I enjoyed reading Philip Weiss’s personal account of how he came to mark Yom Kippur in Cairo. Ahead of a day in which a mass anti-sectarian march was planned, it instinctively felt like a nice rejoinder to the spirit of the ongoing revolution and the millions of Egyptians who have constantly resisted the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces's (SCAF) sectarian provocations, and not only following the onset of the revolution. Yet it was also oddly removed from the prevailing sordid reality of religious communities in Egypt, and the complex history of Egyptian Jewry which suffered at the hands of Zionism. Especially relevant in light of today’s disturbing events, I want to expand on a couple of politically skewed assumptions he exhibited in his account of the experience. This is not to take away from what the prayer service signified to him, but to invite us all to recognize what is concealed in the image of “freedom of religion in Cairo” that he aspires to portray or to imagine, supposedly in contrast to neighboring Israel.
For one thing, Egyptian Jewry cannot be represented by a half-expatriate crowd of largely Zionist Jews praying in the suburb of Maadi. There is good reason why the “downtown Jews” were not bussed in for the service, which as Weiss is aware was directly related to the Israeli embassy, even in the absence of the Israeli diplomatic staff. It is therefore disingenuous and presumptuous, not to say politically problematic, to place everyone under the same umbrella. In fact, it actually reifies the essentializing impulse of Zionism, which has not only exacted terrorism against Palestinians for most of modern history, but has also terrorized other Arabs - crucially, Arab Jews: Egyptian, Iraqi, Moroccan and Yemeni alike. In Egypt, the key 1954 Lavon Affair, closely followed by the 1956 Israeli attack on Egypt, effectively annihilated the Egyptian Jewish community. Combined with reactionary nationalist forces, it resulted in widespread anxiety around the Jewish community and led to the near-disappearance of Egyptian Jewry by the end of the decade.
Indeed, if sites like Mondoweiss and the increasing visibility of anti-Zionist Jewish activists outside of Israel should teach us anything, it is about the extent to which Zionism victimized Jews everywhere outside of Israel, and imported Arab Jews to carry out its dirty work in completing the earlier phases of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by replacing their labor with Hebrew hands. Given this essentializing impulse, which the proprietors of Mondoweiss in part resist, why would anyone jump to conclusions about the past or present of Egyptian Jewry? Understanding the political context in which Philip - in all good intentions - marked Yom Kippur yesterday depends heavily on understanding the nexus of Israeli and Western imperial interests in the region combined with the sustenance of sectarian provocations and violence which aptly manifested its latest installment in the SCAF-sponsored massacre of Copts and their Muslim supporters that began Sunday afternoon between Maspero and downtown Cairo.
The protest march, led by Christians and joined by Muslims was in response to continued restrictions on church-building, and the SCAF's continued hostility - in light of systematic sectarian clashes throughout the year - and refusal to end official discrimination faced by Christians when it comes to building and maintaining churches. They were sparked by the burning of an Aswan church a week ago, an event that notably took place almost immediately following mass protests against emergency law and the SCAF’s overdue transfer of power to a civilian government. Though more details are bound to emerge in the next hours and days to better elucidate what initially sparked the violence outside Maspero today, multiple eyewitness reports confirm that from the very beginning, plain-clothes police and local hired thugs were deployed to attack the protesters, who subsequently received a deadly crackdown from the military police.
A basic temporal context must be kept in mind: the periodic targeting of Coptic communities by certain sectarian Islamist groups as well as paid armed thugs, and Copts’ sustained marginalization and humiliation by the state, has persisted from before 25th January and in the months that followed systematically and consistently, and the most recent church bombing in Aswan occurred almost immediately following mass demonstrations against the emergency law, which was enacted in response to Egyptians’ raiding of the Israeli embassy, which was itself a mass spontaneous direct action in response to Israel’s murdering of Egyptian soldiers and refusal to apologize, as well as the SCAF’s impotence in reacting to these murders. Does this seem like a stretch? Think about it. In a moment of heightened, indeed, climaxing social organizing and revolutionary verve, Egyptians are moved to reclaim their dignity in the face of Zionist aggression. The SCAF, performing the edicts of Uncle Sam, promptly suppresses the Embassy uprising, conducting mass arrests (the civilian victims of which are currently subjected to extra-legal military trials) and escorting the Israeli diplomatic corps home to Tel Aviv for a breather. Overnight, emergency law is revived - in what is only an official escalation of the already prescient anti-strike law endorsed by the Muslim Brotherhood. As Egyptians flood the streets demanding the termination of the SCAF’s reign of power, a church goes up in flames in Aswan. The governer subsequently insists, but the church was illegal.
If the late fifties, following the Lavon Affair, saw the new regime’s introduction of reactionary anti-semitism, buying wholesale into Zionist and colonial propaganda, by the seventies this would be exacerbated all the more by Sadat’s violent separation of Egyptians from their regional identification and his regime’s symbiotic relationship to key Islamist groups, that would go on to foment sectarian provocations sustaining a state of emergency that continues to this day. This is not to suggest that sectarianism is solely attributable to the Camp David era. Indeed, we can trace this to early modern European colonialism, which was frequently paraded as an effort to protect Christians, but which through unprecedented sectarian violence and manipulation effectively exiled most Ottoman Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi Christians. And it’s important to remember that the massacre of Syrian Christians took place almost simultaneously to the French blood libel in Damascus. Iraqi Jews were similarly butchered alongside the Assyrians under the British. Yet the contemporary crisis in Egypt can be better analytically weighed as a distinct and deliberate outcome of that wretched moment in Egyptian history: the advent of Sadat, Camp David, and the cementing of Egyptian society at the doormat of US imperialism.
Sadat deliberately exacerbated sectarian hatred through his strategic deployment of Islam in the interests of imperialism. He supported the rise of Islamist groups in order to castrate the influence of the Egyptian left, including Nasserites and pan-Arab nationalists. With that, began the legacy of “sectarian strife” in the seventies. Prior to the Camp David era, Egyptians by and large viewed themselves as Arab - most still do, yet Sadat’s violent political and economic neutering of their Arab identity following the Infitah meant that the vast majority of Egyptians, many of whom were now openly flitting in and out of the Gulf countries, resorted to different degrees of Islamism in resistance to the newly imposed anti-Arab imaginary. In turn, many Copts adopted an exclusivist form of religio-nationalism as their primary site of indentification in the face of a post-Arabist political and social reality.
With the eighties, increased support - in the wake of the Afghanistan war - for Egyptian Islamists by both the US and Saudi Arabia, was another ingredient that further isolated Copts from national and regional belonging. With time this accumulated institutionally to result in a definitively anti-Christian discourse in which, on the one hand, Western and elite reactionary punditry foams at the mouth over the “oppression of religious minorities” only feeding the beast that is the Egyptian state more ammunition for its self-sustaining mirage of “national unity and stability”. And so a vicious - though by no means antagonistic, in fact highly symbiotic - cycle and relationship persists, in which Western-sponsored civil society efforts continue to intervene to “democratize” Egyptians, in the process hijacking the identities of local Christians, conflating them, essentializing them, and ultimately creating a constant state of emergency that socially reproduces itself and foments more of the same. All this, while US-led colonialism in Iraq led to a historically unprecedented spate of sectarian violence, mainly between Shiites and Sunnis, though anyone who followed American mainstream media over the last 10 years will have noticed they lay emphasis to the attacks on Iraqi Christians, as though they are exceptional.
That the Egyptian neoliberal state, allied as it is with the Muslim Brotherhood more explicitly following the ouster of Mubarak, has had a clear hand and interest in the creation and maintenance of sectarian provocations is plain to see. But before we begin to talk about fighting it, before we begin to sloganeer about “national unity”, “anti-sectarianism” and an “end to political discrimination against non-Muslims”, before we fetishize empty liberal tropes like “freedom of religion”, we would do well to recognize two things: first, the only Christians in Egypt that do not experience any kind of discrimination are the elite and extremely wealthy ones, and second, the internationalist discourse of “freedom of religion” is not only complicit, but responsible for the perpetuation of the sectarian isolation of Christians. The state is not a site for gaining religious freedoms. It thrives on the separatist minoritatian psychoses that constitute sectarian violence. Therefore, any strategy that seeks to paint Egyptian Chrisitans, or Jews past or present, as a separate sect and exaggerate their place in society - as so much of Western society chooses to do - misses the fundamental power structures that produce them as such and furthers their exclusion. Just as Zionism deliberately sought to exile Jews from the world and ghettoize them in colonial settlements in Palestine, so the nexus of Israeli and Western power would rather see those populations surrounding Israel perpetually mired in a sea of exclusivist intolerance deserving only of bombs and emergency laws.
This nexus, of Western and Israeli interests in sectarian bantustaning, should not be lost on anyone witnessing today’s atrocities outside Maspero and throughout downtown Cairo. And now more than ever it should warn against knee-jerk reactions steeped in the discourse of “freedom of religion” - which is the Hebrew equivalent of Mubarak’s “it’s between me or chaos”.
Today’s events constitute the first time the army and its hired thugs have explicitly targeted a predominantly Coptic protest, running people over with armored vehicles at top speed and deliberately killing up to nineteen protesters in the space of a few hours. State propaganda was in full force, using the sectarian language of “the Copts” and never “the demonstrators” and making vacuous statements about Copts “killing two soldiers”. In addition to propagating the classic rumors of “foreign infiltrators” and “agendas”, State TV also licensed - indeed called for - Egyptian civilians to “protect the military from the Copts”. As of the time of writing, many Egyptians have indeed responded to the incitement and numerous eyewitnesses report seeing Muslim marches to the tune of “There is no God but Allah” hitting the streets. The SCAF and Muslim Brotherhood led counter-revolution, in other words, has found its bitter climax in the always-reliable vulgar sectarian bloodbath. And because the events outside and around Maspero were nothing short of an intensified combination of the Camel Battle and the Abbasseyya kidnappings, over the coming hours and days, we will regroup. We will fight back. But we will not fight for “religious freedom” or “national unity”. The former is the language of Hilary Clinton and the NGO-industrial complex that has mismanaged Egyptian society for decades. The latter is the language of state television. What we will fight for is our revolution: an end to the regime, a cleansing of all our institutions, and our will and dignity in deciding who and what we are for.
We keep hearing how Zionism imported us poor Mizrahi jews, I do wonder, were we not banished from Muslim lands? Are we not refugees? Why are the Ashkenazim treated as slave-masters, did they not open the gates of Zion unto us despite our alleged cultural and ethnic inferiority?
Counter-Hasbara is just as bad as Hasbara it seems.
No actually, you weren’t by and large. Zionism paid for your plane ticket and gave you land that was stolen from Arab Christians and Muslims. If you and your family had fled, then you’d be refugees; but Israel recruited you the same way a temp agency does. (And ironically, under the same mechanisms of working crap jobs for not enough pay, since what Israel needed was cheap non-white labor.)
Israel recruited you the same way a temp agency does.
except i am not familiar with any temp agencies whose spies helped along the recruitment with false flag explosions.
link to online.wsj.com
These are also recruits?
You “expertise” doesn’t pass any test possible.
divert alert
” Zionism paid for your plane ticket ”
Actually the zionist didn’t even pay for the plane tickets.
The British AF airlifted over 100,000 Jews from Iran alone at the insistence of Israel. The Israelis had smuggled arms into Iran for Jews telling them they needed to ‘protect ‘ themselves. Iran regarded this as “fifth column” and started disarming them. Where upon Israel claimed the Jews of Iran were about to be holocausted if they weren’t taken immediately to Israel.
Israel did this in several countries in order to get Jews to populate Israel and provide labor for the new Israel.
You can read all about Israel’s tactics for getting Arab Jews to Israel at the British National Archives on line.
They are Persian Jews, but who cares, a Jew is a Jew huh American?
actually jews from iran are Mizrahi.
Annie, you should tell that to the Persian Jewish community in LA.
Mizrahi Jews:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Persian Jews:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Why are the Ashkenazim treated as slave-masters
yes, so sad. what can we do? let’s start a club to polish their image. we can start by reemphasizing the alleged cultural and ethnic inferiority of mizrahi jews. oh wait, you already did that.
were we not banished from Muslim lands?
what precipitated that banishment? zionists built the zion wall with a zion gate and opened it for you. as Hawas wrote:
In Egypt, the key 1954 Lavon Affair, closely followed by the 1956 Israeli attack on Egypt, effectively annihilated the Egyptian Jewish community. Combined with reactionary nationalist forces, it resulted in widespread anxiety around the Jewish community and led to the near-disappearance of Egyptian Jewry by the end of the decade.
Annie,
Amir-Ras lives in Israel. Yet you presume to know better than him how Ashkenazi people treat him???
By the way, there is so much intermarriage now, that any distinction is disappearing fast.
you presume to know better than him how Ashkenazi people treat him???
go bitch to amir ras. it was him who opened the thread w/the Ashkenazim as slave-masters theme. i merely encouraged him to start a club to polish their image. just trying to be helpful eee, i see you’re making good use of his hasbara but in this instance you are barking up the wrong tree.
again, no one here called Ashkenazi slave masters except for amir ras.
Annie, gee well I’m sorry if I insinuated some undertones of slavery when all the sentence really said “imported arab jews to carry out its dirty work”.
Cause you see, us poor Arab Jews have no agency, neither do Muslim Arabs for that purpose, we’re all but puppets.
were we not banished from Muslim lands? Are we not refugees? ………us poor Arab Jews have no agency, neither do Muslim Arabs for that purpose, we’re all but puppets.
sure, whatever you say amir. one minute you’re banished refugees and the next post you snark about being no agency puppets. another day in the life of hasbara. whatever floats yer boat.
Are you incapable of understanding written saracasm?
My point is completly opposite of you what you presume! The arabs have agency, the mizrahi jews have agency and we all made our decisions, the (you) ashkenazi jews did not make all of them for us.
We were not imported. the ashkenazi zionist jews, though their faults are many, did not treat us as slaves. Culturally inferior sure, we were second class for decades here and yet, we were not so much as imported by the zionists rather than expelled by our host countries.
Are we not refugees Annie? Did the actions of zionists jews in palestine justify our banishment from our -HISTORICAL HOMELANDS-?
i understand your sarcasm perfectly amir. you want to be regarded both as banished refugees (victims) and designers of your own fate (we all made our decisions).
you simply do not want to acknowledge that from the beginning of the nakba the influx of arab jews facilitated the ethnic cleansing of palestinians from their homeland.
how many times have we heard hasbarists try to conflate israel’s debt to palestinians AS IF it had any connection to a debt owed by arab countries to the jews that left? you want to be the victim, that is where the focus lies here with your opening comment designed to highjack the current thread of events happening in egypt today.
we get it, you’re a refugee, poor you.
Did the actions of zionists jews in palestine justify our banishment from our -HISTORICAL HOMELANDS-?
which historic homeland are you referring? the one in palestine, or iraq or where. or do you have several of them?
“Are you incapable of understanding written saracasm? “
ROTFLMSSJAO!
The italicised “S” stands for “sarcastic”. You guys know the rest.
You keep assuming meaning to my posts, I know all you posters here feel as if you’re locked in some eternal struggle with hasbra shills all over the net, believe it or not however there is more than one type of Israeli.
I do not justify the ethnic cleansing of anyone for no purpose.
I agree that my argument was a little confusing, my point was against the zionist puppetmaster nonsense, Mizrahi Jews were refugees from Muslim countries like it or not.
As for your last question, why do you ask when it was plainly obvious? I’m referring to our ancient homes whether in Morroco, Iraq or Tunisia. Was it okay to banish us from them? or do we have no ancient homes? A people without a land you say?
It’s also very convenient to forget the most Ashkenazi jews are also descendents of refugee’s themselves.
How many Jewish troops participated in the Nakba again? the precursors of what percentage of Israeli Jewish nationals today? tia.
“Are you incapable of understanding written saracasm?”
Are you capable of clearly exhibiting it??
I suspect you aren’t what you say you are, Amir.
But hey, what do I know? I can only react to the impressions a decade of internet activity has instilled in me.
Its true, Amir, you DO reap what you sow. And what the hasbara campaign has sown in me is cynicism and distrust.
I could be wrong of course, and you could just simply be a person content with being used and looked down upon by your masters. But, somehow, I doubt it.
A people without a land you say?
who? i didn’t say it.
You keep assuming meaning to my posts
oh excuse me, i didn’t realize you were just rambling.
I know all you posters here feel as if you’re locked in some eternal struggle with hasbra shills all over the net
well that’s funny, i am here voluntarily. this is not a zionist site and it’s you who come here instead of posting on some other site more naturally affiliated w/your pov. so who’s locked in after all?
I agree that my argument was a little confusing, my point was against the zionist puppetmaster nonsense
gee, as the first commenter on the thread try taking a little responsibility for the meme you initiated here and quit blaming others for the direction of the conversation.
Mizrahi Jews were refugees from Muslim countries like it or not.
is this a thread jack or are you just uninterested in discussing what precipitates these events happening in egypt right now?
I’m referring to our ancient homes whether in Morroco, Iraq or Tunisia.
gee, you called it your historical homeland. now it is your ancient homes. more you you you. i get it, you’re the victim and it isn’t zionisms fault, according to you. wash rinse repeat.
Was it okay to banish us from them? or do we have no ancient homes?
you bore me. completely. try asking yourself if it was okay for zionist spies to carry out false flag operations on the american libraries in both baghdad and cairo. ask yourself if it was okay for zionists to invade egypt. nothing happens in a vacum and i think it would have been much better if the jews had remained in their respective arab countries. it is never ok to banish people from their homes but ask yourself, if those events had not taken place who would have filled all those palestinian homes and lands? who. then ask yourself if it was only another occasion of zionist making lemonade out of lemons or if they had a hand in those banishments.
you may want to write history all by your little lonesome but not everyone is buying your narrative. now if you don’t mind i am going to ignore the rest of your threadjack. i think i have participated enough in your myopic diversions about your victimhood.
see ya.
Ah, Keep telling me why those alleged false flag attacks justified kicking my grandpa from his house.
selective cognitive dissonance:
it is never ok to banish people from their homes
ever, get it? you just refuse to acknowledge what part zionist played in it, but nothing justifies it, ever. i can’t “keep telling” you something i would never assert in the first place. you’d much rather argue a strawman than deal with what i wrote. cheap rhetorical boring hasbarist ploys used for diversion.
Amir,
You sold out to zionism – take RESPONSIBILITY for it. I respect Arab jews: the ones who wouldn’t touch zionism with a ten foot pole.
European jews are khazar converts to judaism and NOT connected to Abraham’s bloodline in the slightest.
That’s why the Arabs are pissed off: Arab land (jewish, moslem and christian) is occupied by violent euro colonialists.
Your precious ‘refugeedom’ is a myth: read Shlomo Sands.
And re-read choas’s post above. As hard as this may seem: you’ve been shafted big time by whitey wannabe semites.
Taxi, I read Shlomo Sand and then flushed that atrocity of a book down the drain, I’m sorry you have to rely on such fantastical sources.
Chaos’s post is another strawman, zionist involvement in in the mizrahi exodus does not nullify the complicity of those regimes who failed to protect their jewish populos and make them feel welcome nor does it make the Mizrahi jews any less of refugees.
Annie, since I’m clearly taking part in a part-internal dialog you seem to be having I’ll just get back to that “you keep assuming meaning” comment I made, I’ll add another half to the sentence since you are clearly intent on deconstructing my posts on a semantic level (which is a foolish endeavor as my English is atrocious): You keep assuming meaning I did not intend to my words.
Nothing justifies ethnic cleansing, not the puppet-mastery of ashkenazi zionists and neither do the feelings of persecution the ashkenazim felt after the holocaust. Is this clear now?
European jews are khazar converts to judaism and NOT connected to Abraham’s bloodline in the slightest.
Taxi before spouting your antisemitic Khazar myth, you should read this, it has been depunked:
link to cell.com
link to nytimes.com
do a google search of Khazar it is like a whose who of antisemites.
The more you ramble Amir the more you expose yourself a fraud.
I now actually don’t believe you have a drop of Arab blood in you.
I’m leaning towards you being yet another variation of internet-hasbara-agent: the one that pretends to be an arab ANGRY about arabs.
“… my English is atrocious”. Yeah sure, pull the other one why don’t you.
Pathetic disguise.
Also Amir,
I don’t believe you’ve even SEEN a copy of Shlomo Sand’s book, let alone read a single word of it. Yeah yeah I know you’ve read the reviews in zionist rags, but highly doubtful that you’ve read it.
Don’t push me on that one or I’ll test ya! I have a copy right here next to me.
Everyone knows that the first hebrews were born and lived in the Arabian deserts.
Yet you DBG would rather die than be called arab – we know this about you.
You’re weird: insisting on your jewishness but denying your arabness.
Sorry but you gotta be an arab jew to call Arab land home.
LOL, so you bring a copy of Shlomo Sands to the South of Lebanon, I suppose you are sitting next to Nasrallah too, huh? Taxi?
Yeah I brought Shlomo’s book cuz I’m gifting it to a Lebanese jew whom I befriended in beirut on my last trip. I hope to see her this weekend. She don’t like racist zionism – she’s a wonderful and righteous girl.
And no I ain’t “sitting next to Nasrallah” – I’m sitting with an English friend under a roof-vine enjoying the moon and flipping my middle finger southwards your neck’0′woods.
I also brought with me Pamela Olson’s book to give as a gift.
You find that funny smartpants DBG? You never traveled with a book to give as a gift you philistine?
I read Shlomo Sand and then flushed that atrocity of a book down the drain
Rather strong words. I didn’t find all of it convincing, but I’m not sure Sand himself does either. He offers a critical analysis of modern Jewish historiography, and provides alternative theories, based on research and sources that are less well-known or have even been suppressed in one way or another. He admits that his conclusions may be influenced by his own biases, and challenges his colleagues to do the same.
What “atrocity” has he committed? You could at least have recycled ;-)
DBG you still haven’t explained how you can be a non-convert to judaism and not be Arab.
Please do test me. Ask as many questions as you will Taxi. Sperg your hearts’ desire.
Anyway, It’s funny but I have no problem identifying as an Arab, so you can please carry on lashing at Israeli Jews at random, neither you nor Shlomo Sand have weird bigoted opinions about Jews at all.
Your friend must feel special Taxi, being 1 of the 40 Jews left in Beirut. Amazing how you were able to find and befriend here. I’d LOVE to hear that ‘story’
“…. my English is atrocious.”
Fakesters are a dime a dozen on the net. I don’t believe anything you say amir. And your poker-face regarding shlomo’s book is pathetic. Shmuel already pinned you down on this. Answer him first then get back to me.
Taxi before spouting your antisemitic Khazar myth, you should read this, it has been depunked: . . .link to cell.com
Yes it certainly says that, but it contains no actual evidence regarding sampling of Khazar DNA and no studies regarding the origins of Khazar DNA are cited.
Another fly in the ointment that you may not have noticed from the discussion on page 857 (pdf page 8 of 10) is that, while it claims that the Ashkenazi Jewish community isn’t descended from Khazars, it does claim that the majority of the sampled population appear to be descended from an admixture of peoples from Southern Europe:
So, 50% of Ashkenazi Jews have inherited Y chromosomes of non-Middle Eastern origin and 60% have inherited MtDNA of non-Middle Eastern origin, i.e. Palestine does not appear to be the ancestral homeland of these particular individuals.
Other than that Helen Thomas, how did you like the play? . . .;-)
DBG
I’m told by lebanese jews that they think of themselves as LEBANESE first! Live with it!
I already blogged about visiting the lebanese synagogue two years ago when it re-opened – that’s where I met this wonderful jewish lady.
Where do you get your information from DBG: Disney Hall of Records? Don’t you know that the idf BOMBED THE HECK OUTTA THE BEIRUT JEWISH NEIGHBORHOOD AND MADE THE MAJORITY OF THEM INTO REFUGEES in 1982?!
And listen up everyone: THERE ARE NO DOCUMENTED STATISTICS regarding Lebanese jews living in Lebanon: NONE! The locals say between 800-1000 lebanese jews still live in beirut and suburbs. Zionists have been saying ONLY 40 for the past twenty years – like Lebanese jewish women are barren or something!
And I’m still waiting for your explanation of how come you are related to Abraham yet you ARE NOT AN ARAB.
Shmuel: While I did not flush the book I do have it here and I do not regard it very highly, however, displaying Sand’s conclusions as facts is atrocious indeed. He basically spurns as a story without a lot of facts to back him up which many people eat up as truths. That’s why I consider his book to be rather crappy, though I did use too strong words.
Now if we’re sidetracked into the origins of European jews, it is obvious that they are not all semitic, yet they are not Khazar lords from space who came to imperialize the middle east with their quasi-Nazi ideology. If the jewish identity is borne of victim-hood then even the sons of the khazars are honorary jews at this point. Furthermore, Giyur is not unheard of, even the bible mentions several occasions of mass conversions to Judaism. The existence of non-semitic Jews does not require a conspiracy as advocated by Mr. Sand.
Why would a brit like you Amir pretend to be arab?
Now if we’re sidetracked into the origins of European jews, it is obvious that they are not all semitic
You aren’t being sidetracked. The raison d’etre of political Zionism was the in-gathering of Ashkenazim “exiles” into their reconstituted ancient homeland. For most of these people that ancient homeland was located in Southern Europe. The Bible offers no explanation for Zionist misconduct toward the indigenous Palestinians or the in-gathering of a multitude of honorary atheist pseudo-exiles.
Hostage,
Aside from their hatred of Arabs and moslems and their ‘discomfort’ with christianity, I reckon there are three pet-paranoid-hates zionists have:
MordechaiVanunu, The Goldstone report, and delving into ashkanazi history.
You mention any one of the above three topics and guaranteed they get seriously freaked and irrational.
Boy do these three topics rattle their rattle!
p.s. thanks for your enlightening statistics.
Shmuel–
Off topic, but I did try to email you asking for book recommendations with the address I got from the blogmasters here. I tried several times (being of the mind that if something doesn’t work, keep doing it–you can see that with my replies to RW) and all of them were bounced back to me by the mailer daemon.
Exorcism is the next step.
taxi, i am not sure what his obsession is with inserting ashkenazis into this thread from the very first comment. it’s something i have not addressed other than to respond/suggest he should start a club to polish their image. he also made mention of “alleged cultural and ethnic inferiority of mizrahi ” which no one here (as far as i know) ever traffics in. what is the purpose of this diversion and how does it even relate to the excellent post Sarah Hawas has written? the lavon affair perhaps? except the operatives were egyptian jews and i have no idea who their handlers were nor did i elude who they were. has anyone even suggested parsing the planners wrt their ashkenazi-ness? not that i know of.
so why? and as an arab jew (as he claimes to be) why the focus on the slave-master thing coupled w/his determination to emphasize his free agency while at the same time doubling down on the refugee status? it makes no sense. we all know many many mizrahi jews now actively advocate they are not and never were refugees while others obviously were but to hold both positions (free agents and refugee) is ..frankly mindboggling. if you have free agency and emigrate willingly you are not a banished refugee. whatever. but clearly the main thrust of his advocacy is defense of ashkenazi. why? what about Sarah Hawas’s post here targets them? nothing. it’s a threadjack.
maybe you’re right about “delving into ashkanazi history”. something i had not previously noticed. thanks for the heads up.
Amir, I am curious as to in what Arab land you were born? If it was your parents who immigrated to Israel, then you cannot possibly speak with first hand knowledge of their experience.
As far as I can tell, the Arab Jews who immigrated to Israel were not defined by anyone as refugees until the late racist rabbi Meir Kahane brought up the subject when he referred to their coming to Israel as a population exchange with the Arab countries for the Palestinians who were made refugees, most of them in the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba.
The Arab Jews, on the other hand, arrived in relative dribbles to Israel over the years according to official Israeli statistics, the largest single year being 1951, three years after the Nakba in which 123,449 Jews arrived from Asia and Africa and the next largest number was in 1949 in which 110,780 made their way there. The total number from 1948 to 1962 was 575,755, some 200,000 less than the number of Palestinians who were either expelled or forced to flee in 1948.
These figures were published in “Israeli Society,” by S.N. Eisenstadt, a professor of sociology at Hebrew University, in 1967 (Basic Books) and what should be noted is that in the book’s 450 pages there is not a single reference to these Jewish immigrants from Arab lands being “refugees.” They were simply Jews making aliyah in the spirit of the Jewish “ingathering” as envisioned by Zionism’s founders.
It should also be noted that this professor was not doing all this work on his own. It was part of the “Publication Series in the History of Zionism and the Yishuv, The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.”
In other words, the notion that those Jews who left their homes in Arab lands were refugees whose plight was similar to that of the Palestinians was just a Zionist trick to undermine the demands of Palestinians to return to their homes and villages as spelled out in UN Res. 194.
That planes were sent to both Iraq and Yemen to collect and bring them to Israel was an historic first and was only duplicated decades later when Israeli planes went to Ethiopia to pick up Jews from that country who wished to leave their poor, downtrodden lives behind and live in a country where the prospects were bound to be brighter. It is worth noting that they have not been considered refugees.
In the late Sixties, emulating the Black Panthers in the US, Mizrahi Jews formed their own version of the Black Panthers and one of them, a friend by the name of Moni Yakim, spelled out the attitude of many to the overt racism of the white-skinned Khazarian Ashkenazim when he and others scrawled on the walls of Israel’s cities, “Ashke-Nazis.”
It was that Askenazi racism, by the way, which led to the upset victory of Menachem Begin and the Herut in 1977 when the “revisionists” took advantage of the situation to make demagogic appeals to the Mizrahim and the latter has provided an important political base for the Likud ever since.
By way of postscript, in December, 1970, I was in Algeria visiting the headquarters of the International Section of the Black Panthers (US version) and took a trip to Beni-Yenni, a Jewish village in the province of Tizi-Ouozo, which had been producing beautiful silver and coral jewelry for centuries and was still doing so although at the time of my visit, thanks to the assistance of the Algerian government its artisanal efforts were being sold in boutiques in NY, Paris and London.
What was curious but not surprising is that when I returned to the US and heard from Zionists of that vintage that all the Jews had been driven from Algeria and I told them about Beni-Yenni none were aware of it existence and disputed what I had seen. No problem. I had already learned by then that speaking truth was not the Zionists’ long suit.
“It’s also very convenient to forget the most Ashkenazi jews are also descendents of refugee’s themselves.”
If yu are referring to thos in Israel, they lost their refugee status as soon as they gave their support to the Zionists.
“Taxi before spouting your antisemitic Khazar myth”, you, DBG, should read this: from Arutz Sheva.
link to israelnationalnews.com
they are not Khazar lords from space who came to imperialize the middle east with their quasi-Nazi ideology
I missed that bit in Sand’s book.
Furthermore, Giyur is not unheard of, even the bible mentions several occasions of mass conversions to Judaism.
So what’s the problem with the theories Sand cites? The only controversial one is the one concerning the Khazars, for which (in my opinion) he – like Koestler – fails to present sufficient positive evidence, while expressing significant doubts regarding the canonical version of Ashkenazi origins (eastward migration of Rhineland Jews). But why should it matter? I am an Ashkenazi Jew, and should it turn out that I am in fact the descendant of Khazari converts, so what? The colonial nature of the Zionist project remains the same, whether Herzl was a descendant of King David or of a Khazari Kagan (or the plebeian equivalent). The move-over-we’re-back theory just doesn’t wash after 2000 years, whether its basis is historical or mythological. Documented refugees from 60-odd years ago are another story entirely.
Of course the “sons of the Khazars” are Jews today, just as the “sons of the Berbers” or “the sons of the Himyar” are Jews. What they are not is direct descendants of some mythical Jewish nation created in the misty dawn of time. No serious historian today would argue otherwise. In fact, Sand’s book is more about historiography than about history.
The existence of non-semitic Jews does not require a conspiracy as advocated by Mr. Sand.
Conspiracy? Sand claims that modern Jewish historiography has been primarily Zionist or proto-Zionist – creating a Jewish nation in the image of the Central and Eastern European nations among which it (Jewish historiography) developed. Furthermore, he argues that it is currently acceptable to question those nationalisms and their historiographies, yet Jewish nationalism seems to get a free pass. Is that really such an outrageous claim? If you were educated in Israel, like I was, and have an ounce of critical thinking in your body, it actually makes perfect sense.
Feel free to point out any particularly objectionable passages in The Invention of the Jewish People. I have the Hebrew edition, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
all of them were bounced back to me by the mailer daemon
Nasty nasty daemon. I’ll get your email and write to you. If you would like to go ahead with the exorcism anyway, I’m sure your diocese exorcism office is in the book. Mine is.
I have a very critical view of Jewish identity, yet i prefer an actually analytic book like Slezkine’s “the Jewish century” rather than myths spurned into a seemingly plausible story that actually has no factual grounding. Historiography? please.
And here you have a mouth breather like Taxi here coming spouting shit like “stupid jew don’t you know ashkenazi are imperial khazar overlords” as some shit and my one line retort which amounts to “fuck you and fuck shlomo sand buddy, your sources are shit” (which they are) is somehow worthy of such lengthy discussion.
oh well, not self hating, we already said.
annie,
Zios go into hysteria and vicious slander re their ashkanazi history cuz it contradicts ALL their self-promoted myths and criminal propaganda.
Wherever there’s FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH, the zios freak-the-deak out. This is set in stone.
Amir is too smart for his own good BUT certainly NOT as smart as MW heavy-weights (you know who you are!).
Amir reminds me of Robert Werdine’s style of BS – know wadamean: forceful articulation in perfect English yet pretending to be an Arab native supporter of european colonialism. The following sentence was addressed to you annie: “… since you are clearly intent on deconstructing my posts on a semantic level (which is a foolish endeavor as my English is atrocious)”. LOL annie: if this single statement ain’t proof-positive of his fraud, then my name is Golda Meir and you are Moshe Dayan.
“… please carry on lashing at Israeli Jews at random…”
“Israeli Jews”? Well I don’t give a dodo what religion Apartheid-loving israelis are!
I also lash out at fascistic zionism and racist zionists WHATEVER country they live in – and proudly too I do it!
You wanna conflate jews with zionists Amir you just go right ahead – knock yerself out! I certainly WON’T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL mister ‘Big-Ras’ – you are an out and out libelous liar to falsely quote me with this bonbon: “Taxi here coming spouting shit like “stupid jew don’t you know ashkenazi are imperial khazar overlords”.”
Just point me to this alleged above quote of mine and I’ll eat my shorts up like raw sushi! What a pathetic lying pathological victim you are.
You’ve been exposed by me the fabulous minty “mouth breather” as being a fraud who has NEVER read Sholomo’s book and I don’t believe for a second your claims of arab bloodhood.
Katching!
Give it up will ya! We’ve seen your movie before and even bought the frigging t-shirt.
BTW, you ever got value for your money ‘debating’ with a pathological victim?
You should get off your pseudo-intellectual high horse and know you’re as exciting a debater as a flee on a dog’s tail.
Roha, that goes both ways.
MRW,
I am not saying the Khazars never existed nor am I saying they didn’t convert to Judaism. Like always you guys are moving the goal posts. Taxi started by calling all Ashkenazi Jews, Khazars which is both false and a myth which is peddled by anti-semites. Look it up on David Icke’s site if you don’t believe me.
“European jews are khazar converts to judaism and NOT connected to Abraham’s bloodline in the slightest.
That’s why the Arabs are pissed off: Arab land (jewish, moslem and christian) is occupied by violent euro colonialists.”
yes certainly I apologize for mischarechterizing your argument sir, certainly my absurdization (haughty english ain’t it?) of your argument was completly nonsensical and entirely not derived from the implication of your argument.
How’s often do you wash your eye patch Mr. Dayan?
Oh moreover, I could be gracious enough to admit that posts like Mr. Jeffrey Blankfort’s were very informative and that I would’ve retracted my initial refugees claim had I not been forced into zionist-survival-debate-techniques. Alas, it is too late now.
And lastly, I don’t believe Abraham even existed, maybe he was some venerated egyptian pharoh or high-priest who had some radical ideas about how to run a theocracy but I have no intention of defending any claims of ancient bloodlines.
DBG,
The Khazar theory of Ashkenazi origins is not false; it is unproven (the supposed genetic “evidence” you have posted a number of times notwithstanding). The theory that Eastern European Jews are descendent from Rhineland Jews originally from Judaea (by way of Italy) would appear to be equally unproven, as it rests on a possibly self-glorifying narrative and far-from-certain linguistic assumptions.
As for the use that anti-Semites make of the theory, who gives a damn? Koestler actually thought it would be a good thing to prove that Ashkenazi Jews are indigenous Europeans. Some anti-Semites are irked by the possibility of a connection between their pathetic stereotypes of Jews and the obvious Judaic contributions to their own culture – first and foremost Christianity itself (or Islam, as the case may be). That really is their problem.
The Commonwealth-exile-return narrative may excite some people, but if Zionists have any claim at all to Palestine, it’s certainly not that. The most rational Zionist approach would appear to be that of people like Zeev Sternhell who argues that Jewish Israelis have a right to be in Palestine because they are there now – nothing more, nothing less. There’s also the international legitimacy argument, if you prefer, but the mythology is just PR (for internal as well as external consumption), impossible to take seriously as a claim to someone else’s land.
So who cares if all or some Ashkenazim are descendent from Khazars, or all or some Sepharadim are descendent from Berbers? I don’t, and I don’t see any reason you should either. Our traditions are what they are, regardless. I don’t know whether you’ve read Sand or not, but I sometimes get the feeling that – as with Carter’s book – half the fuss is over the title.
Good point Shmuel, thanks for that. I agree with Sternhell much more than I agree with some sort of 3000 year old ‘deed’ to Israel.
DBG and Shmuel,
This is certainly my view also. However, some on this blog interpret this view as “might makes right” which is obviously not true.
Therefore the way to present this view is simply to say that the right Israelis have to their land is the same as that of an American, we have a legal deed to our land that will hold in court. In the end, the right (whatever that is) of Israelis to their land is not different than that of any other person in countries with rule of law. And if you think an Israeli does not have right to their land, challenge him in court.
The theory that Eastern European Jews are descendent from Rhineland Jews originally from Judaea (by way of Italy) would appear to be equally unproven, as it rests on a possibly self-glorifying narrative and far-from-certain linguistic assumptions.
The Jewish congregation is mentioned in a writing by emperor Constantin addressing the city council of Cologne from 321 CE.
Big-Ras,
You should really apologize to everyone for your “atrocious” use of the English language – yeah lol you really should!
And you’re STILL NOT TAKING RESPONSIBILITY mister victim! Losing an argument and blaming it on “been forced into zionist-survival-debate-techniques”, DOESN’T WASH AROUND HERE EITHER!
No one FORCED you! You put your racist neck in a self-made noose and kicked the chair from under your feet YOURSELF while the world watched on!
And I’d rather have a single working eyeball than be willfully blind in both eyes like you. We all remember: in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!
Good grief man: you have no sense of justice, no sense of history or even a hint of reflexive wit – most certainly you got not a clue on what a metaphor is or how to use it. I mean “How’s often do you wash your eye patch Mr. Dayan?” – really c’mon is that your best arrow?
And so now that we ‘know’ each other better mon petit ‘Amir’ – why don’t you just buzz off cuz you ain’t ever gonna get the upper hand with your amateur hasbara script around here.
And it would be cool, might even garner you some respect, if you actually RESPONDED to Jeffery’s post instead of just ‘complimenting’ him. What a dull suck-up you turned out to be.
LeaNder,
There is plenty of evidence of an ancient Jewish presence in Germany. The question is where did the far larger numbers of Ostjuden come from? Did they migrate eastward to take advantage of the relative tolerance and greater economic opportunities on the other side of the Oder and then multiply at a fantastic rate, or is there some other explanation? It is also clear that they were influenced by the intellectual and religious traditions of Franco-German “Ashkenaz”, but is that where the masses actually came from?
Taxi started by calling all Ashkenazi Jews, Khazars which is both false and a myth
No one, including the authors of the study that you cited, have ever established the genetic origin(s) of the Zhazar people. Ashkenazi Jews have ancestors of Middle Eastern and European origin, and the same might be true of Khazars too for all we really know. The only reference to a previous study of Khazars in the paper that you cited was one conducted by Wexlar on the basis of the Yiddish language, not ancient Khazar DNA. So, the authors of Abraham’s Children based their conclusion that Ashkenazi Jews aren’t descended from Khazars on a priori assumptions and inferences that aren’t supported by the DNA evidence they presented.
The bottom line is that you shouldn’t rely too much on conclusions about the regional origins of an individual’s ancient ancestors based on “Two-Tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect” and guesswork.
Taxi are we still operating under the assumption that I’m trying to impress you or convince you of anything?
Would you have my take a photograph holding my Blue ID card in one hand and my copy of Sand’s book in the other?
BTW Amir in Hebrew means “tree top” not “big” or “prince” or whatever the joke is you’re trying to make with “Big-Ras” thing.
The most rational Zionist approach would appear to be that of people like Zeev Sternhell who argues that Jewish Israelis have a right to be in Palestine because they are there now – nothing more, nothing less.
I’ve pointed out that fact too, e.g. link to mondoweiss.net
However Israel has denied the right of Palestinians to be in Palestine; their right to leave and return to their country of origin; their right to a nationality. It has destroyed its own international legitimacy argument by ignoring universal condemnation of its on-going colonial enterprise in the OPT. One you dumb shit wipes out a thousand atta boys. What we are talking about is, by definition, apartheid, e.g. link to mondoweiss.net
“Taxi started by calling all Ashkenazi Jews, Khazars.”
You’re a liar and a moron! Here’s what I said: “European jews are khazar converts to judaism and NOT connected to Abraham’s bloodline in the slightest.” So like WHERE exactly did I say “ALL” ashkanazim jews are khazar?! Your brain is as victim-sodden as that Amir-Ras’s. You both blatantly lie and falsely put words into other people’s mouth’s SOON AS YOU FIND YOURSELVES LOSING THE DEBATE!
And check this out: from here on, every time you unduly slander me with your ‘anti-semite’ tag, I’m gonna be calling you a nazi right back at your face – got that nazi?! It’s called ‘price-tag’ tennis! Two can play this offensive game – and the moderator should allow this tennis match both ways or NEITHER.
The fact that I’ve never been on a David Icke website BUT apparently you appear to have studied it inside out, is MOST revealing.
Both you and David Icke disgust me.
LOL. Wow, are you really this shallow a thinker??? Take your deed before a Palestinian court, and see how far you get.
You people like to play at being civilized, but at the end of the day, you enforce your “deed” not by the actions of some Zionist clowns dressing up in robes making a mockery of thousands of years of Western jucidial thought and hundreds of years of Englightenment thinking, but because you can tap into the might of Zio guns carried by Zio thugs.
Wow your English is worse than mine.
Let me ask you this, let’s assume I was a bigot (lol i know what you’re thinking) and I said something like “Palestinians are terrorists” and someone accused me of being islamophobic, what what you say if i’d shake my head call him a moron and reply with “You FOOL! I never said ALL palestinians are terrorists”.
When you do not qualify a categorical statement with quantitative qualifiers it is fair to assume you were referring to all objects included under said category.
For instance, If I were to say “Chairs are brown” it would be a false statement, and yet if I said “some Chairs are brown” it would be correct.
If you had a drop of arab blood in you Amir, as you laughably allege, you would know that ‘Amir’ in arabic means ‘prince’ and ‘Ras’ means ‘head’.
Now it don’t work to translate it as Prince Head (lol!), but it does indeed work to write it as ‘Head Prince’ in English. Like oohlalah you my dear Amir-Ras are calling yourself ‘Head Prince’.
Only a bighead who’s sickly entitled would go about calling themselves ‘head prince’ in my book.
Yeah the joke’s on you friendow – you don’t even know what your name in arabic means. Some true-blooded arab you surely are eh?
There is plenty of evidence of an ancient Jewish presence in Germany.
I think this document is the earliest that exists, that’s why I mentioned it. …
The question is where did the far larger numbers of Ostjuden come from?
That’s not really a good argument. The question would be what would be “normal” versus high numbers? Unfortunately we do not have much Jewish historiography for the relevant time frame(, and only the victors write history). I really mean unfortunately, since Jewish history may ultimately be interesting for our future treatment of minorities generally. From this point of view Israel seems to pull us back in times.
But back to the large numbers. From the top of my head, we are talking about times when 10 kids weren’t really something outrageous. So what does “high” mean?
Did they migrate eastward to take advantage of the relative tolerance and greater economic opportunities on the other side of the Oder and then multiply at a fantastic rate, or is there some other explanation?
It feels they were forced to move to the outer eastward realms initially and with the foundation of Poland they found the most tolerant place in Europe, which allowed them not only to survive but even to propagate. I know that’s standard but the idea wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t historical evidence. The times when the Jews Christians countrymen expanded East to convert the pagans weren’t that far back in time.
Last but not least. Shmuel, you have my biggest sympathy for your struggles with Israeli education, based on my troubles with my own in post-war education over here. But I am generally, not only in Sands case, not a fan of easy explanations.
Shmuel,
“So who cares if all or some Ashkenazim are descendent from Khazars, or all or some Sepharadim are descendent from Berbers?”
Actually the Palestinians do.
Especially the ones who still have key and deed to their stolen homes stitched and sealed inside their jacket lining.
Did I ever claim to speak arabic Mr. Taxi? I
Ivri, daber ivrit. and the such.
LeaNder,
Ancient is relative of course. I meant prior to the rise of Eastern European Judaism.
I have not made a study of the numbers, but found the combination of Sand’s arguments against the established narrative persuasive – although, as I have mentioned, not the alternative theory he proposes.
Thanks for your solidarity :-) My education was not only Zionist, but Orthodox-religious as well. In grappling with it I have learned that questions are far more important than answers – easy or otherwise. Not knowing the answer doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
To pursue Woody’s point – in what circumstances can an individual fairly claim to have a right to a share of sovereignty in a particular territory? We would normally say – surely – ‘when resident there, with certain exceptions’. There is a degree of restriction, which I think could be justified rationally, on foreigners who are judged to have a greater loyalty elsewhere or to be present only for temporary purposes. There are clearly no rights to those whose presence is due to invasion and marauding, present or past, unless those involved in the episode of invasion have all made their peace. That is because right does not come from might but may come from a reasonable agreement aimed at ending the episode of conquest and violence and replacing war with a new social contract, as has happened with the Welsh and English ancestors of most of us who are called Hughes, Jones etc. .
private addendum: I too felt a deep sympathy for your mother-in-law and by extension for your wife, who must have been influenced by her fate, when you mentioned her yesterday. These stories are very, very important.
Actually the Palestinians do.
Especially the ones who still have key and deed to their stolen homes stitched and sealed inside their jacket lining.
Well they shouldn’t. It’s a red herring. Even if every last Zionist had a pedigree going back to Judah son of Jacob himself, the Palestinians with the keys and deeds would still be right and the Zionists wrong.
Best to stick to international law and human rights. The Palestinian case is rock solid. Have I mentioned BDS lately? :-)
You really are a moron mister ras:
When you QUOTE a second party, you’re supposed to do it WORD FOR WORD! Otherwise it ain’t a quote, its A PERSONAL INTERPRETATION! And a twisted one in your case and in the case of that miserable DBG.
Also, way above on this post, I thanked Hostage for his “enlightening statistics” regarding the origins of european jewery. What on earth did you understand from THAT?! Why the hell do you think I said that to him?
No way Jose get outta town already – you’ve been toasted, roasted and fried stupid. Clearest of all though, and most pointedly, you’ve been exposed as a fraud.
I bet you’ve never even met a real arab up-close and personal.
Go tell your hasbara bosses at hasbaraheadquarters to send in another dishonest replacement. We’re ready. Always.
DBG,
Arthur Koestler was a very close, and decades-long, friend of one of my three older Jewish friends in Manhattan. According to my friend, Koestler, who was Hungarian, had mountains of Hungarian/Rumanian/Black Sea research that never saw the light of day: birth, marriage, and death records from synagogues over the centuries and private family accounts and diaries he collected. Koestler wrote my friend in 1981 and 1982 that someone had stolen reams of his research docs, which were not stored in his apartment, and that he and his wife were being followed everywhere; it was unnerving his wife immensely. They suspected a JDL-like extremist group. Koestler thought it was because there were groups that did not like the publication of The Thirteenth Tribe.
My friend read from a letter Koestler wrote (think it was Nov/Dec 1982) that said if you hear that I have committed suicide or died in some mysterious accident, you will know it’s not true. I remember my friend’s concern, because he said Koestler was not given to making frivolous or dramatic statements like that.
Of course, Koestler and his wife were dead about four months later. Cause? Suicide, supposedly.
My friend, who knew Koestler well, said he put years into his research, and that he started after WWII. It slowly became an obsession with him: he knew he was not an historian so he wanted everything that he wrote to be backed up with documents at hand.
I remember reading, somewhere, years later that no one was ever able to find the trove he based his book on.
Shmuel,
After some time, the people with the “keys and deeds” are not right anymore. The Jews left Spain in 1492 with the keys to their houses. That is why in Cordoba (it may be another city), there is a tradition of changing all the keys in a house when you get a new one.
But to argue that some Jews have a right to these houses is silly.
He seems like an interesting guy, and a Zionist to boot. you did forget to mention that he had terminal chronic lymphocytic leukemia and parkinsons before his suicide though.
As for the 13th tribe, I am not questioning their existence, but to say all Ashkenazi are Khazars is pretty far fetched. But I think Shmuel is right, we are who we are. I am more concerned with being a Jew than some 3000 year connection with the land of Israel.
Again thanks Shmuel :)
“Tree top” is already a strange part of a name, even if it is just a screen name.
But what, pray tell, does “amir ras” mean in Hebrew? Is “ras” even a word in Hebrew?
According to Wikpedia, the source of the accusations that Koestler was a misogynistic womanizer is the biography of him by the Zionist historian David Cesarani.
But to argue that some Jews have a right to these houses is silly.
is anyone arguing jews who left their home in spain circa 1492 have a right to those houses?
what about the alleged ‘jewish’ houses in east jerusalem? is to argue that some Jews have a right to those houses silly too?
“is anyone arguing jews who left their home in spain circa 1492 have a right to those houses?”
When one argues that Palestinian refugees from 1947 have a right to their houses, how is that a different argument? My point is that after a certain amount of time passes, these arguments become silly.
Oh well I’m sorry my first name is strange to you, my Khazar mom thought it was pretty for some reason. It is a common hebrew name.
Ras means nothing in particular, I just left it there because I used to post in 972 under the same name and (hubris alert) I post in Yossi Gurwitz Hebrew blog at Hahem as Rasul (ראסול) so I wanted to maintain some consistency when I started commenting on his English articles in 972.
This is all very fascinating I’m sure.
Historian Jill Craigie, married to former Labour leader Michael Foot, confirmed after the book’s publication that Koestler had raped her.
You’re cute Shmuelzy – and you know I mean it! But respectfully I beg to differ on this one.
I still think that for Palestinians, it matters a great deal morally and in actuality that european zionists, with no connection to the ancestral bloodline or to the land, are falsely claiming blood-heritage and real-estate inheritance. For example, take that arsey thug Avingdor Lieberman and the million+ Russian mafioso converts-of-convenience who call themselves ‘semetic israeli jews’. It matters a great deal to the HONOR of an arab that he exposes and confronts such swindling crimes against his manifold-generational family inheritance: otherwise he will be seen in his community as a weak and shameful branch of the ancient family tree, a man doomed to live WITHOUT HONOR. Worse than that, his lowly reputation will be passed on to his children – they too will be considered weaklings and viewed with disdain and suspicion. Please ponder on the human profundities of this point and not the “red-herring” legalese of it.
Besides, Shmeul, why shouldn’t the Palestinians care about both: the international law bodies AND the real roots of their occupiers and land theives. There’s legitimate arguments in both places for Palestinians I reckon.
You really can’t let zionists get away with ANYTHING Shmuel – not an inch and not even for a nano second.
What’s fascinating is that you object to people interpreting your screen name as Arabic, in which it apparently makes sense, rather than as Hebrew, in which you admit that it does not make sense.
In grappling with it I have learned that questions are far more important than answers – easy or otherwise. Not knowing the answer doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
I ransacked my brain how to put it shorty.
But yes, the questions never end.
You know what, I will read Shlomo Sand, he seems to have humor.
I checked via Google books, do Heinrich von Treitschke, (not “nationalist” but Nationalliberaler = “national liberal”) and Heinrich Graetz surface and yes they do. Among other things these two were on my mind, when I settled on “easy answers”:
The Wikipedia entry on Koestler mentions Jill Craigie’s charge. To be fair, I think I should quote the Wikipedia section in full:
But I mentioned the whole matter and Cesarani’s biography of Koestler in the first place because I was wondering why Cesarani, whose other books have had nothing to do with Koestler, should have decided to write a hostile biography of him.
Oh YHWH almighty please, I did not object to anything, I just said it didn’t really mean “Big” which I mistakenly (and foolishly) thought was the arabic translation since that Taxi dude was calling me Big Ras.
I still don’t think this is too fascinating, sorry. sometimes a bad post is just a bad post?
And the Mizrachi Jews Taxi, how do they fit into your freakshow mentality?
Taxi there is a real-time plot you should watch closely.
I still think that for Palestinians, it matters a great deal morally and in actuality that european zionists, with no connection to the ancestral bloodline or to the land
Only if they buy into the nationalist meme, and I hope they don’t.
Where there is an identified heir who wishes to resume occupation and use of identified property that was taken unjustly then I would say that the lapse of time does not obliterate his or her rights. Otherwise rights would result from a combination of original violence and later indifference, which they don’t.
There are synagogues in Toledo that were Christianised in the time you mention, annie. Somehow no Jewish community has reappeared there, though I think that if one did reappear its members would have a reasonable claim to resume use of the properties. They would at best be heirs in a loose, but I think still sufficient, sense.
I believe that there are some unenthusiastic talks about the resumption of Muslim worship in some part of what is now Cordoba Cathedral.
It matters a great deal to the HONOR of an arab that he exposes and confronts such swindling crimes against his manifold-generational family inheritance: otherwise he will be seen in his community as a weak and shameful branch of the ancient family tree, a man doomed to live WITHOUT HONOR. Worse than that, his lowly reputation will be passed on to his children – they too will be considered weaklings and viewed with disdain and suspicion. Please ponder on the human profundities of this point and not the “red-herring” legalese of it.
Pondering.
private addendum … These stories are very, very important.
Thanks. It is easy to lose sight of the personal in all of our political analyses and polemics. If we fail to understand human fear and trauma we understand nothing.
After some time, the people with the “keys and deeds” are not right anymore. The Jews left Spain in 1492 with the keys to their houses.
How much time? Is the span of a human lifetime the same as the span of 20 generations?
Amir,
You telling me that you’re a ‘refugee’ arab jew living in frigging israel and you DON’T KNOW A SINGLE WORD OF ARABIC – not even the word ‘Amir’?! Now THAT is insanely revealing – of your fraud that is.
And btw, ‘Ras’ in Arabic, just like in hebrew, is ALSO used to mean ‘top’, ‘apex’, etc – and you telling me your superior intellectual EARS never ever picked up on shared aramaic words between arabs and jews?
Goddam you’re such a blatant fraud!
And as to your insidious hissy delivery of “Ivri, daber ivrit”, well indeed it seals you ABSOLUTELY in settler lalaland HABIBI!
LOL we have here on MW on a tuesday night an actual brit colonial settler pretending to be an arab-jew VICTIM of arab goyz. Heck Amir I bet you take a shower right after pretending to be this raging arab blogger huh.
You zio guys are not only looking more desperate every day, but also more and more stupid.
You’ve lost the argument like at least a dozen times to a handful of competent posters already – so buzz off smartypants.
You’ve run out of arguments and clearly you’re here to attack me (sticks and stones) cuz I exposed your silly nonsense disguise.
You’re a cheap propagandist and your pretense is offensive to all arabs including decent arab jews.
Re-read the last paragraph please Amir.
I thought Hebrew “rosh” for “head” (as in “Ros Hashanah”) was cognate with Arabic “ras”, also meaning “head”. Is “ras” a word in Hebrew as well?
Dude it is seriously not my fault that you are insane and keep filling out the blanks with bits from your own imagination. I’m sorry but you are beginning to come off as obsessive, what happened, you never heard of an Israeli who’s relatively fluent in English before?
I never said I were a first degree refugee, my father is Mizrahi and if we are to go into my particular genealogy since I can’t help but feeding the trolls he’s clearly not a refugee either, though I don’t think my family history is really pertinent here, as I was making a broader statement concerning Mizrahim and Ashkenazim in general (which was better debunked by posters less vitriolic than yourself) and self identified as a Mizrahi jew since shucks i am one, my family name has always identified me as such and i take no shame in my arabic roots and have no problem with self identifying as an arabic jew.
Lysias, indeed it is Rosh. We’re still nitpicking at an offhanded remark I made hours ago as proof that I do not speak a word of arabic, though I admit to not speaking arabic willingly. I do know ras means head for that purpose, and I do know taxi is a majnun so i’m quite perplexed as to why i’m responding to him.
Ah, oh well.
Lysias, you are right, although “ras” is not used in Hebrew proper. The relationship between “ras” and “rosh” is well-known to Israelis. There are many Arabic place names in Israel which are known to Jews, such as Ras el-Amud.
Interestingly, it is thought that the English word “race” (as in racism) derives from the Arabic. The head (ras) of the family establishes the race.
“What’s fascinating is that you object to people interpreting your screen name as Arabic, in which it apparently makes sense, rather than as Hebrew, in which you admit that it does not make sense.”
LOL lysias – your keen rationale is genius and hysterical!
I’m not into medieval things very much. On ancient history I think Sand says for the most part things that are well supported by standard writers. He just says it in a different tone.
The importance of the Khazar story depends, I think, on what principle is used when rights are claimed for Jewish people. If we’re talking about rights for Jewish people bestowed by God, or bestowed by the unique historical record, then converts who joined the Jewish community during the bad times and took all the risks would surely have every right to share the rewards. At that rate the Khazar origin of many Jewish people wouldn’t matter.
If the claim is that it’s not a question of the unique historical situation of Jewish people but a) of a universal principle whereby all those unjustly driven out have a hereditary right of return and b) of the claim that the Semitic Jews were unjustly driven from Palestine then those of pure Khazar descent would not, I accept, be able to claim that right directly. But even that might not matter much. The Semitic Jewish people might decide, using their status as true heirs to the land, willingly to invite the ex-Khazars to join them: they would have as much right to do this as to expel the Palestinians. Or else the two groups might have intermarried. In which case we would not in logic find that the Jewish claim to Palestine had lapsed but that a Jewish claim to partition Khazaria, from which it is certain that some people of Jewish faith were expelled, had arisen.
>> After some time, the people with the “keys and deeds” are not right anymore.
So, eee, the idea is to play for time, then? Run out the clock? If so, does this have anything to do with your desire to get back to “negotiations”? -N49.
“How much time? Is the span of a human lifetime the same as the span of 20 generations?”
These are always difficult questions. It is a judgement call obviously. But I think there is not much difference between 60 years and 600 in this case.
My point is that after a certain amount of time passes, these arguments become silly.
You didn’t answer Annie’s question about the use of Ottoman era deeds to properties in East Jerusalem in modern-day Israeli court cases. They resulted in the eviction of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah. We’ve also been discussing the belief of the Israelis that the Jews have a right to annex the Etzion Block under any final settlement, because Jews used to live in Kfar Etzion. So obviously the Israeli Courts and government don’t view claims dating back to 1947 as “silly”.
>> >> [eee]: After some time, the people with the “keys and deeds” are not right anymore. The Jews left Spain in 1492 with the keys to their houses.
>> [Shmuel]: How much time? Is the span of a human lifetime the same as the span of 20 generations?
This is an interesting question. At what point do you discount Palestinian claims in the same way the “same” Zionist claims are now discounted (at least in these parts)?
I don’t know the law, but it would appear fair to honour claims so long as the claims have been continuously registered. In other words, you can’t come back N years later out of nowhere and say: oh yeah, that’s mine, here are the papers.” But if you register the claim “as soon as” the injustice is committed (or shortly thereafter), and you or your descendents keep these claims in good standing (being responsive to inquiries, etc.), then there should be no expiry date to these claims at all.
I would be curious as to what the good legal minds on this forum have to say to this. -N49.
Pondering.
Fair enough. How about this one:
This is why each of the court case regarding properties in East Jerusalem takes years and years and none are the same. Each case is different and involves many issues including the time passed and the relation between the people and property (how did they come to own it?). If the people were renters, the courts often give them an option to pay rent and stay for example. And we are talking about a handful of cases.
To implement the ROR you would need hundreds of thousands of court cases that would drag on for decades. It is absolutely impossible to implement even if people would agree to do so. So yes, it is silly.
Didn’t some Jewish families shortly after the end of the Cold War recover or get compensation for property that they had lost during the Nazi period? After what, 45 or 50 years?
So? Hundreds of thousands of Jewish families recovered none of their property in Poland. There were 3-4 million Jews in Poland before the war. Very little of their real estate was ever returned or will be returned.
“… I do not speak a word of arabic”
Why would you, you’re a brit who’s only been exposed to English people and to judaism and you’ve only recently made aliyah to Apartheid israel and so the subtleties and nuances of arabs and arab language go whoooooshshsh right over your head.
Mashogana shmashogana baby!
Didn’t some Jewish families shortly after the end of the Cold War recover or get compensation for property that they had lost during the Nazi period? After what, 45 or 50 years?
There have been several class action lawsuits like that. One of the more recent ones resulted in a 1.2 billion dollar settlement in the 1999 case of Swiss Banks Settlement: In re Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation link to swissbankclaims.com
Article 13 of the UN Charter tasks the General Assembly with conducting studies and promoting the progressive codification of international law. The work of the International Law Commission Human Rights Commission/Council, and other subordinate UN organs have been promulgated in a number of treaties and declarations on customary law that have been contained in UN General Assembly resolutions. The General Assembly responded to the lack of guidance in this area with A/RES/60/147, March 21, 2006: Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law
link to un.org
The Jerusalem Post recently reported in Berlin to pay Moroccan Jews who suffered under Vichy that Germany has agreed to make payments to Moroccan Jews whose freedom of movement was curtailed by Axis powers during World War II.
Taxi, it beats being self-loathing in the diaspora.
So, doesn’t it establish that such claims can be valid after a period very much like 60 years?
To implement the ROR you would need hundreds of thousands of court cases that would drag on for decades.
Nope. You could just as easily argue that compensating Holocaust survivors or restoring their stolen property is an impossible task, but that hasn’t ever prevented them from pursuing judicial remedies. The Palestine Conciliation Commission was tasked with maintaining a database of assets and property subject to refugee claims. Resolution 194(III) established the justiciable issues.
So? Just because they haven’t been able to get justice, doesn’t mean others shouldn’t seek it.
You aren’t answering anything, you’re just creating a standard to support your own political agenda.
You have no morals. Just Zionism.
Apples and oranges. Refugees could probably argue for monetary compensation. But to get back specific properties by annulling the ownership of the Israeli owners? Even if Israel would ever agree to this in principle (which it won’t), each case will take years and years and there would be hundreds of thousands of cases.
Lysias,
I hope you understand that if Palestinian claims stand, so will the claims of Polish and Arab Jews to their property in Poland and the Arab countries. Any solution will have to handle ALL the claims, not just the Palestinian ones. But frankly, all the claims are silly by now. But if you insist in dredging claims from 60 years ago, lets dredge all of them and see where this leads.
There were 3-4 million Jews in Poland before the war. Very little of their real estate was ever returned or will be returned.
The government of Poland accepted claims for dormant Swiss bank accounts until 2005. About 600 of the 3,000 claims related to communal property that had been filed since 2001 have been resolved. There is a class action lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights for personal property claims that stands a good chance of success. The government of Poland has adopted legislation that would provide compensation, but it was subsequently vetoed in each case by the President over the citizenship and other criteria. The legislation is intended to avoid a class action suit in US Courts where current Polish citizenship is irrelevant.
The “Eastern Territories (Bug River) Law” became effective in October 2006 and established a claims process providing compensation for the loss of private property in what – before the war – was the eastern region of Poland, but is now outside its borders.The law requires Polish citizenship to claim, provides 20 percent compensation of a property’s current market value, to be paid in four installments, not starting until 2009.
So, there is a reasonable chance that Polish Holocaust survivors or their successors in interest will be compensated.
link to claimscon.org
“Roha, that goes both ways.”
What do you mean? I said that Jewish refugees from Europe stopped being refugees when they joined forces with the Zionists. When they did that they became invaders. And, since their aim was ethnic cleansing, invaders of a particularly nasty sort.
So what is the “other way” it is supposed to go?
Amir-Ras: You acknowledge that you read my post. You didn’t tell us, however, the country of origin of your parents. I know that it is a habit common to most foreign born Israelis not to reveal their actual birthplace, a critical piece of information that is allowed to pass by indulgent Western journalists (No, “Where were you born, by the way, Mr. Regev, and why do you think you have more of a right to live in that land than Palestinians who were born there?”) but, for the purposes of YOUR arguments, Amir-Ras, your parents’ birthplace is an essential piece of information. Let’s have it.
But to get back specific properties by annulling the ownership of the Israeli owners?
Gimme some of what you are smoking. The Israelis have no ownership to annul. If their Judicial system doesn’t afford a remedy, it would invite class action suits elsewhere. Abandoned property laws and confiscation of private property upon a change of sovereignty are practices that were declared a violation of the laws of nations no later than the 1830s. See United States v. Percheman, 32 U.S. 7 Pet. 51 51 (1832) link to supreme.justia.com
The Hague Convention prohibited the expropriation of private property. That’s why Turkey was especially condemned for its practice relating to Abandoned Properties (Emval-i-Metroukeh) in Article 144 of the Treaty of Sevres – and why the delusional Israeli government will have such a hard time finding ways to legalize illegal outposts without inviting more foreign lawsuits.
I hope you understand that if Palestinian claims stand, so will the claims of Polish and Arab Jews to their property in Poland and the Arab countries. Any solution will have to handle ALL the claims, not just the Palestinian ones.
You are spouting the usual nonsense. I’m guessing that the Quartet might hesitate to invite the Poles to the “final solution” talks. Israel has already signed final agreements with Egypt and Jordan. Neither of those instruments handled any refugee claims, much less Polish ones. Go hijack a thread at some other site. Your comments here are off topic and completely delusional.
Hostage,
Do you live in the same universe as most people?
You say:
“If their Judicial system doesn’t afford a remedy, it would invite class action suits elsewhere. ”
Since this is the case now where are the class suits? Why hasn’t even ONE been filed? You spout theory but don’t even bother to look around and see that nothing that you say has materialized.
that is what gets me about Hostage, it is like he is trying to fool everyone. He can cite laws and all he wants, but for the most part what he is saying isn’t even relevant. When someone actually takes the time to argue his ‘document nonsense’ he gets owned and then he doesn’t respond.
he gets owned and then he doesn’t respond.
it hasn’t even been one friggin hr.maybe he’s taking a bath. show me one time hostage has been ‘owned’ by any of you hasbarists. spare us your drivel please.
Hostage, Do you live in the same universe as most people? You say: “If their Judicial system doesn’t afford a remedy, it would invite class action suits elsewhere. ” Since this is the case now where are the class suits?
I believe that the Canadian Superior Court dismissed Bil’In (Village Council) V. Green Park International Ltd without prejudice and instructed the petitioners to first seek a remedy through the Israeli judicial system. That ordinarily indicates the absence of a decision on the merits and leaves the parties free to litigate the matter in a subsequent Court action(s). You also may have read the NYT OpEd in which President Abbas expressed his intention to seek a judgement against Israel in the International Court of Justice. The Palestinians have already filed a complaint against Israel in the International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute established a Trust Fund for Victim Compensation that is operated by the ICC. You can read more about that here: link to iccnow.org and here: link to trustfundforvictims.org
Believe me Abbas and the ICC have captured Bibi and Yvet’s undivided attention.
Now, there’s a name of the Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu. — Benjamin Netanyahu (original name Mileikowsky)
I’m thinking of changing my name to Caesar – instant proof of my claim to everything from Londinium to Tomis. On second thought, maybe I’ll change it to Cocacola.
These are always difficult questions. It is a judgement call obviously. But I think there is not much difference between 60 years and 600 in this case.
From your perspective, 3e (based on previous comments), it’s not that difficult a question at all. Like everything else, it is simply a matter of relative power, and in fact there is no difference between 60 and 600 years. It all depends on whether said “judgement” can be enforced.
So it’s not about silliness or tying up the poor beleaguered courts. It’s about power – which is why Jews with pre-48 property claims currently have legal recourse (as arduous as it may be), and Palestinians don’t.
Jeffrey: I already went into my own auto-biographical details with sufficient length.
it beats being self-loathing in the diaspora.
More “zionist-survival-debate-techniques”? חבל
Amir-Ras, You have made so many posts on this thread that I apparently missed them but went back and did find what you consider to be sufficient detail. Forgive me if I don’t. It was evident from your writing style and the fact that you didn’t speak Arabic that your direct experience in the country of your recent ancestors was zilch and the same apparently can be said of your father since you admit he was not a refugee.
But just saying that you are half Mizrahi and considering yourself to be one may make you proud, but I am curious why you don’t tell us exactly what country it was where your grandfather had his house kicked from beneath his feet. Since the experiences of Mizrahi Jews differed from country to country both before and after the establishment of Israel, where he came from is very relevant to your arguments and our responses. Tell us please and if not why not?.
To implement the ROR you would need hundreds of thousands of court cases that would drag on for decades.
As opposed the current sitch which has, umm, dragged on for decades? -n49.
שמואל,
I’m a little confused at this point, I’m the only one reading both mine and Taxi’s posts? He does not warrant any more serious responses from me. Even though he’s clearly on of this communities’ anti-zionist watchdog or something. The dude accuses me of the worst possible thing, being a brit, yet I have to maintain civility?
אני מקווה שהשמיניות באויר שאתה עושה בשביל שיאהבו אותך פה שוות את המאמץ, ללא ספק יותר כיף לנטפק הודעות של ישראלים כדי להראות לכולם שאתה אחד מהחברה. כן עוד ציונות מתגוננת.
הרי ברור טקסי אף פעם לא אמר “שכל האשכנזים כוזרים” אז אני ציוני הזוי. הקיצר, אם אתה לוקח את הצד שלהם באופן א-פריורי אתה יכול לשמור את הסימפטיה והזהות שלך לעצמך.
Anyway, Jeffrey, this is really not pertinent, as I pointed out several times, I am actually allowed to identify as a mizrahi jew and claim we are a little more than jew-laborers even though my family wasn’t expelled from Muslim lands. For that purpose my family has been in Palestine for 200 years now, decades before hovevy tzion and the first aliyah.
why are you posting in hebrew? anyone can use google translate you fool.
Because I was trying to convey a private message to Shmuel, I’m pretty sure he will be able to confirm my hebrew was not born of google translate, but who knows, as a hasbra shill perhaps I was given a crash course in colloquial Hebrew, or maybe I have access to a vast network of zionist translators.
The possibilities are limitless.
Amir,
As long as we’re analysing each other’s contributions, you showed up here for the first time, with both guns blazing. Your comments have been, at best, cryptic – at worst, complete misrepresentations of your actual views. I disagree with Taxi’s assessment of those views and of your personal background but, to be perfectly honest, you asked for it.
Try saying what you really mean, without falling into some sort of knee-jerk defence-mode, and you might actually have some interesting discussions here. If not, חבל על הזמן חביבי, go back to 972.
Haha Shmuel, I’ve been following MWeiss for long enough to know there are no civil interesting discussions here for unrepentant Israelis.
Haha Shmuel, I’ve been following MWeiss for long enough to know there are no civil interesting discussions here for unrepentant Israelis.
So why did you bother to show up in the first place? To pick a fight? To defend Israeli honour? I thought you might actually have something to add here, but I guess I was wrong. חג שמח וכל טוב
אני מקווה שהשמיניות באויר שאתה עושה בשביל שיאהבו אותך פה שוות את המאמץ, ללא ספק יותר כיף לנטפק הודעות של ישראלים כדי להראות לכולם שאתה אחד מהחברה. כן עוד ציונות מתגוננת.
הרי ברור טקסי אף פעם לא אמר “שכל האשכנזים כוזרים” אז אני ציוני הזוי. הקיצר, אם אתה לוקח את הצד שלהם באופן א-פריורי אתה יכול לשמור את הסימפטיה והזהות שלך לעצמך.
So jesus. Out come the Hungarian violins.
‘The name my family took from the Bible after some generations of using non-Hebrew names’ – he might have said, revealing something of the artificiality of Zionism.
I’m not in the least expert on 8th century seals but I understand that the famous phrase LMLK, ‘for the King’/'property of the state’, usually appears last, following some indication of which of four storehouses/tax offices it belonged to – Hebron, Socoh, Ziph and ‘mmst’. In this case the order is different, leading the Israel Antiquities Authority to publish the impossible translation ‘King of Hebron’. Probably this anomaly, if anomaly it is, amounts to nothing but it would really be fun if the Netanyahu seal turned out to be a forgery.
Hostage,
Despite the fact that Palestinians have not been afforded remedy for over 60 years in the Israeli judicial system, and there is not ONE class action suit, you claim class action suits will somehow be effective in the future. How dumb is that?
Furthermore, you quote cases that have nothing to do with the ROR but with land in the West Bank. In short, you are spouting nonsense. Annulling the ownership of land in Israel by Israelis is not possible using class action suits. It it were possible, it would have already been done. The ROR therefore would require decades in courts of hundreds of thousands of cases. In short, it is completely not feasible even if Israel agreed to it in principle.
eee, perhaps you are unaware aipac recently sent out a fundraising letter informing the recent UN bid could land israel in court. just because something has not been tried in the past doesn’t mean the door is shut.
Annie,
So now you accept as true what AIPAC says? How does this work exactly Annie, why do you believe AIPAC only when it supports your views?
By the way, what AIPAC wrote is irrelevant to this discussion since we are dealing with the ROR and as you keep stressing, this is a personal rights issue that no government can negotiate away. Therefore, the refugees did not need any recognition as being part of any state to pursue their claims in international courts. Yet, they did not do this for over 60 years. The Palestinian state’s standing has no relevance in this case. AIPAC is talking about completely unrelated court cases and in fact I disagree with them that there is any substance to them. At most they will get an advisory rulings like in the case of the security fence. I did not see that help them at all.
If you really think what Hostage is saying this is effective why don’t you just do it instead of talking about it for decades? It is just like the idiot Lebanese that keep threatening to take Israel to court for decades and do nothing, just talk. Where are all the law suits that we were supposed to get after 2006? What is stopping Lebanon, a member of the UNSC, from pursuing them? Why isn’t there ONE law suit?
So now you accept as true what AIPAC says? How does this work exactly Annie, why do you believe AIPAC only when it supports your views?
eee, ever since palestine said it was taking it’s bid for statehood to the UN hostage and others have informed us what the implications of that were wrt the courts. for months and months and nothing in the msm about it til the week before or something. at first it was dismissed as meaningless and worthless and we were told it wouldn’t make any difference on the ground. then, right before the statehood big aipac sent out that letter and down near the end it revealed what the worry was..the courts. at the time (as i recall) i turned the letter into a post here and commented that finally aipac was acknowledging the implications and why there was so much pushback from US/IS. so, it’s wasn’t a matter of me ‘believing’ aipac. i just chose to make the pt of aipac saying it in my argument with you as you’re on their team. so do you think aipac was lying for the sake of appealing for funds?
what AIPAC wrote is irrelevant to this discussion since we are dealing with the ROR and as you keep stressing
i have not stressed ror (even once) in this conversation and i agree w/you aipac writing it is irrelevant. but using the courts and international law and the international community to further palestines claims is definitely not irrelevant to the discussion and you capitalizing the word ‘one’ twice, because it has not brought success thus far just demonstrates further why this UN bid is critical. time will not stand still while israel expands. the gig is coming to an end shortly.
Despite the fact that Palestinians have not been afforded remedy for over 60 years in the Israeli judicial system, and there is not ONE class action suit
Yes there are and I pointed some of them out. The findings in the 2004 ICJ Wall case included illegal displacement of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Jerusalem as a result of the construction of illegal settlements and the Wall. The Court ordered Israel to remedy that situation and to pay compensation. Israel has revoked the residency of thousands of deported Palestinians and RoR is a self-evident element of the court’s findings in para 134 of its decision with regard to Article 49(6) of the Geneva Convention. An offer of repatriation is required in every case without exception.
The ICJ already ordered Israel to pay compensation for damages arising from the Construction of the Wall. The Supreme Court of Israel refused to do that. So, Abbas only needs to ask the ICJ to enter a default judgement and set the amount owed.
Bil’In Village Council is a suit on behalf of a group of plaintiffs seeking relief. The Superior Court in Canada ruled that the plaintiffs should seek relief in Israeli courts before turning the Canadian courts. BTW, cases involving entire villages and/or multiple petitioners have always been the norm in Israeli jurisprudence, e.g. Beit Sourik Village, Bil’In Village Council, Mara’abe et al (five Palestinian villages), & etc.
For years Palestinians brought suits here in the US against former Israeli officials, but the US government usually intervened and claimed that Foreign Sovereign Immunity applied. The Supreme Court decision in Samantar v. Yousuf held that States enjoy immunity, but not individual officials, and that violations of customary law are not valid or immunized acts of State. That decision cleared the way for civil lawsuits against Israeli government officials under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), but they don’t really have deep enough pockets to pay much compensation. The Supreme Court has yet to decide if US corporations are liable under ATS for human rights violations. The District Courts are currently split over the merit of cases like the one that resulted in the $1.2 billion settlement In Re Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation, 424 F .3d 169 (2nd Cir. 2005).
The last time the issue came-up, in the South African apartheid case, the Supreme Court couldn’t muster a quorum due to conflicts of interest (stock holdings in the corporate petitioners). So the case was allowed to proceed in the lower court.
link to bloomberg.com
*Last September the Second Circuit decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum held that corporations can’t be held liable for violations of customary international law under the ATS.
*The DC Circuit disagreed. In its recent decision on Doe v. Exxon-Mobil it held that corporations can be liable, but in Ali Shafi v. Palestinian Authority it held that non-state actors may not be held liable under the ATS.
*The Eleventh Circuit decision in Romero v. Drummond held that corporations can be held liable.
*The Ninth Circuit agreed that corporations may be held liable in its Bauman v. Daimler Chrysler Corp decision.
So there are several US District Courts that would currently allow Palestinians to file suits against corporations, banks, and officials if Israeli courts fail to act on blatant violations of Palestinian human rights and property rights.
Annie,
Now you are changing the subject. The courts will not help with the ROR, that is the point of the discussion. As for whether going to the UN will help Palestinians in any way, time will tell. There is a good reason that the Palestinians are divided on whether going to the UN is a smart idea or not. That is because it is hard to tell and there are many down sides. In my opinion it will change nothing. The UN is not an important player. No country needs the UN to put pressure on Israel. For example, if South Africa wanted to sanction Israel, nobody stands in its way. They do not need UN approval. Why do they keep trading with Israel?
“the gig is coming to an end shortly.”
We have been hearing that for 60 years. Believe what you want.
Hostage,
You are digging a deeper hole for yourself.
You say:
“So there are several US District Courts that would currently allow Palestinians to file suits against corporations, banks, and officials if Israeli courts fail to act on blatant violations of Palestinian human rights and property rights”
According to you, Israel has been violating “Palestinian human rights and property rights” for 60+ years by not allowing the refugees to return. So where are the law suits? You keep saying they are possible. But obviously they are not happening so Palestinians know that they are a waste of time. So what you say is BS. Furthermore, all these cases are for compensation, not for annulling ownership by Israelis.
buzz off you little twirp. i answered your diversionary stupid questions and now you tell me i’m changing the friggin subject? i am not. and wtf is this: You are digging a deeper hole for yourself.
i’m over this form of degenerative bs arguing. this is dkos volley all the way where he would couch all his comments with declarations of winning the argument and other people faltering. you are not the judge and jury nor are you in any position to coral the conversation where you want it to go by making stupid comments about what i do and do not stress. all you do is hammer one thing over and over and deflect others arguments. grow up, i’m over answering your questions when you do not address my points, ever.
The courts will not help with the ROR, that is the point of the discussion.
according to you. i get this is your opinion. it is like talking to a brick wall.
see ya round.
Tsk, tsk Annie. Get a grip. Each time you want out from answering a question, you throw a fit.
as opposed to you ignoring our arguments by claiming i’m changing the subject or hostage is digging a hole for himself? like i said you are not judge and jury. i have a grip and i do not care to engage in conversation with these kinds of myopic diversionary tactics and declarations of grandure. go bark up someone else’s tree. you’re like a yapping puppydog and i’m over answering your silly questions with responses you ignore and then claim i am changing the subject. like i said , good bye.
It is just like the idiot Lebanese that keep threatening to take Israel to court for decades and do nothing, just talk. Where are all the law suits that we were supposed to get after 2006? What is stopping Lebanon, a member of the UNSC, from pursuing them? Why isn’t there ONE law suit?
There hasn’t been an international criminal court for “60 years”. It only came into existence in 2002 and the first cases only went to trial in 2005. The failure to conduct credible criminal investigations and prosecutions triggers the court’s jurisdiction.
So, this cruft about Lebanon is an irrelevant and unsourced hasbara talking point that eee, hophmi, & co. always regurgitate. Palestine has already filed complains against Israel in both international courts and Palestinians have filed hundreds of lawsuits against Israel in the US, Canada, and the EU. Even if the Lebanese are wallflowers, there is ample evidence that the Palestinians are not.
I’ll try to break the code one last time and give you an example of how the ICC victims trust fund works:
The ICC is believed to have hired different asset-tracing firms to keep track of the money that two of the six suspects [in the Kenya case] have been moving around in their attempt to conceal the cash.
One of the suspects has in the past few months transferred millions in cash and assets to his lawyer who is supposed to hold them in trust. An offshore firm registered in the Cayman Islands is also reported to have taken up his shares in a well known insurance business.
A second suspect has sold assets valued at Sh10 billion, including hundreds of hectares of land and a food processing business.”In one of the companies known to belong to the suspect’s family, the shareholding was transferred last week on Wednesday to one of the partners who is very close to the family,” the agent said. A number of top law firms in the city are reportedly involved in the transfers.
Under the Rome Statute, once a suspect has been summoned or a warrant of arrest issued, the ICC judges have powers to issue orders freezing the assets and accounts of any suspect at the request of the chief prosecutor.
Article 57 (e) provides that ICC seizure of a suspect’s assets or accounts is done as a “protective” measure in case a suspect is convicted and fined and if cash is needed to compensate victims.
Once the suspect is tried and convicted, the judges can issue an order for transfer of such assets into the Victims’ Trust Fund for disbursement to victims as reparations.
link to allafrica.com
The people who manage the assets of the JNF and WZO Settlement Division are engaged in a joint criminal enterprise. Israel only has to loose once for the whole house of cards to collapse.
So what you say is BS.
You glossed over the ICJ finding that Palestinians had been displaced in violation of Article 49(6) again. That most definitely does trigger Israel’s international obligation with respect to RoR to the Occupied Territories, including Jerusalem.
You keep talking about Israel being threatened with lawsuits for 60 years, but never produce any evidence to support that claim. The only alternative used to be BDS movement. The Israeli Apartheid Week is only six years old. There was no such thing as an ICC until a few years ago. There were only 60 member states when it came into existence. Today there are 118 signatories.
The principle that the Laws of Nations are part of US Federal common law and justiciable under the ATS was only established in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala (1980). Samantar v. Yousuf was only decided in 2010 and the District Court cases that I cited were decided between the Fall of 2010 and the Summer of 2011. So, some of the game changing precedents and institutions have only been around for a few months, not 60 years. In any event the Swiss Banks had thumbed their noses at the Holocaust victims for at least that long, before they agreed to pay $1.2 billion in 2005.
All you are doing is demonstrating your ignorance about the way the system works.
Hostage,
Your blah blah is irrelevant for the following reasons:
1) The ICC can only prosecute alleged crimes committed after its founding date in 2002. So whatever happened in 1947-48 will never be touched by the ICC. So the ICC is irrelevant to this discussion.
2) You say the 2005 ruling against Swiss Banks was a game changer? So, where are the Palestinian suits that parallel that suit? Why hasn’t there been a suit filed by Palestinians since 2005? Is 6 years not enough time to file a suit?
3) You claim there are more recent precedents. Let me know when actual suits are filed based on them. Until then, what you say does not pass the reality test.
“this is not a zionist site and it’s you who come here instead of posting on some other site more naturally affiliated w/your pov. so who’s locked in after all?”
I’d say annie is locked into only wanting to talk to people who share her opinions and prejudices. Not an asset to any site.
eee
Let me know when actual suits are filed based on them. Until then, what you say does not pass the reality test.
Let us know when your rhetoric matches that of Lieberman and Netanyahu regarding the dire consequences of Palestinian statehood at the UN. link to haaretz.com
What an ignoramus. Palestine filed an actual complaint with the ICC in 2009. The Prosecutor filed a public report with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that said he was conducting a preliminary evaluation and awaiting the results of Israel’s investigations of Operation Cast Lead. He also said that a determination would have to be made by the Judges on the issue of Palestinian statehood at the appropriate time: link to uclalawforum.com
The UN HRC subsequently reported that its panel of experts determined that Israel had not conducted independent or credible investigations of Operation Cast Lead: link to un.org
If Palestine becomes a UN observer state and a state party to the ICC Statute, the question of statehood becomes moot and the 2009 complaint remains active. Under the existing precedents of international law the recognition of a state is retroactive and validates all actions and conduct of that foreign government from time of its existence, i.e. the 1988 PLO Algiers UDI. See the Tinoco Arbitration, Oetjen v. Central Leather Company, 246 U.S. 297, 303 (1918), and “The Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevic – Case No. IT-02-54-T (Rule 98 bis test – Deportation, forcible transfer and cross border transfer – Definition of a State)”
The great barrier to prosecuting Israelis is the inability of Palestinians to become state parties to the necessary international conventions that trigger the cooperation of other states and international organizations. The Israeli press has been full of reports about the efforts of the EU’s Ashton and the US to give the Palestinians some sort of upgraded status while preventing them from becoming a party to the Rome Statute. The folks in Jerusalem have been pissing and moaning about Abbas’s threats to take them to Court, and complaining it’s an act of war.
The population transfer and the resultant apartheid that we are talking about is an on-going crime. Once Palestine is recognized as a UN member or observer state, it’s officials will sign the international conventions and begin seeking indictments for those crimes in other countries. FYI, Israel has used illegal measures to maintain the status quo and prevent the return of the 1948 and 1967 refugees post 2002. It massacred refugees in several border incidents just last summer.
The ICC is a court of last resort. Israelis will ordinarily be prosecuted for serious crimes by other countries or ICC member states – without regard to the 2002 statute of limitations – in trials like those conducted for Eichmann, Demjanjuk, Pinochet, or Noriega. Several states requested extradition in the cases of Demjanjuk, Pinochet, or Noriega. For example Noriega was convicted and served a sentence in the US before he was extradited to France. He was convicted and imprisoned there for money laundering. There is also a request for extradition to Panama where he has been convicted of murder and human rights violations. There are hundreds of outstanding criminal complaints against Israelis in Courts around the world. The lawyers seeking indictments in Great Britain have already noted that the changes in the law there do not protect former government officials, opposition party leaders, body guards, members of the military, & etc. Even if the ICC orders the arrest and surrender of an individual, any outstanding warrants and proceedings in national courts would take priority under the terms of the Rome Statute.
You say the 2005 ruling against Swiss Banks was a game changer?
You aren’t being very attentive. What I said was that the Swiss Banks thumbed their noses at victims before they were threatened by legal actions. That agreement was not the result of a ruling by the Court. The parties agreed to a pre-trial settlement. I also explained that the District Courts subsequently split over the question of corporate liability under ATS and the uncertain position of the Supreme Court on that question. The recent German announcement that it would pay compensation to WWII area Jews for violations of the right to freedom of movement was triggered by the threat of legal action in line with the 2005 declaration on the rights of victims to compensation.
Not an asset to any site.
the antidote speaks
Under the existing precedents of international law the recognition of a state is retroactive and validates all actions and conduct of that foreign government from time of its existence
i didn’t realize that.
The lawyers seeking indictments in Great Britain have already noted that the changes in the law there do not protect former government officials, opposition party leaders, body guards, members of the military, & etc.
they already change the law there? i read about that but i didn’t realize it was a done deal.
they already change the law there? i read about that but i didn’t realize it was a done deal.
Yes. It was more than a little ironic when the UK government recently went out of its way to arrest Israeli Sheikh Raed Salah, but continued to shield Tzipi Livni even after a judge had found enough evidence to issue a warrant for her arrest. Tzipi waited a couple of years for her bill from the UK Parliament to go into effect, because she didn’t want her day in the UK Courts.
The Sheikh’s arrest was declared illegal by the UK courts in very short order. Apparently Livni knows that a preliminary hearing in her case would yield the opposite result.
It is true that the mass departure of the Mizrahi Jews from the Arab World was subsequent to and as a consequence of the Palestinian dispossession. It is also true that the State of Israel encouraged them to leave (a fact which Hasbara falsely projects onto the Arab regimes “calling for” Palestinians to leave Palestine). However we must also acknowledge the sectarianism of the Arab world and the phenomenon of communal retaliation as being factors – which Zionism was so skillful at exploiting. I find it destructive and mean spirited to engage in debates which demean the Mizrahi exodus and dismiss the tragic aspects of it. We must not be provoked into sounding like Zionist advocates who want to quibble about which villagers were really native to Palestine, which ones sold their land, how many fled before the the Haganna arrived, and so on.
Conversation on this subject must acknowledge a shared tragedy with a shared primary cause. When people overcome their primitive tribalism and work for the one country solution the Palestinians and the Mizrahis will work together as natural allies with a joint history. They have more in common with each other than with any of the regimes that claim to represent them. The right of return must be pursued for all parties. Recognition of this fact is the reason that Israel does not seriously advocate for right of return or even compensation for the Jews of the Arab World.
I agree with much of what you said. But ill treatment of Arab Jews started before any Palestinian dispossession.
Habibi you miss my point.
Persecution of Arab Jews by who? Stop trying to justify the Nakba.
That was debunked yesterday. Ironically, it was eee’s links that provided the evidence.
Stop with the lies DBG.
LOL! how was it debunked Shingo?
Try to keep up DBG, or are you deliberately playing dumb?
eee’s links to Wikipedia revealed that ill treatment of Arab Jews did not start before any Palestinian dispossession.
Is that simple enough for you, or shall I use shorter words?
Shingo,
That is a brazen lie. My link clearly shows that already in 1945 70 Egyptian Jews were killed. Palestinians were dispossessed in 1948.
That is a brazen lie. My link clearly shows that already in 1945 70 Egyptian Jews were killed. Palestinians were dispossessed in 1948.
No, it doesn’t, eee. It showed that 10 Jews were killed (although other sources list 6 Westerners killed, some of them Jews) during rioting that occurred after a Balfour Day protest in Egypt in 1945. Egyptian Jews, wrongly or not, were associated with Western colonialism in Egypt and with Zionism. Zionists had already dispossessed Palestinian tenant farmers, and joined British forces in quelling the Arab revolt in 1936-39, and the Irgun was executing terrorist actions against Arab civilians in Palestine. Zionists were quite outspoken in insisting they wanted to set up a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine, and Egyptian Arabs were not ignorant of the fact that the only way that Palestine could become a “Jewish” commonwealth was through the subjugation of the majority of the population which was Muslim and Christian.
Your link on 70 Jews killed specifies the period during the 1948 War, ( and again Beinin’s figures lists 41 killed during this era, still an appalling number, but not 70) well after 350,000 Palestinians had already been dispossessed, and some of these deaths occurred after Israel bombed Cairo, causing much death and destruction of homes.
As Beinin makes clear, the equating of Jews with Zionists in the minds of Egyptians had a very significant part in the dispersion of Egyptian Jews. As Zionists are often the most insistent that all Jews are Zionists (unless they are “self-hating”) they bear considerable responsibility for the general acceptance of this idea.
Tree,
Yes, you are right it was 10 Jews killed in 1945, not 70. But the point remains that Egyptian Jews were attacked before Palestinians were dispossessed. And that is no one’s responsibility but the Egyptians’.
LOL eee the discrepancy between 10 dead jews and 70 dead jews is NOTABLE.
And how many imaginary friends of apartheid israel you been hanging out with lately?
I’m sure that Egyptian Christians were also attacked somewhere in the country in 1945. And Egyptian Muslims. And Egyptian atheists. And Egyptian gays.
The world is full of nasty people who attack other people all the time, everywhere.
The ethnic cleansing of Jews in Baghdad continues, this time because of the “zionist stooge” Julian Assange.
link to ynetnews.com
What?! You mean Jews are being persecuted UNDER THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION? Huh.
LOL, so America is still occupying Iraq huh? Are we still occupying Germany and Japan also?
Now that’s a good reply.
Now that’s a good reply.
If you are referring to homingpigeon’s 11:32 comment, I agree.
I also agree with the main thrust of your criticism (although it did take me a couple of comments to understand what you were saying).
Yes I was reffering to that point.
For what it’s worth I was being defiant exactly against the sentiment Annie is repeating now, everything bad that ever happened had some Ashkenazi (and later also mizrahi cause we been corrupted too) jew pulling some strings.
Zionists Ashkenazim are not the only people with agency in the middle east, and if they are, well then, I guess they deserve it.
Amir Ras–I also liked homingpigeon’s post. I wasn’t sure where you were coming from, but if you agreed with it then I guess I agree with you too.
Part of the negative reaction you got was because yours was the first comment in this thread and it was a distraction from the main point of the post.
You guys love to make the argument that Jewish refugees were encouraged to leave, but flip out when a similar argument is made regarding the Palestinians. It is pretty silly when u think about it.
It isn’t that “we make the argument that Jewish refugees were encouraged to leave.” The facts of the matter speak for themselves and acknowledged by Zionist historians. There is no evidence that Arab governments told the Palestinians to leave yet that Big Lie of the Zionists keeps being repeated along with another whopper, that it was “the Arabs” that started the 1967 war.
There is no evidence that Arab governments told the Palestinians to leave
weren’t most of the arab countries at that time colonialist? In 1948 Libya was under the administration of Britain and France. In 1948 Tunisia was a French protectorate and had been since 1881, in 1948 Algeria was a French colony and had been since 1830, Morroco …france and spain. lebanon and syria were placed under the administration of France as a part of the French Mandate of Syria and Iraq was put under the administration of the UK. so how could the current arab governments be held solely responsible?
I do wonder, were we not banished from Muslim lands? Are we not refugees?
Long story short, you are probably not a refugee as defined by international law.
*The 1951 Refugee Convention only defined refugees as displaced persons from Europe. In addition, Article1 C. excluded European displaced persons if they have acquired a new nationality, and enjoy the protection of the
country of the new nationality.
link to unhcr.org
*The 1967 Protocol allowed state parties to retain the original definition. So for example, Turkey deposited a reservation which stipulated:
link to unhcr.org
*States that opted-in to the broader scope of applicability under the 1967 Protocol do not define refugees as persons who have accepted a new nationality and the protection of the country of the new nationality in accordance with Article 1.C.(3).
P.S. “Palestine refugees”, including about 17,000 Arab Jews, were considered refugees by the Palestine Conciliation Commission in accordance with the applicable UN resolutions. So Jews expelled from East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza are included within the scope of UN General Assembly resolution 194(III).
*The 1951 Refugee Convention only defined refugees as displaced persons from Europe
LOL, so the only refugees in the world are from Europe. Hostage, a trusted source of nonsense.
Somewhere, a former English teacher of DBG’s is rolling in her grave. You can’t, you know, pass this off to your children congenitally, right…? You do understand that Hostage didn’t write the 1951 Refugee Convention? No? Wow.
LOL, so the only refugees in the world are from Europe. Hostage, a trusted source of nonsense.
The State of Israel and its allies insisted on that stipulation in the interest of providing transit visas & temporary assistance and housing for European Jews in route to Israel. Are you suggesting that representative of Israel, Jacob Robinson, would have been so stupid as to participate in drafting an international convention that would have made donations to UNRWA compulsory assessments or codified resolution 194(III) into a legally binding treaty that would have tied international assistance for European Jews to repatriation of Palestinian refugees?
You obviously are not as politically or legally astute as your namesake DBG, because David Ben Gurion always torpedoed that idea. He refused to discuss any refugees, except Palestine refugees, at the Lausanne Conference. He took the position that they were none of the UN’s or the PCC’s business.
Israel proposed three amendments to Article 1, but none of them altered the definition of the term refugee so as to include Jews or Arabs from other continents besides Europe. The Vatican proposed an “all continents” amendment, but it was voted down because it would have obligated signatories to repatriate or host some undesirables (you-know-who). I’d suggest you read the Travaux préparatoires and the minutes of the various sessions of the Conference of Plenipotentiaries before you embarrass yourself any further.
link to unhcr.org
My earlier post was apparently kicked out.
I’ll reiterate.
To assume that Zionism caused the harms done to Arab Jews is to indulge in a racism.
In the sense that there is NO justification for persecution of Jews anywhere, that what Israel does is NO justification for how Egyptian Jews are treated by government, by populous, by ideologs.
Racism by whom against whom, Witty? Who’s being racist and who are they being racist against? You can’t just throw that word around if you don’t understand what it means.
Chaos, if you didn’t notice, Witty did not say racism, he said “a racism”. And that, my friend, makes all the difference, and makes his quibble unassailable. It is, as you must know, anti-Semetic to analyse or contradict anyone who uses the officially recognised syntax of Fiddler-speak. So watch it, pal.
Witty, how can you call it a racism when the expelled and those responsible for the expelling were the same race? They were all Arabs.
There is no justification for persecution of anybody anywhere. Fixating on Jewish persecution is a double standard. It ignores the persecution (and real racism) of the Palestinians by the Zionists. Persecution on ethno-religious was very common in the ME during the first half of the 20th century. Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, and Indian Muslims were also subjected to genocides. In all cases if you examine the facts on the ground you come to the conclusion that a third party was responsible for provoking these situations (including the Arab Jewish expulsions). I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it, the powers-that-be know we are easier to control when split up by our differences whether they are race, ethnicity, religion, culture, etc. Easier to control, easier to instill conflict upon, easier to start wars against one and other.
When people say that the Ottomans didn’t trust the Armenians because they suspected they were working for the British leading to their genocide and expulsion, that’s the Hollywood version. Hollywood as in behind the scenes there were intelligence agencies artificially provoking such non-existence beliefs.
Please stop rationalizing the suppression of Jews anywhere.
If they lived where they lived and were harrassed for being Jews (even using the rationalization that they might be Zionists, even whether they were or not), is persecution.
If you oppose persecution, then oppose persecution.
Charon isn’t justifying the suppression of Jews, you fool.
You are the sicko who justified the Nakba and said you’d support the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the Nakba if you were alive at that time.
You are a disgusting hypocrite.
Good point Witty. We should simply allow you to rationalize the suppression of Palestinians and all hold our noses, for the greater good.
That’s what you and www keep telling us.
“Please stop rationalizing the suppression of Jews anywhere”
Humm…well as long you rationalize the suppression of Muslims witty I think I will rationalize the suppression of Jews.
You’re not special you know. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Actually, a lot of the reason the Young Turk government committed genocide against the Armenians was that they believed Armenians were in cahoots with the Christian powers ganging up on the Ottoman Empire, not just the British but more especially Turkey’s long-time enemy Russia. Probably what caused the genocide to start precisely when it did was the Anglo-French landing at Gallipoli, but that was just a precipitating event for something that had been brewing for some time and that probably would have happened not too long after even without the landing at Gallipoli. Enver Pasha needed a scapegoat to blame for his military debacle at Sarıkamış in the winter of 1914-15, and he was already blaming treason by Armenians even before the landing at Gallipoli.
However, to say that Turkish suspicion of the Armenians caused the Armenian genocide is certainly not to justify it.
In the same way, to say that Zionism caused Muslim mistreatment of Middle Eastern Jews is not to justify it.
Tout comprendre n’est pas la même chose que tout pardonner. Il y a des choses qu’on peut comprendre mais que l’on ne peut pas pardonner.
Says our resident closet racist.
In harboring any form of the attitude that Jews in Egypt or elsewhere in the Arabian world deserved harrassment for the presence of Israel or Zionism, then he is rationalizing racism.
There is no excuse for the persecution of any religious or other minority in any form.
If you uphold that principle, then just do so unequivocally.
The author mentioned the domestic reactionary forces, but attributed the cause of the persecution of the resident Jews to Zionism.
That may have been the stimulation to domestic racist tendencies, but the racist tendencies are the cause of persecution, not Zionism.
How dare Jews desire to self-govern?
How dare Jews desire to self-govern?
By claiming, repeatedly, that the persecution of Palestinians by Israel is merely Jewish “self-government” you are rationalizing that persecution. Please follow your own advice before you pretend to lecture to others.
You are also demeaning Jews by your insistence that Jewish “self-government” is only possible through persecution of others, but that’s another story. You short change Jews and non-Jews alike with your hypocritical rationalizations for Zionism.
Self-government of Jews in Israel needn’t entail suppression of Palestinians. There are multiple forms of application of Zionism.
I do not and have not advocated for forms that persecute Palestinians. On the contrary.
It is too interesting that you still failed to address the persecution of Jews, only deflected from the question.
Don’t give yourself that out of rationalization. If you oppose persecution, oppose persecution. Don’t only oppose persecution where it is convenient.
“Self-government of Jews in Israel needn’t entail suppression of Palestinians. There are multiple forms of application of Zionism.”
True–there was the form of Zionism advocated by Judah Magnes and maybe Martin Buber (I don’t know enough to say for sure). That’s not the form that produced the state of Israel.
“If you oppose persecution, oppose persecution. Don’t only oppose persecution where it is convenient.”
Someday perhaps you will have a certain burst of self-knowledge and really blush at all the good advice you gave others and didn’t follow yourself.
you still failed to address the persecution of Jews
why should tree address your lie about harboring ..the attitude Jews ..deserved harrassment .
tree didn’t say that, you are fishing for excuses to lecture people. get off your high horse. charon says “There is no justification for persecution of anybody anywhere. ” and you say “stop rationalizing the suppression of Jews”. you’re air boxing against your desired enemy. it’s farcical.
Donald,
In 1947-1948, once the civil war began and the Arab league began their invasion in response to the prospect of an Israel, Buber shifted this views to support of a state as a necessity.
The form of Zionism, including self-governing state, that is humane, is a liberal Zionism.
One that practices LIVE AND LET LIVE.
In 1947-1948, once the civil war began
On the contrary, Ben Ami wrote that after the Arab revolt it was a new military offspring of the Hagana, the Poum, that led almost routine reprisals and collective punishments against Arab villages.
link to books.google.com
In 1943 the US Consul at Cairo cabled the State Department: “I have noted in discussions with Zionist spokesmen visiting Cairo recently a marked hardening in their attitude (possibly owing in part to increased confidence resulting from alleged large-scale clandestine arming by Jews in Palestine) which in several cases has taken the form of frankly admitting that it is idle to continue to talk of “negotiations” with Arabs, in balance obvious that any solution satisfactory to Zionists would have to be “imposed” on Arabs by threat or use of force and this latter the only realistic line of action to adopt. –Kirk
link to digicoll.library.wisc.edu
In 1946, the Anglo-American Inquiry found that apart from the Haganah, two further illegal armed organizations exist, both having cut away from the parent body and that the Jewish Agency had ceased to cooperate with the Government to prevent murders.
The attitude of the Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency after the murders of the 27th December, 1945 was cited and an excerpt from a Palestine Post interview included in the report. Ben Gurion said that: “any efforts by the Jewish Agency to assist in preventing such acts would be rendered futile by the policy pursued in Palestine by His Majesty’s Government on which the primary responsibility rests for the tragic situation created in the country, and which had led in recent weeks to bloodshed and innocent victims among Jews, Britons and others.
“The Jewish Agency representatives added that it was difficult to appeal to the Yishuv to observe the law at a time when the Mandatory Government itself was consistently violating the fundamental law of the country embodied in the Palestine Mandate.
So long as this kind of view is put forward by the leaders of the Jewish Agency it is impossible to look for settled conditions.
All three organizations to which reference has been made are illegal.”
Of course the Egyptians were already hosting Palestinian exiles who had been deported or fled during the Arab revolt.
“How dare Jews desire to self-govern?”
Humm…..doesn’t look like they know how to self govern does it?
Maybe they should give it up…they’ve made a mess.
Hostage,
Hard to know how that relates to a comment on Buber’s acknowledgment of the need for a state rather than merely a residence in the context of war and harrassment.
Maybe you were responding to someone else.
Hostage, Hard to know how that relates to a comment
Richard I was responding to the unhistorical gloss that the “civil war” started in 1947. You should know better than that by now. Settler-colonial societies are inherently genocidal in nature and they all use the same rationalizations to blame their intended victims. The Zionist army had been an integral part of the Yishuv since at least the second wave of migration (1904-14) and it was busy conducting nearly continuous raids and reprisals against Arab villages after the Arab revolt of 1936-1939. The Yishuv and its militias ignored the White Paper policy and went about their business of establishing more outposts in the middle of the night during “lightning raids”. The Palmach proved very useful in suppressing local opposition to those expansionist operations. It’s hard to believe you never heard about any of that.
“Buber’s acknowledgment of the need for a state” is the predictable result of so many German Zionist colonists inviting themselves to take a share of the territory of Palestine away from the indigenous people by force. It’s a sad commentary that he ended up adopting such a morally bankrupt position, not a sign that he had come to his senses.
Its a sign of reality.
Zionist settlement originally was a mix of residence and intentional expropriative colonization, mostly the former.
Harrassment was mutual, but also originally a rejection of Jewish presence in more than token numbers.
Israeli Jews don’t intend to be denied self-governance, whether that results from an unintentional or intentional historical change (unintended holocaust and general and specific persecution throughout almost all of Europe, and in different ways in the most of North Africa and Mideast).
The best that will happen in the present is live and let live.
I hope that you’ve read that I support the Palestinian initiative for statehood (a fairly radical Jewish position), and support the eventual federation of Israel/Palestine into an EU like federation (a very radical Jewish position).
I do not regard Zionism as Jewish colonialism, but as Jewish liberation, sadly gone astray partially. (in the devolution of the social contract in Israel, and in its treatment of its neighbors).
Nobody cares what you do or don’t regard Zionism as, the FACT is that Zionism is Jewish colonialism! Zionism — Israel — LITERALLY is a bunch of European settlers who wiped out a native population to make room for themselves.
You can keep trying to put a different frame around the photo of your memory, Witty, but it’s never going to put a unicorn or a yeti into view. Zionism IS colonialism, full stop. And Zionism ceased to be about self-determination the moment your ideology deemed it necessary to ethnically cleanse people to make an artificial Jewish majority.
That isn’t democracy, Witty, that’s a farce.
I hope that you’ve read that I support the Palestinian initiative for statehood (a fairly radical Jewish position), and support the eventual federation of Israel/Palestine into an EU like federation (a very radical Jewish position).
I think you nailed it RW, I don’t understand why this is such a radical idea for the anti-Zionists on here. A binational state, with out some sort of initial separation and relationship building period, will lead to a bloody war with world-wide implications.
A binational state, with out some sort of initial separation and relationship building period, will lead to a bloody war with world-wide implications.
Because the Zionists destroyed the binational state of Palestine after it was established in March of 1920 and their delusional plan of separation hasn’t prevented any bloodshed yet?
Binational state in 1920? do tell.
Binational state in 1920? do tell.
Surely, Palestine was actually one of the many allied successor states that came into existence on March 1, 1920 under the terms of the Treaty of Sevres, Article 245 et seq and the Treaty of Lausanne, Part II, Section I, Article 53(2).
link to wwi.lib.byu.edu
You can read about the recognition of the mandated state of Palestine and the decisions of the various international and national courts which confirmed its statehood right here:
link to mondoweiss.net
You claimed that Richard nailed it when he said “Zionist settlement originally was a mix of residence and intentional expropriative colonization, mostly the former.” You didn’t mention the legal status of “the settlement” or entity that the Jews called their Yishuv, but Prof. Avigdor Levy and others have published scores of books and articles on the subject of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire; their Rabbinate; and their communities.
link to brandeis.edu
There had been semi-autonomous Jewish communities in Ottoman Asia for generations – long before there was such a thing as a Zionist Colonial Trust. They were governed in large part through a Hakham Bashi and other Jewish officials, had their own local rabbinical courts, owned communal properties, which included their places of worship and schools, & etc.
The Jews and the Arabs are both guilty of engaging in revisionist history when they gloss over the fact that much of Ottoman Asia had always hosted semi-autonomous binational or multinational communities.
The task that the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission set for the British government for nearly two decades was to report on the actions it had taken to establish the institutions of what it called a “Judeo-Arab self-governing commonwealth”. For its part the British government reported that it had employed Jews and Arabs in every one of its departments in hopes of achieving that goal:
Here is the official interpretation of the intent of the Balfour Declaration that the representative of the British Government provided to the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission during the same session:
link to unispal.un.org
So to argue that Jews and Arabs are incapable of living together without another period of adjustment or more bloodshed is utter nonsense. They have had nearly a hundred years of that sort of thing already.
You probably lost him half a paragraph in, Hostage, sorry. The rest of us enjoy the great pains you take, though.
Hostage,
You seem to be arguing that so long as there is any institutional Zionism (Jewish self-governance), or even the desire for Zionism to any significant extent, that there is war.
And, that is similar very sadly to one of Phil’s themes that he stated regarding his desire to “purge” the Jewish consciousness of Zionism.
I don’t know your context.
Again, I regard Zionism as a historically necessary movement, inevitable given the context that European Jews lived within, during the last 150 years.
As the formation of Zionism did relate to European Jewish experience primarily, the role of prior diaspora in the Arab world does not fit the European Zionist narrative as a parallel cookie cutter. It still fits, but less consistently in form.
It is a truth that Palestinian, Arab and Islamic movements in and near Palestine over-reacted to early Zionism, then failed to adjust to real history in the 30′s and 40′s and 50′s relative to political Zionism.
Relying on an interpretation of history to permanently cling to what one understands should have been, rather than regarding oneself in a present-forward effort to realize what should and could be in the current real context (political morality, justice) is noble from a certain perspective, with the grave risk of being dogmatic and cruelly imposing.
More dogmatic and suppressive than what one opposes.
No one’s assertion of what really happened, have turned out to be accurately true. Not yours. Not Werdine’s. Not anyone’s. No historian’s (for their intentional selection of what to research). No less informed observer (for their limited access to information and possible intentional selection of what to consider).
To remove Israel will entail revolution, prospectively violent one.
Some Jews and some Arabs are capable of living together without bloodshed. Some are not. Some actively desire it (both communities).
The advocacy for forced removal of populations, however they got there (legally or illegally, kindly or malevolently, Jewish or Arab), will lead to violence. People defend their homes, however they came to perceive them as their homes.
As long as there has been an Israel, there has been war in the Middle East. Witty, there is nothing to Israel but War and Occupation.
fantastic Sarah Hawas, stunning. thank you.
One of the best ever.
Phil not sure what time it is in Cairo. But the BBC World Service is focused on the protest in Cairo right now and will be doing an all day forum in Cleveland Ohio today. You could contact them and give them first hand coverage
BBC is reporting that there are claims that protesters had armed machine guns? The host is questioning those who are claiming this. Any truth to this?
Although I disagree with the factual line presented here, the bottom line is clear- sectarian violence is inner Egyptian issue with major implications. And conspiracy theories have no ground here.
“Although I disagree with the factual line presented here,”
From a confirmed smoker, who wakes up with somewhat occluded bronchial tubes, thank you for the best medicine.
“the bottom line is clear- sectarian violence is inner Egyptian issue with major implications. And conspiracy theories have no ground here”
How is the bottom line clear? Because you say that it is so, dimadok? This is a persuasive trick and a weak one at that. An example of its usage is the following:
“It is an undeniable fact, you can not dispute that (insert anything you want to persuade somebody to believe)”
Conspiracy theory used in the context you have used it in is a smear term. I will say this again, every anti-Zionist already believes in a conspiracy theory as conspiracy fact. That the Zionist narrative dispensed by our MSM is one-sided and full of propaganda and lies. Israel has gotten caught on several occasions, the most recent example being Ilan Grapel. The Mossad agent who was PROVOKING sectarian violence between Copts and Muslims in Egypt. Israel has gone on record saying they would PREFER an all-Maronite mini-state in Lebanon. Yemen Israeli Jews posing as Maronites were caught PROVOKING sectarian violence in Lebanon.
So just because you poke your head into this thread and say “the bottom line is clear because I say so and these conspiracy theories are nonsense” comes off sounding a little like you came from Baghdad Bob’s PR department. I know a common response is to say that there is no proof that Ilan Grapel is guilty because Israel denies it and Egypt can’t be trusted. Israel can’t be trusted. By that logic Israel has no nuclear weapons, Rupert Murdoch isn’t Jewish, and the USS Liberty was an accident. Israel denied the Lavon Affair for 30 years
If it looks like a duck, etc… Common sense and a background of related incidents is all it takes to prove this isn’t a conspiracy theory
Eli Cohen…
What conspiracy theory? I’m not a fan of claiming “false flag operation” when there’s no evidence for it, but in this case it seems pretty blatant–the government is trying to stir up sectarian conflict between Muslims and Copts.
That was clear even in the NYT this morning.
not to me.
to the streets, revolutionaries
and hold them
permanently
You first, revolutionary!
What follows is a first-hand account from a Christian Egyptian-American. Note his conclusion: This is not religious strife, this is state sponsored terrorism towards the Copts. Zionism not only redounds poorly to Egyptian Jews but as shown here to Egyptian Christians. Why do we react so differently with Syria and Libya atrocities than Egyptian ones? Simple. The policy of the Mubarek and SCAF is to preserve Zionism. When the government of Libya and Syria attack their people we sanction them. When the government of Egypt does the same we are more concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood who are ironically siding with the government rather than the revolutionaries.
I have had it with the phony concern the Harbarists claim they have for the Copts. You don’t care so stop pretending. All you care about is keeping your phony narrative alive. When the Israelis attacked Muslims I cared since my Christian faith informs my value of all human life and not just those of my faith community. I was accused of not caring about others in the Middle East because I was focusing on the Palestinians. I was focusing on the Palestinians because they were being attacked. Now my community got hit by thugs in a government we support only because they support Israel. The only difference between the pictures we see now and we saw during Operation Cast Lead is the icon of Jesus.
richb, thanks for posting. is there a link to this?
Most Egyptians believed the Egyptian army will transfer power from Mubarak to the people. Why are you blaming the US government? If the Egyptian people ask for sanctions on their regime, the US will comply. But so far no one is asking for them. So the comparison to other countries does not make sense.
“Most Egyptians believed the…”
Isn’t it humbling to be in the presence of such omniscience? Oy, and by telepathy, too!
You really live in a parallel universe. From this morning, a Muslim carrying a cross on a funeral march for the Copts chanting all Egyptians against the Field Marshall.
link to twitpic.com
Another picture of a Muslim sheik holding a cross at a funeral:
link to ow.ly
If we really listened to the Egyptian people rather than their corrupt government our policy vis-a-vis Palestine would be 180 degrees of what it is. That’s why Israel is worrying about the Arab Spring because the dictators like Mubarek and the rest of the Egyptian military are denying the will of the people.
Richb,
You were blaming the US for not sanctioning Egypt. So, do you want sanctions on Egypt or not?
As for living in a parallel universe may I suggest it is you. It seems that for you two sheikhs holding crosses is stronger evidence than several churches burned and 24 people dead, mostly Copts. Of course there are many reasonable Muslims in Egypt. But there are also many radicals and they are setting the agenda. Hopefully that will change.
The Copts know who their real enemy is, the government. Despite false flag after false flag they don’t fall for it. It’s a mafia-style protection racket writ large. If only the Christians here were so wise. So, if there are other Christians listening and you care about your Egyptian brothers and sisters then support the revolution.
Richb,
What “false flag after false flag”? Got any evidence for this absurd claim?
The revolution will bring to the fore the Muslim Brotherhood and a Sharia based constitution. But if that is what you want, go for it. If you care about your Christian brothers and sisters, make many visas available for them.
The biggest example is the New Year’s Day bombing of the Two Saints church in Alexandria.
There was evidence found in the security services in Alexandria in the case where al Adly recruited an extremist and remotely blew him up to make it look like a suicide bombing. The Copts found the following story credible and was the reason for pressing charges above.
Jundallah?
video: Brother of Terrorist – US Support Jundullah Terrorist Group
the telegraphs US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran also mentions Jundallah as “The Baluchistan-based Brigade of God group”.
sounds like an Iranian or Pakistani false-flag operation to discredit the US.
you think the iranians are kidnapping, murdering and bombing themselves to discredit the US? what a unique perspective dbg. did you open the independent link?
maybe the sunday telegraph is in on the iranian false flag operation and fabricating the quote from the high-ranking CIA official in Washington too.
;)
in fact, they are probably executing their own agents to keep their own cover killing over 100 of their own citizens, including senior officers of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
maybe the sunday telegraph is in on the iranian false flag operation and fabricating the quote from the high-ranking CIA official in Washington too.
I think you might be on to something, conspiracies are fun!
there’s more..check my edit.
Sounds like you’re not the least bit interested in any discussion, but simply pedaling pathetic Hasbara.
Why are you wasting your time here DBG?
same reason you are here Shingo.
Annals of National Security Preparing the Battlefield. the new yorker is probably in on the iranian false flag too dbg.
i rec the whole article. i keep mentioning baluchistan. very strategic region.
hey richb, just read your dkos diary on this. i missed it back then.
Ironically I was not at all into the I/P issue back then and wrongly assumed that the Arab Spring had nothing to do with the conflict. Because my assumption was common the Arab Spring was well covered on DK back then. It took a trip to Israel April of this year for things to change. I started posting on the conflict as an extension of my interest in the Arab Spring. I was completely unprepared for the reaction. And as people say, the rest was history.
richb rocks with justice!
Man you are the coolest practicing christian I ever read or met. Because of you I’ve become more tolerant of practicing christians.
here’s an update on Minister Habib el-Adli and the church bombing .
the trial has been postponed til next month.
Very strategic. You betcha! Site of Gwadar, southern terminus of a proposed pipeline bringing Caucasian oil across Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean and the rest of the world. The Ultimate Prize, according to Pepe Escobar. link to thepeoplesvoice.org
great escobar link kapok.
Annie, we can’t tell the good guys from the terrorists anymore as they seem to be on the same team now. One such group, Fatah al-Islam, was recruited by the US to take on Hizbullah after Israel’s failure in 2006. It resulted in the total destruction of the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian camp that held 35,000 most of which had been displaced 3 times before and the death of 160 soldiers and injury of 500 others.
Seymour Hersh talks about where the funding was coming from in a CNN interview wth Hala Gorani:
link to globalresearch.ca
DBG, why are you here when you can be spreading your gospel of mutual understanding in those inter-faith dialogues of yours?
Most Egyptians learned early on the the the Egyptian army is the main source of the problem. Mubarak was the face of the regime, the army ARE the regime.
Idiot.
Here’s the link.
link to facebook.com
thanks for the link
Like I said, we Jewish anti-Zionists, (or Israel criticisers or whatever you want to call us) can’t have our challah and eat it, too.
I can’t understand why Phil never seems to grasp that.
(Of course, I’m not saying this principle extends as far as bagels. Bagels can do anything they want.)
I love Einstein bagels. There’s one at my school.
They’re relatively good, but the amount of energy they give in relation to their mass is astounding! Just don’t bring too many home in the same bag!
Whoa Sarah..just read. Going to have to read this may times to understand. What is your position in life Sarah? So much history here.
” And so a vicious – though by no means antagonistic, in fact highly symbiotic – cycle and relationship persists, in which Western-sponsored civil society efforts continue to intervene to “democratize” Egyptians, in the process hijacking the identities of local Christians, conflating them, essentializing them, and ultimately creating a constant state of emergency that socially reproduces itself and foments more of the same. All this, while US-led colonialism in Iraq led to a historically unprecedented spate of sectarian violence, mainly between Shiites and Sunnis, though anyone who followed American mainstream media over the last 10 years will have noticed they lay emphasis to the attacks on Iraqi Christians, as though they are exceptional.”
Kathleen, apart from richb that appears to know what the hell is really going on in Egypt, from the zero reaction to Sarah’s article here, one has to assume that either they did not understand it or as with Phil, they did not want to understand it. It’s much simpler to to think of the pseudo-revolution as some kind of romantic Arab Spring of brave young lads having held firm in Tahrir Square and succeeded in overturning the wicked tyrant and dictator. In fact, Mubarak may be gone but the militarized security machine that has been in place since 1953 is still there and just as tyranical with the added flavour of the freshly American-imposed legitimization of the Muslim Brotherhood that had been outlawed since the mid-50s. The young lads of Tahrir did the military’s dirty work for it in getting rid of Mubarak; that’s why the military stood by during the demonstrations. Anyone that believes that the Brotherhood has anything but pure hate for the Christians is kidding himself. Sarah touched lightly on the 1.4 million Christians of Iraq that had been living in relative peace under Sadam and that now are less than 300,000 still living there, thanks in part to America’s colonialism. The same fate is in store for the Christians of Egypt which may explain why America asked to have the MB brought into the fold after all these years. After having tightly controlled Egypt for over 60 years, the military is not about to surrender its powers to a civilian authority. Clashes with a military touch like those of yesterday is making the postponement of elections possible.
More about what is happening in Egypt, from Haaretz:
“… Military police raced armored vehicles into a crowd of Christians who were protesting over an attack on the church in southern Egypt and demanding that Aswan governor Mostafa al-Sayed be dismissed for failing to protect it.
Christians have long grumbled about discrimination by the state and tensions with the majority Muslims have simmered. But violence has become more common with the rise of strict Salafist and other Islamist groups which Mubarak had repressed.
“Why didn’t they do this with the Salafists or the Muslim Brotherhood when they organize protests? This is not my country anymore,” said Alfred Younan, speaking near the hospital. ”
link to haaretz.com
i think i understood walid. the “systematic sectarian clashes ” and “sustenance of sectarian provocations and violence ” as “the nexus of Israeli and Western imperial interests in the region…. latest installment in the SCAF-sponsored massacre of Copts and their Muslim supporters” “SCAF, performing the edicts of Uncle Sam, promptly suppresses the Embassy uprising, conducting mass arrests (the civilian victims of which are currently subjected to extra-legal military trials) and escorting the Israeli diplomatic corps home to Tel Aviv for a breather. Overnight, emergency law is revived – in what is only an official escalation of the already prescient anti-strike law endorsed by the Muslim Brotherhood…..we can trace this to early modern European colonialism, which was frequently paraded as an effort to protect Christians, but which through unprecedented sectarian violence and manipulation effectively exiled most Ottoman Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi Christians. “
promptly suppresses the Embassy uprising
are you kidding?
“… Overnight, emergency law is revived – in what is only an official escalation of the already prescient anti-strike law endorsed by the Muslim Brotherhood…..we can trace this to early modern European colonialism, which was frequently paraded as an effort to protect Christians, but which through unprecedented sectarian violence and manipulation effectively exiled most Ottoman Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi Christians. ” (Sarah)
Annie, The MB (and the Salafists)not only endorsed the anti-strike law, it had also told its people to not go along with the demonstration at the Israeli Embassy and to not take part in the Nakba Day demonstrations.
As to the manipulating of the Ottoman Christians, I can tell you only about those of Lebanon and the story there was the reverse of what Sarah said about it. The Christian Maronites of Mount Lebanon had been under the protection of France under a treaty signed with them in 1700 and when the Ottomans succeeded in their habitual dirty tricks of fomenting a civil war between the Maronites and the Druze in 1841 and again in 1860, France stepped in militarily to protect the Maronites from the Druze that were backed by the English and forced the Ottomans into granting them a limited autonomy that remained in effect until its suspension at the start of WW I. It was only in 1943 that the Christian Maronites relinquished their rights to European protection in exchange for the Lebanese Muslims relinquishing their aspirations to unite Lebanon with Syria as part of what became known as the National Pact. Over the past 2000 years, it’s only in the last 30 years or so that Lebanon stopped being predominently Christian. During the 1975 civil war, the US on several ocassions unsuccessfully tried to convince all of Lebanon’s Christians to pack up and leave. Last month, Sarkosy made them the same offer and was told by the Christians to shove it. The West has this passion of wanting to empty the East of its Christians. Egypt is next in this campaign.
The West has this passion of wanting to empty the East of its Christians.
that was my impression from events in iraq too.
Walid, what interest would the West have in emptying the East of Christians?
moreover, what was the advantage gained by the Ottomans in 1860?
in 1860, France stepped in militarily to protect the Maronites from the Druze that were backed by the English and forced the Ottomans into granting them a limited autonomy that remained in effect until its suspension at the start of WW I.
The obligation of France toward the other European powers regarding non-intervention remained in effect. In fact, declassified British Cabinet Papers reveal that Ormsby-Gore and Lord Curzon both advised privately that the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement and McMahon-Hussein letters granted spheres of influence to France that violated the terms of the explicit terms of the Regliment Organique Agreements.
The pre-war autonomy enjoyed by Mt. Lebanon was cited as the rationale for having a joint, rather than single LoN mandate for Syria and Lebanon. The French and the British governments agreed that the mandate could not be used as an excuse to take away the autonomy Mt. Lebanon had enjoyed under Ottoman rule without raising too many questions or objections from their other allies.
Waleed, yes, the situation in Lebanon was substantially different and in fact the very nature and history of sectarianism in Lebanon is a world apart in complexity, in its own right (although in the contemporary period – Civil War onwards – the same neocolonial tropes are glaringly and mindnumbingly obvious).
BUT I am posting to say: I did not mention Lebanon in my very brief historical framings. In fact, the word Lebanon is nowhere to be found in my post. Just wanted to clarify this so no such blanket gross misinformation is attributed to my post.
Thanks. Much solidarity. Carry on.
“Walid, what interest would the West have in emptying the East of Christians?
moreover, what was the advantage gained by the Ottomans in 1860?”
LeaNder,
1. It’s part of the redrawing of the Mid-East map and it started much earlier than with Bush I and Rice; it goes back to Kissinger. A couple of weeks back, someone here wrote an article on American colonialism taking the baton from the Europeans. A cantonized Middle East is much easier to control and this is made possible with planned ethnic relocations. You are seeing it in Iraq now with the country being fractured into 3 distinct areas for the Shia, the Sunna and the Kurds with the Christians not figuring in any of them, hence their needed relocation. There are now a million Iraqi Christian refugees, compliments of American democracy and Saudi funding. There had been another stab at it in July 2006 in Lebanon when Israel, at US instigation, carpet-bombed most of the south’s Shia villages and cluster-bombed what wasn’t destroyed to spook the million Shia population into permanently vacating the area by moving to Shia Iraq and out of Israel’s face but it didn’t work with the stubborn Shia because they had learned their lesson very well from the 48 Palestinian hegira experience. If you would have seen news clips of a million Shia rushing back to their land the morning of the cease-fire despite the bombed-out bridges and unexploded bombs on their land, you’d have understood the fiery passion the Shia have for their land and that Israel and the US will never spook them away.
2. The Ottomans were in the habit of keeping sectarian conflicts afire to keep their subjects busy fighting each other and under control. In Lebanon, the Ottomans brought in Shia to populate the Chrsitian north and stir things up there and moved Christians into the Druze-controlled Chouf Mountains to light it up between these two. This is how the Ottomans ruled. A good history of the 1841 and 1860 Maronite-Druze wars, “The Druzes and the Maronites under the Turkish rule from 1840 to 1960 was written by Colonel Charles Churchill in 1862 (I’m lucky to have a copy) but you can read a short summary on the events, the massacres and the Turkish double-dealing at:
link to tanbourit.com
The history of that war has to taken in the context of the then neverending conflict between the French and the English and the attempts to keep the Russians from making a deal with the Turks and breaking out of the Bosphorus and into the Med.
The Ottomans’ 400-year rule was as tyranical as it could be and the Sultanate is now being somewhat revived in its modern version by Erdogan, (David Oglu is open about it) and their muscle-flexing all over the place.
Hi , Gogo, your historical framing was great as was your reading between the lines of what really happened in Egypt.
I introduced Lebanon into this as back in them Ottoman days, Lebanon comprised of only Beirut and the Mount Lebanon had something like 2700 square kilometers and practically a nothing state as it formed part of Syria. Immigrants arriving in the US and other places at the turn of the other century stated that their place of origin was Syria as there was no such country as Lebanon. It was only in the Sykes-Picot redrawing of the area that France in wanting to give some demographic edge or other to the tiny Maronite comunity in the middle of a vast sea of Muslims, tripled Lebanon’s size to 10,425 square kilometers at the expense of georaphical Syria. Ironically, France in its usual bumbling manner screwed up as the villages they transferred from Syrian control to the Lebanese one were mostly Muslim.
There was no misinformation in your post, I just added the small side-trip to it.
Walid,
When I asked one of my Lebanese friends how his people regard the Ottoman influence over Lebanon, he replied simply: “We speak fluent French but not a word of Turkish.”
Hi Taxi, the Ottoman influence is still seen and felt all over Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and the rest of the eastern Med from the 400-year occupation. Many Turkish words made their way into the colloquial Arabic vocabulary. Practically every eastern Med Arab dish as well as Greek, Albanian, Yugoslavian, Armenian and so on is really of Turkish origin and this is why the food is almost the same from country to country. As to Lebanon, the only 2 foods that are authentically Lebanese are the kibbee and the tabouleh; everything else came from the Turks. So your French-speaking friend is unknowingly using many Turkish words in his or her Arabic.
Walid,
I think my friend meant that you’ll be hard pressed to find a Turkish-speaking Lebanese, whereas every other Lebanese speaks French.
That the French, though a shorter-term colonialists of Lebanon, had a deeper cultural influence on it than the 400 years of Ottoman occupation.
Don’t forget that the French had already been there for the nearly 200 years of the Crusader States. (Although I’ve read that the French most spoken in the Kingdom of Jerusalem was Provencal, langue d’oc. I have no idea what sort of French was spoken in the County of Tripoli.)
from the zero reaction to Sarah’s article here, one has to assume that either they did not understand it or as with Phil, they did not want to understand it.
Or maybe we were just waiting for our favourite oracle from Beirut to weigh in before opening our big mouths ;-)
Shmuel, are you sure you didn’t really mean “our favourite big mouth” from Beirut?
Kidding aside, if you too were to be living in the thick of it, you’d surely be seeing a heck of a lot of other things happening and how they all tie in together.
are you sure you didn’t really mean “our favourite big mouth” from Beirut?
Nope. Your perspective from “the thick of it” is very much appreciated.
agreed, very much appreciated walid.
Here’s what I find amazing: the apologists for the status quo either scream Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas. But, in both cases the status quo actually promotes the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas. If you actually ask the Christians in either Israel or Egypt you will hear two things. First the threat to themselves from these organizations is real but the way you mitigate the threat is to:
1. Stop the occupation
2. Eliminate the Mubarek regime and its remnants
By promoting the status quo the Hasbarists have my brothers’ and sisters’ blood on their hands.
richb, those that scream the loudest, you called them the Hasbarists, always have a hidden message behind their screams. The worst kind aren’t necessarily MB members.
From Yahoo News this week:
Christians fear Islamist pressure in Egypt
By MAGGIE MICHAEL – Associated Press | AP – Sat, Oct 8, 2011…
CAIRO (AP) — On her first day to school, 15-year-old Christian student Ferial Habib was stopped at the doorstep of her new high school with clear instructions: either put on a headscarf or no school this year.
Habib refused. While most Muslim women in Egypt wear the headscarf, Christians do not, and the move by administrators to force a Christian student to don it was unprecedented. For the next two weeks, Habib reported to school in the southern Egyptian village of Sheik Fadl every day in her uniform, without the head covering, only to be turned back by teachers.
One day, Habib heard the school loudspeakers echoing her name and teachers with megaphones leading a number of students in chants of “We don’t want Ferial here,” the teenager told The Associated Press.
… In the past weeks, riots have broken out at two churches in southern Egypt, prompted by Muslim crowds angered by church construction. One riot broke out, near the city of Aswan, even after church officials agreed to a demand by local ultraconservative Muslims, called Salafis, that a cross and bells be removed from the building.
The violence is particularly frustrating for Christians because soon after Mubarak’s fall the new government promised to review and lift heavy Mubarak-era restrictions on building or renovating churches. The promise raised hopes among Christians that the government would establish a clear legal right to build, resolving an issue that in recent years has increasingly sparked riots. But the review never came, and Salafi clerics have increased their rhetoric against Christians, including accusing them of seeking to spread their faith with new churches.
… A top provincial Education Ministry official, Abdel-Gawad Abdullah, said in an interview with CTV, a private Egyptian Christian television network, that the ministry gives schools the right to decide on school uniforms, and that parents during screening and application can either accept or refuse.
“And if the father wants to move his daughter to another school, it is OK,” he said. “All the girls, including the Christians, put on the head cover and they have no problem,” he added.
… Habib was finally allowed to attend last Tuesday.
… Recent attacks on churches in southern Egypt also illustrate the heat Christians are under. Under Mubarak-era rules, the building of a church or repairs for an existing one required permission from local authorities and the state security agency — a rule not applied to mosques. The rules sought to avoid outbursts of violence from Muslim hard-liners. Since permission was rarely given, Christians at times resorted to building churches in secret, often in parish guesthouses.
On Sept. 30, a Muslim mob attacked a church in southern village of Marynab in Aswan province because they believed the Christians were illegally constructing a new church. Church officials had documents showing they had permission to build a new church to replace a previous, run-down one at the same site.
Even before the attack, Muslim protests prompted priests to turn to security officials, who arranged a meeting with local elders and Salafis. In the face of their demands, the priests agreed to take down a cross and bells on the church, according to church officials. Still, after the Christians erected a dome, the mob attacked, setting the church and nearby homes and shops on fire.
Aswan’s governor, Gen. Mustafa Kamel al-Sayyed, further hiked tensions by telling the media that the church was being built on the site of a guesthouse, suggesting it was illegal.
In response, hundreds of Christians marched in front of the governor’s office last week, demanding those behind the attack be prosecuted and families who lost homes be compensated. Christians also protested in Cairo, cutting off a main avenue in the heart of the capital, demanding the governor’s ouster, until soldiers dispersed them by force.
Days after the Aswan attack, Muslim villagers in the southern province of Sohag tried to storm Saint Girgis church, shouting “No to church construction,” as Christians on rooftops rained stones down on them. The assault was prompted by construction of a church in a guesthouse.
link to news.yahoo.com
Which reminds me of the other talking point. If Egypt has a true revolution then they might be under Sharia law. You mean like they’re not now? The CIA Fact Book lists Egypt as under Sharia and your description is consonant with that.
Walid going to read again and again. But the basic message I take from Sarah’s piece is that the US, Israel etc have sown a great deal of the anger. The big question appears to be is will the Egyptian people attempt to sow moderate tolerance, levelling the playing field (protest all over the world) without allowing the US and Israel’s agenda to dominate their own environment?
But clearly how to remove those in the Egyptian military who have been profitting for years, power crazed and do not want this to happen.
Will read again
link to wikileaks.org
link to tarpley.net
I don’t trust wikileaks or this Tarpley guy but that article is from January 16 before most of the other revolutions.
George Soros famously said he would contribute all of his money to prevent Bush from receiving a second term because of the “Bush Doctrine”
Apparently Bush’s post-911 policy interfered with what Soros and other ‘puppet masters’ had spent the bulk of Clinton’s administration trying to accomplish. It is no secret that Soros was a huge contributor to the Obama presidency. Soros’ Media Matters (among his other groups) played a role in smearing the ‘right’ particularly Fox News.
Soros’ International Crisis Group and along with Obama people like Samantha Powers came up with this whole “Responsibility to Protect” thing which Obama toted as a reason for the UN/NATO involvement with Libya.
Why did I mention all of this? Because of the Arab Spring. There is no doubt that the revolution in Egypt toward the end was real, but the ones who provoked it were trained to do so. As pointed out before, the percentage of young Egyptians with access to the Internet is very low. Too low for Facebook to have been a significant factor. Too low for Wikileaks to have been an influence (which is their official response to those who point out that they ‘predicted’ these revolutions).
What happened in Tunisia and Egypt was successful. Libya was not, it required external assistance. You can write a book about what is happening in Syria. The media isn’t talking about Italy’s revolution even though it has persisted for months. Jordan’s protesters seem to be gaining steam. Algeria’s revolution just started. ALL of these nations are mentioned in that January wikileaks report. ONLY these nations. Sure there are some copycat protests like in Bahrain but notice how the West stays far away from speaking about it most of the time.
I expect to be brushed off as a nutter and it doesn’t hurt my feelings either. The reality is, and hopefully eventually others will begin to see this, there are people who have a lot of money out there and use it to ‘play god’ with nation’s economies and societies. Why? Who knows, but probably to remove the influence of Russia/China/Iran from puppet dictators who had relations with them. This stuff really happens. Google Operation Ajax for a famous example. It isn’t always successful and you won’t read a confession for a few decades when it gets classified. The tactics are the same, the patterns are the same, the desired result is the same… “Democracy” Western-style
When the rulers of the Persian Empire kidnapped the intellectual leadership of the Jews and put them to work for the Empire, Jerusalem became an intellectual backwater as Judaism grew to become a religion of self-described exiles no longer bound to a holy place.
“But we will not fight for “religious freedom” or “national unity”. The former is the language of Hilary Clinton and the NGO-industrial complex that has mismanaged Egyptian society for decades. The latter is the language of state television.”
And also the language(s) of this website! But it is undeniable that this article rocks! Hopefully more historically informed articles such as this one–and not the usual “liberal utopian” discourse of national unities free from all internal contractions and united against the evil State–will appear in the future at Mondoweiss. The author is too easy on you Phil, but it is the undeniably good attributes of your character that is responsible for this post and I salute you for it.
Did you mean Neo-Babylonian Empire rulers? I don’t recall any Persians kidnapping leaders from Judah, just Cyrus the Great liberating them. I’m curious though, googled it and couldn’t find much.
I would imagine that the religion evolved heavily around this time period picking up Mesopotamian influence along with a hefty amount of Zoroastrianism
RE: “Sadat deliberately exacerbated sectarian hatred through his strategic deployment of Islam in the interests of imperialism. He supported the rise of Islamist groups in order to castrate the influence of the Egyptian left, including Nasserites and pan-Arab nationalists.” ~ Sarah Hawas
ALSO NOTE: : The CIA and The Muslim Brotherhood: How the CIA Set The Stage for September 11 (Martin A. Lee – Razor Magazine 2004)
SOURCE – link to ce399fascism.wordpress.com
P.S. SPEAKING OF THE CIA, MEET MY “DROP DEAD” GEORGEOUS NEW ICON/AVATAR! Are those “Bette Davis eyes”(VIDEO-03:38), or are they the cold, calculating eyes of a sociopath (perhaps even a psychopath)?
“RAYMOND DAVIS: GUNS, CARS, AND BAGELS” – link to newyorker.com
I just want to put this in here before the well gets poisoned with yellow mainstream journalism, but… a fairly large number of Egyptians seem to know who the real enemy is.
Islamist holds up cross and leads crowd in chants against military council
Two recent articles in Aharm On Line suggesting that, in the wake of the violence against the Copts, Egypt is now going through a political crisis.
Egypt Cabinet denies it has resigned: Confusion surrounds the fate of the Cabinet following reports that it had placed the matter of its resignation in the hands of the military council:
Tantawi persuades El-Beblawi not to resign: Finance minister brought back into the fold following meeting with Field Marshal:
Speaking of Ahram On Line, here’s their most viewed story at the moment, from yesterday:
Outrage over state TV’s misinformation and anti-Coptic incitement: State television’s coverage of Maspero clashes blamed peaceful protesters for violence, aggravated an already-tense situation, say critics:
this is the most interesting aspect of the story.
There are certain parallels to the Israeli attack on the Gaza Flotilla media-narrative-wise.
annie:
“… it was okay for zionist spies to carry out false flag operations on the american libraries in both baghdad and cairo.”
Let’s not forget the USS Liberty, another false flag attack by Israel against an American target. The attack nearly resulted in an American assault on Cairo with fighter jets arms with nukes.
LOL, how was it a false flag? fighter jets armed with Nukes? Jesus what is going on here?
It’s either true or it isn’t.
Since you’re lazy and a Zionist, no one expects you to actually consider it.
Cliff, that is fine, if you think it is a reality then fucking prove it. While you’re at it, find the air to surface missile which was capable of firing a nuclear weapon in 1967. Which US fighter jets were capable of reaching Cairo and also capable of firing a nuclear missile?
While you’re at it, find the air to surface missile which was capable of firing a nuclear weapon in 1967
The AGM-28 Hound Dog and the W28 Warhead
Which US fighter jets were capable of reaching Cairo and also capable of firing a nuclear missile?
That would not be necessary. The AGM-28 was a turbojet cruise missile launched from a B-52 Stratofortress. It had an operational range of 700+ miles at high altitude/400+ miles at low altitude. It also had an inertial navigation system with star-tracker correction, i.e. it could reach Cairo all by itself and could be set for either air burst or ground burst.
I don’t believe that the US would have launched a nuclear strike on a city in reprisal for an isolated conventional attack on a single ship. That would have posed proportionality and other problems.
Wow, DBG, you really “owned” Hostage there, didn’t you?
I’m not necessarily endorsing the theory, but I believe dbroncos is embracing the theory put forward by Brit newsman Peter Hounam in his Operation Cyanide-Why the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War III. Hounam does put forward some evidence, but I can’t say I thought it dispositive.
But his theory would explain the apparent desire of the Israeli attackers to let none of the sailors on the USS Liberty survive. (Hence their shooting up of the life rafts.) A desire that was thwarted by the Liberty’s succeeding in transmitting an SOS to the U.S. fleet (no thanks to the Israelis, who began the attack by send heat-seeking missiles against all the ship’s transmitting antennas. The Liberty only got off its message by quickly putting back on line a transmitter that had been shut down for repairs.)
You are all certifiably nuts. And, OccupyWallStreet is going to fail because of you.
-Sarah Hawas
LOL shukran ya Sarah.
You thought you had it hard with Mubarak?
Try facing the dictatorship of a fully-fledged zio congress and media – they got mo’ money bigger guns and one more ball than Mubarak.
I am sure that the time and energy invested by so many Mondo people in these multiple absurd wiki-historiography fights and squabbles is not going to help the budding OWS movement in the least! |
I mean. If I’d known that a paragraph or two about widely accepted features of distinct historical periods would spark these particular tsunamis, I would have left them out and gone straight to the point: the sectarian nightmare propped up in Egypt is only the symptom of a much older and more calculated design to sustain colonial and neo-colonial control over Egypt. It is one of the climax phases in the counter-revolution, and this is not an “argument” that needs to be made, it’s a fact that has to be remembered by activists within Egypt as well as without — especially those in the North, where so much of the liberal propaganda is produced — and especially among Palestine solidarity activists, who often forget that it is these recycled “Freedoms” which tend to take hold of the best of our imaginations and destroy our potential for true revolutionary strategy – something that is necessary for anyone who wants ‘radical’ – ie real – justice in Palestine.
People, take that and roll with it. Go weed out the neurotic DP goons & their ilk who would sooner reap the electoral benefits of OWS rather than see it truly challenge the power structure of American society.
And Amir whats your face. Kindly get over yourself. I cannot believe that in response to an article about sectarian bloodshed and colonial divisions you would choose to respond with some petty anxiety around your petulant identity politics thereby derailing everyone else into some surreal racialized cat-fight. You live in 1948? Go figure out what’s happening on Levinsky right now, or was in the last few hours. The media is conveniently having a field day with the prisoner-swap and neglecting to note that a sukka was set up on Levinsky several hours ago, before the city demolished it. According to a friend who witnessed this, the city inspector’s car was lit on fire. And in the hours since, the sukka has repeatedly been demolished, re-erected, and agan demolished, and again put up, and there is a again a potential uprising that COULD be brewing, at the site of which there also stood Palestinians.
I mean no offense, really, and I’m grateful to those who actually considered the substance of the article. But by and large the way some of these discussions have spiralled into nihilistic self-righteous (admittedly, occasionally hilarious) drivel… please. I get that there are agent provocateurs on here but perhaps we could all do with a little self-restraint, n’est-ce pas?
Gogo, a point well-taken and one that was obvious to me as well as to others that have replied to the latest hasbara troll and “its” allies whose intent on this as well as on other threads is to ignore the thrust of an article and quickly move to divert the comments section into an internet playpen by posting falsehoods that are irrelevant to its contents but difficult to ignore and which seem to require some form of rebuttal.
Sarah’s article was quite important and dealing with complex issues that most of us know only second hand, at best, it appeared to require more thought and reflection from its readers than the need to post a comment other than expressing appreciation for her contribution.
Sarah you’re barking up the wrong tree.
It’s the MODERATOR’s responsibility. It’s ULTIMATELY in their hands.
Them MODERATORS let these zio trolls in in the first place – knowing well who they are.
Tsk tsk tsk MODERATOR!
The fault lies in the original text, in describing Zionism as the “cause” of Arab Jews’ persecution, and not the willingness to persecute itself.
It infuriated me as well.
For years, in too much conventional literature, it was assumed that anti-semitism was justified, so that individuals that noted the anti-semitism in Dreiser, or Thomas Wolff, or Dickens, or Shakespeare, and didn’t concentrate on the “real thesis”, were castigated as “trolls”.
I find it ironic that Blankfurt is such a willing advocate of a conformity.
Sarah, I’ll go back to my initial post and repeat that some did not understand what you were talking about, and some did not want to undertand preferring to not stretch beyond the romantic flag waving in Tahrir. One has to go back to earlier this year with the church bombing by the regime in Alexandria to put into context the recent church burnings and the riots of a couple of days back. Church burnings in Egypt is nothing new, they can be traced back to 1981 and they seem to resurface whenever the need arises for something drastic about to happen. On October 2, 1981, Vice-President Mubarak met with President Reagan in Washington. On October 6th, Lt Islambouli of the Brotherhood, shot Sadat and Mubarak was eventually chosen as his replacement. Pictures of the Washington meeting were released only after Sadat was killed. Since that date, relationships between the US and Mubarak and the military in Egypt have been great. After the fall of Mubarak the State Department interceded on behalf of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to have the Egyptian Military Council sanction that party so it could run in the next elections. And no one is seeing anything strange in the US behaviour or in the MB’s and the Salafists’ in wanting to respect the peace treaty with Israel. Same type of complexities are now happening all over the ME and North Africa with Turkey running interference for the US and Israel and people are stuck on the flag waving and the “Arab Spring” label.
I hope Phil is hanging out with some real Egyptians to get a good handle on what’s going on in Egypt and not wasting his time with the US embassy crowd.
Listen — whatever your particular little legacy of illiteracy might be, you will not get away with putting words in my mouth.
“describing Zionism as the “cause” of Arab Jews’ persecution, and not the willingness to persecute itself.”
….is NOT something I did. Learn to read and learn to read with care and nuance or do not read at all. That’s it.
Zionism persecuting itself?
How does that work, Richard?
Walid thanks for coloring shit in but for one thing everyone on Mondo is perfectly aware of everything that took place here since new year’s. And even if they’re not, Im sorry but the article wasn’t written in Chinese. I wasn’t complaining about people getting it/not getting it. It’s clear to me that everyone ‘gets it’. There’s nothing to ‘get’ here. What’s less clear to me is why most commenters (not all, but most) insist on behaving like pre-pubescent illiterates, constantly getting away with having the most bizarre racist fights ever.
That’s all. I certainly do not want to perpetuate the trend so I’ll leave it at that.
Gogo, this is a great site and Phil and the gang are also great but its regrettable that the only time there’s a strong reaction is when the subject turns to Zionism or is deliberately turned to become about Zionism to derail it as Amir and eee have done. I hate Zionism as much as the next guy and maybe even more seeing where I’m from, but it gets tiring talking about it all the time since we keep going over and over the same stuff. Of the almost 300 posts on this thread, 52 had something to do with your article and the other 245 or so were either about Zionists getting kicked or about Zionists kicking back. It’s OK once in a while to let off steam and we all need it, even the big bad Zionists but this back and forth you talked about is the rule more than it’s the exception.
Anyway, I loved your article and look forward to reading the next one.
Walid,
Was there supposed to have been a strong reaction to Sarah’s article? Her (gentle) criticism of Phil was to the point, and her analysis cogent and enlightening. Those who had informed points to add, did so.
The comment section often has a life of its own, and some things motivate people to comment while some don’t. Some of the above mess even has merit – even if it has nothing to do with the original post.
Not necessarily strong, Shmuel, as we all have our moods and our days. I said that such mess, as you called it, a necessary evil to let off steam, even for the Zionists, but that it’s become the general rule and at times I find myself indulging in it and enjoying it, but it massacres great articles like Sarah’s here and devalorizes them. If it didn’t exist at all, life and the blog itself would be a bore but it should be reduced somewhat eventhough at times the temptation to kick eee in the shins is overwhelming.
Nothing to do with my blogpost (aware that internet fora have lives of their own) just brief interruption to note the nature of some of the discussion(s) above. You don’t fight Zionism by speaking on its terms.
Interruption over. Carry on.
You don’t fight Zionism by speaking on its terms.
Could you elaborate?
It isn’t just blog comment sections–almost any political discussion in any forum ends up going off on tangents, some logical, some not. And there are always going to be “trolls”, because there are always people with illogical or noxious views who think they need to straighten everyone out. It can be frustrating, but the alternative is often worse–the deadly dull and tightly controlled pseudo-discussions you get in the mainstream press.
I don’t even think the chaotic comment section is necessarily a bad thing, so long as at least some of the contributions are sensible. Hostage, for instance (just to single out one of our best) consistently types informative comments, many of them better than most of what appears on the front page. (Which is not meant as a knock against the front page articles.) He is often inspired to do so by the trolls.
Quite so, Donald, though we aren’t that bad, in my view at keeping to the point. The tangent to Sarah’s discussion was the Mizrahi topic, which was not her main concern. I can see that our comparative lack of attention to that concern could have been frustrating.
I’m interested in Shmuel’s question. It may be a good thing to avoid the aggressive and contemptuous elements of Zionist style but I suppose we can’t just be little lambs confronting a wolf. A bit of barely relevant digression here and there can give the discussion a bit of texture, interest and humanity – maybe.
Richard, tell me if I understand this correctly.
The fault lies in the original text, in describing Zionism as the “cause” of Arab Jews’ persecution, and not the willingness to persecute itself.
You claim that while Sarah wrote that Zionism caused the persecution of Jews in the Arab countries, it in fact was caused by “the willingness (of the Arabs) to persecute” Jews, or by antisemitism. Zionism had absolutely nothing to do with it? Correct?
Gogo,
Why don’t you go win your revolution first before you start lecturing down at us.
Evidently, we’re not sophisticated revolutionaries enough for you.
Shu hayda? Takhanteeha!
One of the problems with posts on this site as on every other, altho I rarely post elsewhere, is that the first person to comment becomes effectively the driver of the section and has the ability to steer the comments in a direction that bears little to no relevancy to the article itself.
That this is habitually done on this site by Zionist trolls is no coincidence, as was the case here with Amir-Rass, acting in his country’s service. My only question is how do Witty, eee, DBG, hophmi, and now, A-R, decide who goes first?
Jeffrey,
It’s ultimately in the hands of the moderators. They need to be more focused . They censor four-letter worded posters but not ‘polite’ off-topic trolls. Go figure. Why not censor both?
Gogo’s mad it seems cuz not every single post was intellectualizing her piece. That would be an unreasonable expectation as posters here are more obessed with Palestine or israel than with any other topic. It’s also unreasonable an expectation cuz generally people will always add their odd bits and ends. The bloggersphere is as dynamic as live TV. To ride it as a writer you gotta roll your dice and promptly roll with the punches. Be prepared for ANYTHING to happen.
The tangent to Sarah’s discussion was the Mizrahi topic, which was not her main concern.
and which ultimately may have triggered the racist clashes. (3rd paragaph)
In hindsight it may have been wrong to connect anti-Jewish activism with the “Oriental Jew”:
Mizrahi imagery:
I am not completely sure, but I think the replacement of Palestinians with Jewish labor had happened much earlier in the Yishuv, in pre-state times and strictly some Mizrahi/Arab Jews / Oriential Jews were already present on the ground when the first Zionists arrived.
No — again, nothing to do with the original post. Everything to do with racist discussion elicited by the Amir dude. I’m not “mad” over anything. Read my posts. No desire to restrict topics of conversation or anything like that. Was just making an observation. Now sorry I did. Again – please carry on. Cheers
“They censor four-letter worded posters…”
Not too severely. In quite a few of my posts I use demotic Australian and British expressions, and they have never been censored.
I am more often censored for anti-Semitism.
Ooouch a Freudian slip, yes I feel very uncomfortable with the term anti-Zionism, which may have been the trap:
correction:
In hindsight it may have been wrong to connect “anti-Zionist” activism with the stereotypical “Oriental Jew”:
obviously not anti-Jewish activism. But there you go.
yeah the sentence was badly written. but when i think of the white Jews in the US and how their identity has been hijacked by Zionism, I can’t help but think of the Mizrahis that suffered that ten-fold. I was just using Mondoweiss & JVP etc as a segueway into exposing the political space in which Philip Weiss bonding with someone at a mostly Zionist holiday service in Cairo exists before I illustrate that the same colonial tactics used to sever Jewish Egyptians from their Arab context are ones that then moved on to target Copts.
nothing to do with sophistication. everything to do with revolution, yes.
‘you dont fight zionism by speaking on its own terms’:
doesn’t mean you don’t confront morons like Amir Dude, it means you don’t resort to race stats, pseudo-history, etc to counter his claims. not everyone did that, but some did. as a result, is he any less racist or Zionist? not likely
look i’m not trying to censor anyone or regulate discussion or whatever. i could care less. i didn’t want to get dragged into any of this — i was just making an observation which is that threads on Mondoweiss are all too easily hijacked by regressive tendencies. if you notice my earlier post (link to mondoweiss.net) addressed only Amir Dude, and only suggested to everyone else that they maybe resist the downward spiral of racist garbage. It doesn’t really help the cause for Palestine.
That being said, obviously everyone should feel free to indulge the troll to their hearts’ content. Enjoy
To be fair, the art of engaging a Zionist in conversation is not to really talk with him, or even to him, but past him to the people watching. There’s no redeeming the irredeemable, but it my experience it’s frighteningly easy to push a Zionist into making a rabid fool of themselves. There is an inherent hostility embedded in Zionist culture that causes them to lash out, abusively, at ANYTHING that challenges them.
Causing them to lash out like that at factual information? That reveals them to be the irrational zealots they are. It’s not fun to watch, but I can assure you, it drives impressionable bystanders away from them.
Sarah,
Suggesting that “white Jews in the US” have had their identity hijacked by Zionism is letting them off too easy, as if they were hapless victims of outside manipulation. That they, for the most part, were manipulated by the Zionist establishment and still are, for that matter, is true, but they were and have been anything but hapless. Willing would best describe them and, at least for the short term, they have profited from it. Had most American Jews not been inculcated from their childhood with a sense of entitlement not only as “the chosen” but as the world’s number one victims, substantial numbers of them would not now be active participants in the gutting of the US political process as evidenced by Obama’s repeated craven overtures to the Israeli Moloch and the Israel Lobby’s total control of Congress. Not only do Jews, as a community, wield political power far out of proportion to their numbers in the US population, there is no critical sector of American society where they do not play a dominant role.
On the other hand, the Mizrahim, those who were in Palestine before the Zionist invasion, lived peacefully with their Arab and Christian neighbors for the most part and were not consulted nor had their opinions considered by the Ashkenazi settlers in their planning for the Jewish state. In fact, it is very rare that one finds any mention of them in the literature of the Yishuv. They were not part of the colonizers.
The Mizrahim who had lived for centuries in the Arab Middle East and North Africa were also not consulted by the likes of Weizmann and Ben Gurion nor did the Ashkenazim express any concern for their prospects outside of the Jewish state since European Jews had long looked with disdain on their dark skinned co-religionists.
They were only encouraged to come to Israel en masse after the creation of the state and that very act of calling for them to make aliyah, saying that all Jews belong in Israel, went a long way in feeding the growing sentiments of non-Jews in those countries that Jews were aliens in their midst. Students of Zionism will be aware that fostering such sentiments among both Jews and non-Jews was one of the cornerstones of the movement’s ideology.
So, one can say, with some validity, that the Mizrahim were also victims of Zionism which not only uprooted the Palestinians but also was instrumental in destroying ancient Jewish communities that had existed in the region for millennia.
Blankfort pretty much proves that this isn’t about the Palestinians at all.
Oh my god.
@Blankfort:
“Suggesting that “white Jews in the US” have had their identity hijacked by Zionism is letting them off too easy, as if they were hapless victims of outside manipulation.”
American Zionists, Jewish or otherwise, are not hapless victims of outside manipulation. They are a part of contemporary Zionism.
Jews of whatever background who are not Zionist, and especially those that fight Zionism, are not any kind of victims of manipulation. They are the exact opposite of that. But Zionism does hijack Jewish identity, to put it in crude terms. It stole and continues to steal it.
“Had most American Jews not been inculcated from their childhood with a sense of entitlement not only as “the chosen” but as the world’s number one victims, substantial numbers of them would not now be active participants in the gutting of the US political process as evidenced by Obama’s repeated craven overtures to the Israeli Moloch and the Israel Lobby’s total control of Congress.”
And this is PRECISELY the kind of rubbish that I have been referring to. “most American Jews…inculcated…’chosen’…world’s number one victims” I’m sorry, WHAT? First of all do you even KNOW what being ‘chosen’ means to ANY Jew much less the faceless mass you are essentializing? Exactly what kind of ethnography did you carry out to determine how ‘American Jews’ perceive of themselves in relation to the world, and what does ANY of that have to do with Zionism?!
The Israel Lobby does not have total control of Congress. The ruling class does, and that cuts across religious AND ethnic lines. Look at your president latley? Are you completely unhinged? Israeli Moloch? Do you have any basic grasp on how global politics work? How is this crap getting past the moderators of this website?
“Not only do Jews, as a community, wield political power far out of proportion to their numbers in the US population, there is no critical sector of American society where they do not play a dominant role.”
Madonna changed her name to Esther and took up Kabbalah several decades after she gained control over the media. But tell me, what else do ‘Jews’ control? Good grief.
“On the other hand, the Mizrahim, those who were in Palestine before the Zionist invasion, lived peacefully with their Arab and Christian neighbors for the most part and were not consulted nor had their opinions considered by the Ashkenazi settlers in their planning for the Jewish state. In fact, it is very rare that one finds any mention of them in the literature of the Yishuv. They were not part of the colonizers.”
If you’re living in the target land when it’s settled, by definition you cannot be a colonizer. Understood. Thank you for explaining to my feeble mind who and what the Jews of Palestine are.
“The Mizrahim who had lived for centuries in the Arab Middle East and North Africa were also not consulted by the likes of Weizmann and Ben Gurion nor did the Ashkenazim express any concern for their prospects outside of the Jewish state since European Jews had long looked with disdain on their dark skinned co-religionists.
They were only encouraged to come to Israel en masse after the creation of the state and that very act of calling for them to make aliyah, saying that all Jews belong in Israel, went a long way in feeding the growing sentiments of non-Jews in those countries that Jews were aliens in their midst. Students of Zionism will be aware that fostering such sentiments among both Jews and non-Jews was one of the cornerstones of the movement’s ideology.”
There were no such sentiments in the first place, at least not in Egypt which I know best, because the vast majority of these people were seen and saw themselves as nothing less than Egyptian. The only people that may have stood out as ‘Jews’ were mostly first-gen elite European immigrants and they were seen by the people and by the state as part of the same expatriate/immigrant community that included all kinds of Europeans, especially Greeks and Italians, and a big dose of Armenians. There are multiple histories at play here, and it is certainly AS true that some Egyptian Jews adopted Zionism well before Nasser even came into power, as it is true that the combination of Nasser’s regime with Israel’s pretension to speak for all Jews set the stage for what Israel would then actively facilitate in terms of squeezing Jews out of Egypt. This is on its own a very complex history that I am in no way going to indulge on these pages. The only place it has in my article is to point out to Philip Weiss and others that his little party up in Maadi had nothing to do with Egyptian Jewry and everything to do with the political economy of Egypt-Israel relations — the same political economy responsible for the massacre that took place on Sunday.
Please do NOT reply.
Gogo, you keep posting but end your comment by saying ‘blah blah anyway, continue’.
So you do seem stuck-up.
And why would OccupyWallStreet fail because of us? You have only just begun commenting on this blog.
I don’t understand how you can be so short with people who have a lot of experience in Palestinian solidarity (decades) like Jeffrey Blankfort.
One last thing: your so-called political process was long dead before Israel came into existence. I can imagine it’s probably a lot easier (and maybe more profitable? snort) to blame capitalism on one group or the other than to actually try and overthrow it. Pathetic
Oh my god….
Got it now. Thanks for spelling it out.
Not “about the Palestinians at all?” What is it about then, a major world threatening example of a unique form of European post-colonial racism in which the Palestinians as well as the Lebanese have just had the bad luck to be its victims?
Sarah, grow the hell up.
Your rebuttal is weak.
Said you:
Ok, so you agree they aren’t hapless victims as you stated earlier. But then you disassociate them from Zionism. Zionism is apparently an entity unto itself! Like a mystical fog that takes over people’s minds!
Anti-Zionist Jews are a FRINGE. An important fringe, but fringe nonetheless.
Climb down from the chandelier.
No, Sarah, I doubt we can KNOW what is going on in a Jews mind or anyone else’s mind for that matter. I mean, was it the intention of the Israeli government to annex Palestinian land with the apartheid wall? I mean, do we REALLY know? We can’t! We’re not mind-readers!
Did Israel REALLY mean to attack civilian infrastructure in Gaza during Cast Lead? Did it MEAN to? How can we know FOR SURE without being able to get them to admit to it or read their minds??
You make such a good point. We can never know anything else we have everyone admit to the point of contention OR possess mystical powers.
I think Jeffrey speaks from decades of experience. He is reading between the lines.
I think ‘chosen’ means the power of victim-hood. The Holocaust Industry. The way in which Zionists put emphasis on Israeli suffering which is minuscule in comparison to Palestinian suffering. Palestinian suffering which is systematic and in-built to Zionism as much as resistance to it and terrorism from/toward it.
At the same time, these same Zionists say ‘why do you focus on us when [x, y and z] are worse’. So at once, Israeli suffering is on a pedestal in spite of the logistics and reality AND if we bring up this fact, they then compare said reality to some other conflict.
This dishonesty is rooted in that sense of privilege. ‘We suffered more historically’ or ‘We’re not as bad as [etc.]‘ or whatever other excuse that is based on Zionist exceptionalism.
Huh? What the hell are you going on about? Jeffrey was very specific when he said critical sectors of society and that’s absolutely true.
He sure as hell didn’t say ‘control’.
Would you be as critical of Manufacturing Consent as you are of Jeffrey’s belief in the ethno-religious variable to political power?
You haven’t even substantiated your indignation. You’re just sounding like the resident Zionists here who get upset because they can (identity politics and social conditioning).
When it comes to Jewish identity, you can simply get upset and being upset is apparently an argument.
When it comes to ARABS, PALESTINIANS, MUSLIMS, you have to go to great lengths to prove that they aren’t all terrorists or want to throw people in the sea or blah blah blah.
Both comparisons are superficial, but in the former that rule (due to the political capital of Jewish identity in the States) applies across the board.
When Jimmy Carter wrote his book about Israel, Nancy Pelosi chided him in the press in the most unintentionally hysterical manner possible: “[blah blah, criticizing Israel] is wroooonnnnnng.”
Or something like that.
“Please do NOT reply.”
Jeffrey is one of MW’s best posters: extremely well-informed, exceptionally intelligent, and consistently patient with the worst of us.
You may have a more intimate understanding of Egyptian geopolitics, but I think he knows more than you about American jewery.
You don’t have to agree with his analysis at all Gogo, but frankly it’s your loss to dismiss his insights with a snooty wave of hand.
Sarah, you seem to think that you are one of the “chosen.” “Please do not reply?” Give me a break. I know a damn sight more than you do about American Jewry having grown up in a secular non-Zionist Jewish household in a largely Jewish neighborhood in LA during and after WW 2 and having been involved in pro-Palestinian activities for 40 years, all of which has given me an ample opportunity to observe my fellow Jews from every angle.
You also need a course in reading comprehension. I wrote and you quoted me that fostering the idea that Jews were aliens among other peoples was a Zionist principle. You say that wasn’t the case in Egypt. Was Egypt a hotbed of Zionism? That I was talking about the Ashkenazim and not the Mizrahim in Egypt or anywhere else was obvious.
Then you write that, “The Israel Lobby does not have total control of Congress. The ruling class does, and that cuts across religious AND ethnic lines. Look at your president latley? Are you completely unhinged? Israeli Moloch? Do you have any basic grasp on how global politics work? How is this crap getting past the moderators of this website? ”
At this point only a political ignoramus or someone seriously in denial will argue that the Lobby does not control Congress. You seem to be the latter. How many standing ovations by both houses must it make to a visiting Israeli prime minister who has just insulted the president of the US to make you understand what Washington is all about? 29 wasn’t enough for you? And then you repeat that nonsense about “the ruling class” as if wealthy Jews are not part of the that ruling class and that they don’t contribute more money as individuals to both political parties than any other group of any category. Example: In the 2000 elections, of the top 250 contributors to both parties, seven of the top 10, 12 of the top 20 and at least 125 of the top 250 were Jewish and 75% of their contributions went to the Democrats which is why they are so eager to rush over to Israel and kiss Israeli tuchus at the drop of a hat, why 81 members of both parties, 1/5 of the House, took a trip there during the August recess. And yes, I have seen the president lately, making the most craven speech to an international audience in which he openly acknowledged that US Middle East policy is based on Israel’s needs and demands.
Sorry, Sarah, but you sound like most anti-Zionist Jews I have encountered over the years who, due to how they were raised–what I was referring to in my post–remain in total denial as to the power of the Israel Lobby. Thanks to their power in the solidarity and anti-war movements, the subject of the Lobby has been and remains lagrely taboo, giving the Zionists the playing field to themselves. I wrote about this a few years back and suggest you check it out: link to ifamericansknew.org
You ask “what else do Jews control?” followed by a “Good grief” as if Jewish political power was something new to you. I didn’t use the term, “control,” I said “play a dominant role.” Not quite the same thing and you know it. It’s late and I need not go into details because the facts are self-evident:the media/communications industry in all it forms and at every level; the major Washington think tanks; Wall Street and the banking industry; real estate; and thanks to JINSA, over the past 35 years it has been able to insinuate itself into the military-industrial-complex, tying it to that of Israel to such a degree that it would be extremely difficult for a US president to separate the two without serious political repercussions which no president has the capital to spend.
You probably don’t watch network TV but the only guests who are ever invited to talk about the Middle East are, as some used to say, “of the Jewish persuasion” such as Martin Indyk, Joe Lieberman, Kenneth Adelman, Kenneth Pollack, Elliot Abrams, Bill Cristol, et al, and their non-Jewish lickspittles such as John Bolton, Frank Gaffney, Fouad Ajami, and Reul Marc Gerecht.
Then, of course, there is that string of neocons who brought us PNAC and later, as planned, the Iraq War but I can guess you are one of those who insist Iraq was a war for oil.
I think I need to go back and read your article. I have no pretensions at being an Egyptian scholar but I may conclude that you were talking though your hat. I hope not, but that’s my conclusion about this post of yours. And you might also cut down on the arrogance level. You don’t carry it off well.
Gogo thinks the (virtual) Egyptian revolution, a work that remains in progress and inconclusive, is more important than the sixty+ years of Nakba and Palestinian suffering.
Well it ain’t around here!
Earnestly, hats off to the Tahrir Square movement and the world applauds them and morns their martyrs.
But even under the diabolical Mubarak, they still had it far, far, better than the Palestinians.
I also seem to remember Gogo got herself into hot water with her snoots on her first blog-post last spring. I was turned off her then as I am right now.
“Ok, so you agree they aren’t hapless victims as you stated earlier. But then you disassociate them from Zionism. Zionism is apparently an entity unto itself! Like a mystical fog that takes over people’s minds!
Anti-Zionist Jews are a FRINGE. An important fringe, but fringe nonetheless.”
I never stated that anyone is a ‘hapless victim’ – that’s Blankfort’s language. I said Zionism victimizes people. It does so in different ways from the material to the symbolic and discursive, and different people, from sabras of every stripe to the ‘diaspora’, have different kinds of agency towards this. You are being redundant. I am not ‘disassociating’ anyone from anything. I’m making a distinction between people who are Zionists and people who are not – a distinction that Blankfort did not make when he decided to talk about ‘American Jews’ as a whole. I have no need to ‘diassociate’ non-Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews from Zionism. That’s somewhat futile, yes??
Fringe or not, I think they have a right to identify the way they choose to and not have to pay the Blankfort-Atzmon-Christison branded price in the name of whatever it is they think they’re doing. This isn’t politics, this isn’t about Palestine, this is a shit show instigated by reactionary types who think that by culturalizing politics and pretending that Jews OR Israel are exceptional in their power (over the US or over whatever else) they are somehow doing Palestinians – or Americans – a favor. They are in fact doing the exact opposite. Except it’s so bloody asinine and irrelevant one cannot begin to address it with a ten foot pole.
“I think ‘chosen’ means the power of victim-hood. The Holocaust Industry. The way in which Zionists put emphasis on Israeli suffering which is minuscule in comparison to Palestinian suffering. Palestinian suffering which is systematic and in-built to Zionism as much as resistance to it and terrorism from/toward it. … ”
Zionism was born late 19th C. The trope of ‘the chosen people’ was around for quite a while before in multiple avenues. I am pretty certain that it means different things to different people, if it means anything at all. The neuroses you describe are specific to Zionist teleology; there’s nothing inherently Jewish about them or even American Jewish. But I’m none of those things and I don’t particularly care to know more about them. I simply don’t see how it’s terribly helpful to engage in drugstore psychoanalysis to try and convince me that American Jews have some upper hand in the way the world is run, any more than any other capitalists.
“Would you be as critical of Manufacturing Consent as you are of Jeffrey’s belief in the ethno-religious variable to political power?”
No one’s denying that many that exist above the racial divides in the US are better positioned for a lot of things. Still don’t see what this has to do with anything. Jewish elites are part of a wider class structure. There’s nothing ‘Jewish’ about their wealth.
In fact, it is very rare that one finds any mention of them in the literature of the Yishuv. They were not part of the colonizers.”
Jeffrey, I can highly recommend Gil Eyal’s The disenchantment of the Orient: expertise in Arab affairs and the IsraeliSpecifically for a background to the specifically Israeli Orientalist discourse with its diverse groups of experts.
“Sarah, you seem to think that you are one of the ‘chosen.’ ”
Nope, not anymore than you think you are a Palestinian.
“Give me a break. I know a damn sight more than you do about American Jewry having grown up in a secular non-Zionist Jewish household in a largely Jewish neighborhood in LA during and after WW 2 and having been involved in pro-Palestinian activities for 40 years, all of which has given me an ample opportunity to observe my fellow Jews from every angle.”
So talk about what you know. Don’t make others the victim of that. And definitely don’t tie in whatever cultural anxieties you have with Palestine solidarity work
“I wrote and you quoted me that fostering the idea that Jews were aliens among other peoples was a Zionist principle. You say that wasn’t the case in Egypt. Was Egypt a hotbed of Zionism? That I was talking about the Ashkenazim and not the Mizrahim in Egypt or anywhere else was obvious.”
Sure but right before that you also wrote: [the impact of Zionism], “went a long way in feeding the growing sentiments of non-Jews in those countries that Jews were aliens in their midst.”
And I wanted to make the point that there is next to no substantial historical evidence of Jews in Egypt or elsewhere in the Arab world being considered a priori Jews that are ‘alien in the midst’ of their respective environments. I’m not a historian. But it is widely academically accepted that, at least in Egypt, (a) the sectarian trope of the ‘Jew’ was not a common subject and (b) popular sentiment for better or for worse had very little to do with the fate of Egyptian Jewry. Those who left either determined their own fate in doing so, or the state did. In both cases ‘sentiment’ has very little place. Sorry to nitpick, but it’s not like Zionism emerged to capitalize on existing divisions, it (as part of revailing colonial regimes) sowed those divisions in the first place.
As to this recycled mythology of the lobby. What exactly does the Israel Lobby do that without it, things might be different? The Lobby’s role, like that of any political pressure group or even politician, is to make life easier for the ruling class all around. The ruling class does not simply consist of politicians. It exists of transnational capitalists – American (and no, not exclusively Jewish if you can believe that), Israeli, Jordanian AND Saudi. The Israel Lobby, ‘influential’ though it may seem, is not exclusively running shit. Yes it might mobilize people, yes it might influence policies (well those on Palestine at any rate), but it only does so in terms of directing capital in particular directions.
In other words it is set up to better serve already existing imperial interests — not make or shape them. It’s a facilitator – not policy maker. Israel is what it is because it fits perfectly into the designs of empire. The reason you’re so obsessed with American Jewry and the Israeli lobby has more to do with your almost religious conviction that the US is not directly responsible for the situation in the Middle East (which, let’s recall, does not end at Palestine and which is mostly also under military and police occupation of one sort or the other).
The lobby logic has it that the US is under the mysterious curse of Israel & its lobby in the absence of which, US policy would cease harming the ‘national interest’ or being complicit in the oppression of Palestiniains. But what about the dictatorships & royal families running this region, almost all of whom get to sleep with the big capitalists at the expense of millions starving, and in return, have their state apparati heavily trained to repress those of us who dare to complain or, say, launch a revolution. Is the big bad Israel Lobby also responsible for this?! Does the big bad Israel lobby also make sure the US controls capital flows and investments, and that the IMF & World Bank continue to lay on the SAP’s that have destroyed a place like Egypt? Has the Israel lobby been directing NATO throughout this past year? Is the Israel Lobby responsible for US colonialism in Afghanistan and Iraq? Is America somehow sin-free vis-a-vis sovereignty & national resources in the global south, succumbing to evil only under the influence of Israeli opiates? What is it that the Israel lobby is “making” the US do that the US isn’t doing elsewhere?
Dude Israel is a cash cow for arms companies and petrodollar prostitution. The Israel lobby doesnt do anything differently from other foreign lobbies. The nature or size of its power tells you how strategically important it is for the elites – Israeli, American, Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, et al. No one’s denying its role and its power. But it does NOT make empire. The lobby might speed things up, make them smooth, but it’s not responsible or US involvement in the region, and without the lobby, shit would stll look very much the same. The lobby as an organization just makes sure that Israeli elites manage things as neatly as possible.
Assuming we can agree on all the above, what could the lobby possibly then have to do with Jewry, American or otherwise? That most American Jews tend to be of the upper classes doesn’t say squat. They still constitute a tiny, narrow minority of the American elite and more importantly, the global elite. They’re in no position, realistically speaking, to be calling the shots. Business doesn’t work like that. The sooner you accept that the Israeli economy, tied in as it is to war and occupation, simply lines up with the interests of elites everywhere because it lines their pockets while maintaining a constant state of war in the region (and hence a constant state of emergency of which I think I’ve said enough) and cementing US imperial control, military and economic, in the region to continue extracting resources both natural and human…… the sooner you accept this, and stop blaming the ‘Lobby’ and Jewish identity issues, the sooner you stop sounding like a racist.
This really is the last I have to say on the subject — primarily because I have more important things to do, but also because, Blankfort, there are plenty of people far more qualified than I am to make the above arguments but since you have characteristically, consistently failed to listen to them or pay any heed to their arguments in the past, and have deployed only slightly less insiduous theories than Atzmon’s to castigate some of the best activists in this movement, I can only assume that you are an America-firster who would simply rather see capital move from Israel (where, as an aside, it is hardly Israeli anyway, and is owned mostly by Americans and other transnational companies) to the US. That’s fine. But in that case remember that in my home base, between the SCAF and the US military bases, Egypt actually receives as much or by now, possibly MORE than Israel. And that’s just Egypt. I don’t even know about the rest of the region but can only imagine something similar, US military bases being what they are.
Also, I apologize if my earlier post @ Blankfort was egregious in any way, but I do not withdraw the content. My reaction was justified because his extremely problematic (not to say borderline racist) intervention was to pick up on “White Jews” and transport it from a context of anti-Zionist activism to one of Jewish political elites and the Israel lobby. Perhaps he thought I made a good candidate to recruit more fully into his line of thinking. Or perhaps he felt concerned at my recognizing or assigning any worth/significance to anti-Zionist Jewish activists and felt compelled to assure me that they have no such worth or significance. Likely it was both.
Jeffrey, I am somehow surprised you experienced WWII already. I am assuming though, you must have been very young at the time. To what extend did you comprehend what was going on?
That I was talking about the Ashkenazim and not the Mizrahim in Egypt or anywhere else was obvious.
What is the use of separating the two groups? Apart from normal flows of migration from and to Egypt, was there a relevant group of “new” Ashkenazim going to Egypt during Zionist times?
Then you write that, “The Israel Lobby does not have total control of Congress. The ruling class does, and that cuts across religious AND ethnic lines. Look at your president lateley? Are you completely unhinged? Israeli Moloch? Do you have any basic grasp on how global politics work? How is this crap getting past the moderators of this website? ”
I agree, but the question is how do we explain it?
One of my favorite posts by Phil was an article in which he mediated about the “roles” or ideologies he probably would have supported in different historical times. This is a really important issue, we are all somehow shaped by the time we live in.
Concerning my generation I have to admit I belonged to the ones that somehow experienced clandestine joy (“klammheimliche Freude) about the murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer, but I also didn’t like the crude political communiques of many parts of the left at the time.
The hard story in post-war Germany was that you couldn’t fight the Nazis anymore, they had to a large extend turned into “respectable citizen”, from that perspective I admittedly somehow sympathized with special targets, as I understood why it had to happen in times when the past couldn’t be dealt with/spoken about/was absent in education …, what I had problems with, in fact it irritated me highly, were the attacks on arbitrary US soldiers. And by now some of the string-pullers in this context slightly surface, among others East-Germany, who supported terror both left and right. The militarization was partly produced by informers and other agents who could provide both drugs and guns and bombs.
I have to admit that concerning Jewish power I am with Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky and probably others, to this German it feels that the reason the neoconservative state of mind is deeply entangled in the interests of older elites; and their power may well partly be based on the fact that WWII was the basic triumph for the idea that the US is a force for good in the world, fighting good wars for all of mankind. I don’t think later wars made that basic idea so clear.
This could make me partly similar to the anti-German left, which supports Israel right or wrong, and basically would like to continue to fight the above mentioned good wars along the lines of the Euston Manifesto. But that’s not what I would support.
@Sarah
Said you:
This is just a whole lot of noise.
Your distinction is meaningless. Everyone knows there are anti-Zionist Jews. The point is that these American Jews who become Zionists are not victims. They willingly become Zionists. Zionism is a part of Jewish identity.
And if they are indeed victims – whatever the hell that means – they sure as hell don’t give a damn about their identity being hijacked. That’s why anti-Zionist Jews are a fringe.
Said you:
Yes, exactly, you want to disassociate Zionism from Jewish identity. Now, tell us what Jewish identity means.
Yep, we can’t technically know what people REALLY think can we? How convenient for you.
One thing is for certain – there is no large-scale Jewish anti-Zionist movement. The occupation is 45 years long.
I think if American Jews wanted to take a stand against Zionism, they’d have done it by now.
Jeffrey never said Jews ‘control’ anything – those were your words.
What a pathetic straw-man on your part.
As to your denial of the Israel lobby – your argument is unconvincing. That discussion has happened here so many damn times it’s just a waste to spend more time on it. You really have to be ignorant to think that 45 years of occupation is beneficial to the US. Or when Israel snubs us, expands settlements, makes the 2SS more and more impossible – that that is all going according to plan.
The point of the Manufacturing Consent comparison is that people looked at that book and said Chomsky was a conspiracy theorist who thought the media worked for the government. Chomsky provided a systematic analysis of the media and called it a very ‘close approximation’ to how a complex system works.
Why the hell would Jeffrey Blankfort, a veteran Palestinian solidarity activist – who was shot at by Zionist thugs during the first Lebanon War and who has seen darker days than you, give a damn about recruiting someone into his line of thinking?
Are you for real?
Take that patchouli hipster nonsense elsewhere. LOL
Gogo,
I don’t believe in the sincerely of your apology to Jeffrey. You’re burying yourself under a mass of over-intellectualized, passive-aggressive jargon. That’s another turn off about you.
Ain’t nothing frigging racist about saying ‘white jews’ – they do exist you know. That you would unjustly resort to accusing him of racism is a reflection of the weakness of your argument. You learned well from hardened zioz I see.
Gogo you will never know more than Jeffrey about American jewery. Like I will never know more than you about the historic nuances of Egyptian tourist attractions. You are clearly ignorant/unfamiliar with his bulky credentials – he has more media credibility than you do that’s for sure.
You’ve shown yourself to be more interested in your highfaluting ego than in the ‘revolution’ you so haughtily promote.
“Please do NOT reply”
This says everything about your ungracious vanity and cognitive ossification.
You should be humbly thanking everyone for taking the time to read your article, whether you liked their response or not. It is US, WE THE POSTERS, who’ve made this blog of yours exciting and dynamic, not your convoluted academia.
Sarah, Gogo, Max Ajl or David Green in drag, whatever you call yourself, I’ve been down this road before too many times with too many anti-Zionist Jewish activists to count and I am not going to waste my time detailing the case against the pro-Israel lobby for you when it is patently clear as it has been with the others that it will have no effect whatsoever on your opinion which, frankly, I care next to nothing about.
You, like those I have encountered in my 40 years of Palestinian work, have been so indoctrinated with the notion of Jewish victimization and false accusations made against Jews over the centuries that they and apparently you, viscerally, can not entertain the idea that Jews, collectively, can be responsible for anything bad. This was true of my parents generation of which, fortunately for me and my sister, they were the exceptions, as it has been for the generations that followed although there have been positive breakthroughs, Phil and Adam and Annie with Mondoweiss being a major one of them.
For the majority though, it was the British that were primarily responsible for the Zionist colonization of Palestine and the Jews were merely pawns. This required creating the fiction that a Jewish colony would serve as a vital outpost for British imperialism in the oil rich Middle East ignoring the fact that there would be British boots on the ground not only in Egypt but in Iraq and Transjordan. In the end, as British foreign office documents clearly reveal, Palestine was nothing but a major headache for them as it has been for a few of our presidents, Obama not being the least of them.
The notion that the Balfour Declaration should be seen, instead, as a reward to the Zionists for having helped to push the US into that bloody war, as indicated by publicly available British government documents, they and I am sure you would not consider for a moment or even bother to read.
Your suggestion that by attacking the Israel Lobby, I am some kind of American-Firster is a typical response of a self-styled Jewish anti-Zionist on the defensive that has no intelligent arguments in her or his quiver.
FYI, I have been actively involved in opposing US imperial adventures since the Korean War, and had an FBI file long before I became active around Palestine. I am well aware of this country’s sordid record both internally and across the planet. but among the list of its crimes one will not find the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 nor the seizing and occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai in 1967. Although on both occasions they had important outside assistance, these crimes were conceived by and committed by Jews in Palestine/Israel with the wholehearted support of the vast majority of Jews throughout the world and that support, while slightly tempered, continues to this day. Without that support, organized in the US and Europe as major lobbies, it is safe to say, Israel would not exist today, at least in its present Spartan form. And please do all of us and what little is left of your reputation a favor by not trying to convince us that it is in the US interests that Israel retain the West Bank and that routine humiliations of a US president, and BO was not the first, are just political theater designed to placate the Arabs who don’t know any better.
What is interesting is that over the years I and other genuine anti-Zionist Jews have tried to get nominally anti-Zionist Jews who take your position to debate me on this issue. All those efforts have failed. Back in 1991, after Chomsky and I had opposing articles on the issue in the old National Guardian, Ron Bleier, a friend in NY, contacted Chomsky and suggested that he and I debate the issue at an upcoming Socialist Scholar’s Conference. Chomsky declined, writing that such a debate “would not be useful.”
Failing that I called Prof. Joel Beinin at Stanford, with whom I was and remain friends, and asked him if he would debate me on the issue since he took Chosmky’s stance on “the Lobby,” that it was a “paper tiger.” He, too, declined, using the very same words, “it wouldn’t be useful.”
Jump ahead a decade to 2002 when Elias Daviddson, an anti-zionist Israeli living in Iceland tried to arrange a debate between Phyllis Bennis and myself after I had written an article noting that she had declared the issue of the Lobby to be “dead.”
I have known Phyllis for more that two decades and worked with her on Palestinian issues in the SF Bay Area.She was, in fact, the first guest on the radio program I started hosting for KZYX in Mendocino in 2001. link to radio4all.net. But she, too, refused to do it, on the basis that “while Jeffrey and I agreed on most things” (which was true), “it wouldn’t be useful.”
There it was again, the very same words. “It wouldn’t be useful.” For whom was never spelled out.
In 2005, Berkeley radio station KPFA attempted to arrange a debate on the Lobby between me and Mitchell Plitnick who at the time was the head of Jewish Voice for Peace. Plitnick not only refused as did others at JVP but the very night before the taping, he gave a talk on the subject, with no one there to counter him, and shortly thereafter an article appeared by him on the internet entitled, “Myth and Reality: Jewish Influence on US Middle East Policy.”
Since he wouldn’t give me an opportunity to challenge him in person, I replied with a point by point refutation which can be read here: link to cosmos.ucc.ie
In the end, Prof. Stephen Zunes from USF, agreed to take the other side and debate me. Zunes is not Jewish and while a critic of Israel he is not an anti-Zionist, claiming that he will be a Zionist as long as anti-Semitism exists and who has said that “Israel can be seen as a form of global affirmative action.” Zooney also would like us to believe that US policy towards Israel is not only not driven by the Lobby but is, get this, a modern form of feudal anti-Semitism, in which Israel takes the role of the Jewish middle man in dealing with the Arab serfs. This piece of nonsense along with other such gems can be found in his appropriately name book, “Tinderbox.” There is one thing to be said for Zunes, however. He had the guts, at least, to debate the issue. And we have done it twice. First on KPFA and then at USF in which Prof. Hatem Bazian joined me against Zunes and Steve Niva from Evergreen college. There is a video of that but the audio from the KPFA debate can be found here: link to radio4all.net
That’s more than enough, and I wrote this before seeing the other posts on my behalf which are sincerely appreciated. But now, Sarah, Sarah, please Gogo away.
Lea, that’s an interesting perspective and one that reflects the concerns of Ben-Gurion and other leading Zionists of his day that Israel not be “Levantisized,” and that every effort was made to disconnect Arab Jews from their Arab heritage. It was an effort to which the Palestinians unwittingly made their own contributions by launching attacks on poorly defended Mizrahi “development” towns which made easier targets than those of the Ashkenazi and their kibbutzim.
In the opinion of Moni Yakim, one of the original Israeli Black Panthers the difference in protection with what was accorded the Ashkenazi was not an accident, but a deliberate effort to draw the fire of the Palestinian fedayeen, a conclusion he came to while working as a laborer in an Ashkenazi town building its defenses while his own town’s were being neglected.
Lea, I was seven when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and I remember that day and the period of the war quite well. My parents were among those who opposed the Japanese incarceration and they kept me and my sister, a year and a half older, aware of their political activities to the extent it was possible until my father went off to make propaganda films for the army.
I had maps on my wall of both Europe and the Pacific theaters and followed the reports of the fighting in the newspapers while studying the silhouettes of Japanese fighter planes, Zeros and Mitsibushis on the chance that one might fly overhead.
I also remember sitting with my father and sister in his den when Truman announced the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima which I recall as a somber moment. Within three years, at the age of 14, I would be picked up by a West LA Sheriff after a neighbor complained that I was circulating the Stockholm Peace Petition that called for the outlawing of atomic weapons. The story made the front page of the Hearst-owned LA Examiner although, being a minor, it didn’t mention my name.
That was already the time of HUAC and Sen. Joe McCarthy and fear was palpable in the air. Even with the new technologies of today and the growth of the surveillance state we are a long way from the atmosphere of that period.
Wow Jeffrey,
You were born righteous! Most rare. Most people spend decades training in righteousness.
I wanna shake your parent’s hands for doing such a wonderful job.
@Blankfort: The refusal to entertain, as you put it, that “Jews, collectively, can be responsible for anything bad” is not a matter of opinion to be had or to be changed. It is simply not scientifically possible that any ethnic or religious group of people can be existentially blamed for the actions of a few or many who nominally belong to that group. To assume so is to rely to whatever extent on racist/culturalist assumptions. That is certainly a violation of a fundamental value I imagine to be held by anyone who supports the decolonization of Palestine. It is also simply analytically untrue, ineffective, and a waste of time. The question of whether or not tribalist convictions guide the behavior of some capitalists, whether Jewish and/or Zionist, or for that matter, Muslim and/or Islamist, is only secondary to the primary trait of any and all capitalists, which is capital accumulation – and this lattermost trait is something we can take to be scientifically characteristic of all capitalists, even if they go about achieving it with different strategies in different contexts.
So I repeat. The refusal to entertain, as you put it, that “Jews, collectively, can be responsible for anything bad” is not a matter of opinion to be had or to be changed.
Gogo-ing away now.
Tedious bs Gogo.
You already lost your credibility.
I look forward to your next me-me-me article.
Sarah, your problem is lack of evidence. You keep repeating ‘capitalist capitalist’ but you’re only speaking conceptually.
Did you listen to the debate between Jeffrey and Prof. Zunes? At least Zunes had examples. You don’t.
Cliff dude, in case you haven’t noticed, ~*I’m not participating in a debate here*~. Sorry, but I’m not. There are tons of scholars and activists who have written with substance on the subject of why the ‘Israel Lobby’ – nevermind some hysterical notion of ‘the Jews’ – is not a legitimate focal point for the analysis of the US-backed occupation of Palestine and US hegemony in the region. It is a dated subject and Blankfort is obviously a million times more involved in it than I am. I have no wish to become involved. So Taxi et al can dance in circles around my lack of ‘credibility’ and continue to gush over their hero, I’m still not going to take any of this seriously.
Then why have you kept replying?
Quote Jeffrey, wherein he said ‘the Jews’ ‘control’ American foreign policy (or the media, or the banks, or whatever straw-man you can come up with).
It’s not that you lack credibility. It’s that you are arguing with Jeffrey in spite of an apparent lack of interest.
I don’t quite understand how that works.
So, as I have already said: your argument is unconvincing due to lack of evidence.
Jeffrey posted a debate of his w/ Prof. Stephen Zunes.
He has also told us that Chomsky – among other prominent intellectuals – have refused to debate him.
So where are all these amazing arguments and analysis if no one is debating the issue????
It’s silly to continue to reply to us and Jeffrey when you’re not backing anything up.
You’re the one tapdancing in circles gogo – to a tune only you can hear.
I also know why you’re not addressing me directly.
The refusal to entertain, as you put it, that “Jews, collectively, can be responsible for anything bad” is not a matter of opinion to be had or to be changed.
Fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion. But there are nonetheless Zionist legal and political entities that represent collectives of millions of Jews. It’s a fact that some streams of Judaism embrace universalism, while others reject it on the basis of scriptures and commentaries that, for the most part, were written by Oriental Jews, not the Ashkenazim.
The question of whether or not tribalist convictions guide the behavior of some capitalists, whether Jewish and/or Zionist, or for that matter, Muslim and/or Islamist, is only secondary to the primary trait of any and all capitalists, which is capital accumulation – and this lattermost trait is something we can take to be scientifically characteristic of all capitalists, even if they go about achieving it with different strategies in different contexts.
Sorry but killing and oppressing Palestinians and other groups of people is really not a trait or strategy of “any and all capitalists”. Tom Segev related a scene that was repeated frequently during the War of Independence: soldiers storming villages, as they shouted in Russian, “Za rodinu, za Stalina, za Ben-Guriona!” (“For the homeland, for Stalin, for Ben-Gurion!”). Overthrowing the capitalist system would not have guaranteed a different outcome to the conflict. link to haaretz.com
Oriental Jews authored the Palestine and Babylonian Talmud. Anyone who has studied those texts knows that they didn’t need the Ashkenazim to teach them anything about entitlement or chosenness. It is a mistaken belief that the Zionist movement began with the Ashkenazim in 19th century Europe. In the 17th century, an Oriental Jew, Shabbetai Zvi, told his militant followers that he would confront the Sultan of Turkey to reclaim Palestine, and roughly half of the world’s Jews believed him. Afterward, the Ottoman Sultans issued firmans that prevented the Oriental and other Jews from emigrating to Palestine. There were thousands of Oriental and Ashkenazim Zionists in Egypt during the mandate. Many of them were assisted through the offices of the Jewish Agency for Palestine located in Cairo and Alexandria to illegally enter Palestine. Once there, many of them took part in the fighting. The secret cell of Egyptian Jews behind the Lavon Affair were originally established to facilitate illegal emigration during the mandate era. link to sephardicstudies.org
Zionist historian Walter Laqueur noted that in the Irgun, there was a relatively high percentage of young Oriental Jews. He said “perhaps they perceived grievances more acutely than did others or felt a psychological need to prove themselves.” So, tolerance wasn’t necessarily a two-way street. link to books.google.com
The literature is full of stories about Palestinian “infiltrators” who were shot trying to return to their homeland, but there is little evidence of that sort of thing happening with the members of the Egyptian Jewish community. The Mizrahi Jews in the Shas party, including their spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef, are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem – although there is an anti-Zionist Mizrahi fringe. The majority do not think of themselves as Arab Jews, they think of themselves as Jewish Jews.
There are tons of scholars and activists who have written with substance on the subject of why the ‘Israel Lobby’ – nevermind some hysterical notion of ‘the Jews’ – is not a legitimate focal point for the analysis of the US-backed occupation of Palestine and US hegemony in the region.
I’m sorry but the notion that tribalism is secondary to capitalism with people like Irving Moskowitz and Haim Saban is delusional. Historically, the biggest obstacle to US hegemony in the region has always been those out-of-control Israelis.
Thanks, Jeffrey, for the answers. Admittedly I know close to nothing about the WWII in the East, apart from the “Babies” on Japan, and the Japanese attack on Japan. ( China’s obsession with Hitler )
I have to admit that I somehow feel drawn more towards your material analyses and real events than Sarah’s more abstract neoliberal accumulative capital threat. … And as Phil, I think that occasionally religion plays a bigger role than we would like to admit.
It seems China is producing the next housing bubble. These accumulative capital forces are everywhere, could that be since the same growth recipes rule academia everywhere?
I admittedly have my German inhibitions; although I can see that Israel acts in a rather protected space by now due to what happened here, and I do not like that either.
I am a great fan of Rosa Luxemberg whose Accumulation of Capital remains one of the outstanding contributions to Marxist theory but I am sure Rosa would be the first to tell you that the accumulation of capital had as little to due with the colonization of Palestine as she did with Judaism or Jewish tribalism., a disease which, unfortunately, affects your ability to see the world as it is.
That is not to say that tribalism is necessarily bad. It is one of the only things that holds what remains of indigenous cultures together. However, when members of a tribe seek to go beyond its borders, be they geographic, cultural, economic, or political, in an effort to dominate other cultures, that tribalism needs to be confronted and those MOTs (as they are known in the vernacular of the Jewish community) need to be challenged and particularly so when they are attempting to dominate the camp of those who their tribe has victimized.
Had this not been the case within the Palestine soldiarity movement as long as I have been a part of it, which is from the beginning, there would long ago have been campaigns to stop to US aid to Israel instead of repeating that ineffective slogan, “End the Occupation!” that most Americans do not comprehend and couldn’t care less about.
Compare this with the national campaign to stop aid to the Contras in Nicaragua in which Jewish activists played a leadership role (while at the same time blocking any discussion or criticism of Israel’s aid to the Contras or the Somoza regime before that) as I described in my article: “The Israel Lobby and the Left: Uneasy Questions.” for which I provided a link earlier.
When we consider the reasons behind the failure of the Palestine solidarity movement to have any positive effect on either the situation in Palestine or criticism of Israel within the United States, we should begin with its refusal to take on the Israel Lobby or even discuss its role in formulating US Middle East policy, other than to dismiss it as “racist,” “anti-semitic,” or some other such nonsense of the kind that Sarah a GoGo has provided us.
In this regard Mondoweiss is unique since every other blog on this subject run by anti-Zionist Jews (all of which have trashed me at one time or another) trots out the same nonsense about the Lobby that Sarah has done here. The good news is that almost nobody reads them.
“There are tons of scholars and activists who have written with substance on the subject of why the ‘Israel Lobby’ – nevermind some hysterical notion of ‘the Jews’ – is not a legitimate focal point for the analysis of the US-backed occupation of Palestine and US hegemony in the region”
I think denying simple reality can backfire if you are concerned about anti-semitism. The Israel Lobby doesn’t “control Congress”. But it seems to have a lot of clout on the subject of Israel. Congress made a complete fool of itself applauding for Netanyahu last spring–the mainstream press tried to ignore this, but even they couldn’t completely suppress it. And then Obama looked almost as pathetic at the UN recently. Even the MSM had a few stories gingerly talking about how this was in part due to Obama’s need to placate either Jewish voters or Jewish donors. A comparison I’ve seen some make is to the influence the rightwing Miami Cubans had on our policy towards Cuba due to the importance of Florida in both the primary season and in the main election. The Israeli Lobby is the Cuba Lobby on steroids.
Excellent points, Jeffrey. Especially the second and penultimate paragraphs. [October 14, 2011 at 2:40 pm]
Thanks, Taxi, I’d like to shake their hands, too, but they’re no longer around although neither I nor my sister who also has been active on behalf of Palestinian rights and was very much involved in the Central American solidarity movements, have ever failed to appreciate how fortunate we were to be raised by them.
They were unique in my experience. Their close Jewish friends, with whom they formed a minion, were Left, and some very much so, on every other issue, but became like Afrikaners when the subject was Palestinian Arabs and soon my parents stopped seeing them socially because the dinner table conversation would eventually turn to Israel and neither my father nor my mother were ones who held their tongues.
Thus, I am not one to hold back my criticism of Jews who are active in the Palestinian solidarity struggle because although progressive Jews have come a long way since the Fifties and the Sixties, as the song says, and Sarah Gogo insists on demonstrating, “baby, you’ve got a long way to go.”
Jeffrey,
Have you ever heard of the expression ‘twice blessed, three times the son of god’?
Encapsulated within this saying is the following meaning:
It only takes three consecutive generations to change a community – or even the world if this tenet is observed and practiced collectively. Two generations of conscientiousness and the third to seal the deal.
You and your fab sister are the second generation to be blessed with righteousness. What a truly fortunate position you guys are in.
Hats off and namaste!
Taxi are you Indian? (I am.) High-five!
LOL Cliff, no I ain’t Indian. But I would be honored if you thought of me as one. Me I’m a yankee doodle who enjoys mixing multiple languages in the same cake-bowl.
And though I am not religious at all – I did read much comparative religion in my youth and am very familiar with both hinduism and buddhism. The Mahabharata is in fact one of my favorite books. High TEN Cliffy!
I disagree with Sarah’s view that Freedom of Religion is an empty liberal trope. To reject it is to accept the idea that it is legitimate to put people in fear (or worse) because of their religious belief and to call for liberation on terms open to this idea is as paradoxical, threatening, confusing and divisive as any idea going round and round Hillary Clinton’s bellicose cerebellum.
What does ‘essentialise’ mean?
It may be true that Western demands for religious freedom identify the idea of religious freedom with an oppressive force. That is an argument for us to be less oppressive but not to be less liberal.
To essentialize in this context means to perpetually characterize an individual or social group by some imagined ‘essence’, in this case, oppression, victimhood and exclusion. Prior to the 70s ‘Copt’ was by and large NOT a social/political subject position in Egypt. Thanks to a combination of a particular breed of sponsored sectarian Islamism and Western ‘protection’ measures, it became so.
“It may be true that Western demands for religious freedom identify the idea of religious freedom with an oppressive force. That is an argument for us to be less oppressive but not to be less liberal.”
No. Western demands for religious freedom identify ‘religious freedom’ with Western demands. Okay? Okay!
i will do my best to address this quickly because I don’t have time to do it justice. but here:
‘freedom of religion’ granted by whom?
to call for ‘liberation on terms open to this idea (of accepting that it’s legit to put people in fear or worse cos of their religious belief)’ – who called for this? i’m pretty sure you’ll agree Jan25 is not an intolerant movement. it’s a revolutionary movement. Come to think of it. I really could’ve done without the historical framework in this piece. No need for it. Let’s pretend history (pre- or post- Jan25) is irrelevant. Let’s focus on Sunday afternoon onwards. Copts are not being slaughtered by Muslims. They are being slaughtered by the Egyptian military, which called on the entire nation to aid in the slaughter.
The Egyptian military that is a subsidiary of the United States.
The United States that makes statements about stability, unity, non- or anti-sectarianism, peaceful transitions, civil society, respecting the rights of minorities, freedom of belief, etc
The United States that funds half the NGO’s in the country and which Weiss thinks could do more to promote anti-sectarian civil society efforts.
The United States that is the largest recipient of Coptic Egyptian immigrants.
Think about that. I will address it & other things more fully when I have time.
I’d say that was a pretty cogent response. Thank you, it puts some things into perspective I wasn’t even conscious of.
It’s not just the US, Gogo, everyone is in on the gang bang of the Arab Christians. A couple of days back, LeaNder was asking why would the West want to empty the East of its Christians. I had mentioned the stunt that Sarkosy tried to pull with the Lebanese Patriarch during his state visit to l’Elysée last month. Here’s the post about it from the Daily Star:
European Union plan to absorb 3 million Christians from Lebanon and Syria
A member of the delegation that accompanied Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai to Paris said that French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked the patriarch seriously: “Given that there are 1.3 million Christians in Lebanon and 1.5 million in Syria, why don’t Christians move to Europe, since Europe has absorbed 2 million Christian immigrants from Iraq?”
Sarkozy explained to Rai that in light of the culture war – particularly that between Christians and Muslims – there is no room for Christians in the Levant, and said that the best solution would be for them to come to the European Union.
Rai was stunned. He asked Sarkozy: “How can something like this happen?,” prompting Sarkozy to present the patriarch with a document containing information revealing that more than 3 million Christians had emigrated from Lebanon over the past twenty years, and that the Middle East is headed toward serious conflict.
The patriarch returned to Lebanon and made statements contrary to the French position as Rai considered launching a new Arab stance in order to safeguard Christians.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Sep-23/149512-lebanons-arabic-press-digest—sept-23-2011.ashx#ixzz1adLcKNOX
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)