"It is with regret that I say that in some communities in the United States, the divide between left and right has become so bitter that they avoid discussion of Israel altogether," Daniel Shapiro, our new, proudly-Zionist ambassador to Israel, said recently.
I thought of Shapiro's remark often last weekend, which I spent at the second houses of friends and relations on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. For there is a pronounced divide between privileged non-Jews and Jews when it comes to the issue. The non-Jews all talk about it, the Jews don't. And consequently, the Jews seem unaware of the sharp new currents in American privileged life.
Here are some of the things non-Jews said about the issue:
--“Is it true that Israel is the only country in the world run on a religious basis?” This from a very proper woman I had known when I was a kid, coming up to me in the public library. I said I didn’t think that was the case.
--“I always thought it was a mistake. What a boneheaded move—to put a Jewish state down in the Arab world!” –A friend of my wife's, when I said she only began criticizing Israel recently.
--Another old friend of my wife's, answering a yoga girl’s question on a Sunday morning, when the yoga girl dropped by before going to a farmers market: "Why is there such an intimate relationship between the US and Israel? Because the British established it with the Balfour Declaration. And then we took over after World War II and now rich Jews make sure that our politicians say nothing against the idea.”
--From my wife, in the same conversation: “We met people over there [East Jerusalem] that are just like us. A guy with an Oxford degree in history, working for a university. Another friend with a degree in architecture from Cornell. And all they talk about is when they have to renew their papers in order to be in Jerusalem legally. Then you understand, this is exactly what Jim Crow must have felt like.”
Of course Israel/Palestine isn’t the sum of these people’s political concerns. They are all good liberal Democrats. They want to talk about Obama and health care and mock Bachmann and Perry. But when our foreign policy comes up, and the Middle East, they express rage.
Now compare that to my Jewish friends. OK, I know; many Jews are afraid to talk to me. They’ve heard I’m an ultra. But they've known me a long time and they can't help bringing the topic up by the corner, like a rug with something under it, and dropping it quickly. “You would like this book the Finkler Question,” an old girlfriend said to me one night. “Every character in the Jewish scene is represented. There is someone very much like you, someone who cares about the Palestinians. It is a good portrait.”
I nodded and smiled and said I had to get the book. I just ordered it. But I know what author Howard Jacobson says about people like me in his book—we are self-hating Jews. My old girlfriend's sister was with us, at 10 o'clock, drinking red wine in the cabin-like house where I almost lost my virginity, and she is in a liberal synagogue. Her rabbi brought Combatants for Peace to the synagogue a few years back, she told me. I told her I had seen the same tour, with Elik Elhnanan, whose sister Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber.
But I didn’t tell her anything about where Elhanan is now, about Jewish Voice for Peace. It felt too pushy; his politics are too progressive for these American Jews to try and come to terms with. "The vast majority of American Jews care deeply about Israel and want the United States to be Israel’s partner in ensuring its future as a secure, democratic, and Jewish State," ambassador Shapiro said, truly, the other day. They really don't care about Palestinians.
This belief in Zionism is not something most Jews can hold up and examine. It is not about Israel really, but about a collectively-constructed identity that I sense strongly even in the privileged beach town: we are liberals, outsiders, exceptional minds, achievers, victims of anti-Semitism, analytical intellectuals and talkers (we're smarter), dedicated to civil rights and feminism. We are a very distinct group. Like all social identities, some of it is chauvinistic, some of it real, but the greatest weakness in it is our sense of our relation to power. I don't know how you can claim to be an outsider at a time when the Democratic National Committee lists cultivating Jewish donors as its thirdmost priority after discussing healthcare and jobs. I don't know that most Jews understand the extent to which Zionism has become an Establishment value. That is the only way to look at Dan Shapiro being our new ambassador to Israel and calling on American Jews to throw themselves into Zionist education. Or Rick Perry's love of Israel, or the 81 congresspeople's summer recess there. Or Ethan Bronner’s unimpeachable status at the Times, when his son served in the IDF; the Times wants a Zionist to represent it in Jerusalem. Or the Times’ promotion of neconservatives David Frum and Bill Kristol even after they plotted the Iraq disaster. Zionism is an establishment value. You have to not criticize Zionism or you won’t get anywhere. Look what a standing joke Ron Paul is in the MSM.
Still the argument is happening behind closed doors. Privileged east coast non-Jews don't care for Israel. They sound like outsiders when they talk about the issue. And the Jews sound as entitled as Rockefeller Republicans.
Phil wrote:
“The non-Jews all talk about it, the Jews don’t.”
Well I wonder about that as I continually see examples of them talking about it amongst *themselves.* In another thread I noted what I thought was an extraordinary statement from the President of the (North American) Union of Reform Judaism Eric Yoffie who, among other similar things, said “I prefer to live among jews.”
(link to blogs.jpost.com)
Now, even putting aside the fact that Yoffie has been a loud, long-time multi-culti kind of guy here, I don’t suspect he’d be making this kind of statement out in the open in the U.S. But where he felt safe to say it to his fellow ethnics—in the J-Post—yet still out of the general earshot of the U.S. population and media, well, there he is.
Of course one example doth not much evidence make, but without being able to come up with specifics I seem to rather regularly see U.S. jews saying things over there in Israel that I flat out would bet they’d just simply never say here openly. Never.
So anyway I wonder if as Phil says jews don’t talk about it (although certainly true with him for obvious reasons), but instead they do so talk but amongst themselves only because of *what* they are saying, such as what Yoffie said.
After all if, as Phil sees it, they see themselves as “liberals, outsiders, exceptional minds, achievers, victims of anti-Semitism, analytical intellectuals and talkers (we’re smarter), dedicated to civil rights and feminism…,” well why *wouldn’t* they feel the way Yoffie does?
So do I, which is why I loved Manhattan. But I want to live among towering intelligences like Harold Pinter, not the small-minded and xenophobic David Mamet.
perfect, mrw. jews did perform exceptional feats and make exceptional contributions in all fields, but that exceptionalism occurred in the face of poverty and anti-semitism. mamet is an example of the succesful but truly unexceptional minds of the current generation of elites, jews and non-jews alike. there is nothing exceptional about a group of pseudo-intellectuals quoting (insert real intellectual here) when those pseudos had access to the best education in the world and had every material advantage available to them.
marc b.
Especially true of Pinter, for whom those experiences became a crucible for his nobility of thought, not an excuse to create an aquarium of victimhood and Jewish schtick that he could swim around in flashing his rage and bemoaning a 2,000 year history he didn’t participate in other than in books. He did it by assimilating himself 1000% into the culture he was in, and listening. His listening became a moral force.
The development of his ear and eye from those experiences produced plays of such searing quality that they still take my breath away. Mamet claimed him as a serious influence; he tried to mimic his timing and silences. But Mamet, ultimately, didn’t have the humanity that underpins Pinter’s ‘listening’, that came from Pinter transcending just the suffering you describe and becoming more. Witness the cranky petty man Mamet has become.
I spent part of the time last night re-listening to Pinter’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 2005 before writing my post above. You have to be theatre-crazy to really appreciate it, because his description of how he writes makes you realize how he heard and saw the world he grew up in, and he even describes that as if he were writing a play. You’re inside his head.
For those who might be interested, here’s his speech:
link to nobelprize.org
he tried to mimic his timing and silences.
he did so pretty hand-handedly. ‘oleana’ comes to mind, which i saw in chicago about a quarter a century ago.
marc b.,
lol. Except I saw it in Manhattan with Rebecca Pidgeon, just after he married her, I think. I couldn’t figure out whether it was the lines or the delivery that made me think she had crippling bowel problems. That’s all I remember about the play: the strain. And her dark hair and bangs. It was so mannered.
MRW,
Can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for posting link to Pinter’s lecture… I was mesmerized. He expressed so eloquently how I feel about the USA and what has happened since WWII. His words ought to be heard by all. Really, really powerful. What a human being! What a marvelous mind. Again, thank you, thank you!
” jews did perform exceptional feats and make exceptional contributions in all fields, but that exceptionalism occurred in the face of poverty and anti-semitism.”
How many of the people who performed those feats were comfortable, middle-class people living in tolerant countries with a high degree of personal freedom? And how many weren’t?
Yeah, crone, wasn’t he great. The thing I like about Jews is that when they get noble, they can knock it out of the park (like Henry Siegman). Or, maybe I’m just prejudiced because I was lucky to have three older-generation mentors in Manhattan for a long time until they died who were just that. And they were ruthless in forming, actually crafting, my opinion about Israel—such great talkers—when I didn’t even think an opinion was necessary. ;-) One made aliyah for retirement, then came home four months later tearing his hair out, such stories: he was a born New Yorker, that’s all.
[It's the petty little shits I have a problem with, Jew or Jain, American or Albanian, nine or 90, doesn't make me no never mind. Congenital, visceral dislike for petty.]
But Pinter was a creative and political titan for me. His compassion was prodigious. He will have Shakespeare’s stature eventually.
I agree with Sin Nombre’s emphasis on the importance of separatism. When Rabbi Lerner says he wants an Israel so that Jews can be safe, he doesn’t mean safe from sabre-wielding cossacks, or safe from nuclear missiles. Israel makes Jews less safe in that sense. He really means safe from assimilation. The ideas of Jewishness are out there in a million works of art and literature. They can make their own way, to be accepted or rejected. But to all those who believe in a “Jewish people,” Jewishness ends when the blood line thins out. Zionism has always really been about anti-assimilation. I don’t think Phil’s Jewish friends are avoiding the issue out of complacency or laziness. They just take it for granted that Jews are a people apart.
PTJ- Your point is well taken. A key to understanding Jews and Zionism is to understand that Zionism is, in many ways, classical Judaism in secular form, warped by Eastern European blood and soil nationalism. Both Zionism and classical Judaism see Jews as a people apart. Both oppose assimilation. “It seems that Israel and Zionism are a throw-back to the role of classical Judaism — writ large, on a global scale, and under more dangerous circumstances.” (Israel Shahak)
Good turn of phrase, Keith: “warped by Eastern European blood and soil nationalism.”
You could almost say hijacked, too. Which begs the question: who abdicated their judgment?
Phil, you paint a sad picture of a people who have been prisoner to an idea (and an unexamined love) for so long that — when it comes into question, as one might delicately say of the current time — they have to close-up, get even more “unexamined-life” about it.
So sad.
And so evil, because they are not merely observers in this unhappy story, but actors, who can call their Congressman, write to the NYT, give money here and there, etc.
Congress is only prisoner to AIPAC because no-one else will speak up and become a counter-pressure-group. The JVP fringe is a splinter-group. We need an OUTSPOKEN MAJORITY. We don’t have it yet, because of this shutting-down and shutting-up.
actually i would say that the elite collective ‘mind’ that weiss describes is fairly unexceptional when it is incapable of objective self-analysis.
What the MSM won’t talk about is the real reason Ron Paul is a joke among them. They know but can’t say it’s because he hasn’t pledged allegiance to Israel, so they have to denigrate his candidacy with innuendo and smarm.
Phil,
This lifted four inches off of my screen: “And consequently, the Jews seem unaware of the sharp new currents in American privileged life.” That and the rage remark: “they express rage.”
You’ve got your ear to the ground, Phil. There are sharp new currents. And ennui. Since you don’t hobnob enough with the non-privileged ;-) let me tell you it is dawning and happening there as well. I hear it. For the readers among the less-privileged, it started with Operation Cast Lead. The Mavi Marmara added visceral disgust. Netanyahu’s appearance before Congress was a kind of wakeup call, especially to the Ron Paul Democrats I talk to, who didn’t like it. The 81 Congressmen going to Israel this summer, however, in the heat of our economic mess to guarantee US taxpayer cash to Israelis when they refuse to fix the problems here at home stuck in the craw. Greta Van Susteren read the country like an earthquake report when she called them all tone-deaf and out of touch. Fox News. It’s like when French Fries became Freedom Fries; no one gave a shit then (in whatever state it started) that the French gave us the Statue of Liberty and champagne.
The rage comes in because of the taboo against talking about it, the arch and simplistic screeches of anti-semitism that Abe Foxman throws around in order to keep his job, and what is now perceived as hideousness on the part of Dersh-like Jews who go after non-Jews viciously for questioning our foreign policy and financial outlays in public. The silencing begets the rage (something Danaa and I discussed a lot about two years ago here, how there was going to be a consequence). But wait until that rage turns into contempt. I’m hearing that now too. Real contempt. As someone said the other day, majority support for Israel in the US is a mile wide and an inch deep.
Jews need to wake up, like Phil said: Israel’s security is not the number one issue facing this country. Jobs are. It’s nice that you’re privileged and rich enough to have only Israel’s security as your burning issue, but taking up congressional and presidential time, threatening to slice and dice incumbents, clogging the House with bills that benefit Israel, when that congressional and presidential time is needed 110% to address the national financial peril we’re facing is going to backfire. Don’t say you weren’t warned. It may play in Florida, New York, Los Angeles, DC, and Chicago, but that’s about all.
“Israel’s security is not the number one issue facing this country. Jobs are. ”
Ma’aleh Adumim appears to be more important than this :
US census report on income
• Real median household income was $49,445 in 2010, a 2.3 percent
decline from 2009 (Figure 1 and Table 1).
• Since 2007, the year before the most recent recession, real median household income has declined 6.4 percent and is 7.1 percent below the median household
income peak that occurred in 1999 (Figure 1 and Tables A-1 and A-2) .
• The official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent—up from 14.3 percent in 2009. This was the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate. Since 2007, the poverty rate has increased by 2.6 percentage points, from 12.5 percent to 15.1 percent (Table 4 and Figure 4).
• In 2010, 46.2 million people were in poverty, up from 43.6 million in 2009—the fourth consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty (Table 4 and Figure 4).
(Definitions of income are in appendix A page 31. Definition of poverty is in appendix B page 61).
link to census.gov
Or this, seafoid:
“15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America”
link to businessinsider.com
The second chart shows that 2.5% of the wealth goes to 50% of the population. 150m people. What it doesn’t show is that the top 400 families on the wealth tree own as much as the bottom 150m.
That’s a great set of figures MRW.
link to monthlyreview.org
58% of all income growth in the US between 1976 and 2007 went to the top 1% of the population. The top 0.01% or 15000 households had 1.7% of all income in 1976 and 6.04% by 2007. By 2004 the top 1% of wealthholders in the US held 42% of all financial and real assets, the most unequal distribution since the 20s. The top quintile held 93% of such assets
Also, “Wealth and Democracy” by Kevin Phillips is a wonderful read.
I agree with MRW, that’s basically what I’ve seen unfold during my years watching Israel and I/P.
Back when I started following, almost nothing critical of Israel was said by anyone for public consumption and we who did were called anti semites.
I think 911 initally brought the ME and Israel into focus.
And then negatives of Israel started showing when a few public figures, mostly foreign policy types, started criticizing the US-Isr and I/P scheme.
Then we had people like Carter, Tutu and W&M, Freeman, a passel of academics like Cole and others, a few in the MSP who stuck their necks out—in other words, enough figures with cred in various areas that they got thru to the public.
I can’t pin point the exact time when I basically said “well F***it” to all the anti semite slurs and quit trying to explain I wasn’t an anti semite, but it seemed everyone else reached that point at the same time and the Israel issue blew wide open.
As MRW said, what really was the jump start for the ‘regular’ (less news addicted) public was Operation Cast Lead. I’ve already told about the effect it had on my area when our newspaper front paged pictures of dead Palestine children. It started a firestorm of Israel criticism.
Also as MRW pointed out…trying to censor and silence
critics had the opposite effect. Tell people to shut up or what they can’t say and insult them with character slurs, and the majority are going to respond with “‘ who the hell do you think you are telling me to shut up”.
The next thing I noticed that happened is how the Israel critics caught on to the deception, deflections and irrationality of the zionist propaganda and arguments and stared just ridiculing and laughing at them.
The main point now, where this is at now, goes back to what many of us have said before and had a long thread on.
That the Jews or Zionist “have gone too far”. They have “over reached” in their hubris. They are sort of like drunken sailors on shore leave after a year at sea out to take over the port town. This actually has nothing to do with resentment of, or even much notice of Jewish wealth per se as distinguished from gentile or other Elite wealth, it’s only in how Jews are seen as using money to corrupt government FP policy that affects the country and therefore the public.
The one saving grace in what would otherwise be a squaring off of Jews vr Americans over Israel- I/P- USA is the Jewish groups and Jewish figures that are active for peace and justice. Meda, mondo, Max, a host of others.
The missing part for the “other public”, those not obsessed with this like we are, is the MSM won’t let them thru. Which means the ‘other public” only sees crap like the Ed Kochs making our elections and our interest only about Jews and Israel. And our politicians like Schumer and Hoyer, etc,etc., very publically swearing allegiance to a foreign country and giving them money we can’t afford to give while Americans are being told to sacrifice.
The best outcome I can see is for the Israeli loyalist Jews/ Zios to be ‘marginalized politically”. Taking political money with strings attached to it out of elections and politics. But that isn’t going to happen soon enough, if ever, to curtail the zios. So the only thing that might reverse the Israeli fetish in our government is a “huge” outrage among the public that makes it political death for politicians who keep supporting it.
When it gets to be a ‘popular outrage” in the ‘ general public’ is when it will start having an effect on how Jews are ‘in general’ are regarded.
And the Israel criticism Phil pointed out in the remarks of what is considered the privileged gentile and non Jew groups means there won’t be a elite defense of Jews and Israel from them appearing in the pages of Vanity Fair and other semi intellectual and trend setting mags of the rich and famous and infamous.
So I don’t know the ending….all I know is our politicians are ultimately responsible for this Zionist Israel 5th column. If I was writing a thriller novel on all this I would sent out a few good assassination teams and that would be the end of the problem.
“The best outcome I can see is for the Israeli loyalist Jews/ Zios to be ‘marginalized politically”. ”
I think the Jewish thing in the US is like the Alawi thing in Syria.
The Alawis and the Jews have so much in common. Except the Jews didn’t have taqiya and it would have saved a lot of trouble…
link to nybooks.com
“The Alawis of Syria, who make up only 12 percent of its population, split from the main branch of Shiism more than a thousand years ago. . Taking refuge in the mountains above the port of Latakia, on the coastal strip between modern Lebanon and Turkey, they evolved a highly secretive syncretistic theology containing an amalgam of Neoplatonic, Gnostic, Christian, Muslim, and Zoroastrian elements. Mainstream Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, regarded them as ghulta, “exaggerators.” Like other sectarian groups they protected their tradition by a strategy known as taqiyya—the right to hide one’s true beliefs from outsiders in order to avoid persecution. Taqiyya makes a perfect qualification for membership in the mukhabarat—the ubiquitous intelligence/security apparatus that has dominated Syria’s government for more than four decades.
Secrecy was also observed by means of a complex system of initiation, in which insiders recognized each other by using special phrases or passwords and neophytes underwent a form of spiritual marriage with the naqibs, or spiritual guides.
Moosa suggests that like other schismatic groups residing in Syria, such as the Druzes and Ismailis, the Nusayris do not take their beliefs literally, but understand them as allegorical ways of reaching out to the divine. While this may be true of the educated naqibs, or spiritual elders, such belief systems may have different ramifications for semiliterate peasants, reinforcing a contempt or disdain for outsiders who do not share these beliefs. Like the Druzes and some Ismailis, Nusayris believe in metempsychosis or transmigration. The souls of the wicked pass into unclean animals such as dogs and pigs, while the souls of the righteous enter human bodies more perfect than their present ones. The howls of jackals that can be heard at night are the souls of Sunni Muslims calling their misguided co-religionists to prayer.
It does not take much imagination to see how such beliefs, programmed into the community’s values for more than a millennium, and reinforced by customs such as endogamous marriage—according to which the children of unions between Nusayris and non-Nusayris cannot be initiated into the sect—create very strong notions of apartness and disdain for the “Other.”
“It does not take much imagination to see how such beliefs, programmed into the community’s values for more than a millennium, and reinforced by customs such as endogamous marriage—according to which the children of unions between Nusayris and non-Nusayris cannot be initiated into the sect—create very strong notions of apartness and disdain for the “Other.”
Same thing about taqiyya goes for the neo-Platonic-inspired Druze, another offshoot of Shia Islam. You can only be born a Druze but can never convert to become one and the full extent of the religion as described in their 5 secret sacred books is known only to the few educated elders called “akl”, the wise ones while the masses are known as the “jahl”, the uninitiated or ignorants.
Another interesting aspect of Nusayris or Alawites as they are called today, is that according to their secret writings, all men were once luminous bodies in the heavens but having sinned in not having recognized Ali (Mohammed’s grandson) that appeared to them in varrying forms, to punish them, he created a lesser world for them to inhabit as humans and the metempsychosis they believe in is reserved for men only because women are devoid of a reasonable soul. When they attain perfection and get nearer to God, they become luminous bodies again and return to live among the stars.
I never found out what becomes of women that are doomed because of their imperfect souls.
Interesting stuff, you two.
If the Jews had had taqiyya they never would have been forced into the diaspora. This assumes of course that the Ashkenazim are not Khazari. Taqiyya is a wonderful concept.
“I never found out what becomes of women that are doomed because of their imperfect souls”
Hinduism is the same. Only the men count. Ultimately all patriarchies have the same flaws.
My understanding of what’s behind taqiyya is that its use was intended mostly for and in the diaspora to protect the faithful from persecution by having them sort of “blend” into the foreigners’ countryside. For the Druze as an example, when in the States or in Europe and the need is felt, it’s perfectly acceptable for them to pass, even officially, for Christians and even attend church services or whatever is necessary to avoid highlighting their apartness to protect them against any persecution, as long as in their hearts and minds they never forget or neglect what they really are and the precepts of their religion. I think had the Jews had the luxury of taqiyya, they would not have lived the ghettoed life under the negative attention of the societies among which they chose to live. In other words, contrary to adherents of taqiyya, the Jews went out of their way, and some still do, to highlight how much they are different and in some instances superior to other mortals. Druzes, Nusayris and so on that lived among their own were not in need of the taqiyya artifice of deception.
Post Islamic Spain was built around pork. The Zionists make a big deal of Jews being killed in the Inquisition because they refused to eat pork. Taqiyya would have avoided this nonsense.
Seafoid, ignorance got them killed. Muslims too have been known to die because of the pork thing but both Jews and Muslims have always had an override provision in their religion permitting them to eat forbidden stuff or break dietary laws in case of life threatening situations.
Jews have the “pikuach nefesh” principle that:
“… in Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious consideration. When the life of a specific person is in danger, almost any negative commandment of the Torah becomes inapplicable.”
and the Muslims’ override is in the Quran’s 16:115 that says:
“… He has forbidden for you only carrion and blood and swine-flesh and that which has been immolated in the name of any other than Allah; but he who is driven thereto, neither craving nor transgressing, Lo! then Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.”
“… in Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious consideration. When the life of a specific person is in danger, almost any negative commandment of the Torah becomes inapplicable.”
That is pre Israel Jewish law. In modern Israeli law the preservation of Jewish hegemony over Erez Israel overrides the sanctity of life.
American
Fantastic post .
“…create very strong notions of apartness and disdain for the “Other.””
Thanks for the education on taqiyya…..had never heard of that before.
“It’s like when French Fries became Freedom Fries; no one gave a shit then (in whatever state it started) that the French gave us the Statue of Liberty and champagne.”
Also recognition and support from the beginning. I suspect that without French help, the British would have crushed the American rebellion. (Of course, the French only did it to annoy the British, but the help was there.)
And I seem to recall that in the Kuwait war against Saddam it was the French who penetrated most deeply into Iraq and cut the routes from Baghdad to the south.
Actually, RoHa (and I don’t have time to go into it), it was the Spanish who wanted to annoy the British by helping the French 50 years after that 1753 treaty, whatever it was (which the French lost)—basis of the Louisiana Purchase, 1803. Jefferson was enamoured with the French who were busy going through their own revolution, but that didn’t stop him from living in Paris. The French basically viewed their US land as a bread basket, which is why they needed a port at New Orleans. The French were busy fighting the British in Upper and Lower Canada, where fur trading was more important and lucrative than growing croissants, and that spilled over into the upper portions of the US. (This is so convoluted, I apologize.)
Actually, the credit (?) for U.S. possession of Louisiana should go to Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Haitian revolutionaries. As MRW points out, France had intended Louisiana as a breadbasket to feed the laborers (slaves) in its Saint Domingue sugar colony. After the revolutionaries (and disease) wiped out the French army and ruined Napoleon’s plan to restore slavery in the colony, Napoleon had no further use for Louisiana, and sold it to Jefferson at a yard-sale price.
notatall,
I’m talking about that huge tract of land in the upper left quadrant here, not a colony or small state, but the big breadbasket that we now call the heartland of America;-)
link to lib.utexas.edu
You can see a little peak of how Spain owned it before here in this 1775 map. It’s not entirely accurate because Spain also owned from St. Augustine in Florida across the panhandle the map calls West Florida to the orange stuff, in fact, 3/4 of the US until 1803. But the French also claimed territorial rights all the way down along the banks of the Mississippi to New Orleans:
link to lib.utexas.edu
Spain won the land from France in the 1750s secured by treaty, then Jefferson, much later, wanting to expand the US westward met the Spanish King’s emissaries in France after he heard Napoleon needed money. The King was willing to do sort of a three-way to royally screw up Britain both on the continent and in America, and help our young country. The King gave the land back to France in May 1803, then France signed it over around November 30, 1803 (I used to know this stuff by heart), then the US paid France/Napoleon $15 million on Dec 21, 1803. I may have the F/US sign-over and the payment countries mixed around: it may have been money first and sign over land later. Anyway, that’s the dough Napoleon needed to fight the Brits at Waterloo, and the Spanish King was counting on Napoleon trouncing them.
But all the movies about “The Louisiana Purchase” (that big tract, not the state) that Hollywood put out (Wayne? Ford?) are stories they just pulled out of their ass. Made ‘em up out of full cloth.
I need to go to sleep, but somewhere I have facsimiles of the docs they signed to do all this.
MRW, I don’t doubt that the Spanish wanted to annoy the British, and that this played a role in the business, but the French have wanted annoy the British since 1337 at the latest.
Of course, the feeling is mutual.
MRW,
We are talking about the same tract. Napoleon sold it to Jefferson because he had no use for it once he lost Saint Domingue. Some day people may study U.S. growth as part of Haitian history.
Ah, I see what you’re saying, notatall. But didn’t he lose Saint Domingue in 1802? Spain still owned le grand pays part of this, the landlocked part, in 1802 (it wasn’t Napoleon’s to give up or L’Ouverture’s to conquer) , and France owned the part around the port. I don’t think France ever gave that up in the 1750s…but I’m not about to go digging for the facts right now.
Some day people may study U.S. growth as part of Haitian history.
Not only that—and how Haiti was crippled with a century and a half of reparations—the entire Caribbean; everything radiated from there. We Americans look at that part of the world and say ‘history’? Gee, I thought it was always a Sandals Resort. All the action was there, and again, a map shows why: safe ship travel from Europe came down the coast of Africa to Cape Verde and across to the continent.
My first reaction to this piece was ” Who gives a sht what these Vineyard types think?”
I guess its time for George Clooney to make some more speeches about Darfur. Someone get Sean Penn on a plane to Haiti, post haste!!
Let these people not get invited to a cocktail party due to their “views” on I/P and see if they dont start singing a different tune.
This fascination with the elites is unsettling. Just about every social justice movement in the history of man has come DESPITE these people – the fact that they had some pre-scripted thing to say when they saw the “radical” Phil Weiss does not make them heroes.
These fat vineyard liberals – yea, they’re liberal until their view from their private beach is “threatened” by a wind farm!! How many black people did you see among these “liberals,” or really anywhere on the Vineyard? Right, ZERO.
What do they have to say about income inequality? Rampant poverty? What do they have to say about ALL our illegal wars? This administrations attacks on Civil Liberties? They certainly accepted their Bush Tax Cuts, probably added onto their Vineyard summer house, right? Maybe more important than anything else – what do these people DO FOR A LIVING? If you work at a mega bank and want to gripe about Israel, go F yourself. Your a part of the problem.
The whale belt crowd – the American Aristocracy- is as useless as the word “aristocracy” implies. I can almost envision some of these people, back in their summer homes later that night, getting ready to have sex with their clothes on, saying to their spouse, ” you wouldnt believe what I said about Israel to Phil Weiss, Im such a radical”
Yea, Carter Prescott IV – your a true blue radical.
This is nothing more than another “topic of the week” – they have been given a small window for crticism by Obama and his less than militant stance on Israel – if anything their newfound interest on the subject is probably based on wanting to defend Obama.
Where there is almost unanimous consensus on the issue is among WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. Among people who interact with people of average means from other countries. Ive seen numerous labor rallies flying Palestinian flags, because, unlike these ridiculous people on the Vineyard, “Solidarity” still means something to working men and women.
Got to get away from these people, Phil. They’ve watched the world burn from the Vineyard all their lives – you say Shapiro doesnt care about Palestinians, these people dont even care about the Vineyard Ferry Captain.
Actually it would only take one or maybe two George Clooneys to come out on Israel and a lot of other Hollywood figures way beyond career punishment by the right wing Jews in Hollywood would pile on.
Stars of his stature have enough money to finance their own movies and what ever else they want to finance and have been increasingly doing just that.
The only threat to them career wise is not the money power of Jews in Hollywood but the Jewish influence in the media slashing and burning and trying to boycott their movies or productions.
Dan Crowther,
Got to get away from these people, Phil.
I think it is important to hang with the “Vineyard” types. That’s where the money is. Maybe it shouldn’t be this way, but that’s the way it is now.
Phil,
I think your contention that “privledged Jews” aren’t aware of their proximity to power is utter hogwash. Of course they are aware. It just sounds “Protocol-esque” to articulate.
I even think, when us goys aren’t around, they may even gloat a bit. “Those stupid bastards gave it away! Can you believe it?” -N49.
“I even think, when us goys aren’t around, they may even gloat a bit. “Those stupid bastards gave it away! Can you believe it?” ”
Some of them do it in public…..where goys can see it..
It’ s like saying “bring it on” to the goys.
Very bad idea, ..vanity, vanity.
It’ s like saying “bring it on” to the goys.
Very bad idea, ..vanity, vanity.
Yep, I sense a bad thing coming. What goes around comes around. Reminds me of the final scene in A Serious Man: link to youtube.com -N49.
“How many black people did you see among these “liberals,” or really anywhere on the Vineyard? Right, ZERO.” – DAN CROWTHER
While I applaud your spirit, Dan, and share your desire to base antizionism in the working class, I must point out that there are, in fact, many black people on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer: Oak Bluffs has long been a popular resort among African-Americans of a certain social class. Obama has vacationed there for several years, including this past summer, as befits his (and others’) status, no longer as tokens but as full participants in making policy for the ruling class.
“Zionism is an establishment value. You have to not criticize Zionism or you won’t get anywhere. ”
Friday’s upcoming diplomatic disaster for the US is all about the difference between Zionist theory and the reality of the Middle East.
I occasionally read the AIPAC and MFA.gov.il sites. Reality has caught up with them. The memes are all dud. Maybe everyone in the Beltway buys it. Doesn’t mean it’s right.
Then it’s a question of how much Zionism costs America.
Every time I hear this song I think about how Jewish history lead to the hole in which Israel now finds itself.
link to youtube.com
“The past is part of the present” Ain’t it just so…
There appears to be a massive problem regarding the exercise of power.
Look at today. Barak goes to the Emperor for a private chat. He wants the Emperor to impose his will on the rest of the world. The Emperor has been neutered by other wars in the region. The whole world is now against the settlers. Only Congress stands with Israel. How did this happen? What thought patterns brought this about ? Why were so many UN Resolutions ignored? Why is Israel utterly dependent on the US ? And what will happen when Congress shafts Israel ?
It’s as if the Masada complex is still there 2000 years on.
“”It is with regret that I say that in some communities in the United States, the divide between left and right has become so bitter that they avoid discussion of Israel altogether,” Daniel Shapiro, our new, proudly-Zionist ambassador to Israel, said recently.”
This has been the case for decades. But is clearly changing
Phillip “. The non-Jews all talk about it, the Jews don’t.”
Non Jews talking about this out loud is very new the last 10 years. I have been involved with this social justice issue since the late 70′s. Have always had lots of Jewish friends many as you have described privileged east coast Jews. One of my partners was Jewish. I have never shied (I am sure any regulars here are not surprised) away from trying to discuss the I/P issue with any of my friends non Jews or Jews starting again back in the late 70′s. The reaction from almost all of my Jewish friends up until the last five years has been to avoid the issue at all cost… even though they would at the same time consider themselves social justice advocates some activist. I would challenge them and recently several have actually thanked me for doing so. In the past most would respond with typical knee jerk expected responses. But that avoidance at all cost is clearly changing as more young and older Jews examine this avoidance and denial.
Both Phil Weiss and Medea Benjaman have admitted out loud that they have just recently become involved with this issue in the last five or so years. But clearly when some people jump or get involved they really get involved.
I have to say I have truly admired like Norman Finkelstein who being brought up with close and very real reminders of the Holocaust that he made the effort to look closely at the emotional issues and also at the facts. This ability is unique. The ability to separate your own pain, trauma and look at another people’s pain and trauma. Even though your own cultural, sometimes religious identity may be threatened.
Norman is a prime example of this unique ability to rise above his own families suffering and loss and still do the right thing.
Over the years I have truly come to understand the second generation of Holocaust survivors. How that trauma was passed on. Now that is understandable. What is not understandable or acceptable is when that fear and trauma are cultivated, taken advantage of purposely by Jews or anyone else.
—————————————————————-
“This belief in Zionism is not something most Jews can hold up and examine. It is not about Israel really, but about a collectively-constructed identity that I sense strongly even in the privileged beach town: we are liberals, outsiders, exceptional minds, achievers, victims of anti-Semitism, analytical intellectuals and talkers (we’re smarter), dedicated to civil rights and feminism. We are a very distinct group. Like all social identities, some of it is chauvinistic, some of it real, but the greatest weakness in it is our sense of our relation to power. ”
And it is this ” collectively constructed identity” which is often fueled by a fantasized belief of exceptionalism that is ultimately destructive in any culture or religion .
What is so wonderful and healthy for all is that more and more Jews as well as others are really starting to talk together about the facts on the ground.
Let’s hope this ultimately manifest in a demand for a just solution in the I/P conflict
“The reaction from almost all of my Jewish friends up until the last five years has been to avoid the issue at all cost…”
LOL…absolutely. One of the funniest things (sort of) that happened to me way, way back soon after 911 was at a large sit down dinner party I asked the guy across from me who was a local Jew I had a passing acquaintance with what he thought about the ME and Israel I/P situation. He dropped his napkin under the table and spent so long trying to find it my question became history and he never answered. I was just beginning then my expedition into the US-Isr I/P- AIPAC- thing and wasn’t yet up to speed on the Jewish ‘tribal’ aspects of the subject so I didn’t realize I was dropping a bomb by asking.
Will use anything to shut it down. Defensiveness is a way to shut it down at the same time accept an extremely unjust situation. Many Jewish individuals have been aware of what is going on over there for years. Just do not want to talk about it. Because if they or others talk about the situation they are confirming what they know. And are also confirming that they have chosen not to do anything about it.
I have become very aware of this because of some Jewish friends finally dropping their defenses about the Issue
This contradicts the myth that Jews are especially pro active on social justice issues.
“Look what a standing joke Ron Paul is in the MSM.”
I think Rep Paul clearly understands what he is doing. He pushes the envelope in a constructive way and he knows it.
When you have brilliant individuals like former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit Micheal Scheuer and former Bush (43) official and former CIA middle east analyst Flynt Leverett applauding your efforts to shed light on the facts about US foreign policy then Rep Paul knows he is right on target
link to non-intervention.com
Interventionists ready a media lynching for Ron Paul
By mike | Published: September 4, 2011
The past ten days have seen a spate of pieces on Google News damning Congressman Ron Paul for “blaming” America for the 9/11 attacks. This is just the start of what will become a wave of ever-more shrill and lie-filled attacks on Mr. Paul as long as he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination and continues to find growing public support. The attacks on Mr. Paul are and will be the work of the Neoconservatives, the Israel-First fifth column of U.S. citizens, and AIPAC and those it controls in the Congress, media, and academy.
Mr. Paul, of course, never blamed the United States for the war the Islamists started and are now waging on the United States. What he did say is merely what is true beyond any credible challenge: Our growing number of Islamist enemies are motivated to attack us because of what the U.S. government does in the Muslim world and not because of how Americans live and think here at home. Mr. Paul bravely and clearly delivers this essential message to U.S. voters, and as long as he tells this truth he will receive the venom and slander of the above mentioned people and organizations.
———————————————–
link to raceforiran.com
CAN REP. RON PAUL INFLUENCE AMERICA’S IRAN DEBATE?
Posted on August 12th, 2011 under general with 258 replies.
The following link, see here, connects to a video clip from the Republican presidential debate in Ames, Iowa last night. In it, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas—regularly one of the very few members of Congress to vote consistently against Iran sanctions legislation—explains very succinctly what is wrong with America’s Iran policy. He addresses sanctions squarely, describing them as the product of “pretend free traders” and noting that, among other things, when America sanctions countries it is “more likely to fight them” down the road. He goes on to note that there is no evidence Tehran is working on fabricating nuclear weapons and that, even if there were, it faces real and legitimate security threats in its immediate environment (including from the United States). And if that were not enough for a startling dose of realism and good sense in a forum where little of that is expected, Dr. Paul suggests that, even if the Islamic Republic got a nuclear weapon, it would not be that big a problem. He concludes by observing that, if Americans want “a policy of peace”, that means “free trade, stay out of their internal business, don’t get involved in these wars and just bring our troops home.”
That was all way too much for former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who, as you will see, interrupts the proceedings after Dr. Paul has finished to demand an opportunity to respond. Santorum—who, at this point, is much more reflective of elite Republican opinion on the issue than Paul—declares that “Iran is a country that has been at war with us since 1979”, and accuses the Islamic Republic of “killing more American men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan than the Iraqis and Afghanistans have…than the Afghanistanis [sic] have”.
Such complacency. Even Phil’s description of the complacency sounds complacent. Though perhaps he’s just perfecting his style before he writes his Great American Novel. It’s shaping up nicely to be this century’s Great Gatsby.
Phil, in your mind, Jews don’t talk about it, because they don’t say the things you want to hear. You don’t seem to wonder why it is that you and those who think like you are still a tiny minority among the Jewish people.
The vast majority of young people who are not so much into Israel do so because they grew up in a different, for their time, less repressive world towards Jews, not because they are less or more pro-Israel. When push comes to shove, I can assure you they will lean towards Israel then betray it like you and your fellow “progressives” do.
So, the vast majority of Jews viscerally disagree with your stance on Israel. The answer to that from you and your followers here is that:
They are all blind
Those that aren’t blind are brainwashed
Those that aren’t brainwashed are Hasbarists.
In other words, no one who supports Israel actually has a brain of their own.
You forgot they are ignorant. I’m not Jewish so I do not understand the whole ‘tribe’ thing. What I do understand is the irrationality behind calling for the release of Jonathan Pollard. I used to think it was because they didn’t understand the crime. They don’t care, he’s Israeli (now) so let him out! If the situation was reversed, I would say to Israel that they should fry the effer. I don’t feel sympathy for caught spies.
What I mean by ignorant is blindly supporting leadership that has de-legitimized Israel and then get mad at the world because they criticize it. If you agree with the course that Israel is on, then you are an enemy to freedom and democracy and the entire world. You are an enemy to peace in the Middle East. You chose your side, we just hope you’ll wake up and re-consider. I doubt it’s possible. Let’s say that in ten years the truth comes out that elements within Israel were 100% complacent in 9/11. If Israel is still around then, they would likely protect them and refuse to have them face trial. If we covertly kidnapped them Israel would consider it an act of war. They don’t care if their people are murderers or psychopaths. They protect them anyways. THAT IS WRONG
You are right, we Israelis were 100% “complacent” in 9/11. Check your big words before you use them..
Despite your grammar, you obviously believe that Israel was behind 9/11, and you want to be taken seriously?
“I’m not Jewish so I do not understand the whole ‘tribe’ thing.”
“It’s a Jewish thing. You wouldn’t understand.” Or so you might hear from the tribalist, who thereby cuts you off from the “in-group”.
Charon, I suspect that the lack of understanding is mutual. I suspect (and wait to have my suspicions confirmed or denied) that many Jews (not all, and perhaps not even most) simply do not understand how the rest of us perceive this tribalism. They do not comprehend that we see the separatism and exclusivity as an insult and as a rejection of social responsibility. They do not understand that we think loyalty to fellow citizens outweighs loyalty to the tribe.
Those of us of (ahem!) a certain age have, for most of our lives, been bombarded by messages of human equality, and how we should never discriminate between people on a basis of race or religion, combined with a great deal of preaching about how especially wicked it is to discriminate against Jews.
Yet it seems that we expected to accept Jewish discrimination against us (for example Judith Butler’s father, at 1:08 “Some of my best friends are Zionists”) as somehow quaint. (I am not suggesting that JB herself endorses her father’s attitude.) And the tribalist seems not to comprehend that we find this outrageous, and that we expect them to see us as human too.
I know this is the sort of post that gets me into trouble with the moderators, but since Philip is concerned with Jewish tribalism in America, I think this too is an aspect for him to consider.
No, you’re exactly right, RoHa. See my post below at September 18, 2011 at 6:57 pm. There’s this whole ‘how dare you break up this ‘ole tribe of mine’ aspect to it by presuming to muscle in and get our codes. ‘You’re not welcome and we’re in charge of burnishing and preserving our exclusivity, thank you very much’.
[I got a wonderful look at this thinking during Operation Cast Lead from some old friends of mine—I mean longtime, 30 & 25-year-old friends—who were Jewish, not NYCers however, who accidentally left me in the bcc email pool because my name was at the end of the list and they were, amazingly, digitally ignorant. Two months of it. I was treated to an inside view that I will never forget. Particularly illuminating were the emails meant to include me; I was a cc add-on then: ahh, the gentleness and reasonableness, the smug and smarmy way of explaining reality to gentiles, the wise old rebbe trick.
Took me about four months to gouge most of the shrapnel out of my heart, and recalculate years of what I had treasured as memories for what they were. Lucky for me my three old NYC mentors had preceded them, shaped by the gristle of truth and living, and of which I was a lucky beneficiary.]
I find it very funny when non-Jews say they don’t understand our tribalism. For centuries, Jews were persecuted and murdered for being members of that “tribe” regardless how they saw themselves in that tribe. They put us in ghettos and then lambast us for being exclusive, and clinging to our Jewish identity and call it tribalism.
We call your attitude Chutzpah.
They put us in ghettos and then lambast us for being exclusive.
You put yourselves in ghettos so the rabbi could rule, legal problems could be solved under rabbinic law and not the law of the host, men wouldn’t have to look at shiksas, and goys wouldn’t bother the Jewish women. Food, language, and customs could stay closed within the community. Private agreements were made with monarchs and rulers to have that exclusivity with closed communities (occasionally with their own coinage). The ultra-orthodox do it today in Israel and Brooklyn!
So don’t give us that crap here. Go over to Tony Karon’s site and search for the names of history books he cites that spell it out.
There isn’t one Jewish history book from 70 BC to the 19th C. No need. Religious Jews preferred to keep to themselves, stirring the glue of biblical persecution and victimhood from time immemorial to keep the community cohesive. It’s your own myth.
There were, however, many who couldn’t stand that religious life and they busted out of the ghetto and went into urban areas, Italy, Spain, Germany, being accused of the hated assimilation while they flourished in industry and other fields. But even assimilated Jews still wanted to live among Jews, too, as prominent Jews in Israel and working for the US govt today, quoted often here on MW, have recorded. Makes perfect sense when you have to walk to the synagogue on Shabbas. Right? Live near the synagogue.
Looks like my reply was suppressed. I’ll try again.
‘For centuries, Jews were persecuted and murdered for being members of that “tribe”’
Do you really believe that, over centuries, lots of different people in different countries with different cultures all just woke up in the morning and said “Who shall we hate today? I know! Let’s hate the Jews!”? No particular reason. Just happened.
“We call your attitude Chutzpah.”
That makes you an example of my thesis. You do not understand what it looks like to non-Jews.
What we hear is “Give us the same rights as you give to each other, and show us the same concern as you show for each other. But don’t expect us to reciprocate, and don’t even think about marrying our children.”
That really is chutzpah!
And yet I suspect that may Jews simply do not see it that way.
ALSO SEE: Sinning against Zionism: Traitor to Country, by William A. Cook , Dissident Voice, 4/21/11
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to dissidentvoice.org
“I find it very funny when non-Jews say they don’t understand our tribalism”
Zionists are big on putting all “jews” into one conceptual symbol. With same characteristics–”our tribalism.” Not a real jew if you’re not tribal–don’t think like us–thinking like them.
Mitochrondial dna tells us we don’t all come from offspring of one Judah with one wife and one handmaiden. Please consider that the term “jew” or “we” doesn’t delineate a people with a rigid exclusive closed-mind set. Your presence on this forum indicates otherwise.
“In other words, no one who supports Israel actually has a brain of their own.”
You said it.
Mooser, too clever by half, and of course, confirming what my post says.
No I’m pretty sure you’re confirming what you said.
“OK, I know; many Jews are afraid to talk to me.”
I’m afraid to talk to some of my Jewish friends about the subject (none of whom are particularly privileged, at most comfortably middle class). Also my uncle, who qualifies as privileged east coast liberal but who married a Jewish lady and has been a supporter of Israel as much as Dersh. I’m afraid to talk to a lot of my non-Jewish acquaintances too.
I am a goy who has a Jewish friend. He’s a cancer survivor and I’ve made a point of seeing him often and exercising with him. Our friendship is not about Israel or Jewishness. It’s just about hanging out and wishing him well in his progress against this serious disease. He sometimes brings up Israel and how it’s this great project in the desert (for all the world like it’s still the 1960′s); he was informed about the recent New York election and his take is that it was Jews there who voted against the Dem because of soft Demo support for Israel and how, in his take, that was a good thing. I never rise to the bait and simply change the conversation. But it makes me sad and that’s all this letter is about. It makes me sad.
I have a very old friend. We met in the student Christian world. Now we have, for reasons of distance and of his distinguished work, to make a special effort if we want to see each other and he did make the effort to contact me last year, which was very nice. He’s very much a leading Zionist and I don’t think I will be making the required effort to see him again. I would hate to have our relationship end on bad terms, with him calling me an anti-Semite, which on the definitions that I presume he must use I must be. Makes me sad too.
It is a sad state of affairs for people not to be able to talk about these issues. I truly believe using the Holocaust tragedies was a very effective way to shut down the debate about the facts on the ground for decades.
Go ahead and bring the facts on the ground up with them. if they have a hard time that is their problem. Silence is absolutely complicity and defensiveness about the issue is a way to keep the lid on the issue. Push it…as politely as you can. We are talking about an apartheid state.
It’s a betrayal of everyone who died in the Holocaust because of the religion that they were born with.
lyn117,
Then there’s the whole indignant thing. “How dare you talk about Jewish issues,” or “Why are you talking about this, you’re not Jewish,” which can morph, on any given day, to being accused of being anti-semitic for broaching any subject considered too tribal for the goyim. Sniff.
Americans do not need the input or approval of Jews to discuss and judge their own country’s involvement with the crimes Israel commits. Although Mr. Weiss often includes American-Jewish self-examination about Israel into the fine work of this blog, the best part of the blog has to do with the reporting of news and developments about the opposition to Israeli oppression so that all people can use it to inform themselves and others.
RE: “The privileged divide– non-Jews want to talk the issue, Jews don’t” ~ Weiss
SIGMUND FREUD SEZ (posthumously): It is a psychological divide– most Jews have beaucoup cognitive dissonance when talking about the issue, most non-Jews do not. Almost everyone likes to avoid cognitive dissonance (emotional pain). It’s human nature!
Subconscious Mind – A List of Defense Mechanisms
Here we explore a list of defense mechanisms employed by the subconscious mind to ward off anxiety and protect the conscious mind from emotional pain…
…For example, when a person would like to do one thing, but instead can’t seem to help but do another, it indicates that there’s a conflict between the conscious mind and some part of the subconscious mind…
…Another term for such internal conflicts is Cognitive Dissonance — Two cognition’s (elements of knowledge)… usually one conscious and the other subconscious… are in direct conflict with each other.
The two opposing cognition’s are located on neural networks in the brain. They create anxiety that steadily intensifies until the subconscious mind employs a solution from its list of defense mechanisms…
ALSO SEE: Defence mechanism – link to en.wikipedia.org
AND SEE: Subconscious Mind: A List of Defense Mechanisms – link to internet-of-the-mind.com
P.S. JUST TO GIVE ONE EXAMPLE:
• Reaction Formation is the converting of wishes or impulses that are perceived to be dangerous into their opposites. A woman who is furious at her child and wishes her harm might become overly concerned and protective of the child’s health.
IN THE CASE OF (SOME) JEWS AND ISRAEL:
A woman who is furious at Israel might become overly concerned and protective of Israel.
ONE MORE EXAMPLE:
• Compartmentalization is a process of separating parts of the self from awareness of other parts and behaving as if one had separate sets of values. An example might be an honest person who cheats on their income tax return and keeps their two value systems distinct and unintegrated while remaining unconscious of the cognitive dissonance.
IN THE CASE OF (SOME) JEWS AND ISRAEL:
An example might be a person who really cares about universal human rights while supporting Israel’s denial of human rights to the Palestinians; keeping the two value systems distinct and unintegrated while remaining unconscious of the cognitive dissonance.
NOW YOU TRY (A REALLY EASY) ONE:
• Rationalization is the cognitive reframing of ones perceptions to protect the ego in the face of changing realities. Thus, the promotion one wished fervently for and didn’t get becomes “a dead end job for brown nosers and yes men”.
IN THE CASE OF (SOME) JEWS AND ISRAEL:
???????????????????????????
P.P.S. LISTEN TO “MAD AS HELL IN AMERICA” WITH ADAM KLUGMAN ON AM 620 KPOJ (PORTLAND, OR), SATURDAYS FROM 3:00-6:00 PM [6:00-9:00 PM ES(D)T]
MAD AS HELL IN AMERICA (archived podcasts) – link to madashellinamerica.com
P.S. ALSO SEE: Overprotecting Parents Can Lead Children To Develop ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’, ScienceDaily (May 3, 2007)
SOURCE – link to sciencedaily.com
Freud’s disciple Jung had one of his disciples tell us in his last book MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS that he had come to think that the symbol -STONE- signified the self. My Heb/Eng dictionary has the same Hebrew word meaning force and hand. In the story where Daniel tells us about “the stone cut without hands” dusting away the image of empires–we could imagine that one of Freud’s rabbi friends mentioned that a child’s self, shaped without force ,would keep images of empire heros out of his head
You make an excellent point. I have always felt that precursors to various tenets of modern psychology can be found in one religion or another (or in more than one religion – on occasion virtually all of them). I suppose this shouldn’t come as any great surprise.
Your still ignoring that the American Jewish diaspora experience is literally different than the European and now Israeli.
The very vast majority of Jews that had parents and grandparents that survived the holocaust, KNOW that Israel was necessary, and is.
It is only those that convey what others should feel, that think of Zionism and Israel as irrelevant.
And, you are utterly naive to assume that that difference in consciousness is unique to this time. At every time (with the exception of maybe until the late 1970′s), there was a large contingent of American Jews for whom Zionism was irrelevant or repugnant, assimilated.
Its not those that are indifferent that are the judges. Its those that care.
Its much better to respect their needs, than to assault the basis of their need.
One of the reasons that the question of BDS or Zionism itself is not talked about much among the Jewish community is that it already has been settled. Sympathy, support, respect and its elsewhere and we don’t have a claim to control it.
“The very vast majority of Jews that had parents and grandparents that survived the holocaust, KNOW that Israel was necessary, and is.”
You mean that they THINK Israel was necessary and is. Zionists and anti-semites had a common interest in sending the survivors to Palestine and not letting them have another choice.
I don’t think anyone should blame the survivors for going wherever they could go. Unfortunately, it was normal human nature to rationalize taking the land away from the Palestinians given what had happened to them. People are like that–their own desires and needs take precedence. The fact remains that they did a grave injustice to the Palestinians–they kicked them out of their own homeland and they had no right to do so.
“The very vast majority of Jews that had parents and grandparents that survived the holocaust, KNOW that Israel was necessary, and is.”
And if they can contrive to live forever, they will support Israel forever!
Considering the cornucopia of Jewish accomplishment their generation represents, I’m sure they’ll have that eternity thing licked any day now.
Mooser,
There is a divide between diaspora and Israeli Jews. Diaspora Jews have chosen to live there, to regard their/our integrated lives as preferable to segregated, our context preferable to Israel/Palestine.
Its a choice. It doesn’t invalidate the choice to live in Israel.
None of my in-laws that chose to move to Israel in 1949, live there now. My mother-in-law lives in London. Her sister lived in London until her death four years ago, and married an non-Jewish professor. Her brother lived in Canada. They left Israel at various times, but all a long time ago. My mother-in-law left Israel shortly after my wife was born there, in 1956. The state of constant threat of war was too traumatic for them, following on the heels of surviving slave and death camps.
I participate in the urge to lessen the volume of Zionist commitment, but not to the level of naivete, nor to an active desire for Jewish assimilation, or assimilationism (a movement within the Jewish community, still personally identifying as Jewish, but living mostly indistinguishably.)
It is a MUCH more ethical approach to accept that Israel is important to Jews, and instead try to influence (in each of our little ways), how Israel relates to its neighbors.
By raising the question at all, you jump smack in the middle of assertion of delegitimization. You can’t now reasonably complain that that is how your comments and blog are described.
“By raising the question at all, you jump smack in the middle of assertion of delegitimization. ”
By raising the question at all, we recognize Palestinians have the same rights as Jews and other human beings , including the right not to be forced out of their homeland.
You are not Phil.
You also should firmly accept “enough” Israel, urge others to do so, so that the next much better steps are possible.
Kovel has an article headlined “The Meaning of THIS Moment”. I disagree with Kovel’s conclusions, but agree with that emphasis on the present rather than the past.
You frequently state that I “justify” the 1948 nakba, in my insistence on the present as focus, but that is utterly untrue. In stating that the rule of law before a color-blind court should control, that is stating an advocacy for the rational resolution of the right of return, not the denial of it, and not the maximalist fetishization of it.
Anti-Zionism is a revolutionary movement. It is substantive. It is not the same as criticism of Israeli policies and actions.
It is a different statement to say “I don’t think that I subscribe to Zionism” than to say “Zionism IS racism and therefore should be purged from the world’s and Jews’ consciousness” (as Phil did say in a hot moment a few months ago).
>> RW (to Donald, who is not Phil): You frequently state that I “justify” the 1948 nakba … but that is utterly untrue.
—————–
>> RW: The nakba that occurred in 1948 was accompanied by the independence, the liberation, of the Jewish community. So, I primarily celebrate …
>> RW: If I was an adult in 1948, I probably would have supported whatever it took to create the state of Israel, and held my nose at actions that I could not possibly do myself.
>> RW: I cannot consistently say that “ethnic cleansing is never necessary”.
>> Chaos4700: … Then why was it necessary for Jewish immigrants to ethnically cleanse massive swaths of the Palestinian country side? …
>> RW: Currently its not necessary.
>> eljay: Question 1: Do you condemn as unjust – and not merely as “currently not necessary” – the past ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?
>> RW: I don’t know.
—————–
Yes, so utterly untrue.
“Kovel has an article headlined “The Meaning of THIS Moment”. “
I know that! The meaning of this moment is that another bunch of the generation convinced that Israel is good and necessary just kicked the bucket.
Do you see a reversal of this trend, Witty?
” “Zionism IS racism and therefore should be purged from the world’s and Jews’ consciousness” (as Phil did say in a hot moment a few months ago).”
Got a link? No you don’t, do you?
i dont think ive ever said that Zionism is racism. It seems to have worked itself out racistly, though; it’s produced a racist order
I don’t remember you stating directly that “Zionism is racism”. I don’t know exactly what your views are on the subject, though your next sentence indicates your view, if not stated overtly.
You did urge that Zionism be purged from the world’s and Jewry’s consciousness.
I assume that that statement was in a moment of outrage, and that your actual views are more nuanced.
To attribute the policies and practices of an administration to an ideology, is wrong. Every liberatory ideology contains components of rationalization for potential suppression of others, but does not change the nature of the liberation. (Whether liberation is the sole characteristic of 1948 or not is inconsequential. It is undoubtedly a component of the transformation of Jewish consciousness from accepting suppression to experiencing genocide, to on the part of MANY European survivors of being subjected to those that would “finish the job”, shifting to the prospect of haven, political assertion and primarily in the world as a whole to a change in attitude.)
Was the US independence a racist effort? If assessed in 1950′s, it appeared to have produced a racist outcome, producing a racist order.
Its a big deal.
I get that there is both a philosophical divide and an familial acceptance in your family.
The significance of urging familial divide in general is different than in your family’s great charitableness.
Whether or not Zionism is racism is debatable, but I was really troubled by the apparent presumption of most people in this country discussing the UN General Assembly resolution that it was that to say it was was self-evidently absurd. It may not be true, but what makes saying so absurd and immoral?
I made an error in using direct quotes.
I would love if you clarified your views, so that quotes are possible, rather than silhouette driven guesses.
“the apparent presumption of most people in this country discussing the UN General Assembly resolution that it was that to say it was was self-evidently absurd. It may not be true, but what makes saying so absurd and immoral?”
It would be self-evidently absurd to people who are either ignorant of the injustice done to the Palestinians or from people so racist that they don’t care what was done to the Palestinians. I think that if people knew that (setting aside the racists), they’d take a nuanced view. They’d probably say that some forms of Zionism, like the Judah Magnes version, are not racist, but those forms of Zionism where Palestinians were seen as an obstacle to the attainment of a Jewish state were racist.
But anyway, examining that question is still taboo in the American mainstream, as best I can tell. Though oddly enough there are no taboos about examining anti-semitic tendencies that one might find in Islamists. Funny how that works.
“You are not Phil.”
Ah, the cry of the spurned and disappointed arouses my pity, every time. But that’s the way to go, Witty. Hold out for the real thing, accept no substitutes. Not for you to argue with the common run of commenter.
and I am not Mooser!
I am not Spock!
Look, Mooser, his prayers were heard. ;)
Maybe Richard can from now on address him directly again, beyond the vague “you”. The name would help. Remember, we didn’t have the patronizing exhortations of Phil for quite a while. But good to see he is pretty stubborn, only still not too much bothered with facts (truth).
But is this Matthew Lee *the* Matt Lee who has the State Dept spokesbods twisting in the wind?
link to guardian.co.uk
reporting on Clinton/Ashton attempts to shut down the statehood bid today.
RW: “It is a MUCH more ethical approach to accept that Israel is important to Jews, and instead try to influence (in each of our little ways), how Israel relates to its neighbors.”
Richard, what you mean is that the “Jewish state” is important to some Jews. Though in your case, not so important as the settlers “rights” to the land they have stolen from the Palestinians. So perhaps you’ll forgive me for not seeing anything ethical in how you try to influence (in your own little way) how Israel relates to its neighbors.
Israel is important in some respect to the vast majority of currently self-identifying Jews, worldwide and in really every locale.
The line between criticism and delegitimazation is a real chasm.
“delegitimazation”
Now don’t go criticising Witty! It’s an old Jewish tradition, really! When a word is just too terrible, you can remove its evil power by spelling it incorrectly. Fools the “evil eye”. (Pooh, pooh, pooh!)
Sorry if you find that inexplicable, but in Jewish tradition, stuffed bears have the power to protect us from evil spirits.
Have any more questions, just ask.
Witty, nobody but Israelis themselves can delegitimize Israel and they only manage it through their own actions and choices.
If you’re going to castigate anyone, castigate Israelis. They’re the ones waging pogroms and building settlements.
“the cabin-like house where I almost lost my virginity”
On that “cruddy, cruddy couch”?
Almost lost mine in a taxicab, but I called the dispatcher, and retrieved at the end of the shift.