There's a very important piece in Haaretz today:
Pre-state Jewish undergrounds enjoy a renaissance among settlers. In recent years, interest in the pre-state Revisionist underground movements has grown among West Bank settlement youth.
By Chaim Levinson
Dozens of people crowded into Tel Aviv's Jabotinsky Museum last week to celebrate the 130th birthday of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, founder of the Revisionist Movement...
Oved Federman, 15, son of radical religious right-wing settler Noam Federman, won second prize for his film about Yehiel Dresner, an Etzel militant executed by the British Mandate authorities in 1947.
This is the real disconnect between our image of modern Israeli society here in the United States and the emerging reality on the ground. To be sure, much of Israeli society remains modern, secular, and otherwise Atlantic in orientation. But with these generally positive inclinations, it is also true that even this part of Israeli society is “coarsening” in many ways, especially with an increasing indifference to Palestinians.
In addition, with the rise of National Religious Orthodoxy and now this nostalgia for Revisionist Zionism, there is increasingly little left of secular Mapai/Labor Zionism in Israel as the ideological core of the society. Also, the effect of the immigration of a million Russian "Jews” should not be underestimated: Avigdor Lieberman is typical of important currents in that community and very “Russian” in his attitudes on things like rule of law and ethnic minorities.
It is ironic that the old socialist, Labor Zionist society remains the image that most Americans, and many American Jews have of the place, and so they are shocked, for example, when the religious authorities there define Judaism so narrowly that fewer American Jews count any more. The reality of what Israel is becoming, it seems to me, has not sunk in over here.
Surely you don’t really believe that “most Americans, and many American Jews” have an image of Israel that is literally 40 years out of date?
Most Americans have an image created by Leon Uris.
Once upon a time……….
And even more recently; let’s return to those days of yesteryear–right on this blog:
link to mondoweiss.net
It’s probably closer to 60 years, seeing as American Jews, as a collective, still think that Israel is a refuge for Jews from such atrocities as the holocaust and that the land is empty and those who resist the dispossession are merely anti-Semites.
In fact, it seems to me that the vast majority of Jews in the diaspora, not only in the US, think along the same lines. The paranoia and the victimhood persists, more than 60 years after the holocaust.
“Surely you don’t really believe that “most Americans, and many American Jews” have an image of Israel that is literally 40 years out of date?”
No, more like 50 or 60 years in many cases.
Wanna see for yourself? You can, right now at TPM“Dem Rep Fires Aide After Distribution Of ‘Jewish Money’ List”
Read the comments, where it’s alway plucky, pioneering, desert bloomin Israel, and any mention of “the Jews” brings down a load of anti-Semitism accusations instead of any kind of explanation.
To be sure, much of Israeli society remains modern, secular, and otherwise Atlantic in orientation.
Jabotinsky did some of his most important work on this side of the Atlantic, ie. in the US.
And Netanyahu’s father, who was Jabotinsky’s secretary, spent a long time as a professor in this country. And Netanyahu himself not only was born in the U.S., but spent a lot of his youthful years here too.
You’re right, Mooser; I read the comments. If memory serves, the aid who was fired was a shiksa, and the guy who drew up the list was jewish. The original intent of the list apparently was to show that the political campaign opponent was essentially a carpet bagger or whore for special interests, rather than a local anxious to help local interests, as revealed by the moneybags who supported him. The jewish thing sure seems to be a Catch 22 whenever its thrown into the mix by whomever… for some reason I’m reminded of Oliver Stone’s statements. How quick he was made to eat crow–the very quickness appears to support his original contentions. Will Showtime cave next?
Gotta hunch his new documentary will be big on DVD/CD anyway–lotsa people are thirsty for depiction of a less melodramatic world. I guess Oliver Stone’s greatest sin is he tries to get contextual facts right and imaginitively walks in the shoes of the major players–doesn’t forget there are no gods or devils, only flawed humans, more or less–I don’t think Oliver’s work to date ignores that more, or the less.
“The jewish thing sure seems to be a Catch 22″
The ironic part is, the list was not made (as I read it) to show the candidate was in thrall to Israel or Zionist interests, and it was simply convenience all those out-of-town donaters on one list. Now I could see putting up with the shitstorm bound to ensue when Jews are put on a list, if the list of Jewish donors was tied to say, illegal settlement activities. Put to put up with all of that, just because it was a convenient collection of out-of-staters? Dumb.
But as usual, the Zionist supporters are palpably desperate to control the discourse, to control what is considered anti-Semitic, and what can be said. It made me think about you, I’ll tell you what I mean. So you aren’t Jewish, but interested in I-P issues, and do not take the ordinary neo-con pro-Zionist stance so disgustingly normal in America. Yet, when I came here, you a few turns of phrase, and a few (in my opinion) things to sort out about the terms like “Zionist” “Jewish” “The Jews” and maybe you used them interchangeably to some extent. So you adjusted a couple of things, maybe learned a few things, stood fast on others(you gotta be you), and now it’s not a big problem for you to discuss it, that is, you’ve got a discourse a language to discuss it and a set of parameters which enables you to get on with it, without immediate misunderstandings (not necessarily yours, not saying that) which derail the old discourse train. That, at least is how it seems to me.
Well, what Zionists don’t seem to understand that everyone is going to do that in one way or another to try and get past the silence and obfuscation which has heretofore dogged the issue. The Zionists can be part of it, if they want, But if they don’t want, you know what, it’s going to happen anyway, and the results may not be as pleasing as you got, because it’ll be done in complete disregard of Jewish feelings, since the Zionists refuse to allow it to happen, and refuse to be part of it. And it seems to me immature and foolish in light of the fact that other minorities have waited possibly centuries to be talked about as human
This unlimited support for Israel and it’s untransigence is having consequences, big ones, and people are gonna talk about it.
good comment mooser
Mooser:
Re: ”Yet, when I came here, you a few turns of phrase, and a few (in my opinion) things to sort out about the terms like “Zionist” “Jewish” “The Jews” and maybe you used them interchangeably to some extent.”
I disagree with your wary (“maybe” and “to some extent”) assessment of my comment history here, which is longer than yours.
In short I don’t think I am a good example of what you are trying to say, which otherwise has merit.
Some here have been posting here as long, or longer than I have, and maybe they will offer their two cents.
My point was that it shouldn’t be too difficult for a non-Jew to talk about the issue, certainly not so difficult that screaming anti-Semitism and never considering what they have to say is the right course, or the only possibility.
But you may be right Citizen, and it may be that you didn’t have to adjust your rhetoric very much, but instead the discourse came around to you! Certainly the comment wasn’t meant as a criticism or even an analysis of your rhetoric.
I guess what I was trying to say is this: When the desire to discuss the topic (I-P issues) arises from honest concerns about the US, and’or the Palestinians, or any concern but anti-Semitism, it shouldn’t take much more that a few adjustments to make a common discourse possible.
And as I said, if Zionists just can’t bear the way people talk about Jews, they can comfort themselves by reading some of the discourse from white civil rights supporters</i during the civil rights era. A lot of it was clumsy, or condescending, full of racialist concepts and tropes, but it was what they had, and they wanted to accomplish something. Compared to that, Zionists don’t have much to complain of, and they are welcome to have some influence on the discussion. But they can’t stop it, and they can’t punish people for having it.
People back then knew when to close their tags though. Right after “supporters”
“I disagree with your wary (“maybe” and “to some extent”) assessment of my comment history here, which is longer than yours.”
That’s why I tried to leave myself an “out”,with the “maybe” you know? Since, as you say, your comment history is longer. But if you could do me a favor, and serve as my illustration, I owe you one.
And remember, my whole point is how little adjustment it took, not how much. So little, so little… I got it: so little, you didn’t even notice it happening!
Okay, I think I squeezed out of that.
what a shit storm in that comment section.
this reminded me of prop 8 in calif the marriage initiative. the mormon church flooded donations into the anti gay brigade. i kid you not and people made lists of it. i don’t know how it was organized but it definitely was. here’s an article in the latimes. gays protested the mormons and it was big news here and nobody seemed intimidated by being outed as racist or discriminatory for calling out those mormon donations in the least. in facts the screams were that the mormons were homophobes (they are).
so what’s the frigging difference? do you think any aid would have been fired for making lists of mormon doners and sending it out over the internet? hardly.
does anyone here think evangelicals are not very encouraged to vote in unison and make donations? yeah, they can’t be too blatant about it but gee i recall working on a campaign where made lists of churches and you have people in those churches. if someone in the bible belt published those list of churches would they be fired? would it be scandalous? no.
but god forbid anyone make a list of jewish donors. it’s the ol silent treatment until it’s splashed all over the place and thenm deep apologies need to be forthcoming. something is very wrong w/this picture.
It looks like Mooser’s already posted a comment along the same lines as I did above. I guess I wasn’t far off in my assessment.
Great, in that case I can feel some assurance I might be right.
“Pre-state Jewish undergrounds enjoy a renaissance among settlers. In recent years, interest in the pre-state Revisionist underground movements has grown among West Bank settlement youth.”
Hmmmmm….so fascists and nazis are intrigued with the fascists and nazis of the past. I’ll bet the goatsods are especially interested in the terrorism done by those earlier ziofascists.
These crittiers are a herpes breakout on the arsehole of the world.
Turns out the reason James Jesus Angleton, CIA counterintelligence chief, was the one who helped to set up Mossad in 1951 and who was in charge of liaison with Israeli intelligence was that he was stationed in Italy in the late 1940′s (having spent a good deal of his youth in Italy, where his father worked), and Israeli Revisionists had a close association with Italy from the time of Mussolini.
Betar. Still in existance in some capacity lysias. I believe Mussolini gave the Organization The old Marina Militare Academy to do their drills and such. They where Fascist of course. JJA. had his slimy hands in a lot of horrendous pies over the years. I believe he was instrumental in setting up the NATO stay behind armies of Operation Gladio.
oh yeah
Annie, I am lazy and a bad “netizen” so I won’t provide the link, which I had and can’t find now, but your a good detective, you may want to look into Licio Gelli and the Propaganda Due. I believe there was some speculation that elements of this Org. Provided the forged documents to Ledeen. I’ll bet Shmuel knows more, he is Italian and knows quite a bit about their domestic politics.
The “Hilltop-Youth” really irritate me though. Buncha pot smoking, Dreadlocked, Fascist, dirty Hippies. I saw one with a tie-dyed Kahane-Chai shirt in a pic once. Erggh.
“israeli hippies”
That’s like one of those oxymorons George Carlin described, like military intelligence.
but they exist, smoke the cess, and listen to psy-trance.
the neo Lumpenproletariat.
Chu
So do neocon (republican) youth in the usa. Check it out some time.
:D
“Avigdor Lieberman is typical of important currents in that community and very “Russian” in his attitudes on things like rule of law and ethnic minorities.”
Apparently the author of this piece is still living in the cold war with it’s lame, ethnic stereotypes. Typical example of a “nice guy” zionist pov, there. Lieberman is like colonial/settler types everywhere and throughout history, and especially like those ancient Hebrew brigands who went from town to town in the Old Testament wiping out the inhabitants and stealing everything.
They all may have been reared in Russia or vicinity but it’s clear they never understood Crime & Punishment (if they ever read it) unless they saw the protagonist as a hero, as the superior being he thought he was.
I have spent a lot of time in Russia over the years and have spoken with lot’s of Russians about the modal Russian political culture and set of attitudes. They would have no problem with identifying Lieberman as “Russian” in this sense, even as they deplore it. Obviously, not all, or probably even most Russians, have these attitudes, but lots do and they are over-represented among the governing elite there these days.
mdesch
One can find that sort of mentality (leiberman’s) dominating the oligarchies the capitalist/rightwing guvs of most countries.
Aargh! Here’s a hideous disconnect
link to gilad.co.uk
Several articles today about a UK internet company selling appallingly racist anti-Islam, anti-Arab, pro-Jewish clothing, from babygros on. Incendiary.
Bumblebye
I’m wondering if cafe press was bought by a zionist recently, I don’t remember seeing bigoted slogans promoted on their items in the past. Now they don’t even carry the ХУЙ ВОЙНЕ! tees they used to.
ХУЙ ВОЙНЕ! doesn’t sound like a slogan a Zionist would welcome.
I think the google translate version on a t-shirt would provoke only snickers.
Bumblebye
The google translation is a bit off on the first term. ХУЙ is an acronym that is usually used to mean the word fuck.
lysias
I believe zionists would probably prefer a word like продвигать instead of the term ХУЙ.
;D
“the religious authorities there define Judaism so narrowly that fewer American Jews count any more”
I have long urged Jews to abandon Jewishness, but now it seems that at least part of Jewishness is abandoning a lot of Jews!
Every ideology eventually, as it gains prominence and strength, devolves to its essence. Narrow mindedness eventually takes the mind, so that the thought processes become lethal in some instances – so that they must retreat to their small core assumptions. Fascist-like ideology always ends up fighting the world, it inverts any religious convictions and reads its dictum’s into and reduces to a small set of rules for preservation – it becomes delusional. The closing of the mind leads to atrocities which can be “rationalized” by the small set of ideological tenets, it is what drove the Nazi’s to genocide, and seems to be the same general direction in which Zionist Israel is moving. Centralism and control of the masses prevails and eventually wipes out valid dissent, and when any contrary view is espoused it is viciously attacked and dismissed so that the course toward destruction ensues. Unfortunately this is describes exactly what is going on with current Zionism in Israel, they might as well start learning how to goose step (and not all fascism looks exactly like the Nazi variety, but it carries out a similar course of mental shutdown and accelerating atrocities which grow in intensity).
Yes, “the course toward destruction ensues,” under the deluded mask of eternal survival at ALL costs. Ask Oliver Stone.