Last month we picked up the news that Jewish groups in New Mexico are trying to stop Ali Abunimah's talk at the University of N.M. next week. Well Abunimah's blog contains the disgusting news that a local Jewish leader has likened him to the KKK in an interview with the Albuquerque Journal:
Sam Sokolove, executive director of the Jewish Federation who signed the letter, said Abunimah represents a hate movement that is not interested in dialogue. He compared a Jewish conversation with Abunimah to a debate between the NAACP and the Ku Klux Klan.
For shame. Also this from the Journal:
Abunimah, in an interview with the Journal, said the opposition isn't a surprise. The letter-writing campaign is an attempt to stop the conversation before it occurs because the debate is one critics don't win, he said."I'm against apartheid in Israel. I'm against discrimination. I'm for equal rights for everyone, I say that every time I speak. ... I believe Israeli Jews and Palestinians have a right to live in peace, tranquility and equality, just like Americans do," he said. "But that's a very threatening message for people who believe there should be a system where one group of people has more rights than another. I'm assuming that's why they don't want me to be there and speak."
The comparison with the NAACP and the KKK is apt. Sokolove just has the participants backwards.
The truth, of course, is the opposite of what these rabid Zionists are saying, , since the KKK is and has always advocated white supremacy, never equality. Why are Zionists trying to pin the KKK label on their opponents? Two reasons, the first – they’re desperate, the second – as a premptive move (“hey, you can’t call us that, we used KKK first”)
I think it’s a tactic used to throw their opponents. It’s similar to the Istaeli government accusing those calling for Israel to sign the NPT ” hypocrites”.
Here’s a summary, instruction pamphlet, and video clip for extinguishing the BDS movement and smearing its most eloquent speakers: link to aliabunimah.posterous.com
The video clip ends with the conclusion that the motive of BDS is to end Zionism forever.
“The video clip ends with the conclusion that the motive of BDS is to end Zionism forever.”
It sounds just like Witty, which goes to show there is no daylight between so called “liberal Zionists” and the extremists.
Shingo, precisely. That’s why Witty constantly attacks BDS. Witty has maintained that the notion of dual citizenship or disloyalty to the US is a red herring because we all have multiple identities. He never discusses that we also all priortize said multiple identities. Number One on Witty’s many selves list is: Zionist. Being an American and being a humanitarian and/or follower of The Enlightenment apropos Israeli activity are farther down on his list. Yet, despite his most heartfelt connection to the nuclear-armed state of Israel, the citadel of preemptive war, it does not so move him that he will move there.
I wonder if this is the first time in history that Jews needed talking points prepared for them to demonstrate how to argue a case. It’s pretty telling as to the weakness of spirit of pro-Israel groups on campus if they’re felt to need this kind of support.
Many racists in the old south were threatened by the prospect of equality with “people of color”. It is difficult to wield power when there is equality; thus, equality is a threat to the dominant group.
Zionism is all about spin and smears. The ideology doesn’t stand up to the light. It goes way back. “Publish it not” is a very good history of what sort of thuggery earlier generations of Zionists managed.
Think of the lies and falsehoods surrounding the deaths of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndalll or Cast Lead , the blinding of Emily Henchowicz (sp), the flotilla or the destruction of the Jenin refugee camp.
Look at the litany of Israeli imposed misery that Seham posts daily and see why Hasbara is so vital to the Zionist effort.
Would be nice if Seham’s daily posts magically appeared on The Factor, the spin stops here–every day. Anyone have a clue why Murdoch is such a rapid Zionist?
Sam Sokolove should try going to the West Bank, where he will quickly find out who most resembles the KKK – the settler movement has everything except the white hoods, but that’s because they don’t need anonymity, since the IDF and the Israelis give them a free pass to harass and murder local farmers and their children.
As for the attempts to smear BDS people – how instructive that the characteristics they fear most are “calmness, highbrow style and constant references to international law and human rights” and this is to be feared. Since they apparently do not possess the intellectual capacity to combat these terrifying people, they must instead be prevented from speaking. Apparently the Jewish state advocates censorship inside a country which was founded on the principles of freedom – what, you may ask, gives a foreign power the right to try and muzzle speakers at a university and prevent the freedom of thought and debate? Anyone might think they are scared of such radical concepts. Any university giving in to these bullying and anti-freedom of thought thought policemen should be ashamed of itself. Indeed, one would expect any institution which values education and debate to denounce such crude and barbaric tactics in the strongest possible terms. Censorship and sliming may be common currency in Israel, but the attempt to export it should be cause to tell them to take a hike, back to their tinpot little semi-fascist country.
The US academic models, the ivy league schools, churn out the best and the brightest Wall Street crooks and government war mongers you can get.
RE: “Sam Sokolove, executive director of the Jewish Federation who signed the letter, said Abunimah represents a hate movement…” – Weiss
SEE: Two Jewish youths charged with shooting at Arabs during Safed clashes ~ By Eli Ashkenaz, Haaretz 11/01/12
AND SEE: The Occupation and Political Corruption in Israel ~ By Uri Avnry, Counterpunch, 11/02/10
Gee, where’s Gregory Peck when we need him?
Equality = hate
Aggressor = victim
Critique = anti-Semitism
Accountability = retribution
Rewarding the thief = “justice”
Peaceful protesters = destabilizing maximalists
Suffering Palestinians = resilient and energetic Palestinians
Despite offering a full range of adjustments – from “full-on rabid Zionism” to “enough Zionism” – the Zio-supremacist looking-glass nevertheless delivers some strange optics. The warning label should read: “For ‘humanists’ only.”
You know what’s ironic about all of this?
I see a great parallel between the birth and spread of Wahhabism and Israel’s policies.
Rabbis forbidding the sale of land to non-Jews – sounds a LOT like the Wahhabist ban on the sale of land to non-Muslims.
Seriously, at a time when many are fed up with extremism and narrow-mindedness in the Middle East, it seems these usurpers of Judaism – just like those of Islam before them – are growing stronger and more vocal.