I seem to have lost my copy of Peter Beinart's book in the subway. If you find it, let me know, there's a lot of great stuff in there. But Beinart makes two large spiritual errors. 1, he says, Our parents left us a beautiful Jewish democracy and we are giving our children a disastrous occupation that is destroying that democracy. And 2, he says, If we should lose Israel, our Jewish democracy, it will create a spiritual disaster we Jews will be sorting out for decades to come. He's wrong on both counts.
In the first instance, he is falsely elevating his parents' generation as only a good son can. The truth is that like all other parents, they lied to us. They gave us an ethnically cleansed land and said it was a land without a people for a people without a land. They said there was no Nakba. They said the Arabs started the Six Day War. They lied by saying that Arabs were animals and terrorists for resisting the fact that they had been thrown out of their homes. They denied that Israel was expansionist. I was raised with this kind of talk. Beinart should relate what his former close colleagues Marty Peretz and Leon Wieseltier, two community leaders, said about Israel and Palestinians back in the 1970s-- a pack of lies.
The spiritual lesson is, We need to sort out our parents' fictions to try and make a better world, as good Jews (and good Muslims and Christians and pagans too) do...
The second error is more serious. While Beinart is unquestionably right to say that the end of Israel would produce a spiritual crisis for Jews that the community will be sorting out for decades, the fact is that that spiritual damage is happening right now, it is not prospective. When you have the entire leadership of a religious community, mine, signing off on the Gaza onslaught in which 400 children are obliterated in 22 days, and signing off on religious settlers, and signing against a Palestinian state-- the damage is happening right now. Years ago John Mearsheimer said to me, Phil you have to explain to me how the smartest most liberal group in 20th century America ended up supporting apartheid. (Or words to that effect.) He was right. When videos like the one above, the little boy being chased by a soldier with an automatic rifle, are all over the internet, and no one in official Jewish life has one goddamned word to say about them-- that is tremendous spiritual damage. When you see Palestinian fishermen and farmers denied access to their land and their grandparents' olive trees cut down-- routinely, every day, and the rabbis and organization bosses are afraid to say a word lest they be seen by other bosses to be lending support to anti-Semites-- you understand that Zionism is the spiritual problem, not the end of Zionism.
When you see neoconservatives elevated in Jewish and American life, xenophobic parochial militants who pushed for the invasion of Baghdad, and my own brother says to me, I demonstrated against the Vietnam war, but my Jewish newspaper says that this war could be good for Israel-- that is the destruction.
These facts and the community's denial of them are creating havoc in sensitive young Jews' souls, right now, and the best of them, people like Jesse Lieberfeld, refuse to blind themselves to these human rights abuses and horrors, even as Lieberfeld's own father shrugs. Jacqueline Rose and Hannah Arendt and Marc Ellis have all written that Zionism is our Shabbetai Zevi, the false messiah of the 17th century whose movement consumed the large mass of Jewish life because of a spiritual need, our collective need to believe in social deliverance as a body. That is the spiritual destruction that is happening right now, and I can only pray for my people to come alive to it.
The sequel will involve a great accounting, as Beinart says. But the damage is done. Ask the Catholics who are waking up to the pedophilia scandal in their church about which form of spiritual damage is greater-- the abuse, or the discovery and recovery.
Phil, Wow: another stunning exploration. Thank you.
“The truth is that like all other parents, they lied to us.”
You mean your Jewish parents lied to you just like my Muslim parents did to me! I am shocked, just utterly shocked!
YOU THINK THE QURAN and the BIBLE, and the other “holy books” are full of lies too!!!!
Welcome to the club!
What’s worse is when you call them on their lies and they get indigent about it.
i love the occasional spelling slip that is illuminating – you meant “indignant” but wrote “indigent” and yes, those that learn to live with the plethora of lies of religion and religious movements are indeed “needy”
Abuadam, I don’t recall Phil saying anything about religion per se. What he did make was an excellent point in this excellent essay (a general point about universal humanity and a better world):
“The spiritual lesson is, We need to sort out our parents’ fictions to try and make a better world, as good Jews (and good Muslims and Christians and pagans too) do…”
People need to stop pushing for a religion versus atheism showdown in the Israel-Palestinian debate or the equally damaging Judaism vs Islam. This will do nothing to better ethics. Richard Dawkins or your favourite zealous clergy would appear to be up for that sort of task. It isn’t all about us.
Been waiting a long time for this post, Phil. As usual, clear, brilliant and very painful. As a Catholic who has spent the last 12 years trying to understand the bishops non-response to pedophilia, and the anti-Jewish history of the church…well, its not fun.
But you are absolutely correct…for Jews, the spiritual damage is done (and on going)…and it will be many, many decades in the undoing. Catholics and other christian denominations have spent the past 60 years examining their anti-Jewish history, and its a long way still from resolution.
And Jewish intellectuals have been an intimate part of that process; have not hesitated to point out our moral failings relative to Jews…and I think that has been perfectly understandable.
I cannot help but think, in the same manner, Palestinian intellectuals will not hesitate to hold the Jewish community’s feet to the fire, so to speak (when the opportunity occurs…as it inevitably will occur). As you mention…there is no shortage of evidence.
the last 12 years trying to understand the bishops non-response to pedophilia, and the anti-Jewish history of the church…
In my mind, it was obvious from the beginning. Institutions do evil and immoral things to protect themselves. The “institution” of the Catholic Church was no different from any institutions or state. It’s Bishops defenders of the institution. The mirage of protecting itself over what is right and what is right for the individual came first. And like the institution did not feel itself subject to the civil laws outside the institution.
This is the same dynamic with the institutions of Zionism and it’s state. Protecting the institution is more important than what is right. Evil will be tolerated, even allowed if it seems to protect the institution.
But of course, in the long run, this destroys an institution, organized group or state.
That traditional Judaism was NOT institutionalized like the early Christian Church, was one of the wonderful things about Judaism. It was free of the golden calf. But then came along Zionism and too many Jews were manipulated (through emotion) to adopt the golden calf of Zionism and all it has brought along with it.
Well, Phil, my parents were life-long Roman Catholics, my mother saying a rosary every day until she died, and she wanted me to go from altar boy to priest. I love her with all my heart. But she was naive politically. My Dad lived on, stoic, after her death until the age of 91, living by himself. But the Catholic Church priests who performed and hid sexual crimes against young Catholic boys–was his turning point. He died a few years ago, no longer a believer, but actually, a rebel against the Catholic Church. He had grown up well aware of the Protestant elite and how Catholics were, for a long time, the official untermenschen. Me? I left the Catholics in my mind at age 14. I left the Christian Establishment at age 20, I left the Jewish Establishment at age 25. I had to get to know them first, difficult for any one of 98% America. You won’t find them in the US Military, or in most jobs available to most Americans. I am not alone. My name is, increasingly–thanks to the internet, not Main Media, legion.
Beinart is still trying to have it both ways and he cannot … an israeli boyfriend (a liberal atheist) I had 20 years ago said to me thusly, “We forced out the Palestinians and then put our boot on their neck and we can never lift it off” … it is the visceral fear of lifting up the boot from the collective neck of the Palestinians that so locks in israel in its self-destructive zionist course – they fear retribution for the Nabka and another endless list of horrors they have visited upon the Palestinians for decades. From my reading of the situation the vast majority of Palestinians are ready and willing to live in peace alongside the jews if the oppression would simply stop (that means no more walls, checkpoints, separate roads, gun-towers, expulsions, all of it)
/They gave us /
Who gave you what Philip , it’s not yours until you live
here until you tie your fate to it.You have the privilege to do so should you wish
but until then it’s not yours.
OlegR please spread the word and cut Israel off completely from the United States and the American Jewish Zionist / Israel-Firsters who are dragging us down with you and your immoral, illegal colonial project.
We already have plenty to be ashamed of on our own to be American (Iraq) – adding your ‘shitty little Levantine country to the list’ isn’t helping.
BTW – who coined that phrase?
it’s not yours until you live here
do you have a link to support this? i keep reading about israel being the jewish state. if there’s a link saying it is only the state of jews who live in israel let me see it.
Annie i am expressing my own opinion here take it or leave it.
Israel is a Jewish state but not all Jews live here or have citizenship
that gives them legitimacy to try and dictate Israeli policy for example
Left or right war or peace.
Until such a time that a Jew makes Alia this place is eventually not his
in any meaningful sense.
Annie i am expressing my own opinion here take it or leave it.
oleg, phil is expressing his own opinion here take it or leave it. harbaristas have no problem touting the ‘state of the jews’ when they want all the american jews to stand behind them and when one doesn’t it’s all of a sudden ‘get off my turf’
not all Jews live here or have citizenship that gives them legitimacy to try and dictate Israeli policy
when israel stops dictating american policy via their lobby i might take your concerns more seriously. but they do not. they are busy force-feeding legislation down the throats of the american public, most recently thru a man who had suffered a debilitating stroke..and his primary concern appears to be stripping palestinian refugees of their rights. he could have a lobotomy and they’d be highjacking his role in the senate.
i’ve had it with this hands off israel attitude. as long as the state of israel is using the american jewish community to prop up the apartheid state it is my business and it is phil’s business too. so your bloviations about ‘move here or shut up’ is just diversionary troll like behavior designed to highjack the comment section. AGAIN.
what are you doing here? your role is completely hypocritical. this is an american site. by your own standards your voice doesn’t belong. move here if you want a say!
/ harbaristas have no problem touting the ‘state of the jews’ when they want all the american jews to stand behind them and when one doesn’t it’s all of a sudden ‘get off my turf’/
Annie you are talking to me now not your mythical hasbarists.
/when israel stops dictating american policy via their lobby i might take your concerns more seriously./
Annie if Israel were dictating american policy there wouldn’t be any
kind of debate over I/P, nowhere, the whole issue would have ended ages ago.
Lay of it.
And i pretty much lost you after that since i never said all those things
that you attribute to me.
What about the 20% non-Jewish minority.
in your opinion, Oleg … a person physically present on any land who works, sleeps, eats and otherwise conducts all manner of life there considers it his or hers – it is their home such as it is … legitimacy is an entirely subjective perception and various groups believing certain ranges of things attempt to impose that range upon others … in the right circumstances masses of otherwise powerless people can come together in a united action/movement and topple regimes and change thinking … your views are anachronistic and eventually even you will see the dust that gathers upon them
They are citizens of the state of Israel in which they found themselves
living against their own wishes.
They have a lot of problems and discrimination and dual loyalty
issues on top of that.But it does get better for them.
Are you asking my opinion or are you telling me my opinion radii?
“…try and dictate Israeli policy…Until such a time that a Jew makes Alia this place is eventually not his”
This place is the Palestinians’ and nobody else’s.
You are just a Russian illegal immigrant.
No need to be a Zionist to shut down a racial supremacist, mass murdering aggressor state. In fact, the contrary is required.
if Israel were dictating american policy there wouldn’t be any
kind of debate over I/P
what debate? there is no debate in congress. none, or maybe you missed the 29 standing ovations and the 0-100 aipac supporting iran sanctions bill.
Annie you are talking to me now not your mythical hasbarists.
i noticed you copy pasted a sentence of mine and evaded addressing my point. you hardly need to copy/paste my statement to claim you are not a hasbarist. so back to the point, you come here and essentially claim phil has no right to an opinion but you do, based on Until such a time that a Jew makes Alia this place is eventually not his in any meaningful sense.
iow, make alia or stfu. isn’t that your pt? yet you reserve the right for yourself to come on an american site and spread your opinion. you are being hypocritical.
lost you after that since i never said all those things that you attribute to me.
yada yada yada, you said this: not all Jews live here or have citizenship that gives them legitimacy to try and dictate Israeli policy
too confusing for you? what debate? there is no debate in congress. the lobby dictates american foreign policy.
link to jta.org
that would be the legislation written by aipac, the legislation obama warned against passing because it went too far. these are dem congress people, who voted against the advise of their own president to kowtow to the lobby.
it goes on and on, so WHAT debate. please link.
here’s more from the jta link
and who wrote the ‘capabilities’ legislation? this is the israeli government position and who is it that pressures our gov to adopt the israeli position:
The moves in Congress aim to bring the United States closer to Israel’s red line?
The moves OF THE LOBBY aim to bring the United States closer to Israel’s red line. that is what they are there for, to bring the US government in line with what israel wants. obviously!
and the closing is quite apt:
“Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) thanked those who attended, and in a sly reference to the heavy Jewish representation in the Democratic caucus — 13 of 53 members — he added, “I’d especially like to thank my gentile colleagues for being here.””
yeah, how nice of the gentiles to show up, although it’s completely unnecessary.
so again, and do not pretend like you do not understand me. what debate?
Annie,
I’m not troubled by the hasbarachiks posts. Sometimes, in their own special way, they make my point better than could.
i agree they do make the point dbroncos. notice how oleg bailed on the conversation as soon as i asked him to show us this alleged ‘debate’ in american foreign policy over i/p. silence. they all know there will be hell to pay if they do not fall in line.
im quoting beinart
i only wish you were right that the two communities regarded one another as separate
/ The truth is that like all other parents, they lied to us. They gave us an ethnically cleansed land and said it was a land without a people for a people without a land./
I am pretty sure that these are not Beinarts words.
Anyway.
I am not aware that Israeli citizens view American Jewish community
as an integral inseparable part of Israel. At least it is not so in my case.
Avram Burg, former speaker of Knesset, said that Zionism created two structures: Israel and the powerful US Jewish organizational community. That statement is hugely important.
And no Beinart didnt say all of that. You have to go with the flo o
Avram Burg said a good lot of things during his political career
that differed immensely from what he said after that career ended.
/US Jewish organizational community/
He is talking about political structures that indeed exist, for now at least.
And why is it so important, the fact the AIPAC is pro Israeli lobby is not
exactly news.
I am talking about the situation among the common folk.
I doubt that the whole of Jewish community in the US wakes up and goes to sleep with Israel on their mind, just like we don’t do the same.
He is talking about political structures that indeed exist, for now at least. And why is it so important, the fact the AIPAC is pro Israeli lobby is not
exactly news.
because it impacts the legislation our congress deals with daily. because aipac writes legislation and everyone knows it. because everyone knows it that is no reason to be silent. it very much is ‘exactly news’. it is a massive power structure impacting our foreign policy and it’s awful and ugly.
Your whole political system is built on lobbying , No?
That pull it every which way.You don’t agree with this particular lobby policy but you would with another one.In the end it’s a matter of personal interest
to see this or that policy implemented.
That does not make that lobby illegitimate in any more then the
NRA lobby or pro Choice lobby or whatever other lobby there is.
And being powerful is not a crime in the US afaik.
You have a point Oleg but you forget without their backing & lobbying “Israel” would probably cease to exist so don’t bite the hand that feeds (so to speak).
“40% of American Jews under the age of 40 or 35, depending on the poll, said that if Israel were to disappear it would not for them be a personal tragedy.” -Norman Finkelstein on RT 05/16/2012
“OlegR says:
May 31, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Your whole political system is built on lobbying , No?
That pull it every which way.You don’t agree with this particular lobby policy but you would with another one.In the end it’s a matter of personal interest to see this or that policy implemented.
That does not make that lobby illegitimate in any more then the…”
(sigh)…….I think the only way to respond to Oleg’s stuff here is to be as simpled minded as he is.
So Oleg, see if you can understand this one simple thing.
We don’t care if the lobby is legitimate or not.
The fact is we don’t’ like it and we don’t like you and we’re going to get rid of it and your cult in the end.
So legitimate or illegimate is beside the point.
Oleg -
‘I am not aware that Israeli citizens view American Jewish community
as an integral inseparable part of Israel. At least it is not so in my case.’
It’s one thing to disagree with a point and give a reason, another to say I don’t care what you think — you don’t count. If you really find American Jewish opinion unimportant, why do spend so much time on this site.
I don’t find their opinion unimportant i find their opinion
to have a small weight when i think about what is best for Israel.
Israel does not exist to please American Jews or to be safe haven for
them in case something happens.It will serve in such capacity if needed
but that is not the prime directive so to speak.
“Israel does not exist to please American Jews or to be safe haven for
them in case something happens.It will serve in such capacity if needed
but that is not the prime directive so to speak.”
I am always amazed, Oleg, at your ability to make statements which to me appear so incredibly stupid, but then you back them up with a staggering array of facts and bullet-proof references.
‘i find their opinion to have a small weight when i think about what is best for Israel’
That’s pretty much like saying it’s unimportant. Still there is a difference between the weight you personally give it and the weight this opinion actually has in determining American and Israeli policy. The Israeli govt tries hard to mold and police American Jewish opinion for a reason. Not that I’m in love with any of this.
BTW – what do you consider to be Israel’s ‘prime directive’?
“It will serve in such capacity….”
‘Gosh, if only a huge burst of anti-Semitism forced American Jews to Israel as supplicants to the Zionist regime, and we could show them just how we feel about them, wouldn’t life be one long sweet song’
OlegR: “Israel does not exist to please American Jews or to be safe haven for them in case something happens.It will serve in such capacity if needed but that is not the prime directive so to speak.”
Oleg, I couldn’t agree more. Israel’s existence is based entirely on selfishness. One of the great benefits of your frequent comments is to remind us of this salient fact. But some people need to have facts shoved right in their face before they recognise them. So thank you for being so explicit in this case.
But let’s not confuse this prime directive, so to speak, with self-interest. That would dictate a wholly different strategy if Israel, as a small nation in the Middle East, is to have a long-term future.
But then the reality of Israel as a small Middle East nation is probably something that you, as a Russian, have yet to fully grasp. Though, of all people, you should be well aware that Zionism, like all other political “isms”, will have a limited shelf-life.
Right on Phil.
very powerful phil
OlegR
You are not an israeli, but an emmigrated russian jew, who is either russian by nationality, or ukranian, moldavian or anything else. I am not even sure you are a jew, as according to very reliable sources, good 30% of russians who came to Israel were not even jews, but came only because of the financial rewards. Israel, needing a higher headcount very badly, took them all.
I remember you boasted that both of your grandfathers were fighting in WWII. Were they communist commissars who machinegunned their own retreating soviet troops? Or hanged young soldiers who were too scared to fight?
You complain about living in Israel. You do not have to live there, get your passport and move to Europe or America. Or are you used to suppress people in Russia, so Palestina is just right for you?
This is the very definition of an irrelevant ad hominem verbal attack. Classic. As if what OlegR’s grandparents did 60+ years ago are relevant to anything.
Don’t feed the troll .
There is nothing new or interesting in his rhetoric, i encountered it a thousand times.
“Don’t feed the troll .
There is nothing new or interesting in his rhetoric, i encountered it a thousand times.”
Did you really think that was going to prevent people from bringing up your comments toward Klaus? Or is this just another case of Ziocaine amnesia?
Newclench says:
May 31, 2012 at 1:11 pm
This is the very definition of an irrelevant ad hominem verbal attack. Classic. As if what OlegR’s grandparents did 60+ years ago are relevant to anything.”
What? …Oleg started the ancient history by attacking Kruass as a German and declaring his ancestors nazis and all Germans guilty.
But I agree with the 60 years ago not being relevant to the issue so shut yur own mouths about the 65 years ago holocaust, and the Jewish victimhood 3000 years ago, and Jews being run out of ME countries 100 years ago.
Everyone is tired of hearing of your hypocritical whines and hypocritical ad hominem attacks like the one you just made too.
Clench,
Theo’s comments are not literally about OlegR’s grandparents.
They are about the validity of his online persona given MW track record for attracting Zionist trolls. Trolls who are banned, but then reappear under different names and personas – only to be eventually outed again and banned.
It is against the comments policy as well to ‘sock-puppet’ as it were.
Do you get the point now? Or are you intentionally being daft?
Considering you tried to get the Palestinian solidarity movement out of the Occupy movement, it’s no wonder minor squabbles with a D-grade commentator such as OlegR would be on your radar.
Oh how the mediocre have fallen.
“Oh how the mediocre have fallen.”
Oh good old Newclenchner is open to any point of view except the patently ridiculous one that a Zionist might do something wrong. Other than that, he’s ready for anything.
“As if what OlegR’s grandparents did 60+ years ago are relevant to anything.”
Oleg was the one who brought up the question of what grandparents did during the war. It was he who asked one of our German compatriots about what that poster’s father, I believe, did during the war and questioned the poster at length about the supposed guilt, etc.
A classic case of whatever the zio-nuts bleat about is in fact what they are guilty of themselves.
Theo,
“Or hanged young soldiers who were too scared to fight?” They used shooting. The Nazis used the brutal death methods.
In any case, you can’t really draw a straight line between the two: South Africa was the ally, while the USSR was closer to the other Middle Eastern countries, with the exception of the 1948 war.
You would be better going the normal route of asking why should Palestinian villages be forcibly removed if it was bad for similar villages in Ukraine to be moved as in the movie Fiddler on the Roof. Why is it Ok to treat one group one way based on religion and supposed ethnic claims and very bad to treat another group the same way based on the same criteria? Once you look at cases where there is 0 security concern involved in the action, you have to ask why this is being done.
W.Jones
I must be getting old, however I do not understand the parallel you quote: “South Africa vs UdSSR.
Care to expand on that theory?
“Israel, needing a higher headcount very badly, took them all.”
And their technology skills. It was Russian skills in the 90s that created the StartUp Nation Dan Señor crowed about. Avrum Berg was smart to see that when he authorized the huge onslaught of non-Jewish Russians in the early 90s. About the cherry tomatoes? Not so sure.
when you write “pagans” you mean people who read gossip magazines?
and maybe Israel is your Shabbetai Zevi, for me it is the real thing, better a “spiritual destruction” than a physical one.
your brother was right, Saddam was a mortal enemy of ours, and now he’s gone.
The Shabbetai Zvi comparison is actually interesting.
Phillip says that Zionism is a dead end doomed to fail the Jewish people or transform
them into something that he would object to call Jewish.
I am interested what is his constructive proposal.
If not Zionism then what is the future that he want’s for the Jews,
the American ones at least.
“If not Zionism then what is the future that he want’s for the Jews,
the American ones at least.”
Maybe Judaism?
“If not Zionism then what is the future that he want’s for the Jews,
the American ones at least.”
I am convinced Phil seems very to much to want what Zionists consider the worst of all fates for Jews. He wants them to live in peace with themselves and with others.
I know Oleg, you get sick just seeing it, but it had to be said.
It’s just disgusting, isn’t it Oleg, that somebody would settle for peace when victory is sooooo near.
Judaism is a religion what to do with all the atheists?
And which sort of Judaism, surely not the orthodox kind?
Run that by me again Mooser and try to be coherent this time,
English is your native language after all.
the future for “the Jews” should be the present they have now – never in all the recorded history of the jews have they had it better – able to live openly and without persecution nearly everywhere on Earth – in all countries. Even Arab and other Muslim countries that have pressured them out in recent decades would welcome them back if israel changed its inhuman policies toward the Palestinians … jews prosper all over the world, there are no progroms against them anywhere, really … they have immense wealth and power vastly disproportionate to their tiny number … they have vast over representation in the sciences, arts, politics, academia, etc. … jews are doing absolutely great at present and have been for a while and there is only one dark cloud on the horizon for jews – which grows ever darker and more ominous and dangerous – and that is zionism and that policies and government of israel
You forgot to add that for the first time in history since Judaism began, Jews are also free from opression or exploitation by other Jews who were able to exploit other Jews because a) the Gerntile society did not interest itself in crimes against Jews, or b) the exploiting Jews were the designated intermediaries between Gentiles and Jews.
This is the great advance in Judaism, and this is what the Zionists are fighting against. The right to exploit and oppress other Jews, without the possibility that Jews can appeal to the Gentile or civil law for respite is the Zionist dream.
‘The right to exploit and oppress other Jews, without the possibility that Jews can appeal to the Gentile or civil law for respite is the Zionist dream.’
Do you really believe this stuff, or is this some kind of anti-Zionist performance art?
You woul;d prefer to bring the disagreement or accusation of crime before a Rabbi or unspecified “Jewish Leader”? And have your dispute or criminal complaint judged by them, using their standards for judgement?
You go right ahead, and welcome to it.
And after that, tell me how we will be advantaged by bringing Israeli-style “justice” and administration to America. I’d love to hear about it.
And then you can finish up with a lecture on the great legal and political accomplishments of Judaism.
And evets, if you want to argue that the “ghetto” system for Jews is the ideal way to handle the Jewish community, and will be of more benefit to Jews than living as individual citizens, you are welcome to bring it on. I’m sure you can drown me in facts supporting your view.
If you want to argue that making Jews second-class or non-citizens and making them live seperately encourages Jews to be better to each other, go right ahead.
And don’t forget to finish up with about a million examples showing that the ways in which Jews relate, politically, socially and religiously to each other in Israel is the best way Jews could possibly live. You know, without any awful Gentiles to oppress us.
Mooser -
I don’t want to argue anything except that the sentence I quoted seems absurd.
‘And don’t forget to finish up with about a million examples showing that the ways in which Jews relate ….’
Your logic and motivation elude me.
“I don’t want to argue anything except that the sentence I quoted seems absurd.”
You’re right, it’s absurd to believe that those intent on establishing a regime, with the intent to colonise and take the country from its inhabitants would in any way misinform, minipulate, or sacrifice people if they were co-religionists. I don’t know where I get those crazy ideas.
I don’t know why I think that whatever people are willing to do to the other they are willing to do to each other. Maybe just a funny idea I get from being a Jew, maybe not.
“Your logic and motivation elude me.”
Wow, if my logic and motivation elude you, don’t go looking for your posterior regions two-handed. I don’t like Zionism. I believe that Zionism is just as dangerous to Jews as it is to anybody else. The thought of what Zionism will do to Jews if given a free hand world-wide terrifies me.
I think he was drunk or under the influence of something when
he wrote all that.I didn’t get it either.
“If not Zionism then what is the future that he want’s for the Jews,
the American ones at least”..Oleg
Jews should be individuals whose religion is Judaism.
Leaving aside ancient history where everything/everyone was tribal based….where have most of the Jew’s ongoing problems come from?
You, as many do, want to say that eternal anti semitism alone is responsible.
Anti semitism disappeared as much as any prejudice can disappear in huge populations. Now resentment of Jews/Jewish State( = Jews) is on the rise again in thought if not in deeds.
Jews took a wrong turn with zionism and peoplehood, a turn back to primitive tribal days just when the world got a lesson in prejudice from the nazis that 99% guaranteed Jews would be regarded as much a ‘inseparable’ part of humanity as all others.
You were home free after that and should have embraced it but you didn’t.
If the holocaust was a failure in humanity zionist have made it a double failure now.
Phil, I’m afraid we haven’t seen the worst of it. Yes, zionism hijacked the souls of good jewish Americans. But having claimed a few scalps, it is hungry for more. As Israel descends into its heart of darkness, it’ll take all of the Jewish community along for the ride. All, because the ones staying aside, jumping off the train to nowhere good are still too few, way too few – whether in the US or in Israel. The people who looked the other way as 300 children were incinerated, when Iraq was destroyed, it’s people torn apart, would they not look away when another million Palestinian are herded off the land? Is there really a line in the sand that will not be crossed? if a mysterious disease claimed the lives of 1 million Gazan tomorrow, would Perez and Goldberg not lay the blame at the feet of “Hamas”? would Hillary be allowed to say anything other than it was “unfortunate”?
In the end Zionism is a golem and people like rabbi Brian walt are trying hard to salvage a Judaism that is cleansed of the horrors of ethnic cleansing. And there were 900 who signed petitions and/or joined RforHR. But there were also 1200 rabbis who wrote to the methodist Church and threatened to pull back from “interfaith” wheeling-dealing. And the Rabbi in Israel who wrote and the many who distributed the treatise mentioning the permissibility of killing non-Jewish children if there’s suspicion that they grow to be terrorists (something Obama’s new definition of the “Kill list” apparently endorses) . The israeli rabbi will not be persecuted now because it was considered “religious speech”. Alas, that’s the speech making its way to America.
In the end, the Golem, coddled for too long by American Jewish establishment, having claimed part of the capacity for human decency of everyone’s parents, will rise further and chomp down on Judaism itself. That’s how hungry it is. And as it does, it will not be only the religion that will be consumed. It will take also Jewish history, the very excellent history of American Judaism and the great American jewish cultural dream. That’s what I think the Beinart liberal zionists are really afraid of. Having made light of beinart (as I had. me no like princelings), I now think that he may indeed have had the final insight – that the Golem, having risen out of zionism is now chewing on liberalism, and when it had its fill, it’ll be coming for the Jewish culture and with it, the best of the best of the communal memories. Which are yours too. Which is America’s.
Interesting comment Danna.
I had to look up golem so I’ll post the definition in case there are others who don’t know either.
Definition of GOLEM. 1. : an artificial human being in Hebrew folklore endowed with life. 2. : something or someone resembling a golem: as a : automaton b : …
/Yes, zionism hijacked the souls of good jewish Americans. But having claimed a few scalps, it is hungry for more. As Israel descends into its heart of darkness, it’ll take all of the Jewish community along for the ride./
Ah yes the same diaspora Jewish paranoia but from the other end.
Don’t get the gentiles upset they will kill us all.
The flip coin of the pro Zionist kind that Philip objects to.
“Don’t get the gentiles upset they will kill us all.””
Yeah, you can tell how scared we are of the Gentiles. Afraid to live near them, afraid to marry their sons or daughters (my God, they would kill us for that. Afraid to compete with them for the better jobs. Afraid to make any money, and terrified of getting involved in politics, lest it trigger a pogrom. Why we’re so afraid of the Gentiles we even criticise Israel, making ourselves unwelcome there, just to placate the Gentiles.
You’re a plenty smart guy Oleg. Real smart.
Well said, Danaa. Avigail Abarbanel has written about the mass psychology of Zionism. I think we can also talk about mass spirituality. The concept of “gassut” – coarseness or coarsening (of mind, heart and spirit) comes to mind. It is a state in which ordinary ethical judgement becomes clouded by force of compromise, acceptance and habit. Repentance and the accompanying restoration of a healthy sense of right and wrong become so difficult at that point that it is said to require divine grace – after man has taken the first step of remorse.
The people who looked the other way as 300 children were incinerated, when Iraq was destroyed, it’s people torn apart, would they not look away when another million Palestinian are herded off the land?
How else can we explain this but by a coarsening of individual and collective mind, heart and spirit?
Does gassut mean coarsening alone (as in skin or leather), or coarsening of the mind, heart and spirit? And how is the pronunciation accented (because if it’s the latter, it will become my new favorite word)?
Welcome back, MRW. Good to see you.
The primary meaning of “gassut” is physical (thick, coarse, gross), but the psychological/spiritual sense is very frequent in Jewish ethical philosophy (from the Talmud, through the ethicists of mediaeval Spain to the 19th-20th century Musar movement).
Thanks, Shmuel. (I don’t know that I’m back; I just can’t help myself when my back molars start grinding.) Would gas-soot be the proper pronunciation? And can you show its use in a declarative sentence so I can get a sense of it?
“to the 19th-20th century Musar movement.”
Funny how a simple misspelling turns an ungulate into a lone wolf, isn’t it Shmuel?
So tell me Shmuel, if Judaism is a “we” thing (that is not a circumcision joke!) why are you encouraging Jews to consult their own conscience and intelligence? Shouldn’t we wait until the Jewish leaders and authorities decide to reject Zionism and follow suit?
What good would doing away with, or even merely correcting in some sense, Zionism do if we lose our essential “we thing” Judaism? Jeez, Shmuel, if we start judging things as individuals and consulting our consciences instead of our Rabbis or…….. (you will to write in whatever is considered a “Jewish Leader other than a Rabbi, since I don’t know)
I mean, I’m as anti-Zionist as the next fellow, but what is more important, being right with my own conscience and judgements, or being in thrall to the completely and cynically fungible Jewish “we” and “Jewish Leaders” and always waiting for somebody with more Jewish cred to tell me what to do, lest I become un-Jewish?
What profiteth a guy if he wins the fight against Zionism but loses his Jewish soul?
And anytime you want to tell me who the Jewish “we” is, I’m all ears. Kids used to make fun of me all the time about it.
MRW,
The dental motive works for me :-)
The pronunciation would be ga-soot (the final syllable rhyming with boot). As I explained on the Axelrod thread, there are differences in usage between Rabbinic and Modern Hebrew, but the following could work in both: The soldier’s heart was gass (adj.) to death and human suffering.
Mooser,
I never said that Judaism was about obedience or hierarchy or groupthink, just that it has a strong (I believe essential) component of collective identity and identification. I don’t see a contradiction. Think of “If I am not for myself who is for me, and when I am for myself what am I?”
“The primary meaning of “gassut” is physical (thick, coarse, gross), but the psychological/spiritual sense is very frequent in Jewish ethical philosophy (from the Talmud, through the ethicists of mediaeval Spain to the 19th-20th century Musar movement).”
It was frequent in Gentile ethical philosophy too:
(excerpt)- NC Museum of History
North Carolina
Johnson County
December 10 1814
My dear sons,
”As you are now out of my sight and beyond the reach of my voice, among strangers and a variety of characters called to that war, I must content myself with this mode of instruction.
I ask you to remember the many instructions and lessons imparted to you as necessary for a good and honorable life whilst you were with us.
Duty falls to me now as your Mother to caution you most strongly in this service you have been called to for the country. You must guard against the savagery incidental to camp life, which without strict regard to oneself, tends to harden the hearts, brutalize the feelings and *coarsen* the character of men. It is my wish that you abstain from drinking excessively and guard against any temptation to evil. Indulge not in anything that will tarnish your characters as Christians or gentlemen.
You are soldiers now and I must see that filled with worry. As my sons I know you will do your duty and when the occasions arise defend the honor of your country, your state and your family in manner such you never dishonor your traditions or need be ashamed of your conduct in the rages of war.”
We didn’t talk it we lived it.
“I never said that Judaism was about obedience or hierarchy or groupthink, just that it has a strong (I believe essential) component of collective identity and identification.”
Oy, you got me Shmuel. I should know better, and now I look like an ass, which may be more or less humiliating for me than others. I’m not sure.
At any rate, as soon as I read your response it hit me: When is an “essential component of collective identity and identification” ever associated with or even found in the same place as “obedience or hierarchy or groupthink”. Can’t think of a single instance.
I bow to your superior, ungulate wisdom, Mooser. Must be all that ruminating.
Thanks Shmuel for the gassut – a perfect analogy – and the reminder on Avigail (her writings are always on my mind, if not in the forefront). The ‘coarsening” effect – just what I was looking for to dress the imagery – for such words, Hebrew may yet be redeemed (assuming Yiddish is too). Alas, I do despair of of divine grace – ever finding its way back from whence it has been banished (I suspect despair is a sin too, but ….I’ll keep it up at least until I have a word for that).
American, I know you know that we share the worry for America’s fate in all this. Spiritual collateral damage? Cf. Shmuel’s gassut – see comment on Axlerod attending the “kill list sessions”.
OlegR – you are a master of unclarity. Is it because your spirit is so clouded? would you be here otherwise?
“I suspect despair is a sin too”
But despairing isn’t; it can be the eye of clarity. So add the zing.
“American, I know you know that we share the worry for America’s fate in all this. Spiritual collateral damage? Cf. Shmuel’s gassut – see comment on Axlerod attending the “kill list sessions”.”…Danna
Yes I do know that…. the spiritual damage affects all of us that count ourselves among half way decent people. ..this flight from sanity and all morality is affecting the world. So frustrating and maddening ……how did this happen I ask ….and usually tell my self we took too much for granted, trusted too much because we simply could not imagine that the day would come when our government would torture or have Kill List….. and not even bother to be ashamed of it.
We citizens tell ourselves we can’t be violent or act out on authorities because we are a “civilized democracy ” and don’t do that…..well how civilized are we actually?.. and what exactly does civilized even mean when we accept this crap and let it go on and on till it becomes accepted and normal? I don’t know any more….but doesn’t sound civilized to me.
“the spiritual damage affects all of us that count ourselves among half way decent people.”
I, too want to be counted among those people, but 1 or 2 percent (on a good day) is not 50, not by a long shot.
“he (Beinart) says, Our parents left us a beautiful Jewish democracy ”
..a beautiful Jewish democracy?….when was Israel ever a beautiful Jewish democracy?
And people ask me why I am so hopeless about Israel and zionism ever changing?
Well, nothing says hopeless more than the Beinarts….totally living in some fictious world of their own minds where real history and reality don’t intrude.
Or are they just lying when say things like this? I guess it doesn’t matter, the result is the same either way.
The Israel of 48 was based on disfanchisement of those Palestinians who were denied the right to live in the country where they had been born. Disfranchisement is the opposite of democracy and the essence of oligarchy. Not that I can add to the incisiveness of American’s comment, even though he’s stolen my latte. (Not my country, though: credit where it’s due.) That Mr.Beinart has some good phrases, I can’t deny, but he sure is annoying, even despair-inducing.
….totally living in some fictious world of their own minds where real history and reality don’t intrude.
And when you consider Beinart’s parents came from South Africa the man has clearly stepped over the line from fantasy to farce. But perhaps the biggest (and cruelest) joke is that people still take him seriously.
” But perhaps the biggest (and cruelest) joke is that people still take him seriously.”…libra
Yea it is. And the even bigger joke is it’s a spreading disease….look around at all the Orwellian bots lifted to influential slots in the world.
Very scary.
Once again, Beinart’s frame of reference is out of sync with his own age and generation. Beinart was born in 1971. His “parents” left him with both the reality and the mindset of the occupation on which he has chosen to focus all of his angst. In the context of his personal biography, what he seems to long for more than anything is a lost sense of innocence and self-satisfaction completely detached from reality. The evils of occupation (the bad one) did not suddenly appear when Peter Beinart happened to notice them. They were there when we were growing up (he is slightly younger than I am), but our parents told us all was well and good.
Unlike some people I could mention, Beinart knows and has thoroughly absorbed the principle that an inheritance is a gift, not a right.
Ecstatic to see you getting indignant over this issue Phil. It’ll take many more like you from within the camp to help those that are without the camp to see more clearly.
Beinart was important to breach the line…once the line is broken down then many of those under delusion will break out on their own, i am referring to those who are under the spell of the Big Lie, the Myth.
A righteous kicker, Phil.
________________________
“the Gaza onslaught in which 400 children are obliterated in 22 days.” Barbecued with white phosphorous.
The first step in recovery is recognizing and acknowledging that there is a problem. An alcoholic who continues to make excuses for his drinking, who continues to deny that he has a problem is only going to dig for himself a deeper proverbial hole.
“When you see Palestinian fishermen and farmers denied access to their land and their grandparents’ olive trees cut down– routinely, every day, and the rabbis and organization bosses are afraid to say a word lest they be seen by other bosses to be lending support to anti-Semites– you understand that Zionism is the spiritual problem, not the end of Zionism. ”
Sah. And it puts keeping kosher and all the mitzvot into perspective. What’s the point of mechanically observing Shabbat while the religion is dragged through the mud for the sake of a Zionism which is slowly being stripped of all morality?
‘They gave us an ethnically cleansed land and said it was a land without a people for a people without a land. They said there was no Nakba etc.’
My parents didn’t tell me these things.
I feel deprived.
“My parents didn’t tell me these things. I feel deprived”
I don’t doubt that for a second. Look, it’s not to late to start believing them now. I’m sure you have the basic groundwork, it’ll just take a little effort.
It’s a black and white world, eh, Phil? Tour analysis is simplistic and demonizing. If you can’t see anything good about Israel because of its past history, why should I see anything good about the Palestinians, whose past history is suicide bombing?
“why should I see anything good about the Palestinians, whose past history is suicide bombing?”
“Let’s see,’ says Hophmi to himself as he decides to comment, ‘they ban you around here for Nakba denial. I bet I can get away with Nakba denial by inference, tho’
Cause those suicide bombers just came out of nowhere, and nothing ever happened to set off those bombers, it’s just the Palestinian nature, huh Hophmi? And after all those Zionists came to Palestine specifically to do them good, too.
No one is trying to convert you hoppy. You’re Captain Israel, remember? Color-blind (so long as it concerns Zionism).
But to answer your implication more abruptly – suicide bombing by Palestinian terrorists (a fraction of Palestinian society) began in 1994 and has since ended for many years.
Whereas Zionist terrorism originated and perfected the art of blowing up marketplaces, taxicabs, residential homes, etc. in Palestine.
It was the Zionists who raped women and girls after killing their parents and boyfriends or friends and family. Sometimes even women who were pregnant. Then there were those pesky massacres that got covered up for decades, with the soldiers-perpetrators getting off on light sentences (much like in the present era, with Rachel Corrie’s murderer escaping justice or Tom Hurndall’s murderer being released early, and OF COURSE don’t get me started on the countless settlers who get away with murder continually).
There is no comparison between your cult’s crimes (even though you’re safely tucked in here in America) and the Palestinians.
Israel’s crimes don’t simply extend to these spikes in obscene acts of cruelty and massacre either. They manifest in more nefarious and subtle ways through the bureaucracy of the occupation and the total control over Palestinian society. The de-development of Gaza’s economy during the years of occupation and now during the siege.
Israel was the only country in the world to legalize torture and house demolitions. B’tselem documented that during comparable situations (using the UK and the IRA during the 70s and 80s) – Israel tortured more and tortured without evidence and without accountability and ultimately without reproach.
This was in response to the notion that Israel is ‘like other Western nations’ in its ‘War on Terror’ – when it is not at all.
If anything, Israel is a caricature of the West. A deformity of the Western ideal (which itself is intertwined with its own self-awareness of its hypocrisy and pretension).
That is where the bullshit, “shoot and cry” motif/meme comes from. Or crappy Israeli movies like ‘Waltz with Bashir’ or ‘Lebanon’ come from. The range from the self-delusional (selective memory) to the outright pathetic (IDF ‘women’ in Maxim), etc. etc.
Then there’s the legion of Zionist keyboard-warriors raging on about Israelis inventing the wheel, cherry tomatoes, and Frogger. The best phrase to describe ‘you’, hoppy is a “tryhard”.
Anyways, the notion that you are someone who could ever be reached by the message of MW, is hysterical. Go ahead and think whatever it is you were thinking about Palestinian society – I’m sure no one here (and no Palestinian, past/present/future) gives a flying ****.
Cliff –
Daniel Bernard, who was at the time the French ambassador to the UK, referred to Israel as “…that shitty little country…” (he didn’t say “Levantine”).
American -
I would add to your definition of “golem” that several iterations of the fable include the element of unintended consequences. Rabbi creates golem to defend Jews from antisemites, golem becomes more and more powerful and uncontrollable (being, after all, an amoral and soulless creature), golem wreaks havoc until it is deactivated, by which time both Jews and gentiles have fallen victim to its unslakeable thirst for destruction.
For the purposes of critiquing Zionism, these aspects of the story are especially relevant.
“I seem to have lost my copy of Peter Beinart’s book in the subway.”
Is that better or worse than losing your virginity in a taxicab, as one reputedly dipsomaniacal half-Jewish writer said she did?
Another word, dipsomaniacal, I don’t remember to have ever met, after all these years. Interesting. Should be easy to keep in mind.
Who was this half-Jew? You think his problem may have been to be half something? On the larger human plain, what exactly would it change to be “only” half Jewish? I remember my friend Chis Hirson, the saxophonist told me, he was “half” only. I think that’s were I met half the first time. It didn’t change much to me, since his half was much more interested in the optical remnants of the German past than any full I ever met. He pointed out all the Speer buildings in Freiburg to me.
Believe it or not, I saw something similiar to your, I forget their names, musical tools on Google not long ago. One could even push “buttons” and produce a sound. But it was gone again swiftly. Let’s see what is there today. Nothing. But that was nice and reminded me of you.
Simply excellent! I’m working my way through the book now, but since I’ve not been in a taxi in quite a while, I’m reasonably certain it’s not your copy. :)
I seem to have lost my copy of Peter Beinart’s book in the subway. If you find it, let me know, there’s a lot of great stuff in there. But Beinart makes two large spiritual errors. 1, he says, Our parents left us a beautiful Jewish democracy and we are giving our children a disastrous occupation that is destroying that democracy.
do me a favor and buy an e-reader like Kindle, if something like that happens you simply download it again. If you use e-versions you have the advantage to search the book independent of the index provided if you choose the right version, you can even mark passages while reading. They never seem to list the passages I search for in indexes. Besides if more publishers are forced to publish in that format prices may go down for all of us. I am very pleased that Norman F. has found a publisher that considers this demand. You should work with them, they are wonderfully costumer friendly.
Concerning our parents, there is an abyss we will be never able to cross. We can even speculate if, as some Jewish Germans actually did, Zionism wasn’t poison and didn’t make things worse. But it will always remain speculations.
Fact is the Zionists were the ultimate winners, in hindsight they are considered to have been right. Never mind how much the in turn they fed the antisemitic argument. But don’t forget Jewish socialists versus the Zionist nationalists did too, or Jewish bankers, thus the elite.
The real problem to this uninformed nitwit seems to be, would you find one group on earth that wouldn’t have exploited the circumstances for their own advantage? The problem is, it converted the victims of the Holocaust to somehow necessary victims of the creation of the state. Collectives always seem to need their own victims or heroes or both for the better of the rest. In the end you are left with the good old nationalism, or national interest. What exactly is that? You should ask Walt and Mearsheimer about that.
When you see neoconservatives elevated in Jewish and American life, xenophobic parochial militants who pushed for the invasion of Baghdad, and my own brother says to me, I demonstrated against the Vietnam war, but my Jewish newspaper says that this war could be good for Israel– that is the destruction.
Aren’t the Neoconservatives very American? Could their support of the endeavor, the Iraq war, the pacification of the muslim, have succeeded if they weren’t? And to what extend did the US help to create the problem Muslim?
I don’t know, all I know is that the questions of the ones that come after will be different from the onces that preceded or follow us, partly because of what we thought could be the answer.
Yesterday Madonna’s concert in Israel was big news here, now oddly enough they told the German audience among other things, that Madonna is not Jewish, but lives a kosher Jewish live and that her concert was thus on Friday night. Odd, I thought. They didn’t explain it to us. They only interviewed some authority in Israel who knew something about all these peculiar Kabbalah adepts that are not really Jewish. So far I thought Madonna was celebrated for being Jewish. What did I miss?
Zu viel Schnaps, MeaNder?
Very powerful.
Wow one of the best essays ever on this topic. You nailed it. Grand slam. I loved the “pack of lies” line!