not much time now, even my weekends will be cut short due to the next deadline: 1/31/10. But I’ll bookmark and will return. JNF and it’s US angle seems to be an important issue.
I’ll sure appreciate your presence here. Take care.
I sure appreciate your presence and I hope you will stay around. That is.
LeaNder: On first sight this sounds peculiar: They would buy adjacent land and plant tall trees, so as to block out the sun and make the field worthless to its Palestinian owner.
Maybe I didn’t phrase it right. The point of this TV report was that owners of smaller fields adjacent to JNF-owned land were forced to sell by using trees to block out their light. By this and other unsavoury methods, the JNF was able to consolidate large blocs of contiguous land.
Thanks, LeaNder.
Michael Ratner just posted a photo that shows the site of Deir Yassin, covered over by trees.
Shmuel is a very valuable part of this site.
I think this is again somewhat indulgent and self-congratulatory about somewhat-liberal jews. That’s the vice of the site, I suppose.
It is. I think Phil is a very stream-of-consciousness kind of writer, and that makes him careless (see his usage of the word, ‘jihadi’).
But on the other hand, he asks important questions and is relatively transparent. Overall, it’s still the best blog on I-P IMO and that’s because of him/Adam/et. al.
I consider Richard Silverstein to be more responsible with this ‘ethnocentricism’ thing though. And just generally more diplomatic. Phil asks lots of questions that Richard doesn’t I think though, but that doesn’t mean the latter wouldn’t if challenged.
Gotta accept it I guess. It’s something significant, but over time I suppose tactically it’s best to not pursue it.
I think Phil’s made it plain that it’s a journey. He is not where he started out, and he may not be where he ends up. Today, crying on a hill for dispossessed Palestinians, tomorrow, strapping on a…. well, let’s not go there.
But every time I think “he’s in way over his head” or any of that negatory stuff, (assuming my digestion is good, of course) I think “Why not? Nothing says that it can’t be done, and the need is so pressing. And why not aim for the top (justice, without violence) before condemning.
Don’t get excited, Witty, I said justice, not an unconditional pardon for Israel.
This is how I feel… duped. We are told that Israel represents this and that and none of it is real or true. As a Jew I find questions about it uncomfortable as I see nothing of Judaism there…
Thank you for your blog and articles.
B
Now that was cryptic! Anyway, knitter, if you find questions uncomfortable, you know what to do: Don’t ask!
Do tell. Heh. ;)
bknitter,
Sad isn’t it?
Silence in the face of this diabolical con-trick is tantamount to aiding and abetting it.
Educate yourself with the facts so you can successfully fight-off the propaganda aimed at good people like yourself.
I don’t know if many here know this fact, but the trees were planted there as part of Israel’s policy to expand so-called “public” parks in yet another attempt to contain the Palestinian population of Israel.
Incidentally, just next to Umm Al-Fahem there is currently a “park” that Israel is using to remove several neighborhoods on the outskirts of the town/city.
In Iran, in Natanz, twenty years ago trees were planted over many, many square km of desert, to keep the desert at bay and to cool it with a vision and a plan that it would one day become developed land, fit to house the rapidly urbanizing population that was (is) overwhelming Tehran.
Towers supporting electric lines originating at the nuclear plant at Natanz are similarly numerous.
Major roads have been built in the region, and thousands, if not millions of bushes have been planted along the edge of the road to hold back the desert: winds blow the desert sands over the roadway and would render passage impossible without some barrier.
The Iranian people have lived on challenging desert land for, um, several thousand years and have developed unique strategies for wringing water out of the desert sands, and using nature to keep homes cooled, and the land and the Iranian, Arab, Turkic, and yes, Jewish, people who LIVE in Iran, hydrated, cooled, and fed.
I for one think liberal american Jews should lead the effort to correct the wrongs committed on the African American population through the disproportional participation of Jews in the African Slave Trade.
I mean it sucks that you got ripped off when you thought you were planting trees, but the Jews at the time knew exactly what was involved in trading in slaves.
Where is the Liberal American Jewish effort for reparations??
Much better that these Liberal American Jews right wrongs 6,000 miles away from their homes…I mean after all, I am sure Phil did his part to right the wrongs done to African Americans by voting Obama, and giving his cleaning lady the day off when he traveled to Palestine.
Help me out here, JSF fans. Is that “you suck” or “everyone sucks”?
There are some posters here who, either through mental derangement or lack of skill in the English language, produce incoherent posts. Attempting to make sense of them is an exercise in futility.
Donald, if you had only the four seasonings (You know, Vivaldi wrote a concerto about them) wouldn’t your meals be dull? Same with hasbara, you got to mix it up, keep it fresh, throw ‘em a curve ball now and then.
Einstein, that was pathetic! Please go to:
link to jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com
and learn how to do it right! That was one of the most pathetic attempts at a mixed No.3 and 4, with a half-ethnic twist, I’ve ever read here.
Donald,
Despite our ringing the metaphorical alarm bells, shouting (metonymically) from rooftops, and dropping banners from synecdochic bridges between communities of faith, misguided and irresponsible people, succumbing to delusions of omnipotence and disrespectful of the wisdom of past (and future, both indicative and iussive) generations, insist on practicing the art of apologizing for Zionism without having undergone the 5-minutes rigorous training that JSF is so deservedly famous for, often producing not only monstrous arguments, whose major premise can be from stage 4, while supporting evidence is from stage 2, and the middle isn’t even properly distributed, like those chimerae one occasionally reads about in the news, with a sow’s behind, a dog’s snout and the forelegs of a Tory, but also putting themselves and unsuspecting passers-by in danger of life, limb and grave incontinence. JSF cannot be held accountable for the shoddy work of unlicensed and unqualified fly-by-night, on broomsticks, by-the-seat-of-their-pants and with instruments cobbled together from old sewing machines, “practitioners.” We urge you to report any instance of such presumptuous impersonation to the police immediately. Better safe than sorry.
Gee, what makes is think Zionism and racism go hand in hand?
shades of Pat Buchanan.
heh.
I still have the video clip (somewhere) — Buchanan was running for Pres, campaigning in New Hampshire. He & wifey had just taken the stage when a Jew in prayer shawl, locks, etc. accosted Buchanan. Pat pushed him away.
The incident made me dislike Buchanan.
Why not correct both wrongs; here’s a short piece for readers to bone up a bit on the Jewish role in the African Slave Trade:
link to rense.com
If I’m not mistaken there are plenty of Jews in southern Africa, as well. My guess is that they haven’t benefitted at all from past discrimination in the region. Yep, the blame for all the wrongs in Africa falls squarely on the backs of the non-Jewish whites.
In 1948 Albert Einstein along with several Jewish intellectuals sent a letter to the editor at the New York Times.
Here is the text of that letter:
link to physics.harvard.edu
Some of you might find of indirect interest this Commentary piece historically parsing the “genocide” of the native Americans (often used by some Jews and Israelis to justify Israeli conduct and policies):
link to hnn.us
I have to say that I find this post somewhat funny. Liberal American Jews in recovery, ready to save the world with their tears and genius for organization. Jeez, does it ever end?
Liberal American Jews were solidly behind Israel’s actions with money and any other support needed throughout most of Israel’s short history, and I don’t believe for two seconds that anyone has ever been fooled about what it takes to throw a people off their land and pacify them afterwards. If I’m wrong, I’ve yet to see proof that supporting Israel isn’t very important (if not wildly popular) throughout the Jewish community. Furthermore, I have yet to see proof that Jews aren’t very concerned with the welfare of other Jews, whether Israel is the issue or not.
And I love the subtle mentioning of the EXTERMINATION of the American Indians, as if they had actually been exterminated rather than moved off their lands to less desirable areas. The conversations must have been deep!
For a community that loves collective guilt for others, there is a real unwillingness to accept the blame on Israel as a community. And I don’t recall too many instances where Jews discuss what their community has largely and willingly supported in Palestine without bringing up the American Indians, South Africa or the treatment of blacks in America. As someone who has had plenty of guilt directed his way over the years by liberal American Jews for being white, American, and a Southerner, I can say that Israel is your cross to bear, and I have no sympathy or admiration for you, crocadile tears or not.
Not a damn thing Phil is doing is going to bring true justice to the Palestinians. He seems mostly concerned about the damage to the reputation of the Jewish community, and the physical danger that Israeli Jews face if a successful compromise can’t be reached. It’s more Jewish solutions for other peoples’ problems.
See my two url references above in this thread concerning the African Slave Trade
and native American plight in early North America.
“As someone who has had plenty of guilt directed his way over the years by liberal American Jews for being white, American, and a Southerner,”
For that they gave you guilt, instead of the empathy, intervention and treatment you needed? Those bastards! I know that if it a tragedy like that happened to me, I would hope that people would help me.
At any rate, I want you to know that you have my sympathy at least, even tho the Lord above obviously bears you some kind of grudge. Well, at least you’re not a Christian, anyway. See that, we can always find mercy, if we look for it!
Lame joke to avoid the issue. It looks like you have your own list of tactics. What number should we give that one?
Well, all I can say is, if you Southerners allowed us evil Jews to make you over into a slave-holding culture and slave-based economy, and turn you all bigoted against dark skins, in spite of your obviously egalitarian and libertarian bent, well, you poor weak-ass Southroners have my sympathy.
You shoulda seen it comink!
Certainly, the Southern response to emancipation, their absolute refusal to set up a legal and extra-legal system of discrimination, enforced with violence when Southern legality fails should stand as a reproof to those slave-trading Jews!
That’s not any point that I made, and you know it. You are about as bad as Witty in your own way. Zionists aren’t the only problem, and Palestine isn’t the only issue.
My point is that very often when Jews talk of what their community has willingly supported in Palestine, they often have to bring up slavery, Jim Crow, South Africa, etc. in the process, in order to confuse the issue. And it is also true that it is not uncommon for Jew to speak of Jewish morals as being superior, or of the Jewish role in bringing about the end of segregation, or the opposition to slavery or Indian treatment, when Jews were knee deep in profiting or struggling for power in each case. Surely you know the passion that Jews hold for social justice?
“Surely you know the passion that Jews hold for social justice?”
I know the passion certain Jews have for social justice, for whatever reason they have it. How you got from that to “that Jews hold” I can’t quite see, unless you have the absurd idea that what characterises one Jew must characterise them all.
On the other hand, if you’ve got any press releases or policy statements from the Jews to indicate our policy in the matter, a link will be appreciated, after you tell me who releases policy statements in the name of the Jews.
So lacking that, all you seem to be doing is dealing in all kinds of stereotypes and notions. Very typical of Southerners.
You are starting to sound like Witty now, only you defend the internal interests. Even Phil has made statements about the Jewish gifts, social justice, etc. on this blog in the past. Anyone who has been remotely conscious in America knows what I mean. I certainly don’t have to write a formal paper for you.
Unless, of course, one is speaking of Jewish intellectual superiority.
link to mondoweiss.net
link to nytimes.com
“Jews are a famously accomplished group.”
That’s group, as in, more than one-at-a-time.
“Jews are a famously accomplished group.”
That’s what they would like you to think, Psychopathic God! Don’t fall for it! I think if you would examine the articles all they will tell you is that famously accomplished Jews are famously accomplished. There’s no denying that, and I won’t contend it.
there used to be some little ditty about the difference between a salmon and a chicken. Salmons lay hundreds of eggs to a chicken’s one egg, but chickens crow about it. Moral of the story: it pays to advertise.
goyim are stuck with Puritan reticence; Jews are not. Brooks apparently has not noticed the nuanced distinction. Advertising functions on BIG perceptions, not nuance.
Mooser continually deals in stereotypes under his really flimsy veneer of
making what he imagines to be jokes. He should be retired to an old hotel in the Catskills. He’s about as funny as Eddie Fisher tried to be in his book.
“He should be retired to an old hotel in the Catskills.”
Those hotels have been gone for years, or didn’t you know, or do your stereo-types live forever.
And as far as my jokes not being funny, pal, my mail, phone calls, and messaging is running about 75% positive. What, you think your the only one who can see this? A lot of people see it.
Mooser, I think the gist of the complaint is hypocrisy of liberal American Jews,, as ES points out above in this thread–not that I agree with his tactic of pointing so out to divert Phil’s attention from what is going on now (with USA tax dollars) in Israeli controlled land. And it’s pretty rational to assume if you are white, American, and a Southerner, you were brought up with Christian values. So, I think you should answer Todd’s question to you. Sometimes bad jokes are not enough.
And what exactly is “Todd’s question”, Citizen? Whether or not Jews spit when they pass Christian cemeteries, as you contend?
Look, I’m really sorry all those Jews made you feel so guilty. But look, you don’t have to listen to them. Don’t let some Jewish guy tell you what to think or say! Damn it Citizen, you’re an American (“I can tell by the cut of your tie…”) and so is Todd, even if he’s a Southerner, even the great Lincoln makes mistakes.
But you just stop listening to those Jews in your head telling you to feel guilty! And I will tell them to back off, too, if you just tell me who they are.
Why bother replying if this is what you are going to do? I understand that you aren’t going to agree with me, but why the Witty immitation?
Hey, that was below the belt, Todd.
so we can start by closing the Holocaust Museum at America’s front door, and follow up by removing holocaust studies from America’s public education system? Those two sources are Ground Zero for
So I will expect you, Mooser, to
, since I have
Toss in that rabbi that I invited to brunch — he called back with a threat and an insult.
oh, and add in the gang of zionists on the Orange who call anyone who does not worship at altar Israel an “antisemite” then censors their speech.
and, and… the jackass zionist who did an entire made-for-teevee production about the Triangle Shirt fire/tragedy, called it a “Jewish tragedy” that created “Jewish heroes” but uttered not one godammed word about the majority of victims who were Italian, and the fact that an Italian woman was the spark-plug behind ILGWU.
when you’ve “told them to “back off,” c’mon back for the rest of the list.
Chaos, he does not have the necessary equipment to tell the difference. He just knows we disparage Witty, and now I’ve made him made, so au fond I must be Witty. Now that fust-cless reasoning!
Will you two cut the shit out? You’re as bad as Witty and Chaos, filling up the site with your private quarrels.
Don’t you know how many people a day hit on these pages? How many of them are disgusted by this kind of shit and go away, never to return?
And, Mooser, several of us provided quite a few cites on the spitting thing yesterday. Obviously you’re not reading. So why don’t you lay off the private feuds.
Amen Todd!!
and by the way, you said:
“As someone who has had plenty of guilt directed his way over the years by liberal American Jews for being white, American, and a Southerner, I can say that Israel is your cross to bear, and I have no sympathy or admiration for you, crocadile tears or not. ”
throw a couple of truths back in the Liberal American Jews face. Most of the blacks who arrived in the Southern US arrived through Jewish owned and operated ships, were traded by Jewish slave brokers.
and actually the civil war may never have happened if it weren’t for a fellow Jewish assimilationist elitist (like Phil Weiss except far more talented and gifted) named Judah P Benjamin. who as a southern, i am sure you are familiar with. or David Yulee, or numerous other Jews who helped defend DixieLand
Of course AnteBellum south was the cultural center for American Jews, where the american reform and reconstructionist Jewish movements were founded.
All true. And today we have a black president in the USA who came to office during
the Gaza turkey shoot paid for with USA tax dollars.
yes, but my point is the injustices committed against the black people in america have not been undone by the promotion of one black man as president.
especially when that one black president has done not a thing to help most of the american black population (or the american population in general).
he has approved billions to private banks, and filled his advisers with former bankers. men with names like geitner….so yea, big win for the liberal Jews
ES, easy to assail my point about Obama, I was merely using his achievement of POTUS as a short hand method of saying both American blacks and native Americans have achieved much in the last half century or so (while the Pals have been fought tooth and nail with USA tax dollars). I certainly agree that Obama
has not shown any muscle at all in implementing real change involving the roots
of our terrible monetary, fiscal, domestic, foreign affairs interlocking systems. The ethical and moral hypocrisy of many American jews on both the left and the right I do not contest. In this they are like many Americans on either left or right;
but most Americans do not have slavish support of a foreign country as their main political agenda, especially one in the world impact-pivotal Middle East.
The belief that slavery was completely carried out by the non-Jewish planter class of the South is laughable. Jewish merchants certainly profited from the institution, and their names are scattered throughout more than a few southern port cities,
exactly, Todd!!
the Liberal American Jews instead of addressing the wrongs that their Jewish relatives did in the US, focus on correcting the wrongs that Jews did to the Palestinians. Again, dual loyalty, and these Americans are not particularly concerned with helping America or correcting injustices done to Americans, they rather focus their efforts on helping a people 6,000 miles away
they ascribe the crime of Slavery to the non Jewish whites in America. (yet take credit for winning the Blacks’ civil liberties)
They will bring a war now to stop the Israelis, so they can claim they liberated the Palestinians….
So you’re telling me this who song and dance for the past few posts has been an elaborate ploy to shame liberal American Jews into silence by pointing and shouting, “Look over there!”
Chaos, the guy was honest, and told us about his disabilities right off. Try and have a little sympathy. (American, white and Southern, and not ashamed to admit it! I hope he doesn’t buy lottery tickets, wait a second… maybe he’s due?)
Great! There’s another example of the Jewish tolerance that we keep hearing about. Got any more stereotypes to throw around?
Todd, I couldn’t agree more. The Jewish tolerance which accepts or even profits from slavery is the same Jewish tolerance which stood still for the injustices of Palestine. I’m glad you want to do away with that.
And it is just possible that people like Phil Weiss can do both. After all, look what the Zionists accomplished.
Oh, and Todd, I’d be glad to talk to those Jews who guilted you out, and tell ‘em to back off. I know you Southern guys are delicate flowers, and wilt at the first chilly words. But I’ll need something a little more specific than just “Jews”. Got a name? An article or something? Or was this just that free-floating guilt liberal Jews seem to be able to inflict with a glance, and it goes right into your kishkes and tortures you for life!!!
Oy I bet you suffered agonies!
You know exactly what I’m refering to, Mooser. Guilt is one of the biggest weapons of organized Jewish groups, and at the national level the South replaces Germany. And Jews get to play an active role, to boot! What’s not to like?
The guy’s a troll. First he argues that we’re all a bunch of anti-Semites, who don’t give a damn about massacred Jews or desecrated synagogues, and compares Palestinian fears of Zionist domination to white fears of having black neighbours, and then rants about how “the Jews” ruined America – running the slave trade and dragging poor beleaguered gentile southerners into the Civil War. He pretends to be a Jew and offers a wild-eyed theory about who is a Jew – something about the “yolk [sic!] of the Jewish kingdom”, the One True God, gravity and how all “real Jews” are Zionists – even if they say they are not. He is here to expose the fake race-Jews, he says, and then admits that he is not a Jew but just wanted to “egg on” some Jewish liberals. Add some very sexist remarks about a Gaza Freedom Marcher, and some incoherent babbling about loyalty and America.
Textbook troll. Time to stop feeding him.
Pretty funny how all Jewish stand-up comedians and heavily-flavored Jewish sit-coms (e.g., especially Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and more veiled in shows like Friends) always praise the perennial Jewish guilt–by making fun of it–which allows the audience to internalize nobody is more guilt-ridden, and therefore more moral and ethical, more ever-hand-wringing, than Jews.
So what’s not to like? We all know Germans are born blessed by absence of organic guilt. They are just not up to par, not high up via their genetics
on the Maslow triangle. G-D knows, the only reason they keep paying reparations generation after generation is because they are forced to by
German law! BTW how’s that 88 year year old former American auto worker
doing over there in Germany? Gotta keep track of that old teen Nazi, and keep on saying the Pals need to get over it, and deal with the present!
Gad, who’s more a delicate flower than an American Jew? I ask all you cultural and political botanists readers out there.
“Textbook troll. Time to stop feeding him.”
Gosh, now you mention it, you’re right! Thanks, Shmuel, and feeding time is over.
Ah, I knew I could do it! So we finally get down to the eternal Jew in Citizens mind, and it’s Seinfeld! And “Friends”, but veiled. Ho-Kay! And I thought he was thinking of H*Y*M*A*N K*AP*L*A*N ! Ahh, but no, it’s Seinfeld!
Damn you Jerry Seinfeld! Damn you for laying the secrets of the Jewish soul out for all to see!
But then again, when you’ve got an intellectual sleuth like Citizen on your tail, no ethnic essence is safe! He digs down through all the surface noise, to the throbbing heart of things, every day, in re-runs, in through all perpetuity.
And I always though Seinfeld was a comedy about essentialy guilt free people who sometimes comically tries to assume guilt or responsibility, and “boffo yoks ensue”, as the old silent-short ads used to say.
But I’ve only seen the show a couple of times, and rarely in it’s entirety. What, you think I get my hands on the remote around here? Not a chance! Nope, my wife always commandeers it, and when Seinfeld appears, she switches right away, muttering: “You aren’t going to lay any goddam Jewish guilt-trips on me, Mr. Liberal Jew! I bet your great-grandaddy was a slave-trading financier!” and then it’s right back to sports.
Anyway, Todd and Citizen, you should follow her example! Release yourself from that Jewish guilt trip!
I think that with the advent of television – the way our popular attitudes and social pressures/taboos are shaped has changed drastically. That doesn’t mean people don’t think outside the box in our society though. And with the internet, I think it will only get harder to conform people and to engineer their likes/dislikes/etc.
IMO, I don’t see how much different mainstream TV would be without the heavy Jewish presence. It’s like our political system. We have been stomping on nationalist movements all throughout our history if they posed a ‘threat’ to our perceived interests.
I think when it comes to Jewishness though, it just humanizes an aspect of our Establishment. And really, it just means European Jewry.
Think of the things you would never see on TV, and think about the political angle as to why.
Then think about our political system. How does our MSM frame events? In a way that does not contradict our interests (in any meaningful sense) – by and large.
Similarly, why would we – overall – articulate anti-Zionist intellectualism in our popular culture? It says something about ‘us’ (apart from the interests of the Zionist lobby and those who support Israel, whether they be Jews or non-Jews) as well.
That to me is a way to look at it as a function of our political system. I brought up something I had observed in a video game I had played over Christmas, a few threads back. It was this game called ‘Uncharted 2′ (good game BTW).
There’s a part in the game where the villain (a big-time sadist, and described as a ‘war criminal’ – the game’s story is essentially an Indiana Jones knock-off) names off a list of his favorite historical psychos. He names, Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot.
Seems fine. I was wondering though…why Pol Pot? And not let’s say, Suharto?
I mean, there are much better examples that speak to us here (in the framework of the I-P conflict) like Olmert vs. Ahmedinejad. One is responsible for the deaths of 1000s of Palestinians and Lebanese and colonization/occupation/blah blah. The other is an enemy of the State, has said some ‘bad’ things or perceived ‘bad’ things.
But yea, why not Suharto? I bring up this video game, since someone mentioned Hollywood – so basically, popular culture in the West.
See, it’s not like those video game creators are all working for the State Dept.
It’s not conspiratorial. Just like how when Chomsky presented an analysis of how the mainstream media – he was not being conspiratorial. He was presenting an INSTITUTIONAL analysis of how a complex system works.
In the first part of this post, I talked about how perceived ‘Jewish’ (narrow-minded way to put it probably, we should say ethnocentric Jews or Zionist or w/e, because it’s too easy to generalize here and it will degrade the rest of the argument) likes and dislikes are expressed in our popular culture – primarily via TV and movies.
I think that ‘Jews’ (the group, not every single individual would be considered to be part of the group, for now let’s consider it a label in this context and not a literal implication of *all* so and so) are part of the Establishment.
We should then try to understand what the Establishment is and what the values/mores are. What are the politics?
How do they manifest in the most subtle way?
Is there collective dissonance somewhere in our society w/ this Establishment? Think of the ‘liberal media’ or ‘liberal Hollywood’ memes.
Finally, I think we could analyze our culture from an ethnic point of view. However, it would have to have lots of conditions. You would have to define how the ethnic/religious/political construct of an identity is relevant.
In this case, if we’re talking about Jewishness as an informing/engineering aspect of our mores then we should probably think about some core characteristics of how it plays out. The Holocaust is an easy component to name. What else?
Ultimately, people should accept that there isn’t a rule about how much of X group is allowed to be in industry Y or Z. Phil was talking about how much of Jewish success is due to ethnocentric social networking. I think that’s an interesting thing to consider when thinking of both our political system and our popular cultures (TV/Movies).
There is no conspiracy. I think it’s kind of instinctual, that if one group comprises a large sum of the total number of participants in an artistic/intellectual field, then there may be other commonalities that are a product of the first one (ethnicity or religion or a combination of the 2 – basically how a group identifies itself).
It’s a complex system and there’s so much overlap. So to get anywhere you’d have to narrow down what you’re looking for.
Here’s a good example: the presentation of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood.
Think of how we thought of other groups. I think we let go of certain stereotypes when the political issue w/ the group in question was ‘resolved’ or simply became dormant or obsolete.
Since we’re still in the desert, I think we’re going to see presentations of Arabs and Muslims that are stereotypical and of a particular political framing.
Jack Sheehan wrote an excellent book about this. There is also Edward Said’s Orientalism. Etc. etc.
To reiterate, it’s not conspiratorial. It’s a product of the society we live in, the political system we living (democracy and the pressures and advantages it gives the individual), etc.
Hmm, after taking a close look at Citizen’s post, I think I went on a tangent.
Anyways, I think my rant kind of relates to the gist of the exchange going on atm.
Primarily the line ‘hypocrisy of Liberal American Jews’.
Why would someone add the ‘Jewish’ part?
I don’t see it as something Jewish, but rather an observation made about Liberal Americans who ARE Jews and who (in the eyes of the accuser) present an opinion that is framed in their identity (a construct of Jewishness, not THE Jewishness – which is why I, BTW, I cringe when I see people compliment anti-Zionist Jews as ‘good’ Jews as if there is a ‘good’ [any religion]) and one that they break the 4th-wall with. Basically, they make their identity known I guess? As something that informs their politics perhaps.
I don’t know how to express this idea completely. I would definitely say that in a sort of cold way, we could take stock of the various ‘groups’ in our society (being America and all, it’s relevant to do that) and think about their feelings on a particular issue and how it affects ‘them’ as a group.
So we have names like ‘Arab street’ – right? Identity politics, and all that jazz.
Shmuel: Textbook troll.
Of course. But what is interesting is how he hooked Todd and Citizen with his faux anti-Semitic rant.
Mark Elf (i think?) said that he once had a Zionist troll who played the part of three different personas (and political leanings) and that the guy purposefully played 2 personas down while attempting to get other commentators to agree with the more extreme one.
I think Einstein is just an idiot though. I wanted to say something earlier, but I thought Todd would notice that the guy did a complete shift from Zionism=Judaism to Jews-are-bad.
“Faux anti-Semitic?” Are you sure it was fake, syvanen?
And anyway, I wouldn’t be so quick to condemn Todd or Citizen. I don’t agree with everything they say, and they often walk a fine line… and then again, it’s hard for me not to see some of the things they see, too.
a delicate flower? where do you come up w/this stuff?
For what it’s worth, the only time I directly responded to Einstein was in aonther thread when he claimed to be a Geechee, and I asked which side of the river he was born on.
What makes you think that Einstein is a troll? Has he posted conflicting opinions?
Curb your enthusiasm, Mooser! You don’t need to roll your Joey Bishop eyes at us to retain our warm friendship. Too, you should drop your inflatable shiksa wife doll–put it way under your bed like Al Bundy’s boy does. We all know you wish you were that Jewish guy who patented GGW dvds.
Let’s see, HBO has given us BIG LOVE. It’s a frantic soap opera about a sect of Mormons. And we’ve had how many movies containing redneck baptist type
apes growing up out of the southern sod? What do we get about Jews? Fiddler On The Roof and Hester Street? B Streisand’s female rabbi? Some groups are treated with disdain, others with gross sentimentality. How about a new
Jerry Springer show screening and showing only live young orthodox Jews? Wouldn’t that be a knee-slapper! Who knows, maybe there’s such a show already in Israel…
Hooked, in the sense he brought up issues about hypocritical Jews usually left untouched–that does not mean Todd or I couldn’t see he was trying to avoid
this blog’s close look at the I-P situation, especially in light of Phil’s self-described Jewish eye. Hypocrisy is as hypocrisy does–whether left, right, or in-between on the political ideology scale.
” they rather focus their efforts on helping a people 6,000 miles away”
Are you talking about the Palestinians or the Israelis? Is it worse to try and help just one, or both?
But I do see your point; for the sake of the Jews who were involved in the slave trade in America, no Jew should ever try to claim any higher social consciousness than that of the slave traders. Makes perfect sense, from a Southern point of view.
Let’s all take a guess, who has suffered more USA PC biasd institutionalization in their live–Mooser, ES, or Todd? Should we start with Hollywood films, where most Americans get their images of what’s evil?
“Should we start with Hollywood films,”
Actually, to see me, you would have to go to an English production of a Dickens novel, I believe Alec Guiness played the role. Just like that, but with palmate antlers, in season.
Look at this, I go away for a while because of some personal business I have to take care of and all mayhem breaks loose…lol Until Shmuel steps in. It is like listening to Jerry Falwell interpret who the teletubbies are! LOL And square pants SpongeBob is gay to hehe
someone must have put something in the water. this comment thread is over the top.
“like listening to Jerry Falwell interpret who the teletubbies are!”
ROFL
Oh, it hasn’t been too bad, except when that mangy, bald, fish-stealing raptor chiseled me out of my rightful spot as America’s Animal, but that’s another story.
And it’s hard not to go back and forth, or hither and thither, if you will about it all- but what choice does he have, really? As long as he can believe that a change can be brought about in Israel in this way, he has an obligation to follow his beliefs. And I can’t bring myself to completely reject the possibility of change through “imagining a bi-national future”.
There were a number of external factors that favored the civil rights movement in America in the 50′s and 60′s.
1. A civil war pitting the north against the south had been fought 100 years earlier and though true equality between the races had not been achieved at that time, the victory of north over south could still be utilized to implement desegregation.
2. The United States was involved in a competition against an alternative system, communism, and thus wanted to look good and just to the rest of the world.
Does Phil Weiss feel like he’s a Schwerner or a Goodman visiting the South?
I chose Schwerner and Goodman not because they were murdered, but because they’re the most famous Jewish civil rights activists who worked in the south.
Yeah, he probably does. Wonder what Schwerner and Goodman’s ancestors were doing if they were in the USA during the Civil War–or during the Reconstruction Era?
Yoav Shamir’s documentary, Defamation, was on British TV last night. Shamir, an Israeli, got a lot of access to the ADL and Abe Foxman, who seemed to have a bit of trouble finding a recent case of antisemitism for him to cover (some of the ADL’s examples of ‘modern’ antisemitism were stretching it). The American ADL members, in fact everyone he speaks to, are very honest with sometimes hillarious and politically incorrect results. There are interviews with some of the usual suspects- Walt & Mearsheimer, Norman Finklestein, but what was most shocking was seeing an Israeli ‘psychologist’ preparing a group of Israeli teens for their trip (pilgrimage?, not sure of correct term) to Poland to see the camps by telling them that the whole world despises them. The kids are warned not to speak to any locals and when a pair of local old Polish geezers, sitting on a bench, enquire where a couple of the girls are from, or try to through the language barrier, the girls immediately assume they are being targetted by antsemites and are rightly outraged. These kids have been conditioned to believe that they are despised, not just by ‘Arabs’, but by every country in the world (Venezuela is especially hatefull say the ADL) and this conditioning seems to be a deliberate Israeli policy. Some of the kids seem to recognise that this focus on antisemitism could numb them to others suffering. Many of the adults recognise that it has gone too far and words like Nazi, antisemitism, Holocaust are being diluted by such regular and often synical use.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to write a review, I just cant recommend it enough. Heres a link to Channel 4′s on demand service: link to channel4.com
it was an excellent film. i thought the trip the kids took was to the ukraine tho, i could be mistaken. i can’t recommend the film enough. interestingly i had never heard of the holdomor genocide until the scene w/foxman in the ukraine.
Up to 10 million Ukranians died; you’d think they’d have a genocide museum on the mall in DC. Of course our American kids learn all about it in K-12, no? Gee, not even in Chicago metro area?
link to en.wikipedia.org
another thing, i would have not believed what they put those children thru had it not been a documentary. this is child abuse and brainwashing.
No, it’s just teaching good Jewish identity. Self-governing, as Witty would say. Every
faith needs a common devil for gluing group solidarity.
That’s why all the talk about a “post-Zionist crisis” in Israel is so ridiculous. The brainwashing is deep and effective, starts early and continues throughout life. I am so happy we got our daughter out in time.
Was Professor Qumsiyeh’s lecture worth the journey across Rome?
Was Professor Qumsiyeh’s lecture worth the journey across Rome?
Thanks for asking, MH. Absolutely. Prof. Qumsiyeh – introduced as one of the leading exponents of civil society in Palestine – is a warm, intelligent, dedicated and surprisingly hopeful man. He gave an excellent presentation on the current situation in Palestine and the history behind it – including the history the Palestinian struggle against Zionism (he’s writing a book on the subject). He also spoke about the Gaza Freedom March and international efforts on behalf of Palestine, urging those present to speak out and actively support and promote BDS (there’s a meeting next week with the leaders of the Italian BDS movement: “Noagrexco”). He said that he favours a boycott against Egypt as well, for its role in upholding the siege in Gaza. He was wary of the arduous trip back to Bethlehem – via Jordan and the Jordan River bridge.
There were about 50 people there, including a former member of European Parliament (the indefatigable Luisa Morgantini), and another woman who spoke about her experiences on the GFM.
I finally bought a copy of Prof. Qumsiyeh’s book, “Sharing the Land of Canaan”, which I’d been meaning to do for some time. I’ll let you know how it turns out :-)
If Jews surviving an attack by six Arab countries intent on wiping them out and these same Jews refusing to please you and your ilk by being ghetto Jews and succumbing brings you to tears, then that makes me happy. I don’t see you or your kind going to Iraq, Morocco, Syria and Egypt to cry over the Jews loss of their homes, land and possessions.
I didn’t see you ask Adnan Mahamid what would have happened to his Jewish neighbors had his “allies” from those Arab countries defeated Israel?
Yawn
New troll, same old script.
Great! Go Israel! Beat the crap outta them Arabs! And just to improve on your performance, how’s about next time you do it WITHOUT my frickin American tax dollars, huh? I hear they’re not Kosher!
You ever look a gift horse in the mouth? Well, you should.
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