Morgan Elzey is a young restaurateur and activist in LA. Weiss met him at JFK last December en route to Gaza and Elzey told him about his progress. Convinced that Palestinian solidarity offers young idealistic Jews a way to be engaged in world problems, in a great Jewish tradition, Weiss urged Elzey, at left in Cairo, to write up his story.
I was raised as a Reform Jew. We went to temple only a half dozen times a year. I attended Hebrew school throughout middle school and then Hebrew high school two or three nights a week during my older years. Judaism wasn’t something that governed my life; I never really subscribed to the idea of God and was turned off to sitting and standing simply on the cue of the rabbi. I was in it for the family, the excuses for large gatherings and dinners, the sense of community it provided. As time went on, in describing who I was, I began to use the phrase "Jewish-by-association".
Because I didn’t have the background in the Palestinian struggle, I had no strong feeling of holding Israel accountable or for the world community to stand up in opposition to the oppressive Israeli military machine. For if I had, I may not have been able to work at the United Jewish Appeal (UJA), a Jewish fundraising non-profit, for nine months during 2007/2008. Many co-workers were Orthodox Jews, who had a significantly large community where I grew up in Northeastern New Jersey in a suburb of New York City. At work, we got off early on Fridays in observance of Shabbat and had many vacation days in observance of the plethora of Jewish holidays. The employees of the UJA, whether Jewish or not, had unflinching support for Israel. Fortunately, all of the people working there were wonderfully-pleasant people and rarely was anything overtly bigoted or unkind uttered. It was while working there that I began to search for more immediate ways to make an impact in this world that I care so much about and eventually found Common Ground Relief in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, which changed my life.
It was there that I began a serious education in the Palestinian struggle. I had heard (read on the internet) small bits about resistance the world over through the years, but wouldn’t consider myself "in the know". At Common Ground, though, I was quickly immersed into the world of the Black Panthers (our founder was a former Black Panther in New Orleans), Palestinians, and other groups which, for largely political purposes, have been forced to live marginalized, difficult lives. Before I left for good in November ’08, I had a sit down with the founder of CG, Malik Rahim. A dreadlocked man in his early 60s with a slow deep drawl, Malik and I couldn’t have come from more different places. I told him how amazing it was that a tall Jewish kid from the NJ suburbs could find common ground with an ex-con Black panther from New Orleans. And I thanked him for enlightening me, saving me, from my privilege bubble.
Two months earlier I had decided to finally, after several false starts, embark on my Birthright. I was nervous that my two good friends and I would be outcast as "non-believers". Fortunately we had been put on the most liberal trip with what has to be the most liberal tour guide Birthright has at their disposal. For those who don’t know, Birthright is a wonderful, flawlessly-functioning effort to persuade young American Jewry of the benefits of life in Israel, our "homeland". We are supposed to fall in love with the land, fall in love with an Israeli, and make Palestine our home. And I must say, after 10 days, many in our group were convinced that they knew everything they needed to know and were ready to make aliyah. Days earlier, we had done team-building activities while separated into groups, each group paired with an IDF soldier, and asked to choose the ideals most vital to our daily "Jewish" existence. Almost all of the Americans chose things like "family", "music", "culture" or "tradition". Almost every soldier, unsurprisingly, chose either "IDF" or "State of Israel". There was a notion that we were a different kind of Jew than our IDF counterparts. Earlier that day, while over-looking Jerusalem, a truly magical, spiritual place, we were told that we were forbidden to enter the Muslim section of the ancient, walled Old City. We would, we were told without hesitation, be attacked or killed. Another time, as we sat looking past a valley at the hills of Lebanon, our (liberal) tour guide used "primitive" to describe the people of Lebanon. Though this was not his view, he went on to describe how they had squandered all of the good will, financial donations, and political capital invested in them by Israel and her friends. I, and several other participants, found this too much and called him out on his hypocrisy. It was rare that overtly racist and privileged sentiments such as these came out while in Israel, though with them I felt that there was this seething undercurrent of fear of the other, of negativity, of hatred, of…..something ugly.
When I was a child and into my 20s, Zionism was present in my life inasmuch as the State of Israel was praised in Hebrew School and during my time at the UJA. My friends were never religious and we never really talked about it…we didn’t really know or care much. It is only since expressing my feelings regarding Israeli apartheid and the announcement of my intentions to go to Gaza that people’s true motivations and feelings came out. A good friend emailed me saying, "It should be sufficient to say that I strongly oppose this, that I see your actions as a direct threat to my family’s safety, and that this kind of shit prevents Palestinian re-unification and therefore makes it extremely unlikely that a Palestinian state will be established." Others asked me if I still could even consider myself a Jew and told me that I was a disgrace to my religion, my "people". Zionism (Jewish nationalism) has reared its ugly head in ways and in people I never thought imaginable. To question Israel is to be anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish. Apparently, to simply be Jewish, regardless of one’s religious tilt, was to be Zionist. I guess I missed the memo.
The scorn and condemnation I’ve received from my extended Jewish community has been utterly uninspiring and disappointing, not to mention outright offensive. For expressing views different from his own, and for what he refers to as "spew an amazing amount of propaganda that is rarely even disguised by your own words", a friend of mine has determined that I have been brainwashed by the activist community. People who, for all intents and purposes, I am on the same political page with AND who are also Jewish all seem to have the same thing in common: unwavering support for Israel and zero sympathy or hope for the position Palestinians are currently in. What’s more, even if they acknowledge that they "feel" for the Palestinian community, there exists little room in their mind for someone to work towards a conclusion of peace, especially if that work involves "tricking" people to lend financial support and travel to Gaza in a show of solidarity. In almost every case, the outrage and anger directed at me has come from the Jewish community. It is disappointing, to say the least, that such intelligent and privileged people could, at time, have such little empathy for those worse off than themselves. This, unfortunately, isn’t uncommon among the privileged.
I could go on and on, but I won’t. (To the class) I really appreciate all your interest in this issue. The first step, which many, including those in the Jewish community, have begun to do, is to acknowledge that there is a problem and not to gloss over it as a "millennia-old religious conflict." I am not a self-hating Jew. I do not think all Jews are racist and bigoted. I also do not believe that to be Jewish is to be entirely supportive of the State of Israel. The kind of hate that has been directed at me – not because I shot rockets into Israel but simply because I express different views and that I traveled to an unfortunately controversial place – has, in its extreme-ness, caught me off guard. I expected outrage. I did not expect to lose a friend.
Wonderful, Morgan. Thank you for this. At least, I, as a Gentile, now know that the hate email coming to me from old, old friends whom I had the temerity to send a few Mondeweiss pieces to is not necessarily directed at me because I am a Gentile. The ugliness and onslaught — add the West Bank settlers to whom my mail was forwarded, dont even know, and who are now blitzing me — has had the effect of making my temples feel as if they are in a vise. The ugliness is profound. The lack of humanity is astonishing.
But you know what I’ve walked away with? That I am dealing with neanderthals, mentally and emotionally. And I drip with derision. Now.
Not to generalize, but Israelis who volunteered to go to the West Bank are often incredibly mean, nasty people. I had the misfortune of getting tangled up in some in a collaborative storytelling venture.
I think the “moment of truth” for me was having my dark skinned, Brazilian themed street hero (yeah, it was a comic book style storytelling venue) beat to within an inch of his life by the husband (married couple, yeah) and then — out of character — he comments to his wife about been “a good Israeli.” By this point I had already spoken out at them about the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, and I thought we were friends.
Boy, was I wrong.
Eventually, they had to be banned from the community, they got so disruptive. And then they tried to tear it half, since they couldn’t run it.
Like Morgan’s experience shows, by and large, Israelis are a deeply racist people.
Your moment of truth is unclear. “comic book style storytelling venue?”
Sigh. I guess I must reveal the full extent of my nerdiness. :)
It was a storytelling / roleplaying collective on City of Heroes. Not a comic book per se, but it’s a game inspired by comic books, and we wrote stories about our characters in the context of that setting and genre.
Not nerdy at all, Chaos. You’re an artist. I understand completely.
I’ll take that as a compliment. :) Incidentally, that wasn’t even my first encounter with Israelis in online storytelling. Two things have heralded such encounters: A) you better damn well recognize that they are Israelis, or else — they make sure you’re made painfully aware of their nationality; and B) if they don’t get their way, they will attack everyone and everything on their way out. Scorched Earth, every time.
Certainly there are Israelis who are exceptions (off the top of my head, I can think of Shmuel as an example, although I’m loathe to associate him as an Israeli citizen at all), but I’m never going to be willing to take that risk ever again. I’ve seen too many international collaborative projects destroyed.
In your online storytelling game experience, have you noticed any other nationality that seems to consistently and disproportionally show particular vices or virtues? Just curious, especially since your game involves interactive playing by isolated individuals within game rules on collaborative projects.
We’ve all read, from time to time, or personally experienced via travels, generalizations
regarding different peoples, culture–usually about the nice characteristics, not the generalized warts. Tourist or entertainment stuff.
Your virtual online solo game-playing projects appear to not involve weighting real life factors, such as government politics and, e.g., whether
you interacted with people of a foreign nation while visiting its slums or
staying on the usual tourist attraction map. So maybe any such observations
as you may have acquired distills some basic general cultural essence, value
profile…
I’ve just gone to the game’s web site and skimmed it. Are your conclusions related in any way to whether or not the player is playing the role of a Hero or Villain?
If so, how? I noticed the Hero group founder originates as a US doughboy, and the Villain Group founder, as a guy with background paralleling the young Adolph Hitler. Are your conclusions about the Israeli players disputes about
means and ends? Tactics, moral consequences of interactive statagy which must be agreed upon by players on the same side, probably usually the Heroes?
Neat questions, Citizen.
First: the only other noticeable quality was that of the other Americans generally. And that was a tendency toward total silence. There was a lot of pressure on me to “sit down and shut up,” and the few times anybody did voice anything, it was only in private to me.
Second, I wouldn’t read too much into the hero/villain thing. Most of us in the storytelling played to blur those lines as a way of exploring and adding depth to the genre. My primary hero, for instance, had a really bad temper and a tendency to erupt into violence (moments he would later express remorse for)… while my villain character was one part victim of circumstance, one part burning desire to take control of the world to “set it right” — at least what he considered right.
Jeez, the silent majority invades the virtual war game arena? Have we raised
a nation of sheep even more than we imagined? They don’t even bleat out once in a while like you do? It sounds like you are describing our congress people when it comes to anything involving Israel: “And that was a tendency toward total silence. There was a lot of pressure on me to “sit down and shut up,” and the few times anybody did voice anything, it was only in private to me.”
I guess Americans have been trained well. Goebbels would appreciate that.
And, that’s Americans with this characteristic who are just playing a game
online. What do they have to lose by speaking up as you do? Do you have
any clue? Will somebody break down their door and take away their laptop?
Will they lose their job? Will they simply lose whatever friends they think they have? What motivates their whispered silent agreement with you, yet their
official silence? It’s really creepy, and depressing.
Sorry for not replying sooner to this conversation — I meant to, but when I saw these replies I was in class, so was not at liberty to respond at length. Which I can now.
At any rate, all I can say is, I’ve dropped City of Heroes in favor of Star Trek Online (science fiction is much more my comfort zone for writing) and the group I’ve found there is larger international. And I fit in a lot better. :P
Not to generalize, but you are going to generalize anyhow.
Let me get this right. Out of your “getting tangled up in some in a collaborative storytelling venture,” you were able to conclude “Israelis who volunteered to go to the West Bank are often incredibly mean, nasty people.”
Classic stereotyping.
Was there anything notably consistent about the Germans who moved to Poland under Germany’s occupation there, Bruce? You tell me.
Bruce do you still argue the fact that Zionist Israel commit and continue to commit nasty work?
hey guys what to expect from another phony Nakba denier? just ignore this teabagger!
Yeah, Bruce’s intent here, as far as I can tell, is to attack specific members of the community here (I’m a prime target, which is odd considering my borderline pariah status here) and to divide the community.
Ever see him speaking out whenever yonira or Witty says something blatantly anti-Arab? I haven’t.
What, precisely, do you think the tea party people in the USA are denying?
Look Chaos, if you want to say something intelligent, even if very negative, about West Bank or German settlers, then just say it if is true. ‘Incredibly mean and nasty’? How would I know if German settlers were personally that?
aparisian, you really ought not to embarrass yourself with such ignorant remarks.
Israel has committed and continues to commit terrible injustices against the Palestinian people. I defy you to show where I have posted or commented otherwise.
And I defy you to point out where I have ever denied the Nabka.
And I demand to know how you get off calling me a teabagger.
Whatever your intentions, you are just a slanderer.
You’d think the rampant ethnic cleansing would have been your first clue. But you’re right. Technically you’d need to have first hand experience with them to say that.
You know, kind of like what I do, vis-a-vis West Bank settlers. I can go fetch stories from some retired nuns and schoolteachers I know who participated in the olive harvest on the West Bank a few years ago, if you need more corroborating evidence.
I think maybe aparisian was out of line for characterizing you as a Nakba denier and a teabagger, yeah. But frankly, with the disingenuous way you act, Bruce, it’s getting harder and harder to tell you apart from someone like Richard Witty. Kind of hard to take you seriously when you still sing the praises of Zionism in spite of what it really represents. You know, I hear Mussolini made the trains run on time, too.
Disingenuous, Chaos? Examples?
How about coming up with a single posting that Witty hasn’t found fault with?
Singing the praises of Zionism? Examples?
Yeah, I hear Mussolini made the trains run on time, too. I also heard it wasn’t true. But I have no idea what you are trying to say with that.
I think he meant they were anxious to take advantage of a material opportunity offered to them on a silver platter in the then current politics of the moment.
You know, like when the US offered free land in the otherwise cowboy & gold-digging West?
Well, didn’t Hitler make the autobahns, cure German unemployment and other aspects of economic Depression, using a wheel barrel to hold the marks
needed to buy a loaf of bread–thanks to the WW! treaty? Mussolini too wasn’t
supported by so many simply because he made powerful poses and spoke as if he had the answers.
Look, Bruce, I agree it’s impossible to judge Chaos experience from what he wrote. You have to believe or be skeptical. And while I like Shmuel too, the comments about him above made me feel very uncomfortable.
But considering this, feels you were lured into a trap :
How would I know if German settlers were personally that?
I know stories. Do you? From the descendants perspective it is all pretty clear. It’s been a rather tough experience for them to travel back time… Imagine you move into houses, mansions partly, but never ask yourself who lived there before and left them to you. No, these weren’t all Jewish houses either. Imagine who recruited you to go there, and what you were told and believed to not care about the people driven out of their homes …
Sorry just came back from my work.
oh Bruce so now you are screaming scandal?! because i m calling you what you are?
The point i tried to make here, is that the 48 Nakba never ended, it changed its nature but it is still there. I defy you to point me out when Israel has stopped the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? When Israel has stopped the massacres against the unarmed civilians? the house evictions and demolitions? Yes you are a Nakba (sinister in Arabic) denier because you unconditionally support this terrorism of state and you keep denying the rights of Pals to have justice.
Keep screaming scandal and i will keep calling you a phony teabagger.
Thanks
LeaNder,
I just haven’t read anything about the Germans that were moved by the Nazis east to find Liebesrom, so I am not going to comment. I wouldn’t doubt anything you say.
On the West Bank settlers, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that those who are physically confronting the Palestinians have been “mean and nasty,” and I certainly think all are morally wrong for settling east of the Green Line. And the Palestinians have the right to physically defend themselves.
But most of the settlers are in isolated blocs and are not carrying out the obscene behavior that we’ve seen in Hebron, for example. In fact, a number of the settlers I’ve met (granted a small sample) are personally pleasant. That doesn’t make their ideology and politics any less lethal.
I think Chaos’ projection from his online gaming experience to a social psychology of the settlers is quite a stretch.
that is funny Bruce, I had the exact same thing typed up, but I decided not to send it.
Chaos is a waste of our time, he is a whack job. He is basing his perception of Israelis from an online fantasy world. Is this a guy we really want to spend our time arguing with??
you see Bruce i was saying earlier that you ressemble so much yonira! wow i will bookmark this comment.
Chaos is a waste of our time, he is a whack job. He is basing his perception of Israelis from an online fantasy world. Is this a guy we really want to spend our time arguing with??
Chaos unlike you read the goldstone report and got educated about the Nakba.
Ayup, aparisian. I can’t say this was entirely unexpected.
Leander,
I always thought you and Shafiq would be excellent moderators for the comments section.
Bruce,
The comment section does not need moderation as it moderates itself, in a rather healthy way.
I have absolutely no clue what you found so objectionable in Chaos’ comment. I do not a single israeli who I’d want to share 10 minutes with on or off-line who lives beyond the green line. No matter what reason they moved there for, they all know exactly what the cost is to Plaestinians and simply do not care. A large number of them are new russian immigrants who are as prejudiced about everything as they come. Most of the people who choose to live “over there” know in their heart that it’s not totally “kosher’ and tend to be defensive as well as aggressive, which is no doubt is the phenomenon Chaos encountered.
I’ll venture out and make a generalization here which has been noted by many and is something I realized only once out of that moral pit: israelis, by and large, as a people, are prfoundly selfish. They are selfish communally, racially and, of course, nationally. On an individual level it can be hard to separate personal sefishness from the general one, so I wouldn’t comment there. What I would say, is that a majority of the people spends most of their energy (even many who belong t that wonderful, so called, hebrew culture) despising other israelis, not to mention the rest of the world. I said in my post below and am holding on to the statement that Israelis are bred into exceptionalism in a way most diaspora jews simply cannot comprehend. And those who do are shocked, sometimes into action – as many posters and commenters here were. Think Max Blumenthal as an example. he knows what hate lies deep in the heart of way too many israeli residents. Just one example. Morgan is processing the same information – he came to it through gaza. But you can just as easily find the hate in Tel Aviv.
Having said all that, and generalizations being what they are, there are plenty of exceptions. We know many of them as courageous Israeli people, far more so than any of us can imagine. It is not easy to be shunned in Israel and Morgan’s experience is but a tip of the iceberg compared to what he would have subjected to as an israel. Shmuel gave us lots of insight on this issue and he may be the better voice to listen to not the least for being so much less harsh of a judge than I am. When you lose your friends in Israel – there are all too few other Jews and/or non-Jews that you can make new friends with. Your mother would start crying when she heard your voice, your old class mates would look at you with concentrated hatred in their eyes. Your own children may avoid you, unless you managed to take them along for the ride. It is a profoundly alienating experience for one to come out as a non-zionist and/or pro human/palestinian rights in Israel.
Bruce, you need to draw a distinction between jewish people outside and inside israel. They are fast diverging and in another 10 years will be totally different people. What upsets people here is the new brand of the israeli brat, who dares to speak for all jews. And this brat is supported by like-minded – and badly misguided jewish zionists in the US. It’s a virulent combination that is poisoning america. Those who see it happen are understandably angry, whoever they are. I am one of them. Which is why I can’t bear going to israel any longer.
just thought i’d put in my 2 cents worth. i don’t think one can generalize about everyone being mean and nasty . many variables exists. there are israelis who’ve moved to the west bank and ended up marrying palestinians. there are israels who do volunteer work in refugee camps. there are israelis who are clueless to the general impact of their existence as settlers. there are settlements of working people who have virtually no interaction or contact w/palestinians at all (the road system is designed that way) and simply commute in and our of the settlements. of course i think they should all pack up and leave, i condemn their choice to live where they do, but are all of them ‘nasty people’? this is an absurd statement. it supposes they are all aware politically. it’s nuts and grounded in some theory humans are predisposed to a certain temperment based on their political or religious beliefs. there are many very immoral people who have very polite manners and would never consider being nasty and i myself have been quite nasty repeatedly to people who piss me off and i’m extremely moral. take my word for it and trust me!
Thanks for putting in your 2 cents. You made my point much better than me.
annie, lots of israeli people of all kinds live beyond the green line, and they all have their reasons. I was talking about the settlers, n ot the activists or people like Amira hass who choose to live among the “natives”. Many settlers may be perfectly nice people – in the right company, ie, among their own. Most are probably nice to dogs and children. Others might kick the cat and shun the neighbour. People are people everywhere. But, there’s one generalization t I made, which remains true – the settlers all know in their hearts exactly what they do. They know their cheaper housing comes at the expense of others. As I said, for the most part they not only don’t care but feel entitled just as colonizers did everywhere else. It is the essence of the colonialist experience to NOT CARE about the natives and to feel that might makes right. The pieds noir felt that way in algeria, as did the conquistadors in chile.
nastiness is a personal trait that some may have but most don’t. Israeli settlers like the german settlers before them, like the american settlers on Indian land, like the french algerians. The difference is that there is now an internet which didn’t exist then so we are all privvy to the profound arrogance, sense of superiority and exceptionalism – all mixed with a kind of defensiveness which together characterize the hubris of settlements of one race or breed of species at the expense of another. It’s no doubt the way homo sapiens felt about the neanderthals as they busily disspossed them. It’s what attila the hun felt running over half of Europe. Humans do it because they can, because it’s the law of the jungle. It just doesn’t look pretty when the settler posts their settler opinions on the net. The ugliness of it all is built-in and sometimes, in play-acting – in the games that Chaos may have encountered -the full measure of it, the reveling in might comes out.
I do not think that in this regard israeli colonizers are any worse than others were throughout history. There are just too many who brag about it, when we expect them to hang their heads in shame.
BTW, if you go to Israel and meet people who live in colonies or have family there, and if you speak their language, you’ll get to know the full measure of the mean-spiritedness of which I speak. It’s just directed towards the “others”, whereas you – if jewish – may get a wink, nod and even a smile. You may not even notice the guilt papered over by a bit too much bravado. It often doesn’t come out so well in English.
As I said people are people everywhere. Some just do bad things and some of those love to tell about it.
Hi Morgan, how nice to see you here. wonderful you met phil and welcome. thanks for sharing your experiences and explorations with us. you seem like a very thoughtful introspective person and i hope you stick around. there’s a vital vibrant jewish contribution within our peace movement and i’m sure you’ll carve out a place for yourself just fine.
Annie? Refresh my memory.
hi morgan, we haven’t met before. sorry it took me so long to get back to you this is the first i’ve seen your response. when i said it was nice to see you here i meant it. a new conscious voice. it sounds as tho i may have met phil in similar circumstances as you tho we were successful in entering gaza that time.
Thank you for sharing your story. You are a courageous man, sir.
Hi Morgan. Welcome. I have a son about your age. He teaches and coaches in LA, writes screenplays with no luck there so far. You two would like
each other. Where is your restaurant located in LA?
Morgan, you may not fully know it right now, and sometimes during the course of our lives (although some might laugh thinking we are not very far along) we might be in doubt, but we in reality have chosen the best way. There is nothing more fulfilling than standing up for the oppressed and downtrodden, it is the only way (I would say) to live our lives.
Currently on my blog I have showcased a newer documentary about Sacco and Vanzetti, two men who were wrongly accused of murder and railroaded in a politicized trial because they were “foreigners” (the time is the 1920′s) and anarchists. Sacco writes a letter to his son which reflects what my parents told me, just before he is executed for something he did not do, and it is something that we can all learn from as a direction for our lives – it is about 2:30 into the video if you want to skip to this, the entire segment is very good
ADVICE TO A SON
This is what we should have learned, this is the lesson that we should have all learned in reference to our past, and it should guide us into the future.
And I might add:
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. — Marcus Aurelius
Or as a Jew by the name of Simon once said: Etiamsi omnes, ego non – Even if all others, I will not.
Thanks, Morgan.
It amazes me just how effective Judeo-Zionism is as a means of social control. With the Enlightenment and the reduction in Rabbinical control, it appeared that the Jews would assimilate into the surrounding Gentile communities, becoming just another religion. But then came Zionism, the Holocaust, and Israel, and Jewish identity and solidarity were greatly strengthened, and remain astonishingly potent, far beyond comparable Gentile groupings. The voluntary submission of self to the group is unique considering the size of the group. Give the Zionists their due, it was an impressive (and scary) accomplishment.
It’s not impressive, it’s retrograde. What I think is impressive is that I’ve yet to meet a Palestinians who actually does want to slaughter Israeli Jews outright, considering what Zionists have done to murder them both in body and in spirit.
No offense intended, but I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach after reading this. How can one speak of Zionism like its some powerful and impressive ideology with total disregard for the suffering, despair and destruction it caused in the lives of others? I can’t understand people who are oblivious to the pain of others; I just can’t.
There’s something frivalous and hollow in your words and in my opinion, disturbing.
“It amazes me just how effective Judeo-Zionism is as a means of social control. With the Enlightenment and the reduction in Rabbinical control, it appeared that the Jews would assimilate into the surrounding Gentile communities, becoming just another religion. But then came Zionism, the Holocaust, and Israel, and Jewish identity and solidarity was greatly strengthened, and remain astonishingly potent, far beyond comparable Gentile groupings. The voluntary submission of self to the group is unique considering the size of the group. Give the Zionists their due, it was an impressive (and scary) accomplishment.”
More enlightening history and sociology from Keith. “Zionism, Holocaust, and Israel” came along and stopped the Jews from assimilating “into the surrounding Gentile communities.” Exactly how much weight do you assign to each of those three in this process, Keith? What effect did the Holocaust have on the remaining Jews in your historical analysis? I would have thought Hitler, Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, and the ascension of dozens of right-wing anti-Semitic parties in Europe might also received a mention. So tell us Keith what was the historically correct response to Hitler and the Nazis for the Jews? And where did that work out well for them?
And what is Judeo-Zionism anyway?
Jewish “identity and solidarity” remains “astonishingly potent, far beyond comparable Gentile groupings.” Really! Is this based on sociological studies? Or the books on your shelf? (Still waiting for the list, Keith.) More than the Mormons? Vietnamese Catholics? What were the comparable Gentile groupings you used?
“The voluntary submission of self to the group is unique considering the size of the group.” Really? Based on what studies or observations? What groups are you comparing the Jews with?
This is anti-Semitism. Do the anti-Zionist readers on this site disagree?
I think it sounds anti-Semitic, but I wouldn’t say the guy is a hater.
Jewish identity is politicized. So you should separate the political division amongst peoples’ from the emotional/religious/fanatical hatred. It’s all political to an extent, but there are more articulate ways of saying what Keith said.
Shlomo Sand’s book could be straw manned as ‘anti-Semitic’.
I guess, Keith is making Jews seem ‘exceptional’ in this regard, so that could be what is making you see his comments as antisemitic.
But please, if we’re not going to say Judeo-Zionism, then don’t ever say ‘jihadi’ (as Phil has, and as no doubt the racist Zios here like yoni-lulz, WJ, Dick Witty, etc. have said in one form or the other).
‘Islamists’, ‘Islamic terrorism’, etc. etc.
I remember some guy being banned from this blog for saying ‘Judeo-Nazis’ but how is that different from ‘Islamo-Nazi’ or the other words i mentioned, like ‘jihadi’?
The point of antisemitism is CONFLATION – so I get your point Bruce. The guy didn’t provide a study and implied/stated some Jewish exceptionalism. Similarly, why do people assume all those ‘terrorists’ who hate the West and Israel, are doing so just because of religion or that they are all religious crazies?
Double standards, etc. I still think that in spite of the possible antisemitic framing of Keith’s views, he’s not absolutely wrong when he says that the Jewish community falls in line, by and large, when it comes to Zionism.
So sure, it’s probably antisemitic, but its still a quibble. Not a ‘kill-all-the-Jews’ kind of antisemitism.
Its like the organ harvesting thing. Now, that happened. So does that all of a sudden make, antisemitism a contradiction? No. But FACTS are not antisemitic.
Keith might have made an antisemitic statement because he does not provide facts, and makes pretty generalized conclusions. But at the same time, there is a lot of evidence that could in and of itself be labeled as antisemitic, had it not HAPPENED – I.E., FACTS.
Do you not recall the Reut institute’s advice? How Zionists should cozy up to elites and blah blah blah?
Is that antisemitic of them? I think the entire notion of antisemitism has become undermined because of Zionism.
Hypothetical question:
Over a period of time, a hidden, unmanned camera records criminal activity going on in a particular location where a diversified population exists. A disproportional
number of the criminals captured commiting criminal activity by X group is revealed by the camera film.
Should the full contents of the film be shown to the general public?
If so, why so? If not, why not?
If the film is shown, should it be edited first?
If so by whom, and why?
Robbe-Grillet was a novelist who was an anchor of a French literary movement
(New Realism, if memory serves) that simply recorded facts, e.g., now, the roach is here on the wall, now the roach is over here on the wall; then the sun light was here on the wall, now the
sunlight is over here, etc.
That made for seriously demanding reading. So it went nowhere and soon the literary-inclined customers moved on.
In a TV entertainment show on natural bloopers based on such cameras, of course the film is heavily edited,
to show only dramatic funny things. The only goal is to edit the mundane to find humor by selective events showing human funny human activity. If that was not done, no profit, no investment, soon, no more ability to even maintained an operating camera. Because no investors.
US News is a combination of entertainment and stilted factual news. Although the Fourth Estate is seen as “The Fourth Estate” which means the fourth branch of government dedicated to citizen well-being, it is privately owned, by and large, which means its guided by profit potential and maintence.
No government in the world can do what it does without the support of
the press. The other necessity is government-supported Education. The first handles adults, the second, the juveniles.
The old adage is the pen is mightier than the sword. And so now, is the TV.
A more frequent occurance, it seems to me, is that the pen and the TV are
the scabbard that protects and holds the knife, or sword.
Editing and redaction seriously hamper the Freedom Of Information Act’s spirit and intent. Self-defense or national security is the first flag always flown.
Inflation and conflation are tools of the trade. Only the hidden camera knows the full truth. And no such camera is free. Still, some investors and operators and editors leave less cut film on the floor than others.
Keep on trolling, Bruce.
Chaos, you don’t own this web site. It really isn’t up to you to decide who is trolling. So should we assume by your comment here that you agree with Keith?
You’re going to assume whatever the hell you want, regardless of what I say. Why should I take you any more seriously than I take yonira?
Because you probably agree with most of my postings, while you don’t agree with anything of substance yonira says. However, you two did manage to agree about me at one point.
I kind of know better than to assume the best from you at this point, Bruce. Don’t presume that I will assume to find most of your postings agreeable.
Like I said before: You’re fine when you stick to facts. Your opinions are taking on an air of moral inconsistency.
Chaos, okay I won’t in the future presume that you agree with my postings. But I have noticed that nobody writes as many comments on this site as you, and despite that, I haven’t seen many critical of my postings or the opinions expressed.
The response to my recent comments remind me of the ones after my posting that dared to criticize Ahmadinejad. Seems I refused to recognize what a democrat and humanitarian he was. Yeah, events since have proved me wrong.
Well, you seem to have Phil’s ear. Why don’t you bend it, and let’s have an actual statistical count, by screen name, over a period of time and see if that’s really true. And put that up in topic on this site.
Since that seems to be so very important to you.
Bruce Wolman? I didn’t realize. But I remember the event well. That admittedly was peculiar to watch.
Concerning moderation, I absolutely agree with Danaa:
The comment section does not need moderation as it moderates itself, in a rather healthy way.
That’s my impression over time.
LeaNder,
After reading your comment I went back and read the comment threads from Ahmadinejad and some others from that time to refresh my memory, and although there were some rough exchanges at times, there was a discussion. At least for me, there seems much less of that today. The personal abuse, one-line attacks and piling on have increased greatly, while the challenging back and forth has decreased. Even if people vehemently disagreed with you back then, it was rare that a long follow-up explanation was just dismissed as nonsense. (Witty excepted.) And I didn’t notice a few people so dominating the threads, as happens now.
I also see less voices like yourself commenting.
Maybe it is just my perception and maybe the comment section will self-correct, but at the moment I find it a regression and I believe it harms the sites ability to influence new people.
You raise an interesting point, Bruce. Certainly I would never have authored Keith’s comment, and find it somewhat troubling, but I would not have been moved to take it on the way I did a few weeks ago when someone extolled to Protocols as revealing truths about the Jewish character. I think Cliff has it right, that it smacks of anti-Semitism but not hatred.
Your objection to his comment regarding Jewish “identity and solidarity” being “astonishingly potent” reminded me of something I heard years ago. The ADL published a poll purporting to show anti-Semitism on the rise in the US (then solicited contributions to combat this frightening trend). Of course, you don’t take such a poll by asking people if they are anti-Semitic, so it was in the form of a questionnaire that the ADL interpreted. I was listening to the Curtis (Sliwa) and (Ron) Kuby radio show, and they posed the same questions to many callers. Guess who scored at the high end of the anti-Semitism range? Orthodox Jews. Why? Typical of the questions was “Do you think that Jews tend to stick together more than other ethnic groups?” (my memory, not exact quote). Orthodox Jews responded immediately “Of course we do,” and that was deemed the anti-Semitic answer.
Bruce, I think if you examine the comments on this site for “danger signs,” where anti-Zionism crosses the border to anti-Semitism, you’ll find occasional instances. But I also think you have to distinguish between mildly offensive remarks like Keith’s and truly disturbing ones. And think about this. Keith’s sentiments would never be uttered by a mainstream politician or media person, but a similar remark about Arabs or Muslims would at worst invite modest protest but certainly would not jeopardize a career. Similarly, with respect to anonymous commenters, if you want to be even-handed in your racism detection, patrol the comments section of frontpagemagazine or JPost or Haaretz. You’ll have your hands full.
Re: “Typical of the questions was “Do you think that Jews tend to stick together more than other ethnic groups?” (my memory, not exact quote). Orthodox Jews responded immediately “Of course we do,” and that was deemed the anti-Semitic answer.”
Yes, it’s really hard to distinguish exceptionalist POVs, no matter they ostensibly
profess to be bipolar opposites. Does Wiesnthal need the anti-semites more than the anti-semites need him? And who’s the collateral damage in each case?
If one is not killed in process, fear-mongering is very lucrative and often leads
to power.
David,
I am somewhat confused. Anti-Semitic remarks should get a pass as long as you can’t infer hatred behind them. Does this also go for anti-Arab remarks? While Marty Peretz makes no bones about hating Arabs, Daniel Pipes will tell you he doesn’t hate them. Does that mean Pipes gets a pass?
Last week Keith was arguing that American Zionists were the power behind the restrictive immigration in the United States during the Thirties. I challenged him not because I thought he was a hater – how would I know – but because I considered his framing to be false and pernicious. He wrote that he wanted to raise “a discussion of the historical reality that Zionism, far from being a refuge for worldwide Jewry, exploited the Holocaust (before, during, and after), as a means of achieving its nationalistic objectives.” So tell me, David how did Zionism before and during the Holocaust exploit it? Was adhering to Zionism an unreasonable response by the Jews under the circumstance? Did the Jews who immigrated to Palestine in the Thirties even have the luxury of pondering the intellectual coherence of Zionism? Even many of the Bund partisans, who considered the Zionists enemies, ended up in Israel after their experiences during the war.
As for the ADL polls, they are worse than a joke. The questions obviously don’t measure anti-Semitism. Even worse are the definitions now legally adopted in Europe. I’ve been researching them for a future posting.
I am not posting at frontpagemagazine, JPost or Haaretz, so I don’t feel responsible for the comments on the sites. But you are right that they are horrible. Worse than that, scary. If I was Haaretz, I would drop them. What purpose do they serve?
The more I see Bruce ham this up, the more I understand what Keith meant about the “social control” aspect of Zionism. Both myself and kalithea commented before Bruce in exactly the opposite direction — that there was nothing to be admired in an extremist philosophy that seeks to enforce a sense of isolation on Jews from the rest of the world, and that seeks to justify ethnic cleansing, of anyone.
Along comes Bruce, labeling Keith an “anti-Semite” and suddenly the whole tenor of the conversation undergoes a titanic shift. Like I said in a different post… circling of the wagons.
Can you tell me, Bruce, what year Jacob Israël de Haan was assassinated?
David Samel, as usual I agree with what you write. I used to organize my thoughts around Yehuda Bauer’s definition of anti-semitism.
Now, I use Jeffrey Blankfort’s:
C4700, Bruce’s indignation does seem a bit contrived. Young Morgan had the courage to publicly express his feelings of isolation and the threat of a loss of a dear friend (and the greater threat of ostracism from his community) because he had the temerity to question the Zionist orthodoxy. And then Bruce rides in on his high horse, waving his cowboy hat, shrieking ‘anti-Semitism’, and wham!, the whole post is sent up in a cloud of dust.
Job well done, Bruce. You have managed to convey the message that any criticism of the rigidity and narrow mindedness that Morgan has experienced is motivated by anti-Semitism.
I think you guys are demonizing Bruce . It’s not that I think Bruce is completely in the right either–by now, people on both sides have gotten angry and are looking for any flaws in the other side’s argument, not acknowledging any common ground and it’s spiraling downhill. We’re now at the point where Bruce’s motives are questioned, while he in turn is a little too harsh with David Samel, IMO.
There are some remarks at this website in the comment section that are anti-semitic, and some that border on it, and it’s also true that people can make anti-semitic remarks out of ignorance rather than hatred. It’s also true that accusations of anti-semitism are used as a weapon to keep people from criticizing Israel or the Lobby here. I think most of us agree with all this, but the discussion is getting unnecessarily heated.
Donald… at one point did conversation on this thread stop being about Morgan’s and other people’s experiences with Zionist dogma? I’ll give you a hint.
Bruce was reacting to a comment that others also thought bordered on anti-semitism. Nothing wrong with that.
Phil also jumps in below and agrees with Bruce’s concerns. So do I. Maybe there should be a few threads devoted to this subject (anti-semitism and keeping it separate from legitimate criticism of Zionism). And anyway, it’s not that far from Morgan’s post–yes, on the one side anyone who criticizes Israel or Zionism is apparently going to be demonized by some in the Jewish community (I don’t know what percentage), while on the other side criticism of Israel and Zionism also tends to bring out real anti-semitism in some. The two topics are just two sides of the same coin. We should be discussing this. Unfortunately it’s gotten pretty tangled up with personal animosities.
Chaos, I did not call Keith an “anti-Semite.” I said what he posted in his comment was anti-Semitic. Nobody has shown otherwise, but you are welcome to take a shot.
Not really sure what you are saying here about understanding more Keith’s statement. Are you affirming Keith’s comment or not?
One other thing, I can’t go through the comments each time to see what has been added. I am taking them in the order I receive notice of them.
Chaos, what does the assassination of Jacob Israel de Haan in 1924 by the Haganah have to do with exploiting the Holocaust?
I’ll wait until you answer everything I’ve put forth, thank you very much.
That’s the question, my question answers.
Donald, I don’t read minds, so I won’t speculate about Bruce’s motivation, but, and I say this with unalloyed sincerity, Morgan came here to discuss an extremely sensitive, even painful subject, and in doing so provide insight into a world that I and most others readers here don’t inhabit. And Bruce has, intentionally or otherwise, cocked up the whole conversation, or at least the potential of a conversation. Do you believe that Bruce’s analysis of Keith’s throwaway line was necessary or even enlightening? Do you believe that there need to be a few more threads devoted ‘to this subject’, meaning anti-Semitism, as if we’re all ripe for some sensitivity training? Has a day gone by when anti-Semitism hasn’t been discussed here at Mondoweiss?
marc b,
My comment was in response to Keith’s comment, not Morgan’s testimony. So Keith’s comment was a “criticism of the rigidity and narrow mindedness that Morgan has experienced.” It would be interesting to hear whether Morgan reads it that way.
How many of you could not just let my response to Keith stand, but had to come to the defense of Keith? So far I haven’t seen anyone counter Colin’s remarks. So who hijacked the discussion?
I wrote about my personal experience with the narrow mindedness of the Jewish community about a year ago on this site after Phil asked me to. I understand what Morgan has gone through because I have experienced it myself. I have experienced isolation from family and friends for bucking the hasbara narratives, worse than what young Morgan has so far gone through, but I have changed a couple of minds also. I don’t believe my experiences validate Keith’s observations, and I will maintain my right on this site to express this whether you think my stance is contrived or not.
…because that doesn’t smack of setting up an “us versus them” dichotomy, huh.
David,
Donald believes I have been too harsh with you, and I concur. Most of the questions I directed to you really are for Keith, as it was his writings I was questioning.
Actually on the second comment when you started up about your online game experiences. What did that have to do with Morgan’s story?
“There was a lot of pressure on me to sit down and shut up,” and the few times anybody did voice anything, it was only in private to me.”
I bet there was. I bet not even all the Americans who asked you “to sit down and shut up” were Jewish.
That’s OK, and thanks to Donald as well. I’m greatly relieved that I don’t have the burden of replying. Actually, I had not been paying much attention and did not realize which Bruce you were. Had I been more on the ball, I never would have suggested that you patrol those other websites.
Elsewhere, you asked my advice on moderating comments. Sorry to say, I have no great suggestions for this problem. I can only say for myself that I publish things here to influence people who read it. I hope it doesn’t sound too arrogant, but that’s the only point. I am certainly influenced and educated when I read something I didn’t know, or think about enough. I find excessive bickering and name-calling to be a bigger problem than outright racism, mostly because it’s just boring. I think each commenter should police him-herself and ask if this expression of anger is really contributing to the debate. As for racism, Keith’s expressions struck me as questionable more than repulsive, but if I had known who you were, I probably would not have bothered to enter the fray. It’s tough to draw the line there. My point about the ADL poll was that many Jews think that Jews stick together more than other groups. It’s an observation that may or may not be true, but unless accompanied by something more, it’s not necessarily anti-Semitic.
How come every time I share personal details in the interest of explaining my perspective and personal experiences on this site, I get fucked? It’s not bad enough that I’ve been called a faggot, now I’m an anti-Semitic, self-hating homophobe faggot who lives in an online fantasy world?
Well now you’re just becoming disingenuous. You didn’t call Keith an anti-Semite, he just repeatedly makes anti-Semitic commentary. And you weren’t responding to Morgan, but to Keith, but Morgan’s experience gets drowned in a deluge of debate about Keith.
I’ll repeat my criticism: Keith came here to share his experiences, and he probably has the sense that he walked into a Costanza family reunion on ‘Seinfeld’ thanks in large measure to your histrionics. That is what holds this site back in my opinion: these interminable tangents that undermine discussion of the topic at hand.
ope. walked away to make supper. comment directed at bruce.
Bruce,
He wrote that he wanted to raise “a discussion of the historical reality that Zionism, far from being a refuge for worldwide Jewry, exploited the Holocaust (before, during, and after), as a means of achieving its nationalistic objectives.” So tell me, David how did Zionism before and during the Holocaust exploit it?
I discussed this in small measure during the earlier dust-up, but it seems to me, Bruce, that you are under the impression that criticizing political Zionism for exploiting the Holocaust is purely a past-time of anti-Semites, and therefore any discussion of that topic must be, ipso facto, anti-semitic. I tried to give one illustration from a quote by Morris Ernst and give you several sources to look up, because I have read of, and agree with, this criticism, and most of the criticism I have read has come from writings from Jewish critics of Zionism.
Since you appear not to have pursued any of those sources on your own, but still appear to want others to provide the information for you, for your benefit I will quote at length from one source, ” A Threat From Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism” by Yakov M. Rabkin. (quoting intermittently from pages 178-181).
I don’t have a lot of time to spend here, but I hope this helps. I’m rather surprised that you haven’t heard of these criticisms before but I can assure you that there are multiple Israeli and US Jewish authors who have voiced these criticisms. They are not new or necessarily anti-semitic. It seems to me to be indulging in your own version of stereotyping to insist that it is not possible that Zionist leaders, and the very ideology itself, might not have been solely or even principally interested in the safety and well-being of individual Jews.
Again, if you check out Grodzinsky, In the Shadow of the Holocaust, The Struggle Between Jews and Zionists in the Aftermath of WWII, or Segev’s The Seventh Million, or Idith Zertal’s Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, John Rose’s The Myths of Zionism, you will get a taste of the criticisms of the exploitation of the Holocaust before, during and after WWII by Zionism and Israel. And any book from Rabbi Elmer Berger, or a discussion of the AJC versus the ACJ will give you a background on the criticisms levelled at the American Zionist organizations during the pre through post war periods.
Any typos above from Rabkin’s book are mine. I had to transcribe it myself, rather than cut and paste from any other source. If you wish more examples let me know and when I have more time I can provide additional quotes.
As to your other point from the earlier, I can understand your interest in making the website a welcoming place for discussion, but frankly, insisting that any one who brings up this kind of criticism belongs with the like of David Irving is truly NOT a comment that does anything but shut down discussion.
Keith may be guilty of stereotyping, but since you fell prey to stereotyping yourself, insisting that all American Jews wanted European Jewish refugees to come to the US during the WWII era, perhaps you should cut Keith a bit of slack. Stereotyping, whether negative or positive, is an easy fault to fall into, and its usually more helpful to lend someone a hand up out of it, rather than a verbal kick to the head.
I’ve read an awful lot of statements by Jewish groups over the years, and by Jewish writers of both fact and fiction, and in news opinions, extolling the unique ability
of Jews regarding their superior identity and solidarity, their cohesion stability and extension thereof no matter where or when. Is that anti-semitic too? Or just the other side of the coin?
The space and especially time constraints of commenting in this kind of forum make it difficult to consistently avoid misinterpretable abstraction, and often people take different meanings for the same word. Brazen antisemitism is easy to spot. However, in cases that appear borderline, such as this one, I can’t tell if someone is genuinely antisemitic rather than ignorant, angry, or poorly expressing themselves until I have read multiple posts to provide some context for how they think and get a sense of where they are coming from.
Although I’m sure I have, I don’t remember the content of any of Keith’s previous posts to provide context. So I have to assess it line by line.
It amazes me just how effective Judeo-Zionism is as a means of social control.
How a reader takes takes this first sentence IMO sets the tone for his/her interpretation of what follows. The first that jumps out at me is the term Judeo-Zionism. I agree with Bruce that this question must be asked: “And what is Judeo-Zionism anyway?” Keith, are you trying to differentiate it from Christian Zionism? If one is referring to Zionism as understood by Jews, then one should acknowledge that there is variation in amongst Jews as to what it means.
For myself, I think that the only politically relevant form of Zionism is military occupation, ethnic cleansing, and colonization. Zionists who support this, as opposed to those who want a Jewish state within the 1967 borders, etc, may be a minority but they are the ones calling the shots in the Israel Lobby and the Israeli government. Opposition to these people is how I define anti-Zionism. However, in terms of the social dynamics among Jews and Zionists, the other views must be taken into account even if they are fantasy, e.g. the IDF has purity of arms, Israel never attacks civilian targets, etc.
So it comes to these questions: Who exactly is doing the controlling? Who is being controlled? How are they being controlled? Are the answers to any of these questions different before and after the Holocaust?
With the Enlightenment and the reduction in Rabbinical control, it appeared that the Jews would assimilate into the surrounding Gentile communities, becoming just another religion.
You assert that the Rabbinate is doing the controlling, Jews in general are being controlled, and make no comment on how they are being controlled. While assimilation of some degree was happening before WW2, it wasn’t uniform. At the risk of inappropriately injecting some Bush-era humor: Don’t forget Poland!
I suspect that the word ‘control’ is perceived by many Jews as an antisemitic codeword from its use in antisemitic ‘rule-the-world’ and ‘control-the-economy’ type myths. Irregardless, it’s definitely not IMO the best word to use to describe religious leadership. Even if the main assertion were substantively true,’guide’ or ‘influence’ would be better.
The neglection of comment on the means of ‘Rabbinical control’ could easily be interpreted as antisemitic because it leaves the impression that you are referring to Jewish puppetmasters with undefined and mysterious powers. Is this notion not common to many antisemitic myths?
But then came Zionism, the Holocaust, and Israel, and Jewish identity and solidarity were greatly strengthened, …
That’s certainly the case, and hardly remarkable. ‘Safety in numbers’ is a normal response to threat. There are many historical examples of religious and racial persecution bringing persecuted groups to rely more on themselves and less on people who they don’t know if they can trust. It seems to me, especially since non-European nations didn’t allow significant Jewish emigration until 1948 and thus many languished in DP camps in Europe after the war, that Zionism became more popular because emigration to Palestine and the hope of creating Israel was a way out of Europe for people who had no other place to go.
… and remain astonishingly potent, far beyond comparable Gentile groupings. The voluntary submission of self to the group is unique considering the size of the group.
I agree with all of Bruce’s questions, and add a few more. What do you mean by ‘comparable’? Is contemporary Jewish solidarity/organization any stronger than a Gentile grouping would be today if they had half their number murdered 65 years ago? Is degree of submission of self to any group dependent upon its size?
Give the Zionists their due, it was an impressive (and scary) accomplishment.
This conclusion is based on unsupported assertions.
*****
I don’t know how coherent all this came out. I’m very short on time and have done no editing. But to answer your question, Bruce, I am an anti-Zionist (as I defined it earlier), and Keith’s comment meets my definition of antisemitism.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean he is antisemitic. No one can read minds. Everyone forms their opinions based on the information they have, and most Gentiles don’t know squat about Jews and Judaism. When they clue in to what Israel is doing it can certainly be an honest mistake to associate what is happening in the occupied territories with all Jews. AIPAC claims to speak for all Jews. Israel calls itself the Jewish state. Neocons and pro-colonization Zionists do their best to conflate Judaism with Zionism. Misunderstandings should be no surprise.
I define antisemitism as hatred of or desire to persecute Jews for being Jews. If someone chooses to use different standards for Jews than they would for others then they are antisemitic. If they are not willing to consider new information and be willing to make an honest assessment of whether they should modify or change their views on Jews, they are antisemitic. Merely being ignorant or wrong isn’t fundamentally antisemitic. Most Gentiles, and I certainly include myself in this category, are ignorant when they start to learn about Israel, Palestine, Zionism, and the Israel Lobby.
Genuine outreach and communication is important, and I don’t mean some of the more ridiculous hasbara that is thrown around. When people see that they are being lied to, e.g. that 9-11 had nothing to do with unconditional US to Israel and that colonization in the occupied territories has nothing to do with Palestinian hostility, then they will think the worst.
That was @ Bruce March 18, 2010 at 7:11 am
Colin, I appreciate your comment.
I will repeat one point I made earlier. I did not call Keith an anti-Semite, largely for the reasons you state. I called his comment anti-Semitic, and I offer him the opportunity to explain why it isn’t or to explain further. Having been called anti-Semitic myself, I would not make that charge lightly.
This is also the second comment of Keith’s I found problematic, and therefore I was not hesitant to question this comment.
BRUCE- Well here you go again! I log on to my computer and what do I see? Over 100 e-mails on this thread relating mostly to the (off-topic) topic of whether I am an anti-Semite or merely a well meaning idiot who makes anti-Semitic comments. What did I do to deserve this? One fucking paragraph that you have attempted to treat as if it was the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. As an aside, I have the Protocols. In my opinion they are a crude and obvious fraud. How anyone could take them seriously is beyond me.
What’s going on here? Back on another thread you jumped all over me for expressing an opinion at odds with your ideology, even suggesting that Phil ban me from the website. One of your comments reads: “Well Keith I would like to know – not really – the books on your shelf….” Since you were nor “really” interested, and since the books on my shelf are totally irrelevant to the Mondoweiss website, I refrained from responding. On your latest tirade what do I read? “Or the books on your shelf? (Still waiting for the list, Keith)” Can’t let go, can you? You didn’t fare too well on our last exchange, primarily because of the response of other Mondoweissers, but you still hold me accountable.
The books? God forbid I should put you off, even though you aren’t “really” interested. Instead of listing books, what follows is a list of authors that have informed my thinking specifically regarding the Middle East, Zionism and Judaism. Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Israel Shahak, Nur Masalha, Alfred Lilienthal, Joel Kovel, Jonathan Cook, Ralph Schoenmen, Zeev Sternhell, Shlomo Sand, Lenni Brenner, Yuri Slezkine, and Ilan Pappe. There it is Bruce, all the proof you need of my anti-Semitism. Why else would I be reading all of these “self-hating” Jews? Jews, I might add, who received massive vilification from other Jews (Zionist and non-Zionist) for speaking the truth. I personally have never experienced any of this until now with you leading the charge. I take it you don’t like me? One paragraph, it doesn’t take much does it?
Getting back to that one paragraph which “shall live in infamy.” My whole point was to comment on the fact that the author, like Chomsky, Shahak, Finkelstein, et al, had been subjected to vilification which represented potent thought control by Zionist ideology (or is that statement “anti-Semitic?). I briefly mention Jewish solidarity (kinship) along with the potency of Zionism as a group unifier (you find that anti-Semitic?). A lot of people seem to have been miffed by my phrase “Judeo-Zionism.” As if the relationship between the Jewish people and Zionism is somehow controversial. How many Christian Zionists tried to get Israel Shahak fired? How many Christian Zionists went after Norman Finkelstein? Why do Jewish (I assume) Zionists and Crypto Zionists ask for 50 pages of proof to justify a one paragraph opinion?
This response to your irrational vilification of me has already gone on too long, however, one point needs additional comment. One of my areas of interests is social organization and control, and Judeo-Zionism (forgive me folks) is a rich area for inquiry which, we would hope, would generalize to social organization in general, and to the American Empire as well. I am one of the few people on this website who has stressed the geo-strategic aspects of Israel/Palestine, and the fact that Israel’s actions are, in fact, U.S./Israel actions. I fully accept American complicity in Israel’s actions. My whole thrust has always been to discuss the organizational/power factors involved. Power matters. Linkages need to be exposed. Yet, when I broach the subject, Bruce calls me an anti-Semite (or ignorant fellow traveler). When Phil discusses Jewish kinship or Jewish power, Bruce doesn’t get on his high horse and call him a self-hating Jew who should be banned from the Mondowiess website. Of course not, how could he? What he can do, however, is attempt to censor the website by monitoring comments and use the “anti-Semite” club against anyone who picks up on Phil’s themes. Shame on you Bruce!
Keith, that’s a nice narrative, but let’s discuss what really happened.
First, where did I suggest that Phil should ban you from the web site?
The first exchange started when you wrote, “I don’t have the time to dig through all of my books trying to locate numerous quotes to buttress my assertion that the Zionists did all in their power to encourage Jewish immigration away from the U.S. and Britain and toward Israel. Suffice to say that it is a common theme for those who write on the topic from a factual, rather than hasbara, perspective. However, because this is an important topic, I have located just a few quotes to give you a flavor of what transpired.”
You then offered three quotes, all discussing pre-1948. One was definitely attributed to Schoenmen, and it appears that the second was also. A third was an ambiguous quote from Kolko. I showed that one of the quotes from Schoenman was cut so that its meaning differed from the original source and then I gave counter-factuals to the second quote. I asked you about your books because you claimed they backed your assertion, and I showed that the quotes you gave did not. Shingo at least offered an apology. It is boring to have to repeat all this. But for whatever reasons, you decided not to provide more information to back your assertion. While I attacked your historical claims, you went on to question my motives – what you said must disagree with my ideology; I must not like you. By the way what is my ideology?
It was you who claimed the topic was important. Not me. Had you not insisted it was important, I would not have taken it up. Now you claim I did not fare too well in that discussion. I am still waiting to hear of the first historian other than Schoenman, who is not a historian, that agrees with you. You think your friends on Mondoweiss are decisive in determining historical questions?
Okay, now we have a list of other sources. Which ones agree with your historical claims, and can you give us some specific references to show that they do in fact agree with you? I have read some of these books myself, so I am interested.
So let’s jump to today’s comment and assertions. I did not call you an anti-Semite or a well-meaning idiot. A lot of other people wanted to talk about this. I wanted to discuss your claims, which I deemed anti-Semitic. I asked some questions to indicate my reasons. Maybe you did not mean how I interpreted the comment. Okay, forget about me. Colin Murray went through your text and reached his own conclusions. He also asked a number of questions. But you don’t feel the need to answer him either. Except now we have to ask what are Crypto Zionists? I read on Google Juan Cole was one.
In your last paragraph you mention Phil discussing Jewish kinship or Jewish power. I don’t have much disagreement with Phil about Jewish power, but after today’s discussions and reading your comments on Jewish kinship I believe Phil is off the mark, and will be criticizing him if he posts along similar lines again. I don’t see Jewish kinship or nepotism to be different from many other ethnic groups.
To again reiterate, I have not suggested you be banned from the website and you haven’t showed where I have. But I don’t think your comments should get a free ride just because your friends think so. Mine never have. And I did say I was going to monitor comments more closely, as I thought too many were damaging the reputation of the site. I will leave the shaming to you.
BRUCE- You are so full of shit it is mind boggling. In all of my comments I have tried hard to avoid personal attacks and stay on subject. I have no trouble with a Richard Witty, who although we disagree, sticks to the subject and avoids ad hominem attacks. In spite of disagreements, he has never inferred or implied that I was an anti-Semite.
“First, where did I suggest that Phil ban you from the website?”
“…I am rather certain that Phil and Adam are not running the Mondoweiss site for such discussions. I suggest you take this debate elsewhere.”
“ At this point Phil and Adam should speak form themselves about whether in a posting on the views of Israeli High School kids, the comments section should turn into a discussion of what role Rabbi Weiss played in the thirties determining US immigration policy toward the Jews…If Mondoweiss readers and Phil and Adam want to debate the varies analyses in Ralph Schoenman’s “Hidden History of Zionism,” or even Lenni Brenner’s “Zionism in the Age of Dictators”, …then by all means go ahead.”
Bruce, your defense of free speech takes my breath away!
“But I don’t think your comments should get a free ride just because your friends think so. “
Bruce, this is disingenuousness raised to an art form. I am a new commenter who doesn’t have “friends.” The responses to your comments were a result of the poor quality of your comments. Tree (who came unexpectedly out of the blue) says: “I just noticed this comment from Bruce, and need to respond because, although perhaps merely written in error or haste it contains a major falsehood.” Tree then goes on through several posts to expose your falsehoods. So much for your “scholarly” credentials. Is he wrong? Is he an anti-Semite? Why me?
Tree goes on to make a telling observation: “Actually, Bruce went even farther than that. He implied that any discussion of these Zionist efforts makes one akin to David Irving. In other words he dropped the A-bomb (“A” for “anti-Semite”)”. A telling comment. Lacking either logic or historicity to back up your slanders, you have resorted to labeling me an anti-Semite. Somehow, it seems to come naturally to you.
“And I did say I was going to monitor comments more closely….” Yes, I’ll bet you are. Deviations from the (crypto Zionist) party line will not be tolerated! It would damage the credibility of the website! So says Heir Bruce. You are a perfect example of what I am talking about in regards to Zionism as an instrument of social control which poisons the mind with ideological bullshit.
Ban me from the website? Chomsky, Shahak and Finkelstein have suffered worse. Perhaps its time I paid some dues for speaking truth to thought police such as you. One more thing, since you have gone out of your way to make this personal, I say to you DON’T YOU EVER AGAIN SUGGEST I AM AN ANTI-SEMITE! Because I take that personal, and I don’t like it.
Keith, just letting you know that I am a “she”, not a “he”. Males tend to predominate in numbers in these kind of online forums, so assuming that I am a male is understandable, but I do like to let other commenters know that there are females out here putting in our two cents.
I will leave the final words to you and Mooser.
PERVERSE TRIANGLE from Keith’s NO EMPIRE Blog:
As Israel’s ethnic cleansing (and potential genocide) of the native Palestinians continues, there has been a recent focus on the Jewish lobby and its power to influence American foreign policy. While providing helpful publicity to Jewish/Zionist influence on U.S. governmental decision making, these descriptions of the Jewish lobby’s influence tend to be overly simplistic and to incorrectly describe the relationship between the lobby and Israel, which is usually described as the lobby taking its marching orders from Israel. In my view, the reality is a sort of perverse triangle in which American elites (including Jews), American Jewish Zionists (organized American Jewry), and Israeli Jewish elites cooperate and compete, each trying to exploit the others to obtain power-seeking advantage. In other words, the American Jewish power-elite exert considerable influence on the Jewish state, and support Israel to the extent that they perceive that it benefits them.
Zionism represents a return to traditional Jewish service to elite power, an attempt to replace Jewish religious ideology with blood and soil nationalism, and a means by which the Jewish power-elite reign in Jewish socialist/Marxist aspirations. The Jewish service to elite power needs to be qualified insofar as capitalism has permitted Jews to become a significant component of the power-elite, wildly out of proportion to their population base. In days of old, the diaspora Jewish elite prospered by serving the gentile monarch and nobility, but could never hope to rule directly as long as they remained Jews. Nowadays, he who has the gold rules, and Jewish financial power has resulted in the Jews becoming a significant part of the capitalist nobility. This financial success has been significantly aided by Jewish organization and activism inspired and guided by Zionist ideology. Make no mistake, without the aggressive ideological and organizational solidarity centered on Zionism, it is unlikely that the Jewish elites would be nearly as successful as they are in relation to the gentile majority.
A key to understanding Zionism’s significance is to be aware of the significant changes that occurred to Jewish identity during the last two hundred years. According to Israel Shahak, from about 800 AD until 1800 AD, Jews were bound by a common religion (classical Judaism), organized into reasonably autonomous communities, administered by Rabbis who had considerable authority over the Jews in their area. It was a tightly knit group that usually functioned as a de facto middle class which provided loyal service to the Gentile nobility in ruling the Gentile peasants. During this period, Jews were identified as followers of the Judaic religion.
Beginning about two hundred years ago, Gentile monarchs began to restrict the power of the Rabbis to engage in coercive discipline against the Jews in the community. This, in turn, led to a breakdown of Jewish exclusivity and in-group solidarity. Only the Orthodox Jews reflect classical Judaism. Conservative Jews, Reformed Jews, and secular Jews have all broken the bonds of Jewish religious solidarity to varying degrees. The breakdown of Jewish exclusivity both facilitated the assimilation of most Jews into Western society and weakened the organized power of world Jewry. The bonds of solidarity between the secular and Reformed Jews and the Orthodox Jews became tenuous. So to, the power of the Rabbis to command obedience from the reformed and secular flock. In essence, Jewish religion had lost its viability as a common ideological bond uniting the worlds Jews.
About 150 years ago, central and eastern Europe underwent a wave of nationalism. Unlike Western Europe which ideologically conceived of a nation of its citizens, central and eastern Europe tended to unite along racial and ethnic lines. Germany was described as a nation of the German people, etc. This “blood and soil” nationalism tended to identify the nation as belonging to the dominant ethnic group, and to treat other ethnic groups as foreign residents. It was during this period that the Jews (particularly in eastern Europe) tended to lose their religious identification and acquire a racial/ethnic identification. This change in perception was true for Gentiles and Jews alike. It was during this period that the concept of a racially derived “Jewish people” was born. In fact, the writings of some of the early eastern European Zionists concerning the unalterable uniqueness of the “Jewish race” are quite similar to the racial arguments of the anti-Semites, including the Nazis. Further, there was considerable cooperation between the Zionists and the anti-Semite Gentile elites as the Zionists attempted to garner support for creating a Jewish state for the Jewish “race.”
The rise of blood and soil nationalism in central and eastern Europe posed a threat to the Jews living there. At the most basic level, the emphasis on racial purity (as defined by the racists) would mean that the Jews would at best be consigned to the status of foreign residents in an alien land. Additionally, there was a certain residual resentment among the Gentile masses concerning the perceived Jewish complicity in royal tyranny. Finally, there was the strong identification of Jewish involvement in the international Socialist and Marxist movements which were ideologically internationalist, therefore, viewed by the nationalists as traitorous.
Whereas the Jewish Marxists sought to overthrow the existing social order in favor of a worker supported dictatorship, the Jewish Zionists worked to create a Jewish version of blood and soil nationalism via the creation of a Jewish state. At the least, this would tend to ameliorate the anti-Marxist basis of anti-Semitism (for the Zionists at least), and would provide a unifying secular ideology to organizationally unite the Jews. Additionally, this Jewish state would be the Jew among nations. That is, the Jewish state would relate to other nations as the traditional diaspora Jewish communities related to the surrounding Gentile communities in which they were located. In effect, the Zionists always conceived of Israel as serving the interests of the western Imperial powers at the expense of the local Arab population. An “outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism,” as Herzl phrased it to the Ottoman Sultan. It was recognized that western Imperial support was necessary to create and maintain a Jewish state in Palestine.
As the majority of the world’s Jews abandoned the fundamentalist discipline of classical Judaism for a less rigid expression of religion, the religious aspect of Judaism no longer was capable of uniting the various groupings into a unified whole. Zionism has come to replace Judaism as the overarching unifier of the Jewish people. In this regard, Zionism may be thought of as a form of secular religion with Israel functioning as a god-head surrogate. The secular devil is anti-Semitism which is depicted as an innate, irrational never-ending hatred of Jews. The Holocaust is Hell. One consequence of this is to cause many (most?) Jews, and certainly almost all Jewish Zionists to dismiss criticism of Jewish/Israeli behavior out of hand as anti-Semitism.
Two essential points worth noting: 1) Zionism and support for Israel are the modern secular equivalent of classical Judaism insofar as they unite world Jewry in an organized manner. This organizational power facilitates American Jewish elite power seeking vis-à-vis the less organized American Gentile elite. 2) Perceived threats to Israel’s security are seen by many (most?) Jews as threats against Jews in general, hence, there is increased internal Jewish group solidarity during times of middle-east conflict involving Israel. In other words, perceived threats to Israel reinforce Jewish identity amongst most Jews, and provide the motivation to keep them organized and active. Peace and justice in the middle-east would significantly reduce the perceived threat to Israel and shared sense of group victim-hood which unites the Jews, hence, peace is perceived by the Jewish elites as a threat to their power. Because of this, most American Jewish elites support Israeli militarism and oppose compromise and peace.
The role of American Jewish Zionist elites in influencing both U.S. and Israeli policies is of critical importance. It is important to understand that a just and peaceful resolution of the middle-east conflict, in which Israel is no longer engaged in never-ending war with the Arabs, would deflate the emotional appeal of the myth of a never-ending threat to world Jewry at the hand of the Gentiles. While this would likely prove beneficial to most Jews, Zionism as an organizing ideology would suffer greatly. As a consequence, the Zionist Jewish elites would lose much of their organizational advantage vis-à-vis the Gentile elites. It is for this reason that the Zionist elites need ongoing conflict and war between Israel and the Arabs to create the myth of Israeli/Jewish victim-hood, the emotionally potent irrational fear which binds together world Jewry in psychologically defensive solidarity. It is for this reason that the American Jewish Zionist elites tend to support the more aggressive, right-wing elements in Israel, and to strongly oppose any Israeli compromise with the Arabs over Eretz Yisrael.
A few additional comments are in order. First, Zionism is a fundamentalist ideology with characteristics similar to various other fundamentalist ideologies/religions. It is as pointless to argue rationally with a Zionist as to argue rationally with a Christian fundamentalist, a Moslem fundamentalist, a diehard Nazi, or a diehard Marxist. A true Zionist has a rigid, emotional commitment to Zionism highly resistant to change. Secondly, exploiting this fundamentalist commitment, the Zionists have achieved an extraordinarily effective level of organization, both in the U.S. and worldwide. This organization and emotional commitment enable the Zionists to raise funds and direct Zionist activity in an awesome manner. This enables the organized, affluent Zionist minority to exert considerable control over the non-Zionist majority.
An amazing thing is the extent to which Jewish Zionist power-seeking is largely invisible to most people. After about 200 years of Gentile pressure on the Jews to assimilate into the wider society, American Jews have overwhelmingly abandoned their distinctive dress and appearance (except for some Orthodox Jews), and are more-or-less visually indistinguishable from non-Jewish Americans. The result is that most Gentiles cannot readily identify who is a Jew, which would be fine if almost all Jews were simply individuals who happen to be Jewish. Alas, that is not the case. As Rabbi Stephan Weiss put it: “I am not an American citizen of Jewish faith. I am a Jew.” The reality is that many Jews, particularly organized Jews, and most certainly Zionist Jews, are ideologically bound together in solidarity, bias, and certain focused goals, including mutual power-seeking. Yet, to the casual observer, this significant social kinship of organized Jews is not obvious. How many people are aware that President Clinton’s middle-east peace envoys (Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, etc) are Jewish and reflect a strong pro-Israel bias?
Most Gentiles are unaware of the wildly disproportionate number of Jews that are in key positions in government. Or in the Federal Reserve. Or are key players on Wall Street or in the media. Or that about half of all U.S. billionaires are Jews (who comprise less than 3% of the population). Now if you say this to a general audience, you are labeled an anti-Semite. On the other hand, Jews in general, and organized Jews in particular, are much more aware than Gentiles of who is a Jew and who isn’t. The consequence is that the Jewish elite form a sort of (more-or-less) invisible kinship group that subtly discriminates in favor of their fellow Jews and against Gentiles. United by an ideology that states that Gentiles are irrational Jew haters, and that there is safety amongst your fellow Jews, how could it be otherwise?
A critically important point is that the wildly disproportionate success of the American Jewish elite is in no small measure a consequence of the bonds of solidarity and kinship among the Jews. This, in turn, is made possible by the emotional impact on Jews of the Nazi Holocaust (continually misrepresented to minimize non-Jewish victims), and by the organizing dynamic of Zionism. It seems to me quite likely that without the Holocaust (which the Zionists aided and abetted), Zionism would not have been successful, Israel would not have been created as a Jewish state, and American Jewry would not have been united by Zionist ideology. Furthermore, the Holocaust provided the powerful motivating force of primal fear which the Zionists were able to exploit, as well as appearing to validate the myth of eternal persecution which underlies this irrational ideology of eternal victim-hood. This is why Jewish dominated Hollywood continues to churn out an endless stream of Holocaust movies (while ignoring the “holocaust” of the Black slaves and the genocide of the American Indians), and why Arab resistance to U.S./Israeli aggression is depicted as anti-Semitic Arabs who want to drive the Jews into the sea.
Of course, the problem of Israeli militarism is not just a consequence of Jewish/Zionist/Israeli elite power-seeking. Israel has functioned, and continues to function, as a U.S. strategic asset. Israel can be thought of as America’s “French Foreign Legion” of the middle-east. Not completely reliable or trustworthy, but immensely valuable nonetheless. Israel provides significant support for America’s corrupt vassal states, and its ongoing subversion and wars of aggression against its Arab neighbors tend to weaken and divide the Arabs, providing a sort of violent and chaotic stability which facilitates U.S. imperial control. It is quite possible that without Israel, many of the Arab governments would have been overthrown long ago and replaced with secular nationalist regimes, a prospect which both the U.S. and Israel dread, and which they have successfully worked to prevent. Much has been made of the high cost of U.S. “aid” to Israel which totals billions of dollars per annum. An alternative view, however, is that the U.S. has acquired the valuable services of a highly effective mercenary force on the cheap, without the political consequences of direct U.S. involvement.
Additionally, Israel provides various unsavory services for the American Empire which the U.S. wishes to avoid undertaking. From training the Shah of Iran’s notorious secret police, to providing weapons and training to Central American death squads, to testing new American weapons on live Arabs, Israel has supported some of the worst mass-murderers in the world. Furthermore, through the use of local Jewish sayanim (helpers), the Israeli Mossad is able to provide valuable covert services for the American CIA. Finally, both the official Jewish lobby and the rest of the Zionist network can be used to influence Congress, the media, NGO’s, and other governments in support of administration policies. This last point is of critical importance. U.S. support for Israel is inseparable from U.S. Imperial ambitions. Likewise, Israel’s territorial ambitions require that the U.S. remain a militaristic empire. The Zionist network provides essential support for both Israeli militarism and U.S. Imperialism.
What all of this means is that the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular, are likely to undergo continued U.S./Israeli violence and injustice for the foreseeable future. U.S. geostrategy seems focused on military control of the planet’s hydrocarbon energy reserves. This will likely entail continued, ongoing warfare and intimidation against independent Arab nations. And while the Palestinians would not appear to be a significant concern of U.S. geostrategy, they are significant in regards Zionist ideology. The Israeli Zionists need to continue making war on their neighbors and the Palestinians to maintain Israeli Jewish solidarity in their increasingly right-wing, militaristic, Gentile-phobic society. American Jewish Zionists also want to see Israel at war with its neighbors so that this can be misrepresented as an existential threat to the survival of the Jewish nation, and by extension Jews everywhere. This provides the motivational energy which powers Zionist organization and Jewish solidarity which is the primary reason for the American Jewish elites power-seeking success.
In other words, the prospects for peace and justice in the middle-east are bleak to non-existent as long as the American elites (including significant Jews), the American Zionist elites, and the Israeli Zionist elites continue to strongly oppose peace and justice. It should be further noted that history demonstrates conclusively that power-seeking elites are not constrained by considerations of elementary decency and morality. How else to explain the frequent episodes of mass-murder down through history, of which the Nazi Holocaust is but one?
Mooser March 15, 2010 at 11:06 am
“and I welcome feedback.”
And I can give you all the feedback you should need in one sentence, chump: Jews are no worse than anybody else. When you can show me that other religious associations have spurned the temptations of temporal power, money and status, and have used their religious associations entirely for good, I’ll be ready to worry about the Jews. All you are telling me is that Jews act like other people. I already knew that.
Excuse me, Bruce, but where in that long cut and paste job did Keith say that Jews were worse than anybody else?
All you are telling me is that Jews act like other people. I already knew that.
Maybe you do, but there are a lot of people who don’t know that.
A quote from Isaac Asimov, from Lawrence of Cyberia’s blog:
link to lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com
Also, Bruce, in case you missed it, I responded to your interest in documentation of the criticism of Zionism and Israel exploiting the Holocaust during the pre through post WWII era, in comment 74.
The comment section would be greatly improved if we had some way to keep track of all new comments. Its sometimes very hard to follow the threads.
Actually mooser was responding to this comment from Keith:
“I am very pleased that Phil continues to highlight the significance of Jewish kinship networks in contributing to Jewish success. The disproportionate representation of Jews in positions of wealth and power is a significant aspect of the political economy that some sort of understanding of the phenomenon needs to occur.
No doubt there are multiple factors involved, however, if we abandon the racial determinist analysis that Jews are genetically more intelligent than Gentiles, what environmental factors might offer insight. I think the kinship network is a significant factor. This raises the interesting question as to why this kinship group exists. Why do people with somewhat different religious beliefs (Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews, Reformed Jews, secular Jews), and different ethnic/racial backgrounds (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, etc.) share psychological kinship with their fellow self-defined Jews?
To pursue this further, to what extent has Zionism replaced Judaism as the ideological unifier of the Jews? To what extent has perceived anti-Semitism contributed to this kinship of perceived mutual defense? How has the Holocaust contributed to Jewish feelings of Jewish kinship? Finally, to what extent has support for Israel been the organizational unifier of the Jews?
Summing up, to what extent has Zionism and support for Israel contributed to Jewish kinship and organizational effectiveness, and to what extent has this contributed to Jewish “success” in general, and to Jewish elite power-seeking success in particular? It seems to me that to talk about Israel/Palestine without discussing Zionism and its impact on both Israeli and diaspora Jews is remiss. This is a significant factor, not adequately discussed, and I welcome feedback.”
I am done with this exchange for now. Take it up with mooser.
What exchange? You seem to be ignoring my questions, and my response to your inquiry about criticism of Zionism and Israel exploiting the Holocaust.
I don’t see anything in Keith’s comments that you quoted that are significantly different from criticisms and questions raised by Israelis and American Jews. It seems as if you only accept these questions as legitimate if they are being asked by other Jews, and not by gentiles. Something in all of this has hit a nerve with you, and “anti-semitism” isn’t it. Perhaps a residual attachment to Zionism on your part? A cherished belief that, even if you understand that Zionism has been a disaster for the Palestinians, and even a disaster for Jewish Israelis, that the original idea was somehow noble, and it was only poorly executed or went astray?
I’m not sure exactly what hit your nerve, but even though the concepts that Zionism cared more for state building than saving European Jews, and that Zionist leaders and thinkers indulged in anti-semitic canards about European Jews, are prevalent criticisms in Israeli and Jewish historical sources, you jumped all over Keith the moment he mentioned this, as if he could have only read this criticism from Stormfront or some other neo-Nazi site.
Even if you had not read this criticism before, it would have been wiser and more conducive to discussion on your part to get more information and understand the criticism before comparing Keith to David Irving. You might still disagree with the position, but there is nothing particularly “anti-semitic” about the criticism.
Last weekend I spent a great deal of time responding to all of the comments, including yours. I provided arguments from AmericanHeritage, Al-bushra and David McBride to counter Keith’s assertions. None of you responded to these quotes except Shingo, who made up an answer and then provided more quotes from Schoenman with no analysis. Keith then offered a quote from Lilienthal, which also said nothing.
You then complained that I said there was a ban on immigration in the US, and I readily accepted your complaint, and revised my assertion to a ban on increasing immigration quotas. Whether this was a major lie, as Keith claims, I leave to other readers.
Last week you recommended I read Brenner, which I did. I have already given my verdict in a comment from that thread. I have to thank you, as reading Brenner showed Shingo was faking it and Shoenman was malicious with his quotes.
When I wrote up the errors of Keith, Shingo and Schoenman, you all just dropped the subject. Nobody was quoting Schoenman further, but Chaos came up with one of his sci-fi fantasies envisioning what my views on Goldstone are.
You then went on to give your interpretation of American Immigration policy in the Twenties and Thirties, and I responded where I disagreed.
Now you want me to read further. At the moment, I am away from home so I cannot consult Segev who you mention and Pape, among others that I have. When I get the chance, I will look at these. But I have spent too much time on this discussion, and want to move on. I’m comfortable with Mondoweiss readers drawing their own conclusions from the discussion so far, or they can continue the debate about Zionists and US immigration policies in the Thirties with you and others. I can live with either.
TREE- Thank you ma’am! It is always good to see you provide calm, fact-filled rationality as a counter to Bruce’s maelstrom of malevolence. Of course, he’ll never change. Even now he is engaging in massive revisionism as to what I and others said. I have concluded that he is totally devoid of intellectual integrity. His focus is information management. He is a self-appointed ideological cop on the beat. Some lines of inquiry are threatening to his group think, so he attempts to squelch them through intimidation. His favorite tactic is to insinuate anti-Semitism, an allegation he spreads with reckless abandon.
You are quite correct that I hit a nerve with Bruce. I think that part of the reason is that I have been the one to initiate comments on his list of forbidden topics. If he can silence me, certain things are less likely to be discussed. Unfortunately for him, I have proved to be somewhat more resilient than he anticipated. Consequently, horror of horrors, Tree joins the fray and Bruce is beside himself. He’s not in your league and he knows it, so he avoids direct confrontation. All the while he blames me for starting the whole business. I have become the dragon he is obsessed with slaying. One unfortunate consequence to all of this is that when he launches one of his tirades, he, in effect, hijacks the thread taking it way off topic and into the Wild Bruce Yonder. All the while claiming to be acting for the good of the website. Once again, thanks for your input. It is greatly appreciated.
We seem to be talking past each other. Although its always interesting to see different people’s viewpoints on what took place in earlier discussions, it doesn’t answer the question of why you posed, yet again, in this thread, the following question, if you weren’t really interested in a response..
So tell me, David how did Zionism before and during the Holocaust exploit it?
If you didn’t really want a discussion of this topic, then it was counterproductive to ask that question. I gave you some extended quotes from Rabkin, citing Jewish critics of Zionism which you have completely ignored, preferring instead to give your perspective what occurred in an earlier comment section. This gives the appearance that you really don’t want to discuss this, but are interested only in stopping the conversation by resorting to calling people anti-semites for making the same kind of arguments that numerous Jewish critics of Zionism have made over the years. If you don’t want to read any further, fine; but don’t ask for sources and then complain when you get them in response.
You then complained that I said there was a ban on immigration in the US, and I readily accepted your complaint, and revised my assertion to a ban on increasing immigration quotas. Whether this was a major lie, as Keith claims, I leave to other readers.
This is selective recall on your part. You claimed there was a ban on Jewish immigration, not just on immigration, as you claim now. I pointed out that there was no immigration ban(except against Asians). There were instead quotas and none of these quotas, enacted in the twenties, were specific to Jews. The quotas applied to immigrants from various countries and favored immigrants from Northern and Western European countries over those from Eastern and Southern Europe because they set quotas according to the number of immigrants arriving in the US prior to 1890, when most immigratns came from those favored countries. There was no” ban” on increasing the quotas; there was not any serious attempt to drop or amend the quotas until after WWII, and there were those in the Jewish community(mostly Zionists) who opposed increasing Jewish immigration to the US, until after the state of Israel was created. Then, shortly after their opposition was dropped(with the creation of Israel), the US Congress was able to pass legislation allowing more Jewish war refugees into the US. Again, Lessing Rosenwald, of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, was a tireless campaigner for the legislation and deserves much credit.
I don’t have much time to comment here , I can’t even keep up with all of Phil’s posts, and the posts of others here, including yours, which add to the richness of this site. If you are truly and sincerely interested in more quotes from Segev and others on this topic I can probably spend a little time next week gathering them up. If you are just going to ignore them and then continue to complain that no one has provided them, then I won’t waste my time. I gave you sources because you asked for them.
Your
TREE- Your wasting your time with Bruce. He’s not interested in facts, he is only interested in squelching discussion, and will espouse any fiction which advances his goals. After all of the information you have provided to him, he can still write to me that “I am still waiting to hear of the first historian other than Schoenman, who is not a historian, that agrees with you.” Bruce is 100% hasbara, who doesn’t let truth get in his way. Also, I’m disappointed that Phil seems to be supporting Bruce’s activity. As if anti-Semitism was a big problem in the U.S. As if the bludgeoning of the Goyim with unfounded allegations of anti-Semitism was honky dory.
Tree, I really appreciate you bringing these comments by asimov to my attention – courtesy of lawrenceofcyberia blog. alas, none of us have enough time to consult all the good blogs out there as often as we’d like. Believe it or not, I had no idea asimov was jewish and I read most of his sci fi books too (being a sci fi fan and all).
Very succintly has he pointed out the jewish penchant for exceptionalism which so many of us decry. It is delightful that he saw it so clearly. it is unfortunate – and disturbing – that there are still way way too many jewish people who don’t, even militantly blinding themselves if it’s pointed out by a non-jew. Whenever that is done – it’s amazing how quickly the conversation can degenerate into pilpul and sophisticated angels-on-a-pin megilahs. Usually followed by edicts meant to exclude the non-jews by attributing to them a cacophony of malodorous thoughts – a treatment to which similar or even identical thoughts expressed by jews are rarely subjected. It is, IMO, Bruce’s response that thereby proves the very same “penchant for exceptionalism” the mention of which he so decries in others.
As an aside – you want to talk exceptionalism – just speak to israelis. The entire education system and cultural/social life there revolves around this very concept – make the lowest member of that society feel somehow superior to the highest member of a gentile society. And on this matter I don’t need references. I got my own life experience and that of everyone I knew and know there to tell me truth.
Brave effort you are putting up here. Much appreciated – at least in this corner.
TREE- I just had an epiphany and had to share. How could I have been so stupid? In a previous comment I said “Power matters. Linkages need to be exposed.” There it is in a nutshell. The Mondowiess website receives significant funding from the Nation Institute. The Nation Institute receives significant funding from wealthy, liberal Jews. Neither of these is going to continue funding an entity that seems to advocate what they don’t want to hear. Operationally, anti-Semitism is what these funding sources think it is, as divined by Philip Weiss (and others?). Phil might be on a shorter leash (or imagine himself to be) than we realize. I doubt that he will do anything to jeopardize website funding (who can blame him?), and will likely err on the side of caution. If I’m correct about all of this, Phil can’t discuss this because these types of things are never discussed in the open. It was one thing to go up against Bruce, but the rich guys in the shadows are not to be trifled with. As for me, I intend to exercise judicious self-censorship regarding topics I pursue.
Who wants to silence you, Keith?
Here is another one of your posts that I am helping you get out to the world (emphasis mine):
ZIONazis
How long before we recognize the obvious? How long before we throw caution to the wind and simply tell it like it is? How long before we cease to shrink from naming the Israel uber alles crowd for what they are? Hasn’t the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians (with US help) gone on too long? Hasn’t Israel’s ongoing, recurring warfare against the surrounding Arab countries (with US help) gone on too long? Isn’t it obvious that the Zionist (American and Israeli) plans to remake the Middle East through warfare will eventually lead to the use of nuclear weapons and possible nuclear annihilation? Isn’t it clear that fundamentalist Zionism has become so extreme that the only obvious comparison is with Nazi extremists? ZIONazis! It should be noted from the start that without the Nazi Holocaust it is doubtful that Israel would even exist. Perhaps that is why the Zionists as a group more than any other Jews cooperated with the Nazis, as they had with other powerful anti-Semites in their single-minded quest to establish the state of Israel. Dr Rudolph Kastner was a notorious Zionist who helped the Nazis exterminate thousands of Hungarian Jews in order to gain the release of 600 Zionists. Various rescue attempts and immigration plans for settling Jews in the US, Canada, England, Australia and South America were opposed by the Zionists because it was thought it would undermine Zionism. Zionist Jewish Agency Chairman Yitzhak Greenbaum once quipped that “One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Poland.” Yet, in spite of all this, the Zionists have been able to exploit the Holocaust to achieve their nationalistic objectives and to deflect criticism of the ethnic cleansing, mass-murder, terrorism and other human rights abuses of the racist state of Israel. What cannot be emphasized strongly enough is the degree to which Zionism is on a downward spiral of increasing extremism. This would be bad enough in a country which is a nuclear-armed aggressor in that vitally important “cauldron of animosities” that is the Middle East. But, worse yet, this virulent, racist strain of Manichean irrationality has infected the upper echelons of the Empire. Forget about global warming, nuclear winter is the likely consequence of the actions of men who have abandoned the rational thinking of imperial sociopaths in favor of ideologically induced insanity. These nut-cases couldn’t accurately perceive reality if their lives depended on it. Given their way, they will kill us all pursuing their delusions. ZIONazis!
posted by Seattle Keith | 5:17 PM
BRUCE- Just when it seems like you can’t sink any lower, you lower the bar. In previous comments, you abandoned any pretense of intellectual integrity. In this comment, you abandon any pretense of common decency. You go to my blogspot and copy-and-paste a three paragraph screed I wrote in a fit of pique concerning the depressing reality of Israel/Palestine. Essentially accurate, but written in language not suited to the Mondoweiss website. I have never posted anything like that on this website, where it would be inappropriate. Yet, you go and post this without my permission as if it was my post. Simply saying “shame on you” is much too mild. At this stage of the game, my opinion of you couldn’t get any lower. In my opinion, the degree to which you are associated with the Mondoweiss website, the website suffers. I submitted a “report abuse” complaint against you and hope to see you held accountable for the totally unjustified personal attack on me on this thread.
In your copy-and-paste hatchet job, you highlight the coinage ZIONazis. Please be aware that an Israeli academic years ago coined the phrase Judeo-Fascists. In the film American Radical, Norman Finkelstein held up a protest sign in 1982 which read “Israeli Nazis.” Once again, I’m not going in new directions, simply following the lead of courageous dissident Jews who have gone before. I have since deleted the post, where it sat unread for months until you came along. If I had any idea that I would one day encounter a slime bag like you, I would have deleted it long ago. But now it sits on the Mondoweiss website courtesy of Bruce. This is your idea of protecting the integrity of the website?
How did it come this far? It began toward the front of the thread when you seized upon one relatively innocuous paragraph I wrote as an excuse to hijack the thread and initiate a tirade: “This is anti-Semitism. Do anti-Zionists readers on this site agree?” Forget the author’s story or the Middle-East, you want to attack me for opinions you considers anti-Semitic. Here we go again, as you pursue your single minded objective of vilification. Over 170 comments later, after you once again engaged in massive distortions of what we all said, when I thought that you were finally ready to let this thread rest in piece, what do you do? You make an unauthorized and inappropriate copy-and-paste comment in a final attempt to smear me. Talk about vendettas. All for the good of the website, of course.
What is your goal? The Mondo-hasbara website, “the ongoing war against eternal anti-Semitism, forget the Middle-East,” Sabbath Goys only, please? Or have I somehow taken on a larger than life role for you? A mythical dragon you feel you need to slay? Your desire growing more intense as the object continues to elude you. All options on the table as you seek redemption? No? What else then to explain your irrational obsession?
What are you whimpering about?
It was a public Blogger blog for bloody sakes. I didn’t rifle your private diary or anything. If you didn’t want people to see it, then you should have restricted access. It was up for months.
I forgot to mention that the post came from your blog not a Mondoweiss comment, as I did in the first posting. I stand corrected, although your handle was at the bottom and I did say it was a post. I doubt anyone was that confused.
Are you planning to answer Colin’s questions?
is a failure. The people under of the book have become the people of the cult – and many members pay a very high price in terms of their moral standing and narrow-minded thought patterns.I say that because I believe – based on everything I see – that the worst, least adjusted, most arrogant jews in the world are to be found in Israel. If this is what the enterprise of zionism beget – worse humans – then it was certainly not worth it. I also feel that the first real jews I met were outside israel, if jewish values have any meaning. I also believe that the knee-jerk support given to israel by the US is not only politically and militarily counter- productive – and indeed dangerous – for the entire world, but as the lobby pushes it – it is also deeply ill-intentioned. The lobby is bad not only because it is fundamentally un-American (which it may be) but because it is also corrosive to the American political system. It’s not the only corrosive force, but is a significant one,
I say these things as forcefully as I can because I’d like you to consider what your attitude would be were I to say the same while not- Jewish. Some of my words – and I confess even some attitudes – especially when I catch sight of the dersh or the foxman – can be said to be bordering on anti-semitism. But if so, it is no more then similarly jaundiced – possibly elitist – attitudes are pointed towards some not-so-worthy attributes of say, the average tea-partiers.
I like your posts usually and hope you continue to post the good comments. But keith should not be your target, because he is not the problem. I fear that we’ll all get to see just how ugly true anti-semitism can be if things don’t change in a hurry. I worry about the attitudes I notice in the heartland, where i dwell part of the time. I hear quite clearly what some military people and those in the intelligence community say. Other people here – like citizen and MRW know all about that. There are things that lurk under the surface which people do not voice. There are the things that Alex Jones avoids saying in the open. But it is all there in code. An attack against the Iranian people (which would be a murderous act IMO) could bring the worst forth. As could another economic slide. These should be your target, not Keith’s words which may seem artless but reflect an anger that is as legitimate as your own. And his anger is in the open so you can take it on if you wish to channel things in more productive directions.
Bruce, my comment was directed to you – the first few lines got chopped off by mistake. I was hoping you’d care to read my comment #31 of 7:19PM above.
The first line was supposed to read ” it is my opinion that zionism as blindly as it was conceived but more for what it has evolved into….”
Danaa, my darling. Listen to this. It’s a short clip of a radio interview made last week. This is Dr. Alan Sabrosky, who was a marine and the former director of studies at the US Army College, and who wrote a piece for Mondoweiss last June. Under no circumstances, do not ignore listening to it.
link to youtube.com
My mistake, Danaa. It was this week, not last week. March 15, 2010. Here is the full radio interview. Start at 2:55 min. At a minimum listen to 26:00 min. I suggest the whole thing:
link to theuglytruth.podbean.com
Yes, Danaa, under no circumstances do not ignore listening to the interview as Dr. Alan Sabrosky reports with 100% certainty that 911 was a Mossad operation, ultimately leading to the deaths of 60,000 Americans. And that the United States and Israel will definitely be going to war and America will obliterate Israel.
Should I do a posting on this momentous news that all of our intelligence agencies have either missed or covered-up? Where is that evidence again?
And don’t miss Alan’s plug for Phil Weiss and this site, at least on the version I heard.
What else do you, MRW and Citizen want us to know?
Danaa,
I could care less about Keith’s anger. It is his historiography and social theories which I oppose. I find them wrong and dangerous, and they emanate from the same muddy thinking under which Palestinians and Arabs are continually attacked in our own media and society. So I beg to differ. I think the issue is important for everybody.
And I find the sociology in your first paragraph very poor social science, even if I don’t dispute a number of the pronouncements that follow.
Bruce, I think you misunderstood my heads-up to Danaa. I wish you hadn’t broadcast the content of the interview. I thought this thread was pretty much finished, therefore safe; it is on the homepage under Recent Posts. Danaa and I have had a running conversation for over a year about what we’re hearing and seeing in Fly-By-Country politics and other burning issues, which in some cases is far more tolerant than presumed, and in others, more intransigent. (I’m an ex-New Yorker, still in culture shock.) It’s been a case of ‘Hey MRW, did you hear this?’ or ‘Danaa, my informal bar surveys are telling me that’. Our conversations have been more reflective than sensational. The two of us like looking for trends on the edges, little fires that might burst, small signs that indicate something is brewing. We enjoy each other’s peripheral vision and I have enormous respect for hers.
I apologize if you thought any of that was related to what you two were discussing. I really did think this thread was under the radar.
Glad you cleared that up. Sabrosky came up a week ago, and I was shocked to see the name again. I tried to close out this thread, but it won’t die. Danaa was the latest to address me on it.
MRW – Thanks for providing the interviews, though I could not listen to all of it, I heard the second part of the second show – which was interesting, to say the least. Someone provided a text of Sabrosky’s article so I have an idea of what was in the part I missed.
Three comments;
1. just for the hell of it I took a cursory look at the comments that followed the first clip. And there one can find quite a few – if not most – that I would consider not only anti-semitic, but overtly and alarmingly so. Yet, this was the gist of my comment to Bruce – fighting tooth and nail somebody’s artless comment(s) because of the whiff of a smell that one thinks they’ve detected, is much good energy misdirected. As I said before, Keith is not the problem, just as Cliff wasn’t (and hasn’t he been good lately), and frankly, neither are posters like America First (whom we don’t see much of nowadays) or Richard Parker. My view is that as long as comments are in the open, they can be addressed. if they truly go beyond the pale I trust we’ll all know it in an instant, just as the commentary I saw following that first video outed itself in a flash. problem is that if people get too harangued for making an off-color joke, comment or whatever, it’ll dilute the openness of this site which is what we all rather like about it. We do air some dirty laundry around here, as well as some mighty sensitive stuff, so it goes without saying that feelings will get rubbed the wrong way now and then. Frankly, the very fact that keith seemed so offended by a potential aspersion tells me what I need to know about him. A true blue anti-semite would hardly go to such trouble to defend themselves. That’s just the nature of the beast. Besides, with israel being so utterly beastly, and their die-hard ardent defenders in the US so ghastly, it’s to be expected that we’ll all stray off the straight and narrow now and then. I sure have.
2. Savrosky makes interesting points about the mind frame he finds in the military that differs quite sharply with the tone and ambiance found in MSM commentary. That part I can confirm through my own experience, knowing quite a few military people, and is what i reckon you’ve encountered as well. That Petraeus came out with his comment last week may have surprised some but not all. Those views have been bubbling increasingly loudly in both military and intelligence circles and they simply burst through to the top. He must have gotten the green light to voice give it more public voice. From where and why now, are the only questions worth asking. Probably as a warning to Israel to forget about bombing Iran just now. Which is probably the real reason Biden went there. Which explains the crazy israeli reaction. Bingo, one mystery solved.
3. It’s a bit too bad, IMO, that Savrosky is an all-out “truther”. Not because I know otherwise (am on the fence on this one, leaning towards commission-by=omission, ie, the “let it just happen” theory with a bit of a nudge here and there). But because it’ll set him up as a target for ridicule, not to be taken seriously. Yet, many of the things he says and especially the words about loyalty he voices, ring true with many people, obviously. More than many think. Maybe not with the coastal elite, or the chattering intelligensia, but certainly with the rank and file. I guess I’m saying that sometimes one has to be politically more astute if one is interested in airing their views as widely as possible. it’s about pick and choose. If I had any one life secret to share it’s that prioratization is the true secret of effectiveness (I just wish I could follow my own wisdom, but that’s another story).
I am also glad for having you as company for picking them feint signals out of the heartland, as buried as they are in noise. It’s a thankless job though seeing how the coastal sophiticates that flourish around here (in abundance) can be so exclusively tuned to their own – ever so interesting – music of the deep thinking spheres. Me, I like the music alright, but don’t mind partaking in the occasional black swans, oddities and discordant jumble of voices one can only gather through anecdotal encounters. Sometimes that’s the only way to detect the proverbial canary’s songs. I suspect you agree.
PS Thanks for both tips and compliments. I love defunct threads.
Bruce – I make no claim to be a real social scientist. Am merely a regular scientist, and as one such, I do have great respect for the anecdotal. In my world, a single event can shatter theories built over decades, so I tend to attribute greater meaning to the occasional wisps of observation that others might let slide. Also, in my world, we hypothesize for a living. My running score is about 1 out of 5 – not bad, BTW. Also, as I said, I lost part of the first paragraph of my comment – no great loss, but what was left looks a bit out of context. If I recall it was just another rumination about the great divergence between israelis and american jews, which I see as an accelerating process. They can hardly be said to belong to the same people, IMHO. Which is why I believe American jews are silly to give so much allegiance to the wrong zion, when they actually live in the real, improved, second zion. By my take, to be a true zionist is to be a true american, because it is in america that the real spirit of zion lives, even as Israel is trying to drag it down into it’s own distorted muddied-up version. Presto, no problem with “dual” loyalty. See how easy it is?
Anyways, speaking of divewrgence, I thought it belonged rather nicely to Morgan’s thread, so I was just lending out my hypothesis of the day. You are welcome to ignore (though at your peril…).
Danaa, yeah, here we are…sub-submarine specialists. :-) I am fascinated by what intervenes in systems that alters them inexorably. The small interruption that alters the world forever. I think the Petraeus remarks did just that and, by extension, Sabrosky’s comments. His remarks will trickle down to the troops, via back-channels and casual comments, and the majority of those they will reach are Millennials, who have n.o. p.a.t.i.e.n.c.e with the Palin approach to politics and worldview, or divisive politics that destroy US standing in the world. They are, after all, military troops and their values dictate their reaction. Within the dictates, also, of their generation.
I found Sabrosky’s comments interesting because the military reaction will trump AIPAC’s. Ultimately. I’m dying to watch this one play out. It may be underground for a while. We’ll see. I think Netanyahu let the Shas party completely undercut him; I dont think he was smart enough to understand it, nor prescient enough; I think he’s cooked. I dont think he can recover.
Nowhere, however, does Sabrosky say how he and the military brass he cites know what Sabrosky claims they know. Maybe I missed something; I doubt it. He cites the Dutch explosions expert, but that’s not enough. Maybe it is; I don’t do demolitions. Perhaps there was a paper trail leading to this conclusion; if so, I missed it. Dr. Alan Sobrosky is, however, a prolific writer, and publishes regularly at the salem-news website in Orgeon. Here’s his Zionism Unmasked article:
link to salem-news.com
And his latest today “The Complicated Faces Of Anti-Semitism.”
link to salem-news.com
Danaa, just to clarify this a bit more “I think the Petraeus remarks did just that and, by extension, Sabrosky’s comments.” I think Petraeus’ remarks on the national level did that, but I think Sabrosky’s remarks will do that on a more invisible viral level with the troops. Sabrosky has enormous gravitas within the military world. He is not some small popcorn popping off in a closet; this is a measured, highly respected military guy who saw combat for a decade and survived, and who taught at the US Army War College, one of the most respected educational institutions in the country with educational standards that exceed Harvard’s.
Danaa, he also taught at West Point.
well, ‘judeo-zionists’ ain’t got nuthin on evangelicals ‘considering the size of the group’. there are 30 million of them in the US and they’re as much of a cult as any group. scary too. they vote in unison and they’ld like to end separation of church and state, they’ve invaded the supreme court via chief justice roberts, they succeeded in invading the justice department via bush’s reign and that would have stuck had they not been outted by bloggers around the time of the DA scandals.
voluntary submission of self to the group is not unique to zionism in the least. religion in general is a voluntary submission and usually it comes in group form. the US military is also voluntary submission of self to the group and subject to social control (don’t ask don’t tell).
i don’t know if it is intended or not but the comment is anti semitic. the fact the quote does have some truth in it doesn’t mask the fact of the exclusiveness of the premise. there seems to be a total blindness wrt other groups of people. granted zionism is involved in some horrendous crimes and israel w/war crimes but that doesn’t mean the population swept up in these crimes are any different than americans swept up in the invasion of iraq. the difference is that w/our population being so huge one not might not notice these much larger groups of delusioned peoples who operate like cultists amongst us.
“With the Enlightenment and the reduction in Rabbinical control, it appeared that the Jews would assimilate into the surrounding Gentile communities, becoming just another religion. But then came Zionism….”
The surrounding Gentile communities weren’t, in the end, particularly hospitable. You might want to look into something called the Dreyfuss Affair and its effect on a young Austrian Jewish jounalist named Herzl, who had long espoused complete Jewish assimilation into the surrounding culture. After Dreyfuss, he reluctantly turned in another direction for a solution to the ‘Jewish question’. He called it Zionism, feeling no need, as you do, to add the clarifier ‘Judeo’.
I’m somewhat sympathetic to the political positions taken by those who run this site, though I do have my differences. Responses like Keith’s make me come here less and less. My feelings about Judeo-demonization seem to mirror his about Judeo-Zionism.
You mind what to further study the Dreyfuss Affair. It was, after all, French gentile,s who came to the defense of Dreyfus. that helped to earn his eventual exoneration and release from prison. You might also discover that Dreyfus had no interest in moving to Palestine. He considered himself French and his fondest wish, despite his mistreatment, was to continue to serve in the French Army he loved.
Thank you for your inspiring story, Morgan. You really illustrated a lot of the pressure points applied to you. It really takes a lot of character to maintain your stance and so publicly identify yourself. You’re a good man.
It’s interesting though, dalybean, that even though I am “outing” myself here on Mondoweiss, I still wouldn’t post this to my Facebook page, lest friends think I am talking about them (which I am). Then I’d really have an uprising on my hands. Which begs the question, how far am I willing to go to be who I am? To defend who I am? Clearly I wouldn’t even stand in my own skin to the world of Facebook, where most people post drunk pictures of themselves from the weekend and join “100,000 people like this pickle better than Glenn Beck” groups. How can I be afraid of that world?
I’ll be seeing some of those friends in two weeks, including the one who has almost “given up on me”. And I know that even if he doesn’t see this piece, he knows who I am. He just has to trust that because he knows who I am, knows that I’m still his old friend, that what I have to say and what I think and what I feel matters to him and holds some weight.
Or not. I might lose a friend. I suppose that that happens in life. I’m still relatively young and look forward to the many interesting things I’ll learn and the friends I’ll lose over them.
Shunning is a powerful force–look at what budding individualistic Mormons or Amish or Jehovah’s Witnesses go through; having to choose between being declared apostates and being set apart
from their own close-knit family and becoming who they are with little support system. Seems rebel former scientologists go thought the same thing. Growing up in a cult, warm and nourishing so long as you tow the line within your extended family–exchanging the good times within the agreed group ethos–to be alone with your
conflicted self sans life-line? Transition to adulthood in the outside world is not easy. I guess that’s why religion and (inflated) ethnic pride have such staying power over the course of history. A black and white world soothes the soul. Ever watch
BIGLOVE on HBO?
Scientology’s much-derided “fair game” and “disconnection” policies of shunning and destroying its apostates is sort of an interesting lens with which to view what Morgan is talking about. The treatment of Norman Finkelstein, Richard Goldstone and Naomi Chazan are chilling examples of zionism’s version of a “fair game” and “disconnection” policy.
Scientology, which is about 50(?) years old, has been losing adherents and having trouble defending itself all over the world for its policies. I wonder why they are not using zionism as a defense?
Be careful, Morgan. It’s quite a cruel system.
The watershed for Scientolgy was when the IRS gave it tax-exempt status as a religion. From my limited investigation, it appears the Scientoloists infiltrated the IRS and found so many skeletons in that closet, the IRS had to give them
such status, so afraid was the IRS that the Scientologists would otherwise
make public what they had dug up. Really make one confident of the US government.
I actually don’t think the US government should give tax-exempt status to any religious organization. Where’s the separation of church and state
in that policy? Further, why should gifts to religous organizations, even ostensible charities, be deductible? I should think that violates the equal protection of the law–obviously Americans who are aetheists or agonstics
get a hosing here as taxpayers. That’s a considerable portion of the American population across the diversified board. Certainly there’s a reasonable historical argument that religion (traditonal or new) has harmed
humanity at least as much as it has helped it. The creed is in the deed.
Morgan,
Eventually, you’ll learn how to navigate this stuff – what’s appropriate, when and with whom. There’s no point in having “Zionism sucks” or “Free Palestine” tattooed on your forehead.
Facebook’s a problem, but a lot depends on why you’re there. I can’t be bothered with FB, but my wife uses her page and groups exclusively for political shit-disturbing – including I/P. Whenever possible, she ignores friendship requests from Zionist friends and family. When that isn’t possible (can you turn down your mom?) she blocks their often pro-Israel messages (gotta keep face with the activist community – decidedly anti-Zionist here in Italy), and whatever they see they see.
I belong to a predominantly Zionist e-mail forum, where I blast ‘em from time to time, but adapt my arguments and my tone to the group. That’s basically what I do with friends and family too. Where I think I can make a difference – if only to elicit acknowledgement of the legitimacy of my views – I speak up (adapting message to listener), and where I can’t I usually just try to avoid pointless fights. I have a certain rep among friends and family, but most of them don’t know the half of it ;-)
In the end, your strongest social connections will probably be with people who share your values – or at least respect you for them. So it kind of works itself out in that sense.
RE: “In the end, your strongest social connections will probably be with people who share your values – or at least respect you for them. So it kind of works itself out in that sense.”
I agree, and I take the same approach as Shmuel. A few friends–not sure I could handle more anyway. Nuclear family dispute is hardest. But then, what family
escapes that completely? You can always keep trying to live up to your potential and watch Leave It To Beaver, or Deputy Barney Fife to take a break. Or Even America’s Next Top Model or Project Runway. :-)
Morgan, thanks for sharing your thoughts and if you don’t mind a little paternalism, you are much more advanced than I remember myself at your age. It is very difficult to offer public opinions that you know will deeply offend people you feel close to. I recall being shocked as a young teenager when someone confided in me that he was an atheist. You can expect similar reactions from people who think that all Jews, or all people of common sense, share the consensus that Israelis are the good guys and Palestinians are neo-Nazis. Some will think you’ve lost your mind, or as you say, have been brainwashed. But you have to trust that most people who really know you will not reject you because you have arrived at a contrary political opinion. And if they do, it’s their problem, not yours. As someone who has credibility as a good person, you have the potential to reach your friends and family members and make them at least question their beliefs. If they see an Arab or Chomsky or even Goldstone say some nasty things, they won’t give it a moment’s thought, but if Morgan says he thinks that Palestinians should have equal rights in the land of their birth just like US Jews do, maybe they’ll try to reason with you and realize they’re having a tough time formulating a response.
I am sure that you’ve embarked on the right path, even if it has been personally painful. By the way, it’s nice of me to give this advice, but to be honest, I’m 30 years your senior and still grappling with many of the same issues. Best of luck.
morgan – thanks for writing your story here… i appreciate your sharing…. friends come and go and the ones that stick around longer are often the ones that are capable of appreciating you in all your wobbles…. i would willing let go of any friend i had if they weren’t able to accept the growing pains and curves that life generally brings all people… maybe later these same folks will view you in a different light, but for the time being accept the ones that appreciate your openness and curiosity and don’t worry about the ones that don’t… they will eventually come around, after you have made many more!!
Watch your back, Morgan — especially in these times — and learn to recognize the difference between hornet nests you dont need to kick, and the ones that you need to nuke before they are fist-sized. That’s wisdom.
A weaver discovered in Latin America and honored in Manhattan for a couple of seasons as a unrecognized poet, wrote: “They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own.”
I found your experience within the Jewish community fascinating, and I’m really not surprised. I have never seen so much intense hatred and apathy like Israelis and American Jews who staunchly defend Israel have for Palestinians. It wears me out having to fend off waves of propaganda, manipulation and emotional blackmail. It sucks the energy out of me, and sometimes makes me cry in despair. Honestly, I have cried tears of frustration over this issue. I remember during Operation Cast Lead, watching the videos that came out; I couldn’t handle those images of the mangled children in the arms of a parent; it was more than I could take. I wanted to jump into the street and scream: “Stop this insanity!”. But what I encountered on the web on different blogs was astoundingly cold-hearted and mean-spirited in defense of the indefensible.
I would like to hear of your experience in Gaza. I can’t imagine what endless trauma, despair, imprisonment and misery does to a human being. I can only imagine how a caged animal that is mistreated would react. Then I would think, what kind of human does this and expects loyalty and meekness from that poor beast in return?
I saw a clip on TV yesterday. At a protest encoutner of some sort–maybe a tea party
protest? Anyway, an old geezer in a wheelchair holding a sign up he needs Obamacare
as he has (I forget which terrible health affliction) and huge man bulls were ridiculing his plea by tossing dollar bills at him–I guess their version of jeering at wealth redistribution… It was disgusting. The clip shows to me that neither Ayan Rand
nor Marx were correct. And at the low end of both ideological armies today, both those jeering hulks and that old geezer feel tremendous vulnerabilty. As they should.
There’s an old familiar wind blowing, both domestically and with foreign policy.
It was not FDR that cure us of the Great Depression, but WW2. Next stop, Iran.
For once we agree. It was a disgusting display and shows how far America can sink all on its own.
And then some guy from Paris calls me a teabagger.
You have a remarkably fragile ego, Bruce.
You’re too touchy, Bruce.
Not sure what you mean Bruce. First, so you have never agreed with any of my comments–I didn’t know this. Second, didn’t you notice that I said both the huge man bulls and the old wheelchaired gezzer they were making fun of were feeling very vulneable, and rightfullyso? What makes you think I have no sympathy for
the tea-party participants? And what makes you think “and then some guy from Paris calls me a teabagger” will make us jump on your band wagon?
Actually, Citizen I’d prefer that you were not on my bandwagon.
So exactly what sympathy do you have for the huge man bullying the old wheelchaired geezer? And how do you even know he is feeling vulnerable?
Thank you Morgan.
Last night i read the Palestinian version of Nakba and i must say that i m speechless. I think in order to understand better the world we have to teach about the holocaust and Nakba!
Tom Rose on Imus show now–telling Imus its Obama’s fault–says he does not like to call them “settlements” and Obama fails to recognize the Israelis and Palestinians have
been engaged in the peace process for the last 15 years in Jerusalem.
Imus says he undertands where Jerimiah Wright’s perspective and he likes Beck; we don’t know how much of Wright’s Israel -bashing is grounded in fact.
Rose says Beiden acted like a baby, and blew the “insult” way out of proportion, and Obama followed suit. “It’s the president’s fault.”
Imus: How about Petraeus saying the I-P is a root cause harming US interests.
Rose: Of course, it harms Israeli and Palestinian interests too.
No mention of any reason why the settlements may have become such a hot issue; no
delivery of historical context. All MSM voices I’ve heard or read so far about the flap have said
it’s basically the US acting like a child, not Israel. This includes the House members
making speeches as shown on CSPAN.
Beautiful story, beautifully told. Shows different levels of education/brainwashing. [1] Alleged brainwashing of you (young idealistic Jew who visits Gaza). [2] Evident actual brainwashing of huge part of (your) American Jewish Community (seeming to believe something along the lines of “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart” — or merely “circle the wagons, the Indians (person not committed to Zionist story and behavior) are attacking us” — or, as I imagine, knowing deeply and unconsciously that the Zionist program of stealing the land of and expelling another people in order to make a new “homeland” out of “whole cloth” is a crime and hence repugnant to traditional Jewish values and because needing to suppress this uncomfortable knowledge, therefore endeavoring to suppress all suppressible expressions of it, that is to say, expressions which question any Zionist dogmas by persons thought to be under social control, i.e., members of Zionist Jewish community. And [3], the blatant racism (hatred for the “other”) of many Israelis.
I was raised in a very non-observant Jewish-ancestry family and, in June 1967, married a Palestinian-American. I was extraordinarily politically uninformed then. Even when she told me that she told her cousin, Aida, that there was to be “no politics” among the Jewish and Palestinian wedding guests at the wedding (Quaker), I still didn’t know why there was a problem. She gradually informed me of the issue of Palestine/Israel 1978-80, taking the education slowly because she (who did know the typical Jewish-Zionist attitudes) didn’t know how I’d react. Her explanation of her slow efforts at my education is an example of the negative power of brainwashing (which she assumed or feared) which, happily, didn’t exist at all.
When there has been a crime (as we see in politics all the time), the cover-up often makes the crime much worse. People “circle the wagons” in order to hide their own minor complicity (or to protect some unwarranted privilege) and pretty soon the crime has become that much worse. The silence (and, worse, the silencing, of which you report your own experience) is part of a cover-up of the “crime” (among those not directly responsible for the Zionist project) of support for a project so entirely contradictory to a large part of Jewish (or American-Jewish) ethical teaching. In part because there has been this silence, we have the ever-expanding settlements. In part because we have this silence, we have Gaza. Note that American Jews initially oppose Zionism and the Zionist project would no doubt have taken place along the lines it did even with continuous opposition of American Jewry. But American Jewish leaders (always more Zionist than the crowd) convinced President Truman to support the 1947 UN partition resolution and to recognize Israel in 1948.
You wrote of “birthright” and “brainwashing”. The continuous telling of the story of the Holocaust, especially the telling of that part of the story which goes “because of the Holocaust, the Jews had a right to dispossess the Palestinians, and still do today and will do forever” is possibly the most damaging piece of “brainwashing” in all this story, leading, as it does, to the revolting (to me) idea that I (or you) have a “birthright” to live in a country recently-and-continuously-and-still-being stolen by use of deadly force from its owners (the stealing continuing in the West Bank settlement project, the killing most notoriously still occurring in Gaza, the expulsion on-going in the Israeli policy 1948-present to refuse readmission to Palestinians who were citizens of the Palestine Mandate in 1947 but who were outside pre-1967 Israeli territory when Israel declared itself a state, including all those who were expelled at gun-point.
We have all been “brainwashed.” What else is education? We all have a “birthright” — to learn the truth as well as we can, to hold fast to valuable ethical standards, and to reject false stories and false ethics, and to “teach” others when “teachable moments” appear, seeking to change minds and hearts.
Thanks for sharing, pabelmont. I like your conclusion. Truman was flattered by the Zionists to think of himself as the modern day Cyrus, the same Truman who is purported to have read the bible 15X over while growing up, who knew he’d lose
to Dewey without Zionist money to finance his whistle-stop campaign; the Zionists
offered that carrot–and also a stick: if he refused to get with their agenda the money
offered him would go to help Dewey win. Every American politician aspiring to
high US office now goes though the same choice. Even as Truman made his choice,
he was aware, as he says in his diary, that the oppressed were morphing into the oppressors with lightening speed–probably (unconsciously?) why, when he signed the letter recognizing the new provisional government, he crossed out “Jewish” and substituted “Israel” state?
Truman was so pissed off by the arrogant Zionist leader literally pounding on his desk in the oval office that he refused to see him anymore and burned a pile of letters without reading them, letters orchestrated by the Zionist network. But he was not an anti-semite–proof is that he caved in and did see the Zionist leader again (and the result is history we are living with today) as a personal favor to his old small business buddy, a Jewish individual with no power
other than Truman’s personal experience of his good character.
Citizen, not exactly true. Truman was going to lose the reelection without dough. He got either $2mill or $20 mill in a suitcase for recognizing Israel. That’s what happened.
MRW, what is not true that I said? Did you read both my comments on this sub-thread? I think they imply exactly what you said, which I agee with it–Truman
was bribed; it’s just that my comments include more–what did I say that you say is not true?
Sorry, Citizen, I am multi-tasking and not reading through threads carefully. I should even be commenting. And this damn scroll bar has a jigger of its own today.
On Imus now–Chris Wallace. Obama does not like to be interrupted; he likes to filibuster
interviews, as he did with the Fox News interview yesterday regarding health plan and the US-Israeli flap. Actually, there nearly all the interviewer interruptions involved
the health plan–Obama wouldn’t say what was actually in the final bill, e.g., regarding
the various exceptions benefiting certain states. Obama only specifically defended
the Louisiana purchase–extra money going to Louisiana–on the principle that provision would benefit (in the future) any sate suffering major natural disasters. The interview
involved no follow-up by the interviewer of Obama’s executive summary regarding
Israel, a summary that basically simply assured the public Israel’s security was his
prime operating value.
To be clear: Wallace only said Obama does not like to be interrupted–he filibusters.
The balance of my comment is my own observation of the interview.
I admire the work Bruce is doing to try and expose anti-Semitic attitudes. I don’t like essentialist arguments, and having made them myself some time I know that I’ve also made progress out of them through education. I tend to agree with David Samel’s interpretation of such attitudes, but I think such bordering-on-hate expression is dangerous for this site as an ongoing entity. It will scare off people who regard Jews as another diverse human group, albeit with certain characteristics, it will affect my credibility. I zapped a commenter who linked to Holocaust denial stuff recently. He didn’t espouse here,he knew better, still he linked.
I completely agree with this and have said so myself and yet I’m about to type a “on the one hand and on the other hand” comment.
There are comments that appear here that are borderline anti-semitic and some that cross over the border and those comments should be called out the way Bruce does and the way others of us sometimes do. That said, there is a horrific double standard in our society. People can say Islamophobic things and sometimes they will be criticized, but just as often their views will be treated as a legitimate POV, and critics of their Islamophobia will be treated as politically correct suppressors of opinion. Martin Amis over in Britain got a very sympathetic treatment in the NYT a year or two ago when he made his despicable remarks about Muslims. He would have been vilified, rhetorically tarred and feathered, and permanently banned from polite society if he had said something comparable about Judaism and Zionism. (And rightly so, but because he was a bigot about Muslims, hey, no big deal).
I’m glad you said it. To be blunt, I don’t see the same standard upheld when it comes to denial of crimes/hate speech against Palestinians right here as to crimes against Jews.
That’s great and all to take a stand against Holocaust denial, but it’s a double standard if you guys don’t take the same stance against Nakba denial as well. One notes it isn’t just your credibility among Jews and Jews alone that you need to worry about, if the purpose of this blog truly is equal rights.
Chaos, who is not taking on Nabka denial?
I spent many hours writing comments explaining what happened in 1948, mainly in response to Witty’s or others attempts at whitewashing.
When has Nabka denial ever gone unchallenged here?
If a number of people have already called somebody out, are we obligated to pile on? My more recent comments have been when nobody responds, such as with Keith’s last two attempts at historiography.
My point being, that the Nakba is being treated here like something that it’s acknowledgement needs to be defended, over and over and over and over again. Whereas any confrontation of the Holocaust is summarily deleted and anyone bringing it up, banned.
That would be the double standard.
Has Witty been banned, for instance?
But Chaos, some of us do jump down RW’s throat when he says something despicable, and many of those who don’t just wish we’d shun him . So there’s a majority consensus at this blog about people who downplay Israeli crimes . And then people further to the right, personally, I just ignore altogether most of the time when they say something contemptible because it’s beneath contempt. They do represent a certain common strain of thought, however, so I don’t necessarily call for their banning except in extreme cases (like Ohio Jones, who never said anything sensible that I saw and was a troll who was only here to start fights) because they demonstrate what some on the other side are like.
The problem with anti-semitism at this particular blog is that there shades of gray, where you start out with anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israel Lobby and this is not anti-semitism. Then you get into talks about the Jewish community in America and then you have to be careful. It’s complicated, because people do talk about other ethnic/social groups and their power or lack thereof without it being necessarily bigoted, so it’s not necessarily bigoted here. But then it shades over into a negative evaluation of American Jews sometimes and now we’re in anti-semitism territory. But it’s not anti-semitic to say that some Jewish organizations have a kneejerk attitude of support for Israel no matter what it does and to talk about what polls might say on this. So there’s a gray area. The answer, IMO, is to stick very closely to data and to specific issues, like support for Israel, and criticize (when justified) on those specific issues and not start making broad claims about groups.
I think, though, that people cross the line sometimes and Phil is right–it’s the very last thing he needs and the movement for Palestinian rights needs. It’s not a question of anti-semitism being worse than Islamophobia–they’re both bad. It’s that if you want to win people over in America you have to take into account the fact that a whiff of anti-semitism, besides being bad in itself, just hands over ammunition to the anti-Palestinian side. To discredit Phil’s blog all someone would have to do is go through the comments and collect some sweeping negative statements about Jews and then couple that with posts Phil himself has made about the American Jewish community and make it seem like he supports the crazier claims of some commenters and presto–he can be dismissed.
Uh, and maybe that’s something Phil Weiss and the rest of you maybe need to confront head on? Otherwise you will forever be defending yourselves from people like Witty and yonira, who can just keep cutting and pasting the same lies over and over again because they can count on the Jewish community to circle the wagons, while you guys have to walk on egg shells lest you be labelled as anti-Semites or self-haters.
My point is the censorship policy itself is highlighting how Zionism corrupts the Jewish community, to the point where people like Witty and yonira attain a sort of protected status — because their Jewish, and really for no other reason — and because the people they are talking about, are Arab. That’s not an intent of the policy of course… but it is a net result.
I also wonder how much antisemitism there is in America alongside the Islamophobia. There are some polls, I’ve heard, which show that the two attitudes are often found together. Which doesn’t seem quite right in my personal experience online or off. Or rather, when a gentile is anti-semitic and Islamophobic, he often tends to be anti-semitic in a pro-Israeli sort of way. That is, he might adhere to some of the old stereotypes about Jews, but support Israel and far prefer them to Muslims. Online you rarely see people who seem to be both anti-semitic and Islamophobic, or if they are, the anti-semitism is subtle and the pro-Israel mentality (as in “go IDF, and kill some more Muslim terrorists”) is more in front.
But if we ever did manage to change the minds of the average American about Israel, I wonder if some of the latent antisemitism might come out. I don’t wonder about this in a melodramatic sort of way–that is, I don’t think we’d become Tsarist Russia, let alone Nazi Germany. But you might have more open expressions of the sentiment, the way we now have open expressions of Arab hatred in popular culture.
Which is one reason I don’t like the whole “dual loyalty” meme, or the notion that the IDF is brutal in ways that are just totally different from the behavior of our forces–it could be appealing to the wrong sort of mindset. Israel’s crimes are pretty similar to ours.
I think Phil has banned some Arab haters. Wasn’t “sword of gideon” or whatever name he went by here banned? Ohio Jones was banned. There may have been others.
I don’t think yonira denies the Nakba, but I’m not sure.
As for Witty, sometimes I’d like to see him banned for his practice of ignoring detailed refutations of his position and then repeating it like no one had replied. Or else he could be confined to one open thread on the front page of the website, specifically open for him and anyone who wants to try and talk with him. But I wouldn’t ban him for his whitewashing offenses, because he is representative of the vast majority of mainstream “liberal” political thought in the US. Obama sounded like Witty when he spoke to AIPAC. That’s unfortunate, but banning him for his views (as opposed to some of his behavior) would be like refusing to talk to Hamas.
On second thought I would ban Obama, if he shows up here. The man is a jackass.
That I’ll agree with, Donald. That would be why I’m so sensitive about this particular tack. Do you know how hard it is to confront someone who is both Islamophobic and anti-Semitic, when all they have to do is sidestep, hug a Zionist and call you the anti-Semite?
As far as the “dual loyalty” meme goes… I’ve personally gone out of my way to point out that, in my viewpoint, Israel is a Euro/Western creation, and not really inherently a Jewish one in any sense that matters. And you can tell that by the convoluted, inconsistent way the definition of Israel has to vacillate from “secular” to “Jewish” and back again.
Israel was founded by a group of people who have far more genetic (let alone cultural) heritage in common with me than with the people of the Middle East, and that’s something I recognize. And in that sense, I consider Israel my problem, as someone of German/Polish descent. The attempts of adherents of Zionism to paint as anti-Semitic any critic of Zionism is tantamount to exploiting as human shields a lot of Jews who don’t have anything to do with Zionism.
Well, he certainly denies what is going on in Gaza right now.
link to mondoweiss.net
Whats interesting is that while Nakba deniel is not a crime in Europe, Holocaust denial is. So, in Europe, you can deny the Nakba and make filthy cartoons insulting the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), which results in you getting praised as a defender for free speech but if you deny the Holocaust, get ready to make yourself comfortable in a prison cell for 5 years.
What delicious double standards.
I think what’s worse, Olive, is Europe’s now got some very racist political parties that have, shockingly, gained traction.
Same old Nazis, different minority target. Though I have some optimism in that parties like that won’t last long.
European, racialist parties have incorporated their own version of the PEP standard to widen their appeal. For example, Benelux rightists such as Le Vlaams Belang or Gert Wilders party exploit appeals for the protection of equal rights for women (and the defense of free speech as cited above) as the rationale for anti-muslim prejudices. This tactic has been adopted by Marine Le Pen in France as well:
« Marine Le Pen is employing the exact same strategy [as Wilders]: she is attempting to broaden her party’s appeal to all races, and to put behind her the rhetoric of racism, homophobia and sexism, while adopting a republican platform that is tolerant of gays, Jews and blacks, but extremely violent in its rhetoric towards Islam. » [apologies for the piss-poor, on-the-fly translation]
link to blog.mondediplo.net
I agree with Olive. The double standard is repugnant, and it undermines the fight against anti-Semitism and other forms of racism.
Donald: “But if we ever did manage to change the minds of the average American about Israel, I wonder if some of the latent antisemitism might come out.”
Undoubtedly, that’s going to happen as the extreme (or ignorant) views get ironed out. Look what happened as soon as Obama got elected: the number of truly vile racist comments. They would never have been permitted in public discourse for a decade before 2007. They came screeching across Fox screens, HuffPo’s front page, on signs at Tea Party rallies. Really shit-hideous stuff. But it’s like a boil that needs to be lanced. And it is going to happen with anti-semitism. What I am fearful of is WWIII; ie: war with Iran. That version of anti-semitism is going to be lethal. And no group, no religion, no nothing can stop an onslaught of 300 million Americans in that event.
While I do agree that the USA’s de facto policy and strategy, e.g., as being played out in the Middle East, has a negative net effect on average Arabs,
I don’t personally know many US army grunts that are as rascist as the IDF
grunts quoted online, nor have I found any indication the US grunts are similarly so rascist from online sources. So, while I agree that the US should be called to account by the world for its policies as actually implemented, I think both in terms of the average grunts of each nation, and in terms of the difference between
the US POV and general treatment of natives under occupation, and Israel’s,
the crimes are not “pretty similar to ours.” I find this even less so, when I consider that the US military is volunteer, while Israel’s is conscripted–historically, conscripted frontline forces are less congenial to the government that conscripted them than volunteer forces that are basically
motivated by the need for a decent job that can keep them with a roof and housing, etc.
MRW, I share your fear of the net result of a war with Iran.
The populist right has staying power nobody believed possible ten years ago.
And it is coming to America. The two party system submerged its presence in the Republican base for a long time.
They have the momentum at the moment.
Friends all, and friends still, I trust, of mine and of each other:
I’ve been re-reading these comments and have run across several phrases that I think should be avoided from reasoned discourse on the ground that they are “bumper sticker” slogans used to express approbation or disapprobation but not intellectual content.
First, “Holocaust denier” and “Nakba denier”. For the life of me I cannot say what I believe either of these slogans means unless it be something ABSOLUTE like denying that Hitler and his minions deliberately killed a lot of Jews in Europe in 1938-45 or like denying that many Palestinians suffered dispossession and displacement and exile from their homes, villages, neighborhoods and society, and homeland, and enforced exile, at the hands of the Jewish forces in the 1948 war.
Does ANYONE actually deny either of these things? Good grief! well, I suppose Ahmadinejad may do. (Parenthetically, do any Israelis deny the Nakba [see above for clarification], or do they merely say things like “they brought it upon themselves” and “you must break eggs to make an omelette” and “we deserved a country of our own” and “we had a right to do it”?)
I don’t think anyone should accuse anyone else of being a “denier” unless he also points to the text asserted to embody the denial so that a reader can know the content of the asserted “denier” tag. I, for one, do not consider it to be “denying” the Holocaust to suggest good reasons for doubting that 6 million — rather than say 4 million — Jews were killed. That is not (for me) denying the Holocaust, but (merely) denying because of stated reasons some conventional and probably itself fairly unsupported guesstimate. Nevertheless, it may even be a crime in some places to say such things (which, by the way, I myself do not say. I’m cool with 6 million).
Similarly, “anti-Semitism” has been misused (when it’s been used to mean anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism) (as if either of these meant unreasoned hatred of ALL Jews) to such an extent that I don’t think anyone should use the term “anti-Semite” about another person unless also restating the text that shows what the epithet is responding to.
Nowadays, some people are saying (and I do so as well) that Israeli actions (such as the Gaza business and the trashing of Goldstone, such as the settlements, such as Hebron, such as the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and Sabra and Shatilla, such as the 1948 war and the expulsions and non-readmittances) are bringing on an increase in anti-Jewish passion (not anti-Semitism, mind, because well-reasoned) because people regard Israel/Zionism as a project of the WHOLE “Jewish People” and not just a project of Israeli Jews; — and because Jews don’t sufficiently tell them that they are wrong. I mean even J-Street doesn’t allow much “air” between itself and Israel, does it?
Does speaking and warning of this increase in well-reasoned and (I believe) reasonable anti-Jewish passion make me an anti-Semite in some eyes? A few might say so. They might say, “Broadly targeted anti-Jewish passion” is ALWAYS anti-Semitism. And asking Jews to distance themselves from Israel or Zionism is also anti-Semitic. Some might say.
BTW, what does RW say about the Nakba when he “white washes”? And why do we care (and “what do you mean by we’, white man” as Tonto is supposed to have said to the Lone Ranger as the attacking Indians got closer). (As someone else said, “whenever a tendentious speaker says ‘we’, it’s time to head for the hills.”)
shades of gray, where you start out with anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israel Lobby and this is not anti-semitism. Then you get into talks about the Jewish community in America and then ….. It’s complicated…. talk about other ethnic/social groups and their power or lack thereof ……without it being necessarily bigoted, so it’s not necessarily bigoted….
donald, i always am on the watchout for wolves in sheeps clothing. i know hasbara agents are here and i know they are here to discredit the site not just to defend the zionist narrative. a good infiltrator leads a group think along to riskier places pushing the discourse in a way that brings a site down. i’ve seen it happen. naturally i don’t know who these people are, but i know they are here because it would make no sense for them to not be here. this site is a threat.
that’s my opinion and i’m sticking with it.
Well said. I think that Muslim minority in the US has much more hardship to deal with than any Jew living in the US. This association of all Muslims being terrorists, is just a common joke in many circles. And that is done in large part by media branding.
Okay, Donald, so criticize “the double standard in our society,” which I agree exists, and write about regularly in my postings. But don’t respond by having a reverse double standard on this site.
“Reverse double standard on this site,” huh? What exactly does that mean?
I’m not sure how to take that, Bruce. I’m on your side, I think–antisemitism is bad, so is Islamophobia. I think Islamophobia is worse in our society, but that’s no reason to tolerate the other.
See? Even you can’t tell for sure what side Bruce is on any more.
Donald,
Obviously I wasn’t clear.
I agree that there is a double standard in society and the media. So criticize this and call it out, but don’t legitimize as compensation a double standard on Mondoweiss that we will give real anti-Semitism a pass while coming down hard on the Zionists.
“on’t legitimize as compensation a double standard on Mondoweiss that we will give real anti-Semitism a pass while coming down hard on the Zionists”
Okay, but I wasn’t doing that. In fact, I feel the same way and have jumped on egregious examples of anti-semitism for as long as I’ve been coming here. Though, for reasons I didn’t explain very coherently in a post somewhere in this thread, there are often comments that seem to me to fall in a gray area, where I’m not sure if it’s legitimate criticism or not, especially when Phil himself sometimes posts about the American Jewish community in ways that are pretty critical.
Donald,
It is almost impossible to follow which comments are responding to which on this site. I believe #125 & #129 were in response to #105.
I have no problem with your comments on the site.
But some are calling for a double standard here to compensate for the double standard outside. I was trying to give a warning not to support that, not claiming you were doing that.
There are lots of ambiguous comments – or your gray area – I have not responded to these. I focused on a few that I considered unambiguous.
Phil – I raised this exact point a few weeks ago on a much more offensive comment about the Protocols. I said that since you (Phil) subject comments to moderation, you will be deemed to have allowed this one to make the cut, thereby hurting your credibility. I also said that if the commenter was trying to do that (which I very much doubt), he couldn’t have done a better job. I doubt if you ever saw this exchange, and to review every single comment, even briefly, would be terribly time-consuming, but that’s a dilemma you face. People will quote from your comments section, trying to find evidence of anti-Semitism on the website. I suppose we could make more use of the Report Abuse feature if we think something should be brought to your attention. I didn’t even think of that last time.
It is really important to protect the credibility of this site. I’ve used the report abuse function a few times and it seems to work very well in addition to immediately addressing the abusive comment. I think the site owners do a really good job considering the sensitivity and complexity of these topics. The comments on other sites devoted to these issues are a garbage dump compared to this site.
David,
This is the discussion Phil and I have been having.
The truth is there is no moderating of the comments. Phil simply does not have the time. I have no idea to what extent even the Report Abuse reports get reviewed.
I started taking on what I thought were some of the worst abuses. But to be honest, the personal abuses comments are too numerous to even make a dent. I tried to go after some of the essentialist arguments. What a thankless task that is.
I write for the site, and I want what I post to be taken seriously. I don’t want my credibility to be in the toilet on account of an out-of-control comment system.
Other readers think the comment section is a community. And they don’t want anyone disturbing their dialogues with one another.
If you have an answer, this site in my opinion definitely needs one.
It’s not true that Phil does not look into at least reported abuse; he certainly will delete any comment he comes across that is vulgar, or simply one attacking the mesenger and not the message, again most especially if that is vulgar and obvious.
And you are not the only one here who has taken on the thankless task of helping
Phil moderate the comments.
One thing I learned today is that more comments are being deleted than I thought. So the problem may be more in readers not using the Report Abuse button sufficiently. I could easily reproduce a couple of hundred vulgar comments that are still standing.
Bruce,
It is my perception that there are more stringent criteria applied to comments deemed anti-Semitic than to comments deemed racist.
If I say that deprived Afro-American neighbourhoods show evidence of fraudulent use of unemployment benefits, does it have the same impact as me saying that affluent Jewish-American neighbourhoods show evidence of tribal nepotism in obtaining key posts in banking sector, media and politics?
How is anti-Semitism different from racism?
Why are we stumping out anti-Semitism on this site, instead of worrying about racism on this site?
I don’t think you are wrong, Eva. If more (any?) blacks commented on this blog
you would see a skin as thin as a Jewish skin. Racism is racism. White non-jews are suppose to be more careful due to European anti-semitism and white non-jewish Americans ditto also as to Blacks due to history of US. Gotta be careful with any generalities, expressed or implied (even unintentionally). This applies all white non-jews, no matter when they were born, and no matter their personal experiences. I don’t agree per se; I’m just saying my observation.
Well for me, in general anti-Semitism today has now been reduced to a subset of racism, and not the worst case either. As far as this site, we certainly should be worried about racism and call it out when we see it.
Eva,
I didn’t reply to your question, “If I say that deprived Afro-American neighbourhoods show evidence of fraudulent use of unemployment benefits, does it have the same impact as me saying that affluent Jewish-American neighbourhoods show evidence of tribal nepotism in obtaining key posts in banking sector, media and politics?” as I wanted to think about it.
I’m not sure what the impact of either is. If unemployment benefit fraud is no worse in African-American neighborhoods than in other neighborhoods, then I would say the statement has the wrong impact. If nepotism among Jewish-Americans is no different than any other ethnic group, then that statement also has the wrong impact.
I tend to think that Phil is making too big a deal about tribal nepotism among Jews. Is it really different with any other group. My Italian-American friend just walked down to his old job a few months ago and got his just college graduated son a fantastic job while most of his friends remain unemployed. Another WASP friend just placed his son at the Huffington Post. And the Obamas sent their kids to Sidwell Friends, based on their grades? Are most of the jobs down in Little Havana allocated based on merit? Nepotism is as American as apple pie.
Show of hands. Talking point number 4?
No, dammit, it’s not talking point number 4. It’s a perfectly legitimate point and just what the hell is wrong with pointing out that American Jews are no worse than any other group?
And that’s what Mondoweiss is supposed to be then? An enclave that favors the Jewish voice over others? My mistake.
Non sequitur. Look, just cool off or something. I know you and Bruce seem to be developing a real dislike for each other, but you can’t possibly think that when Bruce says Jews are no worse than other people that this is somehow elevating Jews above other people. “No worse than” doesn’t mean “better than”.
Morgan – Thank you for your candor.
I work with Reform Jews of all ages. In general , I find the grandparent generation more likely to be reflexively Zionist (e.g. talking about Israel in the firt person plural), the parent generation is mostly disinterested, and sometimes fearful of opening the topic. The school-age children are thoughtful and open to talking about the issues.
I am heartened by the children.My experience is that the children do know what’s actually going on in Israel/Palestine and have opinions on the matter. As one junior high boy put it, “Israel is rude to the Arabs….no, that’s the wrong word, I mean, racist.” In a conversation yesterday I asked the children why is Israel this way. Reply: because of the Holocaust. We then got into how victims become abusers. I then asked the chidren why American Jews are different to Israeli Jews, even though both groups include Holocaust survivors. One girl came up with: well, they each started with different beliefs.
The children were thoughful. They came back after one session with good questions. These are young Reform Jews. Perhaps the children haven’t yet been indoctrinated into unconditional support for all Israel does, perhaps, also, the times are a-changing. I don’t think we could have had the same conversation 10 years ago.
And what did these kids attribute as the reason(s) why “they each started with different beliefs”? If you know. I find your triparte generational gap true in my own experience, including with non-Jews.
gives me hope for the future elliot. young clear open minds and all that.
It seems to me, a newcomer, that expressing opinions shared by any sizable portion of the Jewish population should be protected behavior.
If the Jewish community is as monolithic as the rare rebel finds it to be, free discussion and self-censorship-free exploration of the subject should be allowed and even encouraged.
I’d hope that I at least receive a warning before being banned. It seems even the Holocaust revisionist linker deserved that much.
Morgan, on a more pressing note, as a restaurant owner in LA what is your opinion of the influence that Jonathan Gold, the ‘Glutster’ and other similar critics have had on the food scene?
Personally, I think a lot of this is endemic to the system, and as long as we allow ourselves to be sliced an diced by ethnic, religious, rich and poor, influential and obscure, racial, gender (etc.) lines, the further we move away from being a strong community against the exploitation that is inevitably part and parcel of everyone’s experience (look at the variety displayed here). These types of divisions which may just be common differences are exploited to become large chasms so that nothing effective can be accomplished for the concern of the whole. I think you need to consider the artificial exacerbation of these differences, the reduction of making them genetic material, and consider the environmental aspect.
Second, I did not come to this site to hear and embrace what is heard 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the MSM – if I want that I will just turn the TV on. I think people are smart enough to realize that they are doused with propaganda and manipulation for whatever purpose(s) . Unfortunately we live in environments where the truth is subversive, and that is because we are so used to believing and living lies. Wow, doesn’t this sound radical? Unable to decipher deception from reality, we eventually deceive ourselves, and live and die for fairy tales or for causes and concepts that do nothing but rob us of reality and our very lives.
VR- I’m not quite sure I understand what you are saying, but I think I agree. Geez, I hope that my agreeing doesn’t cause you to be labeled an anti-Semite by association. One paragraph, it doesn’t take much, does it?
On a related topic, Mondoweissers may wish to go to Norman Finkelstein’s website (www.normanfinkelstein.com) to see a short video titled “A Jewish Woman Cries- Leave Israel Alone…”, which has to been seen to be believed. Scary.
I felt rather ashamed of myself for roaring with laughter throughout this video, because she was so pathetic. My wife was of the opinion that it was a joke, and one minute later, her research skills confirmed it. Check this out. link to youtube.com
Excellent joke, actually.
obviously you don’t hang out @ youtube much david. did you notice the britney video has had over 30 million viewers. of course it was a joke! lol
I don’t think that is a problem Keith, people calling me antisemitic or self-hating, just because I do not believe in or want to participate, support, a murderous colonial exercise. To be frank, I don’t think my position is anything close to self-hatred, however I think those that unreservedly support Israel in its current course are really the self-haters. They must really hate Jewish people to act like this, to try to persuade us to participate in this self-destructive process, and want to bring the disdain of the world down on our heads. It is a sick thing to want to inflame antisemitism in the world, they have more antisemitism in their little finger than I have in my entire frame.
Anti-Zionism, to my mind, is denial of the proposition that ‘being Jewish entitles one, as nothing else does, to a share in the sovereignty of the territory some call Palestine’.
Anti-Semitism is prejudice against those whom you regard as Jews. Neither proposition entails the other.
A-S does not entail A-Z because it is quite possible, maybe quite common, to have a prejudice based on the idea that Jews certainly own Palestine but have claimed too much in the territories of others.
A-Z simply does not entail A-S. To say, with a stated argument, that a certain status does not imply a certain right is not an attack on people of that status and does not imply anything bad about them.
It is indeed to ask people who have that status not to claim, or no longer to claim, the right in question now that you have offered them an appropriate reason. If they reply ‘Our whole culture and tradition imply that the claim is valid’ you have no alternative but to say ‘Either you misinterpret your tradition or there is something wrong with it’. But it cannot be forbidden to say that, unless we are to say that strong convictions are so sacred that any section of humanity may offer as proof of what they believe the fact that they believe it, which destroys all logic.
But this level of moral dispute does not imply (I’ve benefited from the remarks of Shmuel and others here) that opposition to Zionism there is something ‘in real essence’ bad about ‘what it is to be Jewish’. Indeed, if you’re ready to engage in rational argument with the exponents of a rival idea you presuppose that they might come to agree with you, ie that ‘to be what they are’ is not to hold the idea that you reject. And if for their part they will come as far as to argue rationally with non-Jewish opponents they presumably do not think that ‘to be what non-Jews are’ is to be, in one’s real essence, anti-Semitic.
Rational argument sometimes gives way to something else. We’re all human and we all use rhetoric that goes a bit beyond reasoning. But real injustice in the real world is always more important than signs of prejudice shown in some people’s rhetoric. And we should note that if people respond to your argument that ‘for certain reasons you shouldn’t do that’ with an angry reference to their culture and traditions it is they, not you, who are breaking the chain of reasoning.
My read of Morgan’s post.
Its important that you think for yourself.
In an environment in which people have been severely traumatized, even by community memory and story, they will be suspicious and sometimes react first. It is the case where Palestinians live, where anyone that makes any public comments lives.
Some of the dangers that people perceive aren’t so much in what you say directly, but in what others that are willing to harm, will do with your voice of support (even if you didn’t voice support for terror for example, only “resistance” – I don’t know if you used that word itself).
Its the same from the left, who also exhibit reactive post-traumatic behaviors and periodically circle the wagons very defensively, tribally.
If your motivation for activism is compassion (rather than ideology), then keep that strong, never forget it, and find imaginative and respectful ways to present your observations, conclusions, so as persuade well for others to similarly bear active compassion on their neighbor.
The “9-1-1″ (I mean 9/11) story of Sabrosky is further examined here. architects and engineers are calling for a re-investigation of how the 3 buildings in NYC came down.
For more on Sabrosky see here.