A nice little test for a Sunday morning. Who's the anti-Semite? This one is multiple choice.
1. Eli Lake on MSNBC (minute 10 or so):
The one place where there's less criticism of Israel is in the United States Congress, and that's because there is a very strong lobby that lobbies Congress--and this is not true for the executive branch-- that's pro-Israel.
2. Tom Friedman, writing in the New York Times:
I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.
3. John Heilemann, "The First Jewish President" in New York Magazine:
And among the high-dollar Jewish donors who were essential to fueling the great Obama money machine last time around, stories of dismay and disaffection are legion. “There’s no question,” says one of the president’s most prolific fund-raisers. “We have a big-time Jewish problem.”... And many Jewish voters, like those Wall Street financiers... who flocked to Obama and were then chagrined when he called them out as “fat cats,” have all too often focused more on the president’s words than his deeds—and come away with the impression that he doesn’t seem to “feel Israel” in his bones.
4. Ehud Olmert, on CNN:
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said millions of dollars from the "extreme right wing" in the United States helped oust him from government and derailed a peace plan with the Palestinians... "I had to fight against superior powers, including millions and millions of dollars that were transferred from this country (the United States) by figures which were from the extreme right wing that were aimed to topple me as prime minister of Israel. There is no question about it."
5. Peter Beinart, in The Crisis of Zionism:
[In the 2008 Obama campaign] advisers were judged not merely on their policy acumen, but on their ability to assuage the organized Jewish community's fears. Advisers who aggravated those fears were dealt with ruthlessly... [In the subsequent administration, George Mitchell lost out to Dennis Ross as a policymaker because] as in the campaign, the capacity to reassure American Jewish leaders had become a crucial test of a staffer's effectiveness, and in that contest Ross has no equal."
6. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby," in the London Review of Books:
The bottom line is that AIPAC, a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress, with the result that US policy towards Israel is not debated there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world. In other words, one of the three main branches of the government is firmly committed to supporting Israel.
the readers?
Great catch, Phil, shows just how important it is to have what Max Blumenthal calls “J positive blood” to tell the basic truth surrounding Zionism in America.
You forgot to include your self in the list.
link to youtube.com
Not bad, i have heard better though.
It’s not the original recording by that group, or even a copy of it.
@ OlegR
Q: Not bad, i have heard better though.
R: I was told to cease certain activities to improve hearing…
Everyone who isn’t a Jew is a anti semite and any Jews who oppose Zionism/Israel/Jewish Supremacy are Self Hating Jews who are even worse than anti semites.
I think that’s how it goes for the Zios.
Everyone who isn’t a Jew is a anti semite
It’s not that easy. I’d say: Everyone who isn’t a Jew will be called an anti semite some time in the future.
That is more useful in politics, and it is biblical.
biblical, schmiblical, besides, a minority of jews have or ever will read the bible. what’s more heading off a future such as the one you describe is what mw and the growing jewish anti-zionist movement is about. so enough already of this damn fatalism. if you’re so sure that there’s nothing that can be done to avoid the unthinkable, aren’t you wasting what precious little time you have left writing about the inevitable, since, as per nevil shute’s “on the beach”, right now you could be spinning a supercharged racing car around a race track, oblivious of the danger? after all tomorrow that nuclear cloud arrives, so what the heck?
I used to work in a factory that was originally Nevil Shute’s aircraft hangar.
“Everyone who isn’t a Jew is a anti semite”
That can be a problem, especially when you see them putting Zyklon B in your drink. But I have just found a way around this inevitable and ubiquitous anti-Semitism! I got an accordion! Yup, a white mother-of-pearl Scandalli, with a 120 key Stradella bass-button layout. Now, I ask you, American, who doesn’t love a Jew who plays the accordion? Only two people, as far as I know, nobody and his lonely friend, no-one.
Can anti-Semitism compete with “The Beer-barrel Polka”? No way.
Er, Mooser. My totally goyish son is interested in learning to play the accordion. Is it allowed for Gentiles?
My sister had a Scandalli — white mother of pearl with blue — maybe on the bellows?? There was a brown leather case, lined with red velvet.
She took lessons, and I wanted to learn how to play, too. My parents told me I’d have to learn to play the first 10 exercises, then I could have lessons. I weighed about 50 lbs soaking wet; I’d strap the thing over my shoulders and sit down on the edge of the bed, and couldn’t move. “Lady of Spain” remains an elusive ambition.
Non-Jews, goyim, the nations, Amalek, antisemites, Jew haters, etc. — not perfectly synonymous in Zionist rhetoric, but close enough too much of the time.
And many — even *most* Jews are self-hating Jews and traitors — according to many leading Zionists.
For instance, check out this quote from pro-Zionist militant Joe Walsh:
BEGIN QUOTE
[W]here is the outrage from the American Jewish community? Don’t they understand that the president is not pro-Israel? … The short answer is that most American Jews are liberal, and most American liberals side with the Palestinians and vague notions of “peace” instead of with Israel’s wellbeing and security. Like the president, the U.N., and most of Europe, too many American Jews aren’t as pro-Israel as they should be and too many share his belief that the Palestinians are victims of Israeli occupation.
END QUOTE
Would any smart person bet on the Zionist enterprise achieving a successful outcome when taking into account its hostile attitudes towards most of the human race? Ideological inclinations these extreme always tend to self-destruct.
Great collection of quotes by Phil — and there are many more in this vein — many thousands of similar quotes, especially from hyped-up Zionists like Pamela Geller. They are at war with nearly the entire world. Armageddon here we come.
“They are at war with nearly the entire world”
Yea, they are. I don’t know if this is pure innate stupidity and hubris. Or if they calculate that the US superpower backup will ‘always’ win them their wars against everyone…it has so far.
The scariest thing the US democracy has ever faced is a US congress so controlled by Israel firstdom that they actually are advocating for a US war for Israel’s benefit that would damage the US. I thought surely that would be the final wake up call…but it hasn’t been.
So bizarre, so orwellian, so corrupt…and even though I know this to be the case, I can hardly believe it.
At every step along the way of this Isr-Zionist political domination of the US I have said to myself…o.k. this is the too far point, congress will wake up, refuse, …but our politicians never have, they have always put Israel interest above the US.
I just want to know how it ends for the US. Do we just whimper along as the second Jewish State until they exhaust and destroy everything we have and were , or do we end with some kind of big bang disaster?
Well,one could support the candidacy of the only patriot left running for POTUS,Dr.Ron Paul,despite his alleged faults listed by his and our enemy the MSM.
As my brainwashed liberal insulated sister in law just said,if I was one issue voter,I’d vote for him.What she doesn’t realize that all those accusations of racism,antisemitism etc.are articulated by the worst enemies of minorities and common working people of America, and even of Israel,as how is Israel faring being the most isolated and corrupt entity on earth,along with US?
Not an Ed Koch moment(“how am I doing”) for sure.
dahoit, I empathize with you. My very smart and educated sister recognizes all the good things about Ron Paul, especially his monetary, fiscal, and foreign policy, and as well, his concern for basic rights violated by the Patriot Act and HMS, and she sure is no fan of Big Brother or of the Nanny State, but she won’t vote for him because she thinks his policy would turn back female rights from control of their own bodies, hence future. She voted for Nader last time, and says she will do it again.
“What she doesn’t realize that all those accusations of racism,antisemitism etc.are articulated by the worst enemies of minorities and common working people of America”
Except for all the ones made by the large contingent of proudly racist Ron Paul supporters, that is. Who are you talking about, btw?
playforpalestine, what is your source and experience for your blanket statement “the large contingent of proudly racist Ron Paul supporters”?
I never met one and I’ve been a Ron Paul supporter as the best option available for POTUS a long time. Perhaps you live somewhere and have regular contact with such a large contingent of folks? Where’s that?
I’m asking because the Ron Paul supporters I know have never exhibited any element of racism, nor bigotry of any sort, let alone pride in same, at least in my presence, nor in their writing, so I don’t know where you came up with such a statement.
“Perhaps you live somewhere and have regular contact with such a large contingent of folks? Where’s that?”
Brooklyn. I’ve never met an openly racist white person here nor any Ron Paul supporters. But I did google his name once and there doesn’t seem to be any lack of racists who love him. Is this honestly a surprise for you? It’s not exactly a big secret.
link to newsone.com
Is it weird knowing that both you and David Duke think the same guy would be a great President?
playforpalestine, so you like doing the guilt-by-association trip, eh? The article you hotlink lists ten Americans linked to fringe organizations kicked to the curb of credibility by mass America, and rightfully so, ages ago, because they evidenced they do, or may support Ron Paul. 10 is a small number when anyone considers how many Ron Paul supporters there are and how Ron Paul has been a respected member of Congress for decades, and always consistent in his POV, so much so, even the MSM constantly says he’s the only consistent content contender for POTUS.
You live in Brooklyn and tell us, “I’ve never met an openly racist white person here nor any Ron Paul supporters. But I did google his name once.”
And you concluded from such slight effort that there’s a “large contingent of proudly racist Ron Paul supporters.”
Citizen,
Playforpalestine is much more bogged down in ethnic nationalist politics than Ron Paul.
And no pro-Israel activist here has yet been able to explain why Jewish ethnic or religious nationalism should enjoy any more legitimacy than white nationalism, black nationalism, Christian nationalism, European ethnic nationalism, etc. That is a key question that they always pretend wasn’t asked. They don’t hear it.
Playforpalestine clearly has problems with white nationalists (as do I) — but he is a proud Jewish nationalist. He doesn’t grasp his self-contradictions. Those self-contradictions are probably going to sink the Zionist experiment.
“And no pro-Israel activist here has yet been able to explain why Jewish ethnic or religious nationalism should enjoy any more legitimacy than white nationalism, black nationalism, Christian nationalism, European ethnic nationalism, etc.”
Well, in all honesty, it shouldn’t. People are free to make their own associations and form their own common ethnic/religious identities as they see fit. Just because Judaism is older doesn’t make it more legitimate than any other nation of people that defines itself by an association with one another. Look at the Palestinians. As a nation they formed primarily in response to Zionism and Jewish emigration to Palestine. This makes them a newer nationality but by no means does it delegitimise their quest for self-determination.
Re: ” People are free to make their own associations and form their own common ethnic/religious identities as they see fit. Just because Judaism is older doesn’t make it more legitimate than any other nation of people that defines itself by an association with one another.”
Has any person, including Josephus, ever found a single mention of Jews or Judeans by anyone in any record prior to Roman times?
Is there any mention of Judeans in any other literature but their own Septuagint? Appears no one at the time took the Septuagint as a factual collection.
“And many — even *most* Jews are self-hating Jews and traitors — according to many leading Zionists.”
Like who? All Walsh said was that American Jews should support Israel more.
“Would any smart person bet on the Zionist enterprise achieving a successful outcome when taking into account its hostile attitudes towards most of the human race?”
Actually, forget the first thing. I want to see some examples of this.
none of the above is an antisemite. unless, of course, re: the zionist entity, telling it the way it is, rather than deferring in such matters to israel firster traitors, is (as these said traitors insist) a sine qua non of antisemitism. actually (and for the umpty-umpth time), israel firsters happen to be the real antisemites, being that it’s the zionist entity’s occupation of palestine that not only fuels antisemitism and anti-americanism throughout and beyond the arab/islamic world, but also the blowback from said brutality that’s such a serious national security threat. should, for example, there be even one more terrorist incidence here in the homeland that’s linked to the israeli occupation, how long before the public sizes everything up and collectively comes to the conclusion, “why of course, knew it all the time, it’s these damn jewish traitors* in our midst.” and if turning america and most of the rest of the world against jews isn’t antisemitic, what is? not to mention the fact that nconditionally supporting an entity that is armed with nukes and whose people are obsessed with the holocaust (as well as with the masada) is a recipe for a nuclear winter
*and it’s unlikely the public will distinguish being jewish supporters and jewish opponents of the zionist entity
“*and it’s unlikely the public will distinguish being jewish supporters and jewish opponents of the zionist entity”
People are odd creatures. I think they both do and don’t and will and won’t. ..the left brain-right brain, reason vr emotions, battle. The problem I see for anything Jewish, in the irrationality of the Jewish state and Israel firstdom, is that it can create the same kind of irrationality in opposition to it. IOW people will reach their ‘fedup’ point with Israelidom and any and everything associated with it.
American, if the history of the neocons and PEPs and there current rampage across the mainstream media as experts for mass consumption, and the bad reputation of the Federal Reserve-Treasury-Wall St wheel, not to mention the likes of Madoff, have not resulted in an anti-jewish backlash, what will? War with Iran? With a spread to the whole ME region? With a spread to WW3?
Do you really think that people will respond to being attacked by Muslim terrorists with hatred against Jewish people? Because I would have guess Muslims, personally.
Why would an Arab attack in the US cause people to regard Jews as traitors?
“should, for example, there be even one more terrorist incidence here in the homeland that’s linked to the israeli occupation”
One MORE? There was a first one?
perhaps you forgot bin laden’s 9/11 manifesto. he said it was because of america’s support for israel against the palestinian people. (paraphrasing)
He mentioned it annie, but it was primarily directed at American actions. That said, how does his statement connect the Israeli occupation to 9/11? He said it was payback for Sabra and Shatila too, which had nothing to do with America.
Actually Sabra & Shatila DID have something to do with America cuz the Americans gave the green light to the israelis to invade Lebanon in the first place – then they ‘allowed’ Sharon to go rogue on them without punishment or accountability. Not to mention of course that the weapons that were used in this massacre of innocent women, children and the elderly, were made in the USA.
Did your parents not teach you how to play ‘connect the dots’ when you were a kid? Are you just plain dumb or are you simply a pathological apologist for criminals who enable/commit crimes against humanity?
There’s an even more direct connection of the massacre to the US, in that the US brokered the truce that sent the Palestinian PLO militants out of Beirut with the US’s assurance that no harm would come to the women, children and other civilians left behind there. The IDF was likewise, as part of the truce, supposed to leave West Beirut. The IDF broke its part of the bargain by invading West Beirut and the US, which had already pulled out of Lebanon by that time, did little to nothing besides making stern diplomatic requests for Israel to stop the massacre.
link to mediamonitors.net
“Not to mention of course that the weapons that were used in this massacre of innocent women, children and the elderly, were made in the USA.”
Really? How in the world do you know that?
“then they ‘allowed’ Sharon to go rogue on them without punishment or accountability.”
How would they do something like that? The US isn’t accountable for Sharon.
“Are you just plain dumb or are you simply a pathological apologist for criminals who enable/commit crimes against humanity?”
Wait… I don’t think that S&S is America’s fault because the US didn’t stop a military leader from another country who allowed a massacre that the US didn’t know anything about beforehand… and that makes me an apologist for war criminals? So, you think the US is guilty of crimes against humanity because of S&S?
“Did your parents not teach you how to play ‘connect the dots’ when you were a kid?”
You’re way beyond dots dude.
“Israel supplied bulldozers, paid for by my American taxpayers, to their allies, the right wing Christian militia that committed the slaughter with Israeli facilitation.” link to pacificfreepress.com
The Israelis “had trained them, given them uniforms, handed them US army rations and Israeli medical equipment. Then they had watched the murderers in the camps, they had given them military assistance – the Israeli airforce had dropped all those flares to help the men who were murdering the inhabitants of Sabra and Chatila – and they had established military liason with the murderers in the camps.”
link to informationclearinghouse.info
RE: “One MORE? There was a first one?”
The original 9-11 Commission re motivation of the attackers concluded that the key reason for the terrorist attack in NYC was frustration at the USA’s blank check to Israel for what it does to the Palestinians. The Commission’s finalized report for public consumption changed that conclusion by making it generic, that is by making it a general statement that American foreign policy always produces blowback. Even there, if you look into the body of even the public version of the Commission’s report, you will see singled out the same motivation, with a few others as additional samples of motivation.
The key reason?
Haha, no it didn’t. It was one of the reasons. Regardless, that doesn’t make it “connected” to the I/P conflict in any real way. And you never addressed how the flawed motivations of terrorists would suddenly become adopted by average Americans. “The Jews are traitors! Al Qaeda said so! And they’ll attack us again unless we kill the Jewish infidels!” I don’t see it happening.
Anyone can check out what the Commission concluded re the main or key motivation, and how they made it generic in the public release, even you, playforpalestine. Google is a useful tool. I urge readers here to use it and you will find playforpalestine is flying by the seat of his pants. Even it it was only one of the reasons, why should Americans pay the cost for how Israel abuses the natives? You raise a question I did not address, i.e., whether or not average Americans would adopt the motivation inspiring the 9/11 attackers–to do what? Attack their own country and fellow citizens literally? If you question is how would Americans adopt the POV of the 9/11 attackers regarding the I-P situation and US enablement of it with US blood and treasure–the answer is, by the US mainstream media giving a balanced view of the history and current daily facts on said situation. Americans would quickly see they’ve been ignorantly supporting the wrong side of said issue; Americans favor underdogs, and don’t like bullying the innocent.
Citizen, that was what you brought up, wasn’t it? That another terrorist attack would make Americans think that the Jews were traitors and that it was all their fault. But based on what we’ve seen I would say that just the opposite would occur. It would make people less tolerant of Muslims and Arabs while helping them sympathize with any other victims of similar terrorism. Terrorism is generally a very poor way of helping your victim to consider the merits of your cause. Attacking Americans in the name of Palestine is a sure-fire way to guarantee that Americans will continue to associate Palestinians and terrorism in their minds.
The vast majority of most Americans will never consider the motivations of 9/11 terrorists to be a valid starting point for questioning I/P. All it does is frame zealous supporters of the Palestinians as those who are eager to kill innocent people to achieve their goals. ie: It supports the Israeli narrative perfectly.
After 9/11 Israelis offered condolences while Palestinians celebrated. Which do you think was more likely to inspire positive feelings? Has Palestinian terrorism directed at the United States ever done anything to benefit their cause in the past?
Not after, but before and during 9/11, 5 Israelis parked their white van in a perfect spot to watch that event; they had equipment to film it, and pranced and hopped atop the white van in utter glee. They were arrested after being spotted by an American doing this. A whole bunch of Israelis were rounded up by the local authorities, investigation began; soon that was stopped and the Israelis were whisked off to Israel and the event was hushed up.
The proof of what average Americans would feel and do if they had more objective information than what the US MSM doles out about the I-P situation, which is parroting hasbara–is that the MSM has a decades old pattern of not presenting the Palestinian side of the conflict and glibly enhancing the hasbara OK’d by media heads complicit with AIPAC & Israel (& most of Congress is complicit).
Go ahead, now tell Americans on this blog that there had been, and is, no steep and relentless bias on the part of the US MSM favoring Israel. Tell them accordingly, this official propaganda reality is not a major reason why this blog was established.
“Not after, but before and during 9/11, 5 Israelis parked their white van in a perfect spot to watch that event; they had equipment to film it, and pranced and hopped atop the white van in utter glee.”
Before? Meaning that they knew what was going to occur and went there to witness it?
I’ve never heard that accusation leveled before. Do you honestly think that Israel was behind 9/11?
playforpalestine, so you never heard about the 5 dancing Israeli’s? Where do you live? Do I “honestly think that Israel was behind 9/11?”
I do know that Bibi thought 9/11 was a good event for Israel and that the Israeli government, like Rahm Immanual, never fails to take advantage of any opportunity that offers itself to further its own agenda, and that in fact Israel immediately after 9/11 launched a campaign basically shouting to all Americans, in effect “See? We have the same common enemy! Let’s fight together against terrorist Islamofascism!”
Did some Israelis and/or American Jews know about 9/11 ahead of time and simply not tell US? If so, did they gain personal advantage from that? Was 9/11 an Israeli set-up? Israel does have a track record on that. The FBI report on Israeli/Jewish involvement is over 500 pages and most of it is highly classified, and in fact the time expiration has been extended. Here’s some related questions I don’t believe have been answered to a reasonable person’s satisfaction, including some raised by parts of the FBI files that have been made available under FOI:
link to veteranstoday.com
link to mybigfatanti-zionistlife.blogspot.com
link to sodahead.com
Also, playforpalestine, re your pretend naivety: ” I’ve never heard that accusation leveled before. Do you honestly think that Israel was behind 9/11?”
Trying this summary, Straight Talk On Jews And 9/11: link to veteranstoday.com
You should also know about what Sibel Edmonds turned up: link to veteranstoday.com
Hard to believe you don’t know about Scooter Libbey…
Those who are not, are anti-(Jewish) a common saying among Jews
a common saying according to whom, because i know hundreds of jews and can’t recall many jews making that statement (except among my peer group, age 4 score and some), let alone the younger generations, most of whom are fully integrated into american society.
“according to whom?”
once again, zionism’s historical figures such as theodor herzl may influence older jewish-americans but i doubt they do the younger generations. the lack of interest that jewish-american youth have in the zionist entity attests to this. anyways the generational battle is taking place right now, so we should find out fairly soon which way the wind is blowing.
I am convinced “anti-semitic” in today’s environment, means someone who the Jewish Establishment doesn’t like; the ultimate Orwellian double-speak, methinks.
you nailed it!
Anti Semite = an aspersion cast upon the one who would dare question Zionism. A slur and slander. It means nothing more.
That is the danger Ellen.
There really are people in the world who hate jews (anti-Semite, anti-jewish – whatever) simply for being jews.
Ziobots have so abused the term that people in the not too distant future may instantly dismiss any accusation of anti-semitism as a zionist deflection. That is a dangerous situation.
It’s the fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
So, Sumud, do you near an anti-jew-pro-Aryan outpost in the Colorado Hills? If not, where have you personally met folks who hate jews simply for being jews? And, what do you mean “for being jews?” And what do they mean? What conduct in either case is so despised? Be specific. Thanks!
There are people who “hate” the French because they are French or Muslims because they are Muslim, or Catholics because they are Catholic, or black Africans because they are…well, are what they are. It is tribal brainwashing.
So forgetta ’bout it! Get over yourself.
Using phoney expressions like anti Semite to desribe an ignoramus who is Anti Jewish is not ‘gonna change that.
Why would Anyone, let alone Jews, adopt an expression (Semite) coined by a raving bigot (Mahr) to describe Jews ?
(and do not go on with the baloney about the Jew gene and genetic roots going back thousands of years to some bronze age tribes wandering around the Middle East….geesh!)
Seems pathological, cultivating a narcissistic self understanding of victimhood.
There is this recurring notion of hating/loving A because he is A.
This is nonsense. You always like /dislike a group because of certain characteristics of the group. These characteristics may not be real or no longer real, you may have learned them from fairy tales you read as a child.
Or they are real. Someone dislikes Jews because they are too ritualistic or the German orderliness gets on his nerves etc.
The same is true for likeing a group. Your liking may be based on real characteristics of the group or imagined ones.
Mahr was a man of his times; he coined the term “anti-semite” because Jews were included in the psuedo-scientific racial theories of the times and the only Semites he was concerned about were the ones in his country, which were Jewish. You’d think, since it’s a given that said racial-science is a myth, that ergo, the use of the term, especially since it applies to only one sub-group of Semites, would be given the boot when discussing important practical issues of our times. Some argue that it’s still appropriate to use the term, anti-semite” because the Jewish self-identification is not limited to race, ethic group, religion, culture, etc. It does not make sense. “Jew hatred” is much more precise. That of course brings up the question nobody seems to be able to pin down: “Who is a Jew?” In Mein Kampf, Hitler mentions that the local Vienna mayor (I think, if memory serves) declared that a Jew was who he said was a Jew. These days, we have various Jewish organizational speakers doing the same thing, or, a crippled offspring of such rhetoric, usage of the term “Self-hating Jew.” Seems to me ambitious careers use whatever version of “anti-semite” they think will benefit them and their agenda–You know, like Marr did?
That’s why I think Atzmon’s book The Wandering Who? is important; and isn’t it interesting that those on all sides of the Jewish politically prominent (more or less) community spectrum seem to join to muzzle him–and, by scribbling boldly on their muzzle they have not even read his book!
The Mayor, 1897-1910, was Karl Lueger, of the Christian Social Party, who took no special action against Jews despite a lot of talk. It was his election, some say, that so spooked Herzl. I’m not a Mein Kampf reader but I understand the Lueger and Richard Wagner were the only two predecessors in anti-Semitism that Hitler really praises. The phrase ‘I decide who is a Jew’ seems often to be attributed to Lueger but someone may know better whether there’s an authenticated record of a speech or conversation where he said it. Whether he said it or not it’s still very true that being or not being Jewish is not an objective state that can be checked scientifically.
MHughes, I have a 1939 “unabridged and fully annotated” edition of Mein Kampf which attributes in a footnote the phrase “I decide who is a Jew” to Lueger when he was Mayor of Vienna. There is no source for that comment though (other than the eight names of the ten “editorial sponsers” listed at the beginning of the book.
“There are people who “hate” the French because they are French or Muslims because they are Muslim, or Catholics because they are Catholic, or black Africans because they are…well, are what they are.”
Except they all do have reasons for hating their group of choice you know. It’s not mindless.
“Using phoney expressions like anti Semite to desribe an ignoramus who is Anti Jewish is not ‘gonna change that.”
It won’t change what? Hatred? It’s not supposed to; it’s supposed to describe it, which it does adequately. And why do you consider it a bogus word? (It’s actually a real word, I assure you.)
“Why would Anyone, let alone Jews, adopt an expression (Semite) coined by a raving bigot (Mahr) to describe Jews ?”
Because it is the most accurate word available. Judeophobia would also suffice but it isn’t commonly used.
“Seems pathological, cultivating a narcissistic self understanding of victimhood.”
Really? It just seems precise to me. “Jew-hatred” doesn’t work. Jew-hatred is a form of anti-semitism but not all anti-semitism is expressed as hatred.
Jew-hatred is a form of anti-semitism but not all anti-semitism is expressed as hatred.
if jew hatred is only a form of anti semitism please illuminate us to other forms of anti semitism where jew hatred doesn’t come into play. i always thought anti semitism was jew hatred. masking it (thru expression) does not change the fundamental principle. false accusations of anti semitism are frequently employed liberally. for example, a civic nationalist would, by definition, not be an ethnic nationalist..not pro zionist(ethnic nationalist ideology)..although one could be a civic nationalist and make an exception to support ethnic nationalism for jews. but if one is an anti ethnic national, that is not the same as being an anti semite..yet fanatical zionists claim being anti zionist is tantamount to being an antisemite. iow, it uses the accusation as a political weapon to fight a political battle over ideology often with no evidence existing of a hatred towards jews.
.
“‘Anti-semitism’ is another word for not being blind.” — Anonymous
I can’t resist trotting out one of my favorite wisecracks: “Anti-semites used to be people who hate Jews; now they’re people Jews hate.”
“I decide who is a Jew!” – Famous antisemite
“I decide who is an antisemite!” – Anonymous Zionist
RE: “Who’s the anti-Semite?” ~ Weiss
ALSO SEE: Gunter the Terrible, By Uri Avnery, The Palestine Chronicle, 4/13/12
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to palestinechronicle.com
P.S.
• “Threads” by This Will Destroy You on the album ‘This Will Destroy You’ (VIDEO, 05:42) – link to youtube.com
• Murcof: “Mir”, from the album ‘Martes’ (VIDEO, 06:42) – link to youtube.com
Thanks for the link. Interesting article.
“this extreme kind of pro-Semitism is just disguised anti-Semitism.”
I totally agree. However, most Germans aren’t like this, only the centre-right people. They so desperately want to distance themselves from the right-wing extremists that they totally overdo it. The centre-right people are also those who regularly accuse lefties of anti-Semitism, just because we treat Jews/Israel like any other people/country and don’t have positive prejudices regarding them/it.
Dickerson, thanks for sharing; your comment is very astute, although I am not sure it directly or even indirectly addresses adequately the “don’t air dirty laundry in public” practical principle, long cherished by many Jewish folk. A shade fur de goyim, or something like that.
RE: “the ‘don’t air dirty laundry in public’ practical principle long cherished by many Jewish folk…” ~ Citizen
REPLY: Long cherished by many folk, period! And corporations! And all kinds of institutions! And governments*! And churches! Need I go on?
And “don’t air dirty laundry in public” as a practical matter often translates into “repress/suppress the living hell out of the truth” (sometimes to the point of self-delusion)!
* I.F. STONE (1967): “All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.” ~ In a Time of Torment, 1961-1967 (1967), p. 317
SOURCE – link to en.wikiquote.org
Dickerson, yes, I accept your observation. I did not mean to imply only Jews dislike displaying their dirty laundry in public. I also agree with your embellishment a la translation/extension of the concept and practice. And I recall when I F Stone was a sane voice in the wilderness.
Phil, thanks for your blog article.
Most of the comments have gone off on random tangents.
What Phil showed is that the US mainstream media now openly refers to the Israel Lobby, its power in the media, and its influence over US policy.
Nevada Ned,
Of course quotes from Zionist zealots like Pamela Geller and Joe Walsh are in an entirely different category than those posted by Phil.
I confess to going off on a bit of a tangent (but not a random tangent), and you are right:
“What Phil showed is that the US mainstream media now openly refers to the Israel Lobby, its power in the media, and its influence over US policy.”
But with this qualification: the US mainstream media are being dragged kicking and screaming into acknowledging the reality of the Israel lobby in American politics. And they are still resisting with all their might. There is a long way to go
yeah, you got that right, seanmcbride; it’s really disappointing after all these years.
Another quote that might be added to this collection:
BEGIN QUOTE
AUTHOR Joe Klein
PUBLICATION Time
DATE June 24, 2008
URL link to swampland.time.com
QUOTE BEGIN
The notion that we could just waltz in and inject democracy into an extremely complicated, devout and ancient culture smacked–still smacks–of neocolonialist legerdemain. The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives–people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary–plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.
QUOTE END
END QUOTE
It used to be that an antisemite is a goy who don’t like jews.
Now, an antisemite is a goy that jews don’t like.
The best take on anti-Semitism is by the Israeli sociologist Natan Snaider:
- ” Anti-Semitism is hating the Jews more than necessary “- I agree.
“Anti-Semitism is hating the Jews more than necessary.”
That one made me laugh out loud. Thanks. Precisely accurate definition.
The expression anti semitism is non sensical.
Bigotry against group, such as Jews, which are of many nationalities and race, should be called what it is anti Jewish. Semitism has as little to do with Judasim as Christianity has for the last two thousand years. Like Christianity it spread ,itself around. Most Jews of the world have absolutey no Connection to Semitism .
Yes, unfortunately, when the term was coined by Wilhelm Marr, it was used solely and only to apply to people who hate Jews. Not people who hate Semites. And most Jews in the world are descended from Semitic people who left the Middle East in the diaspora.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Words don’t always mean what a literal reading of their root words would suggest.
Sorry, wikepidea is a tainted source. And as a global group, Jews are not any more connected to the middle east than, say, the overall western/European population. Many with close Slavic background, just as most middle, Northern and eastern Europeans.
I live in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood with tons of kids. I like it with so many kids around.
So many blonde, red heads, very fair children, you’d think we were in Scandinavia.
Why do Zionist cling onto strange 18th century ideas of race and soil and origins as if that has reality and relevance?
People have been roaming around the globe for thousands of years, mixing and moving. we all have the same origins .
While you zionists argue long and loud that “anti-semite” was the invention of Wilhelm Marr in the late 1800s and applied solely to Jews, according to Princeton Prof. Teofilo Ruiz, the term had been used by the 16th century to refer to Muslims AND Jews of Iberia.
By tainted I am sure Ellen means edited – by hasbara propagandists.
“Wikipedia – Israel is paying internet workers to manipulate online content”
link to youtube.com
KB – ” Anti-Semitism is hating the Jews more than necessary “- I agree
More than necessary? Apparently Snaider is resigned to his belief that Gentiles hate Jews but only some (anti-semites) hate them “more than necessary.” That offends me. Equally offensive is that you agree with him.
@ dbroncos:
“Anti-Semitism is hating the Jews more than necessary.”
Let me try to explain how I interpret the quote. To me the quote implies that it’s okay to dislike a Jewish person for his/her views or actions (i.e. necessary dislike). However, if you dislike a Jewish person for his/her Jewishness, then that’s more dislike than necessary.
Let’s substitute “hating” by criticizing, rejecting. Hate sounds mean.
There is legitimate, justified criticism and there is unjustified criticism.
Criticism turns anti-Semitic, anti-German, anti-American when it goes beyond justified, “necessary” criticism.
Snaider’s quote implies that the Gentiles have legitimate reasons to criticize Jews, their world view, their actions. etc.
I agree with that. And besides, the quote sounds funny.
- dbroncos, let me ad somthing, to clarify the matter:
There are people who dislike the Germans, the French or the Turks, the Gypsies or the Kurds or any other ethnic-cultural group.
They tend to degrade everything German, French or Turkish, be it their language and literature, their food or whatever. Same thing with Jews, degrading everything Jewish without acknowledging anything positive of the Jewish culture. – That’s “hating them more than necessary”.
hate is never necessary, that’s disgusting.
@ Philip Weiss,
Q: Who’s the anti-Semite?
R: Any Israeli who kills Palestinians, Lebanese or other Muslims, gloats about it and defends and applauds ethnic cleansing, wanton destruction and property theft… and those who’re critical of it?
Huh?
Oleg and I finally have something in common. I too nominate Phil Weiss as the answer to the question. The indictment:
Count 1: He misrepresents the above statements by quoting them verbatim.
Count 2: He has a blog critical of Israel but none that are critical of China, Zimbabwe, Sudan, or any of the other 176 countries that are higher than Israel on Alan Dershowitz’s list of world’s worst human rights violators.
Count 3: He publishes the ravings of anti-semite and self-loather David Samel.
Why didn’t you tell me that about Samel before?
The worst take on anti-Semitism is by David Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Commitee:
- ” Anti-Semitism is the world’s oldest social pathology ” – I don’t agree.
It’s probably the other way round: Semitism/Judaism is the world’s oldest social pathology – and anti-Semitism is a sound reaction to it. (I do not deny that there was and still is pathological anti-Semitism. But as a sociologist, it doesn’t make sense to me that the world is crazy – only the Jews are sane.)
It is undeniably antisemitic to blame Jews for fostering antisemitism.
And please let’s use the unhyphenated form of the term as it will help us get rid of this stupid assertion that all Semites are the brunt of this scourge.
The significance of antisemitism is constantly demeaned on MW.
When a form of hatred becomes so commonplace it is easy for us to be underwhelmed when yet another antisemite pokes his head out of the woodwork.
“It is undeniably antisemitic to blame Jews for fostering antisemitism.”
So what? The interesting question is whether Jews do or do not foster antisemitism.
And it seems absurd to me to suggest that everyone decided “Let’s hate the Jews for no particular reason”.
RoHa, Sartre took a swing at your interesting question, but this analysis says he missed the ball by miles: link to jdylanparker.wordpress.com
I agree with you it seems absurd to believe everyone decided “Let’s hate the Jews for no particular reason”. Yet Bibi thinks so, it seems.
“RoHa, Sartre took a swing at your interesting question …”
But my main concern – perhaps not so well expressed in my post – is that the accusation “antisemitic” seems to be used to avoid testing the truth of the allegedly antisemitic claim
If it is true all major media are controlled by Jews, then we should be prepared to say so, no matter how antisemitic the claim may be.
If it is false, then we should not say so regardless of whether it is antisemitic or not.
But we will not be able to investigate the claims and decide whether they are true or false if we are prevented from even provisionally expressing the claim.
RoHa, I agree. Groups tend to tout by their involved numbers when and where they can clearly brag, and ignore and/or discount said numbers when they clearly cannot. Generalizations and probabilities and exceptions to general rules get slippery, yes?
RoHa,
So the only two possibilities in your worldview are that the Jews themselves are responsible for causing anti-semitism or that there is no reason at all for anti-semitism?
Let’s try something. Why do you think racism occurs? For instance, why do you think some people hold racist views about blacks?
strawman. RoHa didn’t say that. he asked “whether Jews do or do not foster antisemitism. ”
some might. and this:
perhaps you could actually address what is said rather than diverting.
“So the only two possibilities in your worldview are that the Jews themselves are responsible for causing anti-semitism or that there is no reason at all for anti-semitism? ”
False dichotomy. It seems perfectly possible to me that the actions and attitudes of some Jews (almost certainly a largish number) have been a contributory cause without them being the sole cause.
If you want to know the causes of antisemitism, you should take that possibility into account. Perhaps you can find good, empirically based, reasons for rejecting it. You will never know unless you look, and you will never look if you simply reject the idea as antisemitic.
To repeat myself, the accusations “antisemitic” and “Jew hater/ing” function almost solely as fallacies of relevance. They serve as ad hominem, name-calling, and poisoning the well. They are bad logic, and no good comes of that. The Confucians are right about this. You cannot have moral order where there is intellectual disorder.
“I agree with you it seems absurd to believe everyone decided “Let’s hate the Jews for no particular reason”. Yet Bibi thinks so, it seems.”
It does? When I’ve heard him speak about the subject that’s not what he said at all. Do you have a source?
playforpalestine, I guess you didn’t hear Bibi’s recent speech here in the USA where he referenced his historical notion that Israel is the sole insurance against the anti-semites who have always existed and are revealed in every generation of Gentiles, including every generation to come. Google it. Bibi believes as his father did, that is, that anti-semitism is eternal here on earth among the Gentiles: link to jewishpress.com
Citizen,
Here is an off-topic/on-topic question inspired by the release of The Dictator:
Is Sacha Baron Cohen obsessed with the enemies of the Jews and the vileness of the goyim? Is that his main theme? That case might be easy to make.
I’m still thinking about it, seeing if this speculation makes sense in light of his background and overall work. Perhaps I am misreading him and being unfair to him.
Could a non-Jewish comedian get away with savagely satirizing Jews in the same way that Cohen savagely satirizes non-Jews? I don’t think so, but perhaps I am wrong.
The obsessive-compulsive way that Cohen brings up Jewish issues reminds one sometimes of Jeffrey Goldberg. He appears to be at the mercy of his inner ethnocentric demons.
(I often think he is quite funny, by the way — I am basically a fan — but his shtick and shock tactics are beginning to become a bit wearing and stale — not so shocking.)
Mayhem,
You wrote:
“It is undeniably antisemitic to blame Jews for fostering antisemitism.”
Is it antisemitic to point out that militant Jewish nationalists like Pamela Geller, Caroline Glick, David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, William Kristol and many others, who have been stridently attacking Americans and Europeans (not to mention many other groups, including Muslims) in the name of “the Jews” and “the Jewish people,” are probably provoking hostility towards themselves and their cause?
Messianic ethnic nationalists *always*, without exception, provoke conflict with their neighbors. If you want to play that game, everyone else is free to play.
Try this exercise: collect all the attacks on Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter by Pamela Geller on Atlas Shrugs. Take a good look at the language.
“Is it antisemitic to point out that militant Jewish nationalists like Pamela Geller, Caroline Glick, David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, William Kristol and many others, who have been stridently attacking Americans and Europeans (not to mention many other groups, including Muslims) in the name of “the Jews” and “the Jewish people,” are probably provoking hostility towards themselves and their cause?”
Not necessarily. But the fact that it is untrue might cause someone to investigate it as a possible motive, given the language and labels used in the statement.
“It is undeniably antisemitic to blame Jews for fostering antisemitism.”
Just to be clear, if you mean Jews as a whole, you are correct. But if there are particular Jews who foster antisemitism (and there are a number of reasons why they could want to), then it is not antisemitism to point that out.
There is a difference between justifiable blame and resentment directed at an English person for what (s)he has done and the extension of these sentiments, without further reason, into Anglophobia, whereby everything English is suspected from the start. If you say to an English evildoer ‘See! You have provoked Anglophobia’, she may reply ‘That just shows that there is an element of irrationality or worse in the people who respond that way. I am not to blame’. She is right to say that there is an irrational element in the response but wrong to say that no part is played by her misdeeds or that she is in no way at all to blame. A wrong action is a wrong action and it doesn’t become right or blameless because those who are harmed by it use some words that are themselves not justified.
Mayhem,
Elliot here declined three attempts to get him to answer this question (and why did he do so?):
Which prominent Jews do you think have done the most damage to Jewish relations with non-Jews in recent years?
Do you have any thoughts on this subject?
Here is one way to start exploring this issue which relies on objective empirical analysis:
1. sort Washington Post op-ed writers by number of attacks on their ethnic nationalist enemies since 1990
2. sort US ethnic groups by number of attacks on their ethnic nationalist enemies in Washington Post op-ed articles since 1990
For the second sort: which ethnic group do you think would come out on top and by how much?
Sean – I’m not sure what I have done to incur your disapproval. You seem to have a recurring interest in anti-Semitism which I do not share.
Regardless, yes, I agree with you that Jews must always ask themselves what they have done to bring on anti-Semitism. Hannah Arendt said it best. It’s at the very least a healthy way of getting out of the corrosive mindest of the pepetual victim.
And, if you want to draw up a list of nasty, powerful Jews, knock yourself out. When I have some free time, I might contribute some names to your list.
Elliot,
You haven’t incurred my disapproval — I am just trying to reason my way through to an understanding of why it is that Jewish controversies and conflicts seem to be escalating to an alarming degree in American and Western politics. I was hoping that you might contribute some insights.
This trend has caught my eye: in recent years the level of attacks by pro-Israel activists and militants on Americans and Europeans (including American presidents) has increased in volume and shrillness to a degree that is really remarkable. The targets of these attacks — very reluctantly — are beginning to respond.
Where is this all going? What’s the endgame from the standpoint of the attackers? Could the hostility they are stirring up eventually morph into classical antisemitism? We should all be worrying about this trend, I think.
I just assembled a list of a few of the targets of these attacks here:
link to seanmcbride.tumblr.com
Any thoughts, comments, criticism or objections?
Here is the list:
# Targets of attack by the Israel lobby
1. 60 Minutes
2. Alan Hart
3. Alan Sabrosky
4. Alex Kane
5. Alexander Cockburn
6. Alice Walker
7. Alisa Solomon
8. Alison Weir
9. American Conservative
10. Amnesty International
11. Amira Hass
12. Amy Goodman
13. Andrew Bacevich
14. Andrew Sullivan
15. Anthony Cordesman
16. Anthony Zinni
17. Antiwar.com
18. Antony Loewenstein
19. Ari Berman
20. Arianna Huffington
21. Arno Mayer
22. Avi Shlaim
23. Barack Obama
24. BBC
25. Ben White
26. Bernard Avishai
27. Betty McCollum
28. Bill Clinton
29. Bob Simon
30. Bobby Ray Inman
31. Brent Scowcroft
32. Britain
33. Catherine Ashton
34. Cecilie Surasky
35. Charles Johnson
36. Chas Freeman
37. Chris Hedges
38. Chuck Hagel
39. Coldplay
40. Colin Powell
41. Consortiumnews
42. Cornel West
43. Counterpunch
44. Daily Show
45. David Bromwich
46. David Petraeus
47. David Remnick
48. Democracy Now!
49. Dennis Blair
50. Dennis Kucinich
51. Desmond Tutu
52. Elvis Costello
53. Eric Alterman
54. Eric Margolis
55. Europe
56. Facebook
57. FailedMessiah.com
58. Fareed Zakaria
59. Flynt Leverett
60. France
61. Gary Leupp
62. Gary Sick
63. Geoffrey Wheatcroft
64. George Galloway
65. George H.W. Bush
66. George Soros
67. Gerald Kaufman
68. Germany
69. Gershom Gorenberg
70. Gideon Levy
71. Gilad Atzmon
72. Glenn Greenwald
73. Gordon Duff
74. Gore Vidal
75. Grant Smith
76. Greg Felton
77. Grover Norquist
78. Guardian
79. Gunter Grass
80. Haaretz
81. Harvey Weinstein
82. Helen Thomas
83. Hillary Mann Leverett
84. Huffington Post
85. Human Rights Watch
86. Ian Lustick
87. Ilan Pappe
88. Informed Comment
89. Iran
90. Iran War opponents
91. Iraq
92. Iraq War opponents
93. Islam
94. J Street
95. Jacqueline Rose
96. James Abourezk
97. James Baker
98. James Bamford
99. James Clapper
100. James Ennes
101. James Fallows
102. James Petras
103. James Zogby
104. Jeffrey Blankfort
105. Jenny Tonge
106. Jeremy Ben-Ami
107. Jim Jones
108. Jim Lobe
109. Jim Moran
110. Jimmy Carter
111. Jimmy Wales
112. Joan Walsh
113. Joe Klein
114. Joe Sestak
115. Joel Kovel
116. John Mearsheimer
117. Jon Stewart
118. Jonathan Cook
119. Joseph Dana
120. Joshua Holland
121. Juan Cole
122. Julian Schnabel
123. Justin Raimondo
124. Keith Ellison
125. Ken Livingstone
126. Kevin Phillips
127. Kurt Nimmo
128. Lawrence Wilkerson
129. Lebanon
130. Leon Hadar
131. Leon Panetta
132. Little Green Footballs
133. Lutherans
134. M.J. Rosenberg
135. Mairead Maguire
136. Marc Ellis
137. Mark Perry
138. Mark Zuckerberg
139. Martin Dempsey
140. Max Blumenthal
141. Medea Benjamin
142. Media Matters for America
143. Michael Lerner
144. Michael Lind
145. Michael Neumann
146. Michael Rivero
147. Michael Scheuer
148. Mondoweiss
149. Muslims
150. Muzzlewatch
151. Naomi Klein
152. Neve Gordon
153. New York Review of Books
154. New York Times
155. Nicholas Kristof
156. Nir Rosen
157. Noam Chomsky
158. Norman Finkelstein
159. NPR
160. Octavia Nasr
161. Oliver Stone
162. OpEdNews
163. Palestinians
164. Pat Buchanan
165. Pat Lang
166. Patrick Seale
167. Paul Craig Roberts
168. Paul Eisen
169. Paul Findley
170. Paul Woodward
171. Pepe Escobar
172. Peter Beinart
173. Philip Giraldi
174. Philip Weiss
175. Pink Floyd
176. Pixies
177. Ralph Nader
178. Raw Story
179. Ray McGovern
180. Richard Falk
181. Richard Goldstone
182. Richard Sale
183. Richard Silverstein
184. Rob Kall
185. Robert Dreyfuss
186. Robert Fisk
187. Robert Malley
188. Robert Parry
189. Roger Cohen
190. Roger Waters
191. Ron Paul
192. Roseanne Barr
193. Russia
194. Salon.com
195. Samantha Power
196. Scott McConnell
197. Scott Ritter
198. Seymour Hersh
199. Sheldon Richman
200. Shlomo Sand
201. Sibel Edmonds
202. Sic Semper Tyrannis
203. Spencer Ackerman
204. Stephen Lendman
205. Stephen Sniegoski
206. Stephen Walt
207. Stephen Zunes
208. Steve Clemons
209. Ted Turner
210. Think Progress
211. Thomas Friedman
212. Tikkun
213. Tikun Olam
214. Tony Judt
215. Tony Karon
216. Tony Kushner
217. Trita Parsi
218. Turkey
219. UNESCO
220. United Nations
221. Uri Avnery
222. Victor Ostrovsky
223. War in Context
224. Wayne Madsen
225. Wesley Clark
226. Wikipedia
227. William Cook
228. William Fallon
229. World Council of Churches
230. Zbigniew Brzezinski
And here are some of the sources of the attacks:
1. ADL
2. AIPAC
3. American Thinker
4. Atlas Shrugs
5. CiF Watch
6. Commentary
7. CUFI (Christians United for Israel)
8. ECI (Emergency Committee for Israel)
9. Fox News
10. Free Republic
11. Frontpage Magazine
12. Israel National News
13. Israpundit
14. Jeffrey Goldberg
15. Jerusalem Post
16. Jewish Press
17. Jewish World Review
18. JIDF
19. Jihad Watch
20. National Post
21. National Review
22. Near East Report
23. New Republic
24. New York Daily News
25. New York Post
26. Newsmax
27. Pajamas Media
28. Stand With Us
29. Tablet Magazine
30. Townhall.com
31. Wall Street Journal
32. Washington Post
33. Weekly Standard
34. Worldnetdaily
35. Yid With Lid
Elliot,
You wrote,
“Regardless, yes, I agree with you that Jews must always ask themselves what they have done to bring on anti-Semitism. Hannah Arendt said it best. It’s at the very least a healthy way of getting out of the corrosive mindest of the pepetual victim.”
I don’t think one should frame this issue in terms of blame — whether directed at Jews entirely or at “the nations” entirely. That would be too simplistic. Instead we need to figure out at the deepest levels what has been driving this pattern of cultural and social conflict for over several millennia.
My best analysis to date is really elementary: the human race as a whole needs to moderate its natural urges towards messianic ethnic and religious nationalism. This seems like an obvious solution from the standpoint of reasonable people, but many people, apparently, are not reasonable.
For quite a few decades the Jewish establishment was at the forefront in promoting Enlightenment and universal values of tolerance and inter-cultural understanding, but all of that seems to be slipping away under the pressure of trying to defend the policies of the Israeli government and Likud Zionism.
I really think that this narrative is going to end badly.
Alphabetical!!!!
LOL sean!
Taxi,
Here’s an interesting thing: AI and Semantic Web researchers discovered some time ago that all the knowledge in the world can be represented as a single alphabetical machine-readable list and that this list can serve as the foundation and backbone of a rapidly self-evolving global superintelligence. There can be more to lists than meet the eye. But that’s a story for another day. :)
I should add George Mitchell, Helena Cobban, Howard Dean, Joe Biden and Vanessa Redgrave.
Any other parties? I know there are many, many more.
Also, you’ve got to wonder if these attacks extend well beyond verbal abuse and assaults (including threats) and into the realm of black ops and criminal activity. Some pro-Israel militants these days seem to believe that they a have a divine right and commission to eliminate their political opponents worldwide. God gave them a command to do so.
Think of Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir — they are not anomalies or outliers. Think of Andrew Adler of the Atlanta Jewish Times suggesting that Mossad should assassinate Barack Obama.
Sean,
As usual, you’re organized, smart and oh so smooth.
If I ever grow up, I wanna be just like you.
:)
“ethnic nationalist enemies?”
what’s that? Let’s say I’m German, or French. Who is my ethnic nationalist enemy?
“number of attacks?”
You mean criticism?
“objective empirical analysis?”
You must mean “fake, rigged study designed to deliver a pre-determined result.” The funny part is that nothing about your “study” has anything to do with your question. You’re just sorting Jewish journalists according to who writes most abrasively about… the Palestinians, maybe? I’m not sure. What is the ethnic enemy you’re looking for here?
Regardless, you’re working from the assumption that every time a Jewish journalist writes a critical oped it damages “Jewish relations.” But since this is just an exercise in scapegoating anyway I guess we can relax our academic criteria somewhat.
“Also, you’ve got to wonder if these attacks extend well beyond verbal abuse and assaults”
I’m pretty sure fewer people than you think feel the need to wonder that.
“Some pro-Israel militants these days seem to believe that they a have a divine right and commission to eliminate their political opponents worldwide.”
Of course. That’s why they’re crazy militants. None seem to be on your list, but that’s besides the point.
“God gave them a command to do so.”
How do you know that? How much time do you spend chatting with violent, crazed militant schizophrenics?
“Think of Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir — they are not anomalies or outliers.”
Then why are there only two of them?
“Think of Andrew Adler of the Atlanta Jewish Times suggesting that Mossad should assassinate Barack Obama.”
So you’ve got two terrorists and the third guy on the list is just really obnoxious. BTW, how do you know that God told Adler to call for Obama’s death?
sean, the human race as a whole needs to moderate its natural urges towards messianic ethnic and religious nationalism.
i completely agree.
how come phil is on that list and adam isn’t?
remember after vittorio was murder within a day they found that hit list with his name at the top of the list?
pfp
neither germany or france have ethnic nationalist governments, therefore they are not applicable.
Of course they do. Germans and French are both ethnic groups and their countries are based on supporting their interests and defending their land. Germany has even advocated for ethnic Germans outside of Germany and allowed ethnic Germans the right to return to their homeland. But substitute them for Japanese, Chinese or Italian if you prefer.
no, neither germany of france have ethnic nationalist governments. they are civic nationalist governments. i suggest you learn the difference.
link to msu.edu
playforpalestine,
You are directing new comments to me without responding to my previous comments to you. Let’s try to pursue an orderly discussion.
To refresh your memory:
BEGIN COMMENT
playforpalestine,
Would it be fair to say that Ovadia Yosef is a more formidable authority on Judaism (certainly in Israel) than you are?
BEGIN ARTICLE
TITLE Yosef: Gentiles exist only to serve Jews
AUTHOR Jonah Mandel
PUBLICATION Jerusalem Post
DATE October 18, 2010
BEGIN QUOTE
The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews, according to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator.
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,” he said in his weekly Saturday night sermon on the laws regarding the actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on Shabbat.
According to Yosef, the lives of non-Jews in Israel are safeguarded by divinity, to prevent losses to Jews.
“In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money.
This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew,” Yosef said.
“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.
That is why gentiles were created,” he added.
END QUOTE
END ARTICLE
I don’t think that Yosef and Schneerson represent the views of all religious Jews (obviously not), but they represent the views of a significant and influential sector of religious Jews. One can easily turn up hundreds of similar quotes from right-wing religious Zionists.
END COMMENT
BEGIN COMMENT
Wikipedia on Ovadia Yosef:
link to en.wikipedia.org
BEGIN QUOTE
Ovadia Yosef (born September 23, 1920) is the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, a recognised Talmudic scholar and foremost halakhic authority.
He currently serves as the spiritual leader of the Shas political party in the Israeli parliament. His halakhic responsa are highly regarded within Orthodox circles and are considered binding in many Mizrahi communities, among whom he is regarded as “the most important living halachic authority.”
END QUOTE
END COMMENT
BEGIN COMMENT
playforpalestine,
You wrote:
“shneerson did not say this kind of stuff to the best of my knowledge”
You haven’t been paying attention:
BEGIN ARTICLE
AUTHOR Allan C. Brownfeld
TITLE Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel
PUBLICATION Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
DATE March 2000
URL link to washington-report.org
BEGIN QUOTE by Rabbi Menachem Schneerson
The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: ‘Let us differentiate.’ Thus, we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of ‘let us differentiate’ between totally different species. This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world… A non-Jew’s entire reality is only vanity. It is written, ‘And the strangers shall guard and feed your flocks’ (Isaiah 61:5). The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews…
END QUOTE
END ARTICLE
Chabad-Lubavitch (Menachem Schneerson) and Shas (Ovadia Yosef) seem to share the same virulently racist beliefs and attitudes towards non-Jews.
You are being shifty, evasive, slippery and intellectually dishonest on these issues in a way that has become quite familiar to me by now. No one here (certainly not me) has claimed that all Jews, religious or otherwise, hold racist beliefs. But many Jewish religious Zionists do indeed hold such beliefs. And the organized worldwide Jewish community as a whole bears full responsibility for the racist and apartheid policies of the Israeli government in the occupied territories.
I am unclear on this: are you yourself a religious Jew and Jewish religious Zionist? If so, of what type?
What does your handle “playforpalestine” mean?
END COMMENT
BEGIN COMMENT
playforpalestine,
BEGIN ARTICLE
AUTHOR Allan C. Brownfeld
TITLE Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel
PUBLICATION Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
DATE March 2000
URL link to washington-report.org
BEGIN QUOTE
The authors point out that “…the adherents of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel oppose equality for all citizens, especially non-Jews.” The respected Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling, citing evidence from a study conducted by other scholars, declared: “The value of the [Jewish] religion, at least in its Orthodox and nationalistic form that prevails in Israel, cannot be squared with democratic values. No other variable—neither nationality, nor attitudes about security, nor social or economic values, nor ethnic descent and education—so influences the attitudes of [Israeli] Jews against democratic values as does religiousity.”
What particularly concerns the authors is the total contempt which Jewish fundamentalists show toward non-Jews. Rabbi Kook the Elder, the revered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism, said, “The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”
Rabbi Kook’s entire teaching, which is followed devoutly by, among others, those who have led the settler movement on the occupied West Bank, is based upon the Lurianic Cabbala, the school of Jewish mysticism that dominated Judaism from the late16th to the early 19th century. “One of the basic tenets of the Lurianic Cabbala,” the authors write, “is the absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body over the non-Jewish soul and body. According to the Lurianic Cabbala, the world was created solely for the sake of Jews; the existence of non-Jews was subsidiary. If an influential Christian bishop or Islamic scholar argued that the difference between the superior souls of non-Jews and the inferior souls of Jews was greater than the difference between the human soul and souls of cattle, he would incur the wrath of all and be viewed as an anti-Semite by most Jewish scholars regardless of whatever less meaningful, positive statements he included.”
END QUOTE
END ARTICLE
END COMMENT
“neither germany of france have ethnic nationalist governments”
Really? Do civic nationalist govts generally follow ethnic nationalist policies?
“Ethnic nationalism is also present in many states’ immigration policies in the form of repatriation laws. States such as Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Romania, Serbia, and Turkey provide automatic or rapid citizenship to members of diasporas of their own dominant ethnic group, if desired.”
link to en.wikipedia.org
There’s no way to argue that Germany is any less of an ethnically based nation than Israel. Israel is actually probably even more diverse.
Does Germany allow, say a German American born and bred, age 18, to move to Germany, and settle in the home and on the land of any non-ethnic German, no matter how many generations the latter has lived there?
payforpalestine,
You wrote:
“There’s no way to argue that Germany is any less of an ethnically based nation than Israel. Israel is actually probably even more diverse.”
1. Is Germany constructing discriminatory and racist settlements for ETHNIC GERMANS ONLY on illegally acquired occupied territories? (No.)
2. How many articles by German ethnic nationalists have been published in the oped pages of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal in the last few decades? (None.)
3. Is there an AGPAC (American Germany Public Affairs Committee) in American life that is the equivalent of AIPAC? (No.)
4. Do American politicians regularly grovel before the German government and the Germany lobby? (No.)
5. Do leading German religious figures claim that Germans are God’s chosen people and that non-Germans are beasts, savages and subhumans? (No.)
6. Is Germany agitating to push Americans into a self-destructive war against Iran on Germany’s behalf? (No.)
7. Would you have any problem if contemporary Germans treated Jews the way that Israelis treat Palestinians? (Yes.)
One could could on and on in this vein — I have barely scratched the surface of the flaws in your statement.
Who cares, that’s very much besides the point. So Israel has a stronger Law of Return… big deal. The fact that Germany has one at all speaks to the fact that the modern state is based on its inhabitants’ German ethnicity.
No, since the US isn’t part of the EU, no American citzen regardless of his German descent can settle in Germany without a stay/work permit (unless he has for some reason dual citizenship).
@ playforpalestine
- Germany “allowed ethnic Germans the right to return to their homeland”
This is a special case. After WWI and WWII Germany lost a large part of her territory in the east. Germans and their children who lived on that former German territory that was turned to Russia and Poland were given the right to return to todays Germany. There is a certain birth cut off date to this right. These people were not emigrants to Poland or Russia or those who emigrated to America for instance.
play for palestine: Want to debate a duplicitous “law of return” that allows people whose ancestors never lived in the Middle East to “return” and excludes Palestinians whose ancestors always lived there, never to return to THEIR homeland?
P.S Judaism is a religion, something you can convert to whatever your ethnicity.
Let me add an item to seanmcbride’s list:
- If a German politician stood up and advocated that our registrar’s office should not allow Turks and ethnic Germans to marry – that would be the end of his career not only politically but also as a human being.
But Israel’s marriage rules are desighned not to allow ethnic intermarriage among its citizens.
Actually, Klaus, in the years immediate following WW2 didn’t many ethnic Germans who had lived in the East for generations get ethnically cleansed from there? I mean you make it sound like its been a volunteer thing all along. If memory serves, some 2 million died during this transfer, and another 15 million were displaced, nicht wahr?
Yes, you can convert to Judaism but then you become a member of the Jewish family/clan, like an adopted child. And, like the other children, you inherit the Holy Land.
Yes, that’s true. Most fled and were expelled and 2 – 3 million died on the way. The above mentioned law applied to those who stayed.
But to be correct: The law also applied to a second category. Ethnic Germans who lived in the Communist countries of Eastern Europe. The law restricted this right to come to post WW II Germany to ethnic German residents of Communist countries only, including China.
“No, since the US isn’t part of the EU, no American citzen regardless of his German descent can settle in Germany without a stay/work permit (unless he has for some reason dual citizenship). ”
Really? My exgirlfriend got her passport based on having grandparents from germany who left before WWII.
“This is a special case.”
It’s always a special case. You mentioned the Sudeten Germans. They were expelled from Poland and czechoslovakia and the German government allowed them to emigrate. Germany had no interest in bringing them in beyond their common ethnicity. That’s exactly the point of what ethnic nationalism is. Many want to return to their old homes but have been denied thus far. They might have been Polish citizens but being ethnic Germans the countries in question are uninterested. If they were ethnic Poles however it might be a different story.
That there’s a cut off makes it a difference in degree, not kind. Germany never suffered a diaspora, they don’t need an open ended right of return. Israel has one, but then, that’s a special case.
“But Israel’s marriage rules are desighned not to allow ethnic intermarriage among its citizens.”
No they’re not. Israel just kept the same laws that existed previously. It’s within the scope of each religion to decide the rules. In this regard Israel’s really far behind in terms of recognizing civil marriage as a right. But why would they even think to consider banning intermarriage? Are you seriously suggesting that the 1948 founding fathers considered this to be a huge potential problem?
Sean,
So to clarify, your point is that Germany is actually less ethnically based than Israel is? So even if we disagree as to degrees, we are both in agreement that Germany IS a nation based around an ethnicity.
1) Neither does Israel. Any citizen can go live in a settlement if they want.
2) How do you know? I’d wager most people support the idea that Germany is the homeland of the Germanic (or whatever) people and that they should have the right of self-determination.
3) How is that even related to the discussion?
4) Again… relevance?
5) There’s a German religion? Wow. What’s it like? Haha, just kidding… we all know that there are plenty of German leaders who believe in the superiority of the German people. If you need the figures to be religious I can point you towards plenty of Christians or Muslims who espouse the superiority of their followers. Regardless, this isn’t relevant either.
6) Also unrelated.
7) Yes. I would also have a problem if Jews treated Germans the way that Palestinians treat Israelis. BTW, this is also totally unrelated.
“One could could on and on in this vein”
I’m sure you could. But can you make any points that have something to do with the issue we’re discussing?
-”Germany IS a nation based around an ethnicity”
But look: As Israel’s High Court has ruled – there is NO Israeli nation, there is only a Jewish nation. Israeli identity cards classify citizens by ethnic background. (That would be considered Third Reich style in Germany.)
-”My exgirlfriend got her [German] passport based on having grandparents from germany who left before WWII.”
Were the grandparents German Jews? If so, there is special law for them on the basis that they were forced to leave Germany. Their descendents are automatically entitled to German citizenship. – You should have married her, gotten German citizenship also and come here.
I think you have touched on a very important point. A group that divides the world into Jews and Non-Jews is inherently racist. A group with a religious belief that a Messiah will rule the world from Jerusalem as is believed by Orthodox Judaism, a group that separates itself creates laws that do not permit intermingling will lead to resentment and ultimately anti-semitism.
It has to be recognized, if there is, as one person commented, an elevation of tribal continuity that supersedes all other considerations then one has ask, if we want to get rid of anti-semitism then it is time for these exclusionary ideas to be rejected.
Yeah smacks of apartheid South Africa
playforpalestine,
I wrote:
“1. Is Germany constructing discriminatory and racist settlements for ETHNIC GERMANS ONLY on illegally acquired occupied territories? (No.)”
You replied:
“1) Neither does Israel. Any citizen can go live in a settlement if they want.”
Are you saying that non-Jews — including Christians, Muslims, Mormons, Germans, Irish, Asians and other groups are welcome members of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and enjoy equal status with Jews as Christians, Muslims, etc.? Can you document this claim? What percentage of residents in Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are non-Jewish? Do these non-Jewish residents practice their respective religious or ethnic nationalist politics in those settlements? Let’s see some examples.
Any citizen can go live in a settlement if they want
sean, maybe pfp doesn’t know there’s a difference between an israeli citizen and an israeli national. i think he is arguing off the top of his head without being informed about the basic structures of nationalism.
Annie,
Pro-Israel activists frequently utter whatever half-baked ideas are floating around in their heads simply to try to make a point, answer a question or fill in the silence. They often don’t bother to research topics in dispute or to collect any facts. They often don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s a turnoff. This pattern of behavior is typical of emotional cultists and propagandists, not serious thinkers who care about the truth.
If the United States officially defined itself as a white Christian state (or even more narrowly as an Anglo-Protestant state), and was building white Christian (or Anglo-Protestant) settlements in occupied territories, would playforpalestine try to rationalize the behavior? Well, consider: he has already complained about the alleged white nationalist character of Ron Paul’s supporters.
Ask playforpalestine if he can define the differences between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism and between modern Western democracies and ethnic nationalist states. Pay close attention to his response if he provides one.
Ask playforpalestine if he can define the differences between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism
i gave him the link earlier after he eluded to the idea ethnic nationalist governments were countries made up of ethnicities (as if all people were not an ethnic something) “based on supporting their interests and defending their land.” link to mondoweiss.net
by this definition any government could be described as such, even the US. it’s like banging ones head against the wall. i really believe these are spam trolls sent from hasbara central just to drive us up the walls. it’s probably some 19 yr old kid who doesn’t know squat about anything.
No they’re not. Israel just kept the same laws that existed previously.
In Turkey, the law governing marriage and divorce has transitioned to a civil system, whereas in Israel there is still no provision for civil law marriage. Only civil marriages are legal in Turkey today. See Comparative Models For Transitioning From Religious To Civil Marriage Systems. link to epubs.utah.edu
You are glossing over the fact that Israel used it’s transition act and its own new statutes to declare many of the old mandate era ordinances repugnant, null, and void. But it deliberately retained racist laws regarding intermarriage at every opportunity. For example, the so-called Women’s Equal Rights Law (1951) specifically excluded marriage and divorce laws from its guarantees of equality for women. Even during periods when the overwhelming majority of the Jewish population were secular, they still supported “religious” laws prohibiting intermarriage. Commentators have noted that it is hardly respect for the faith or the power of the fanatically religious minority that prevented the government of Israel from substituting secular jurisdiction for rabbinical law in matters of marriage and divorce, e.g. Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil, Google ebook, page 7
we are both in agreement that Germany IS a nation based around an ethnicity.
That’s nonsense. You might want to brush-up on the EU Acquis Communautaire on minority rights and stop projecting so wildly. link to eurofound.europa.eu
It’s a fact that Jews from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) preferred resettlement in Germany by such a wide margin that the State of Israel and the Jewish Agency for Israel aggressively lobbied the German government to alter its immigration laws to prevent Jews from being admitted. link to forward.com
FYI, restrictions on the right of ethnic Germans to return to Germany became effective in January 1991. link to countrystudies.us
Annie,
If it makes you feel any better I was totally wrong about France. Civic nationalism, all the way.
But Germany and Italy are ethnic, without a doubt.
“i gave him the link earlier after he eluded to the idea ethnic nationalist governments were countries made up of ethnicities”
Not “made up of” but rather “based on.”
pfp, ethnic nationalist countries are not countries ‘based on’ ethnicities. governments are either ethnic nationalist or they are not. they are not really up for debate. Germany and Italy are ethnic, without a doubt, but their governments are not ethnic nationalist governments, they are civic nationalist. the laws do not support your theories.
pfp, ethnic nationalist countries are not countries ‘based on’ ethnicities. governments are either ethnic nationalist or they are not. they are not really up for debate.
I’ll say. The acquis communautaire prevents EU member countries from implementing legally entrenched “tiers of citizenship” that favor certain ethnic groups. FYI, one of the alternative routes for obtaining Italian citizenship (in accordance with the law n. 91, 5.12.1992) is to apply on the basis of service as an employee of the Italian government, serving either domestically or abroad.
German citizenship differs from Israeli citizenship considerably; for example, nobody born in US to parents who are American citizens born and bred has a “right of return” to Germany. Nor does he or she, or any German citizen for that matter, have a right honored/enforced by the German government to displace anybody born and bred anywhere under German control or administration simply because the latter is not of German ethnicity. link to germanenglishtranslationcentral.com
Germany frowns on multiple citizenship, and will require you to renounce your previous citizenship unless you can prove it will cause you or your family undue hardship. link to expatica.com
“Germany and Italy are ethnic, without a doubt, but their governments are not ethnic nationalist governments, they are civic nationalist. the laws do not support your theories.”
Then why do both countries have ANY examples of ethnic-nationalist policies in their law books whatsoever? Here’s a good one… if Germany is exclusively defined as having a civic national character, then why did East and West Germany favor reunification despite all of the associated risks?
Then why do both countries have ANY examples of ethnic-nationalist policies in their law books whatsoever?
You have failed to give any examples of ethnic-nationalist legislation in Italy (as Hostage and I have explained, Italy’s jus sanguinis has no basis whatsoever in ethnicity), let alone demonstrate that Italy is an “ethnically based state”. And once again, finding a single example of legislation somehow associated with ethnicity hardly proves that ethnicity is a defining, founding or organising principle – as is clearly the case with the “nation state of the Jewish people”.
So what is your point, beyond a little semantic quibbling?
playforpalestine, from 1989-Spring 91, the move toward unification of Germany did not spring from the grass roots, but rather said masses were led by their respective leaders, and the number one reason was prospects for economic gain by the merger; this was, of course, especially so on the part of the Eastern regime. Other motives were common language, split families, and simple fact it was not that long ago when the country had been united. link to jstor.org
Were they wrong? Wouldn’t you say united Germany today exhibits the most robust economy in Europe?
playforP.
if Germany is exclusively defined as having a civic national character, then why did East and West Germany favor reunification despite all of the associated risks?
For one, immediate families could be re united — brothers and sisters, parents and children, etc. And as you might know, East Germany was never recognized as a country by the US, and even by Israel.
Modern Germany is made of many regions, each distinct. The Frieslander on the North Sea has a very different culture, even somewhat different language than the Bavarian. But both are German in that they share a common national passport.
The Sardinien has a different culture than the family in Milan.
Nations are a modern abstract and not defined by ethnicity, which is in constant change and flux anyway.
‘Make a good product and let the image take care of itself’ – that’s the best strategy to market something.
Israel is a political product, created and backed by Jews.
I have never heard that insulting people as ‘insane, prejudiced, degraded, bigoted’ etc. for not liking your product will turn them into loyal customers.
Klaus Bloemker,
You wrote,
“I have never heard that insulting people as ‘insane, prejudiced, degraded, bigoted’ etc. for not liking your product will turn them into loyal customers.”
Actually nothing has done more to undermine Israel than the lobbying methods of its supporters. They provide a textbook case of how to destroy your own product or cause.
They are frequently abrasive, abusive, arrogant, bullying, overbearing, shrill, threatening, etc. They make every mistake in the book, repeatedly.
On some level there is almost room for a Larry David/Curb Your Enthusiasm-style TV series here — comical surgical probes into self-destructive and self-defeating behavior.
A word to the wise: track attacks on Americans and Europeans by pro-Israel activists. Analyze the trendlines — they are fateful and ominous. The situation is rapidly escalating towards an explosion.
“Actually nothing has done more to undermine Israel than the lobbying methods of its supporters.”
I thought the whole point of this criticism was because the lobby has been so successful you fear that it wields disproportionate influence?
“They provide a textbook case of how to destroy your own product or cause.”
The vast majority of Americans support Zionism; the lobby is (by any metric), a successful one; and Israel itself has been far more successful than any other state for a thousand mile radius. We should all be so lucky as to fail like this.
“They are frequently abrasive, abusive, arrogant, bullying, overbearing, shrill, threatening, etc. They make every mistake in the book, repeatedly.”
Are you talking about a specific lobbyist or something? And why are these even “mistakes?” Lobbying is not a contest in good manners.
“comical surgical probes into self-destructive and self-defeating behavior.”
Do you have an example?
“The situation is rapidly escalating towards an explosion.”
Maybe it’ll be a comical explosion.
Playforpalestine,
The vast majority of Americans do not support zionism. That “support” is strictly a product of the echo chamber manned and operated by mostly jewish and philosemite MSM pundits + those who awe their jobs to them. Most Americans have no clue what “zionism” is. When it is explained to them properly they often recoil, as zionism – the full reality of it – is the anti-thesis of Americanism, at least as Americanism is idealized. Deep at its core, when all the layers are peeled off, Zionsim is about exclusion and exclusivity. Go to israel if you like, and see for yourself what zionism has wrought – one of the most bigoted, cliquish, arrogant, querrelous, corrupt-to-the-bones places on earth. Yes, I know it appears lively enough to the average jewish American visitor who is quick to mistake rudeness for warmth. But to listen to average israelis speak, among themselves and on their facebooks, in their own tongue, is to know what Israel is. And a good place it isn’t, because I believe that the the zionism that brought it about applied goodness so selectively as to have suffocated what strands of good were there. And thus they bore no fruit, and it was the evil seeds that sprung and covered all.
If you want a reality check why not visit middle America sometime? I assure you that opinions on Israel are not exactly favorable, even if people cannot always articulate their unease with that militaristic arrogant little place in the ME that’s forever punching the US in the face, for some reason. But there’s worse. Opinions about Jews are not all that favorable either – primarily because they are viewed as the epitome of coastal elites that hold power above and beyond their numerical weight and/or innate talent. I’ve heard it said – or implied – - in middle America – and that even from evangelist types, that “Jews stick together”, and that “they are good with money”. No, I did not hear the epithet of “clever” because that’s not middle-America speak. But I heard them referred to as “smart”, meant as a compliment, though the admiration was clearly tinged with something a little short of that. Something slightly bitter, that leaves an after taste. In my encounters I always get the feeling that people want to say more but can’t because they are too polite and do not wish to step over any bounds.
No, people out in the great middle of the land are not particularly knowledgeable or well-informed. But they pride themselves on their intuition, their ability to tell real from fake. And one thing I’ve never heard said is that Jewish people are “great Americans”. No one I ever heard said otherwise either, but somehow, there’s always that missing little attribute. One that is sometimes freely applied to people of color, to other ethnicities.
This is what should worry you. It is not any anti-semitism burning under the ground. But there’s resentment and it is deep and there’s a perfectly rational reason for it. Sean is right. It may be a good idea to listen sometimes to the rumble under the ground.
Klaus, in America marketing circles, “Make a good product and let the image take care of itself’” is known as “the German idea,” which here holds no stronger position than many other marketing strategies, many with aspects quite the contrary.
“”Most Americans have no clue what “zionism” is.”
Zionism is support of israel as a Jewish state. They know that, and are in favor of it.
“Deep at its core, when all the layers are peeled off, Zionsim is about exclusion and exclusivity.”
All nationalism is.
“Go to israel if you like, and see for yourself what zionism has wrought – one of the most bigoted, cliquish, arrogant, querrelous, corrupt-to-the-bones places on earth. ”
No it’s not. I have been there, have you?
It’s not even close to any of those things, I’ve been to MANY countries FAR worse than Israel. Israel remains one of the better states I’ve been to re those qualities.
“Yes, I know it appears lively enough to the average jewish American visitor who is quick to mistake rudeness for warmth.”
What? Why?
“And one thing I’ve never heard said is that Jewish people are “great Americans”.”
Do you really travel out to the heartland just to ask people questions about Jews? Try listing some Jews who were great Americans and see what they say then.
“It is not any anti-semitism burning under the ground.”
What you just described is a perfect example of anti-semitism. Saying that their reasons for having bigotry towards Jews does not mean that their bigotry doesn’t exist.
“Go to israel if you like, and see for yourself what zionism has wrought – one of the most bigoted, cliquish, arrogant, querrelous, corrupt-to-the-bones places on earth. ”
No it’s not. I have been there, have you?
Danaa was born and grew up in Israel. She’s now a US citizen, and trying, last I heard, to relinquish her Israeli citizenship. She speaks from decades of experience there.
“It is undeniably antisemitic to blame Jews for fostering antisemitism.”
I disagree.
Constant false accusations of anti-Semitism by SOME Jews could lead to actual anti-Semitism, because non-Jews will likely get more and more frustrated and conclude, “No matter what I do or say, I will be accused of anti-Semitism anyway. So, I might as well become an actual anti-Semite.” It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
GL, If someone accused you of racism enough times would you respond by giving up and becoming a racist? What if I called you gay, like, a thousand times? Would you become gay? (or straight if you’re already gay to begin with?)
If anyone used that argument to justify their bigotry to me I would conclude that the accusations were clearly accurate from Day 1 after all.. Most people who oppose racism find it repugnant and would probably not suddenly embrace it because they were accused of it.
What do you mean by ‘anti-Semitism’? Anti-Semitism to me means unjustified suspicion of everything Jewish and is therefore always unsound. I think that Judaism was at very least a rational reaction to the circumstances in which it arose.
Even if the circumstances that led (at various times) to the creation or definition or re-definition of (parts) of the Jewish “system” (theology, society, customs, psychology), and even if some or all of the above were even more neurotic than the “systems” of other peoples, the key factor in making these “neuroses” worse than usual was, as the Zios say in another context, the lack of a country with a single people and a well-defined territory. All the other peoples seemed to have these and their own “neuroses” were universally understood to be the normal signs of nationalism, linguistic solidarity, locality-solidarity, etc. Generally, though history, everybody distrusted, sought to defeat, hated, etc., the “others”. But had boundaries to prevent (generally) bloodshed.
The Jews (and Gypsies and I suppose others) had the misfortune to be country-less, dispersed among other people. (Similarly the black people transported to the USA and Caribbean as slaves.) So their neuroses — and those of the people they lived amongst — made coexistence more tenuous than that of people living homogeneously in geographically defined “nations”. Lack of boundaries made friction almost constant. Hence anti-Semitism (and Jewish anti-Goyism.)
OK, after 2000 years (at the VERY least) after the last territorial-national-Jewish presence anywhere, Zionism sprang up. Finally, a territorial-national-Jewish entity! All will be well! And Jews don’t any longer need to assimilate! Wow!
Except that the land was taken by colonial-invasive native-population-expulsive warfare and held and expanded, all according to a discernible plan for such expansion, after the age of colonialism was supposed to have ended. (So sad. A reasonably good idea gone sour due to bad timing.)
And now the neurosis, never far submerged, springs up again, as the Zios cannot — cannot — make peace or give up their plan for expansion, conquest, expulsion, domination, etc., etc., in a world where these neuroses have largely been submerged behind the safe walls of nation-states-at-peace. The Jews had had no practice feeling safe neighbor-to-neighbor, no practice allowing others to feel safe neighbor-to-neighbor, no talent at compromise neighbor-to-neighbor, no practice at self-denial — and where would they get any such practice after 2000 years in a world run by other people, a world without Jewish national-territory-and-sovereignty?
So, did “the Jews” (or at least those who had not found safety in assimilation) “need” a country of their own? You betcha! [A] Were they entitled to take it? Depends whom you ask, and might depend on whether the askee thinks of “take” as “steal”. [B] And entitled to keep taking it, keep enlarging it, keep endangering all neighbors, keep — in short — practicing the behaviors learned during the long neurotic period of diaspora? My sense is that whatever people’s answer to question [A] they are getting rather tired of the actions embodied in question [B].
And here the Arab League and PLO long ago offered peace and recognition on the 1967 lines, and poor Israel just had to refuse. Had to, no choice, because it’s grandiose plan had not yet been realized.
Shall those who say “NO” to question [B] be called anti-Semites? Hope not!
Annie, you wanted to know when I found an example of anti-semitism posted on the forum. Consider your request fulfilled.
i did? not recalling expressing that request pfp. what are you referencing? pabelmonts comment? what’s the timestamp of the comment? a quote perhaps?
“And now the neurosis, never far submerged, springs up again, as the Zios cannot — cannot — make peace or give up their plan for expansion, conquest, expulsion, domination, etc., etc., in a world where these neuroses have largely been submerged behind the safe walls of nation-states-at-peace. The Jews had had no practice feeling safe neighbor-to-neighbor, no practice allowing others to feel safe neighbor-to-neighbor, no talent at compromise neighbor-to-neighbor, no practice at self-denial — and where would they get any such practice after 2000 years in a world run by other people, a world without Jewish national-territory-and-sovereignty?”
Not only anti-semitic but historically laugh-inducing accuracy-wise. This theory was clearly imagined and written without being researched even a bit.
some jews think that the world is crazy & only jews are sane. mr. so & so is jewish. therefore mr. so and so thinks the world is crazy and only jews are sane. syllogism, anyone?
Yeah,only one tenth of one percent of the worlds population are sane,and the rest are raving racist hating lunatics.Hey we had a nice moon to rave about!
I may ad a personal story on the matter of anti-Semitism.
- I met my friend Hersch (from a family of Polish Jews, who came to Germany after the war) whom I know from university days in sociology, I met him a few years ago.
I said: There are good reasons to be anti-Semitic.
He: There are no good reasons to be a child abuser, there are only motives.
_______________
This pattern: Critics of Judaism/Israel/Jews must suffer from a pathology.
I said: But I AM anti-Semitic for good reasons.
He: No, you aren’t anti-Semitic. (Because he thought I was sane. He still thinks so.)
Me.
“- ‘Anti-Semitism is the world’s oldest social pathology’ – I don’t agree.”
Of course, the idea that anti-Semitism is the “world’s oldest pathology” is absurd on the face of it. Before there were Jews, there was no anti-Semitism (in the sense of “Jew-hatred”), but humans displayed plenty of xenophobia, tribal hatred, genocidal impulses, and the whole rest of the gamut of vicious, violent hatred of anyone who was “other.” (For this reason alone, if for no other, one would think Jews would avoid using the term “goyim.”)
To suggest that the primal and most important hatred is anti-Semitism is nothing more than self-serving ethnocentrism, giving primary importance to hatred directed against the Jews, over hatred directed towards any other people or group. It implies that the only hatred that deserves condemnation is hatred of the Jews; instead, we hold that hatred or bigotry against any group is equally despicable. That includes, of course, hatred of Arabs.
The Israel Lobby vehemently, categorically and unequivocally denies the existence of the Israel Lobby, EXCEPT when some members of the Lobby:
(a) brag about the unprecedented power and influence of the Lobby
(b) complain about the unprecedented power and influence of the Lobby
(c) inadvertently reveal not only the existence of the Lobby, but the sheer magnitude of its power
(d) all of the above
Anti-semitism. What is bigotry, racism, or hatred? When (we) justify the exaltation of one member of humanity and correspondingly justify diminishing and degrading another member of humanity based on criteria that rationalizes the irrational into emotional reasoning and produces fear, ignorance, oppression, violence and all that is wicked that lives in the heart of mankind.
Semitic peoples are much more then just those of Jewish origin but that provides little reasoning to love or to hate a group of people(s) based on “criteria.”
(We) advocate, we cheer for the freedom of the oppressed, yet feel entitled to disparage those that have been oppressed, that suffered bondage and abject cruelty, so needlessly that as they embrace freedom and soar we seek to cut their wings.
Let the weaker, the oppressed survive, let them grow, flourish and become increasingly strong, let them rule over the oppressor and let them deal with violence
and hatred until vengeance is satiated like a drunken crack whore.
Then will (we) cry out for Justice? For the oppressor has become the oppressed and the ones who were weak are now strong and return cruelty for cruelty and teach their young to hate that which they have not known.
Vengeance is never filled and mercy? Has mercy become an orphan? Wandering the desolate streets alone until humanity learns that my brother and your brother had different Mothers but the same Father.
The one who denies Jews any national aspirations- he’s antisemite.
The one who claims special political, economical and social privileges to Jews- he’s antisemite.
The one who denies Holocaust or reasons it on the behavior of Jews- he’s antisemite.
The one who claims that all great evils (e.g. Nazism and Communism) where organized, supported and perpetrated solely by Jews- he’s antisemite.
The one who proclaims that all major media is controlled by Jews- he’s antisemite.
The one who “studies” Protocols of Zion and is willing to discuss them in modern context- he’s antisemite.
The one who takes a count of how many Jewish vs. Palestinian victims were killed since the establishment of Israeli state- he’s the one.
The one who picks only one aspect of Judaism for his goals ,while discarding all the historical, religious and social history of it- he’s antisemite.
Someone who does all of the above “more than necessary” (to use Natan Snaider’s definition) – is an antismite. With the exception of blaming the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust on the (assimilated German) Jews, he may be an Orthodox Jew.
I’ve been wondering, is there such a person as an anti-Gentile? As a practical matter this question may seem immaterial or irrelevant, but, still, is it not a question worth asking, given the demographics of wealth in all Western countries (and tunnel visioned humans like Sheldon Adelson), which have a lot of influence on what’s current reality? May I take “judicial notice,” as it were, regarding the make up of the world’s biggest military countries, with only China being being among the top list? May I take notice of the important central banks around the world? May I take notice of the members of each? May I take notice of the IMF and World Bank? May I take notice of its power as, of Bretton Woods? May I take notice of Bibi N’s applause in the US Congress? Of the disproportionate number of Jews in the US Congress, and most especially in Congressional committees devoted to US security and foreign policy? And in England’s government too? Am I to just ignore this type of accounting while influential Jews can so engage amongst themselves? Have coffee, discuss amongst yourselves.
Sean –
On a friendly note, I’m always curious what draws an American Christian with a commitment to human rights, but with no obvious ties to this issue, to focus on I/P.
I am familiar, in general, with the arguments focussing on I/P as a key American issue. I’m interested in the personal story.
(In case anyone is interested, my story is that I’m a Jew who through the Zionism of my parents became a Zionist – now ex-Zionist – and an Israeli.)
I’ve been wondering, is there such a person as an anti-Gentile?
“Gentile” itself is anti-Gentile. It has been argued that “gentile” is the only instance in history in which a tiny minority gave a label to the majority – and the majority adopted that label as its own. The legacy of the Israelites vs. goyim of the Bible filtered through Latin is very much alive today.
My suggestion: ban the Bible as hate literature directed at Gentiles.
Regarding your legitimate questions, seems to me that as long as Jews are not ready to critically examine Jewish power, non-Jews will be labeled as anti-Semites for doing so. It’s totally messed up.
Elliot,
You wrote:
“On a friendly note, I’m always curious what draws an American Christian with a commitment to human rights, but with no obvious ties to this issue, to focus on I/P.”
To clarify, I am Christian (Roman Catholic) by upbringing, but agnostic/theosophist since my teens. (But I am sure that Christianity and Roman Catholicism have significantly conditioned my overall views on the world in many ways — especially in producing an innate bias towards cultural univeralism.)
I am coming at Mideast politics from perhaps an odd route. My main interest, really, is in trying to look at the world (and world history) from a strategic perspective — what ideologies, belief systems, cultural movements, technologies, etc. are exerting the greatest impacts on the world in general (and on my nation, the United States, in particular)?
Many thinking people have figured out that the clash of Abrahamic cults in the Mideast has become an enormously destructive and dangerous factor in global and American politics. I am trying to understand what that is all about.
Also: I’ve had several unpleasant encounters with pro-Israel activists which have impressed themselves indelibly on my mind. Many Americans and Europeans have had this experience in recent decades. The emotional intensity surrounding these issues (and, often, the virulence of the attacks) tends to grab one’s attention fully and to motivate one to engage in serious intellectual battle.
My approach to understanding any subject has always been to identify the smartest people who are discussing it and to listen carefully to them. In the case of Israeli politics, nearly all of the serious brainpower these days seems to be on the side of post-Zionists or anti-Zionists within the Jewish community. I have found their arguments to be persuasive. Emotional pro-Israel activists and militants, on the other hand, strike one as being more cultists than thinkers. Most of the time they do not make any sense in terms of engaging with the real world. They are messianic — probably heading for an apocalyptic collision with the hard wall of reality.
I very much worry about the effects of Israeli policies and schemes on the American interest. Pro-Israel activists (many of them Jewish neoconservatives and Jewish nationalists) were key ringleaders of the worst foreign policy disaster in American history — the Iraq War. They are now agitating relentlessly for a war against Iran which I think would be even a greater disaster for Americans than the Iraq War. (As you can see, my views on the world are generally America-centric, for which I make no apology.)
I appreciate your brief self-profile, by the way — it enables pursuing a useful and intelligent discussion — no need to flail away in the dark. It’s a good idea to put all one’s cards on the table before beginning a discussion.
Elliot,
To expand a bit more on the nature on my interest in Mideast politics: my main focus is on the computer modeling of world historical processes and trends using Semantic Web methods (talk about messianism, eh? :)) and based on graphing the relations among cultural movements, ethnic groups, events, financial interests, financial networks, global elites, ideologies, interest groups, media outlets, organizations, people, political movements, political parties, propaganda outlets, propaganda themes, religions, secret societies, social movements, social networks, technologies, vanguard movements, etc.
So that is where I am coming from. Mideast politics, from a purely objective standpoint, tends to intrude in these models in a big way. If you are trying to figure out how the world works, you really can’t escape dealing with Mideast political issues. But it is indeed possible to overfocus on Mideast political issues, and I suspect that many of us (including me) are tending to do that. Mideast politics is making all of us somewhat crazy.
“Sean –
On a friendly note, I’m always curious what draws an American Christian with a commitment to human rights, but with no obvious ties to this issue, to focus on I/P.”…Elliot
Well I can’t answer for Sean, but in case you think those non Jews drawn to this issue had some kind of pre existing interest or attitude toward Jews to begin with, you couldn’t be more wrong.
I’ve already related the tale of how I stumbled on the real story about Israel and Palestine and the US so I won’t repeat it.
But for some people with a sense of justice, feeling for human rights, I/P represents the most brutally ‘hypocritical’ oppression and victimizing of people they’ve seen because of who is doing it,..i.e…the holocaust people. ..and using that excuse for doing it. People can’t get their mind around that kind of hypocrisy..that this brutality and injustice is all based on victimhood as a justification for victimizing others. It’s too bizarre for rational people to accept. It turns the sane world upside down.
The second part of the addiction to this particular issue for some of us is the fact the US mainly has let this madness go on and on…even enabled it. For Americans in particular I/P, more than any of our other political quid pro quo corruptions, has exposed just how absolutley rotten to the core our own government is.
So we’re addicted to watching it, denouncing it, examining it, because even though we see it and believe it, we can ‘t believe it.
It’s unfathomable to us.
Elliott,
You wrote:
BEGIN QUOTE
“Gentile” itself is anti-Gentile. It has been argued that “gentile” is the only instance in history in which a tiny minority gave a label to the majority – and the majority adopted that label as its own. The legacy of the Israelites vs. goyim of the Bible filtered through Latin is very much alive today.
My suggestion: ban the Bible as hate literature directed at Gentiles.
Regarding your legitimate questions, seems to me that as long as Jews are not ready to critically examine Jewish power, non-Jews will be labeled as anti-Semites for doing so. It’s totally messed up.
END QUOTE
Wow — it is remarkably generous for an Israeli Jew to open up that line of discussion — which can be a dangerous discussion for Jews when it is pushed in the wrong direction by antisemites (and, unlike some people here, I think that antisemitism is still a major problem in the world).
So let me try to outdo you in generosity. :) I don’t think that Jewish messianism and elitism is innately evil or destructive. In fact, I think it can be a powerful force for good and human progress. But harnessing Jewish messianism and its vanguard visionary traits to produce positive results requires applying maximum intelligence to control it — it needs to be moderated and channeled in positive ways.
And something else: I can envision some scenarios in which Israel can survive and proper as, yes, a Jewish state and a light unto the nations. But it is going to require a high order of intelligence and self-discipline to produce that outcome. I am not sure that is going to happen — all the current trendlines are moving in the wrong direction.
“I don’t think that Jewish messianism and elitism is innately evil or destructive. In fact, I think it can be a powerful force for good and human progress. But harnessing Jewish messianism and its vanguard visionary traits to produce positive results requires applying maximum intelligence to control it — it needs to be moderated and channeled in positive ways.”
And something else: I can envision some scenarios in which Israel can survive and proper as, yes, a Jewish state and a light unto the nations. But it is going to require a high order of intelligence and self-discipline to produce that outcome. I am not sure that is going to happen — all the current trendlines are moving in the wrong direction.”….Elliot
Oh man, you are so messed up with Jewishness/zionismness and its ”vanguard visionary traits to produce positive results requires applying maximum intelligence to control it —” and the light onto nations…that you have no idea what kind of supremist thinking this is.
Hopeless.
American,
You understand that I wrote those two paragraphs on Jewish messianism, right? :)
Let me expand on my idea a bit.
All major civilizations in human history (including your own) have been imbued with messianic egotism, with the elitist feeling that they are special and chosen, with the confidence that they are able to do great things and revolutionize the world. Without that forward-driving energy, we wouldn’t remember them.
Jewish messianism has been especially infused with this spirit and it has enabled many Jews to dream big and to succeed in visionary and vanguard ventures that require high risk.
So, work with that energy, I say. Channel it into great works that benefit humanity as a whole. And try to rein in the racism and brutality that often accompanies a conviction of chosenness. It’s doable if we are smart and self-aware.
American – I guess I’m honored that you included me in your rant, but the declaration of faith in a Jewish state that you attribute to me, was actually given by Sean.
Since you mentioned me, allow me to share that I actually do not support a Jewish state. I think such a state cannot succeed in becoming what you term a “light unto the nations”
“I’ve already related the tale of how I stumbled on the real story about Israel and Palestine and the US…”
So give us a link to your story buddy – I for one missed it and would lurrrrrrrv to read it.
Moi? I was a five year old tourist with my family in Jerusalem in June 1967. I lived through the Six Day War mostly in the basement of a hotel with rationed room-service. I also lived in Beirut: we moved there cuz of my dad’s job and lived there from 1969 to 1974 – relocated to London a few months before the civil war broke out.
Last October I left my beach home in LA and headed out to visit a few dear old friends in several Arab countries that I hadn’t seen for years. Originally, I only intended to hit the road for six months but I’m still here LOL! For the last four months I’ve been living in a remote house on a hill in a small village in southern Lebanon and I love it! Throughout winter I had the view of the blue mediterranean before me and the snowy Levant peaks behind me and my toes were toasting by the fireplace. Now it’s spring and the diversity of fauna and flora is breathtaking everyday, plus I’m eating organic straight from the orchard and garden. I’m also tingling with delight to hear the cinematic howling of jackals at night and the sweetest mating birdsong in the morning and yes approx twice a week I hear the israeli F-16′s doing their song and dance over my head! Funny thing, the natives don’t even flinch when the fighter jets thug-strut circles in their sky – they just carry on with their stuff without even blinking or looking up – but them F-16′s sure as hell make the house dog mad as fuck, frantically barking at the sky and baring her fierce Doberman teeth till the very last bit of F-16 echo vanishes – then she yawns, flops on the grass and licks herself LOL it’s the exact same routine with her time and time again. Now I’m thinking maybe of staying the whole summer too to check out the beach vibe. I’m improving my Arabic, listening to locals tell their life stories and taking regular road trips around the country, visiting ancient sites older than judaism and exploring the Lebanon’s amazing landscape drenched in beauty and history – also learning more about local and regional politics.
I’ve been a committed urbanite all my life and I’m surprising myself how much I’m enjoying a bit of real countrylife in a foreign country.
Thanks, Taxi. That was vivid and interesting. :)
Sounds like an idyllic way to live and quite the adventure.
I’d be interested to hear more about your take on Lebanon. For instance, are you in a Muslim, Maronite or Druze area? What’s Beirut like?
Elliot I wish you were here.
I’m on the edge of a moslem village, and accounting for its four sides within a mile or two radius, its neighboring villages are: 3 moslem villages, two christian villages and two villages with a mix of both moslem and christian. All are sprinkled on an uneven necklace of perfectly rounded petite mountains that link green ankles making for narrow wild ravines where jackals live and have lived way before the days of Abraham – with your eye you can follow the ravine’s trail thinning downwards into a hairline that pricks the blue sea. All these neighboring villages grow olive, fig, citrus and grapevine in their gardens. Driving through them, you can see their different characters: one village is sleepier than the other, prettier, poorer, etc.. But they all evidently share the same political affiliations: all have portraits of both moslem Nasrallah and christian General Aoun proudly displayed next to each other in their cute little village squares and old world thoroughfares. As you can imagine, I’m an object of curiosity around here with my western look and pidgin Arabic, but I’m warmly welcomed everywhere I go. The Lebanese, it seems, hate America but love Americans.
As to Beirut: energetic, heady, architecturally Ottomanesque and Francophile and shoulder to shoulder with ghettos stridently squatting on prime real estate – everywhere trilingual good-looking people: rich and poor, busy and fussy and dirty here and classy there all mixed up contradictions under the sun and oh so many tight old streets and heavy traffic to boot and a lotta lotta small restaurants.
Beirut? Just as well I avoid it eh.
American –
Didn’t mean to put you on the defensive. If it’s any comfort, I did not suspect that you came to I/P out of some pre-existing interest in things Jewish.
I second Taxi and would be interested to read your story.
“Since you mentioned me, allow me to share that I actually do not support a Jewish state. I think such a state cannot succeed in becoming what you term a “light unto the nations”….Elliot
A thousand pardons……and I am so releived at your sanity.
Sean,
Well I guess I shoulda guessed. Not, that I don’t find your academic approach to tribalim, messianism and etc. interesting….BUT…..you can’t control that kind of thinking….and what it leads to.
Think about it for a second……controlling some kind of elitism and messianism for good?….people who are that way aren’t going to be controlled or channeled…they would never recongize that anyone else is smarter or cleverer than they are so they they would never listen to anyone else.
It’s all very well and good to theorize about…..but extremes are called messianic and etc. because they are extreme. They aren’t rational….you can’t channel irrationality into rational.
Me too. You can’t imagine… :)
seanmcbride, can you give us all an historical example or two of the successful energy channeling you say is doable sans “the racism and brutality that often accompanies a conviction of choseness”? And, tie in the story of Plato and Socrates? Thanks!
Citizen,
You wrote:
“seanmcbride, can you give us all an historical example or two of the successful energy channeling you say is doable sans “the racism and brutality that often accompanies a conviction of choseness”? And, tie in the story of Plato and Socrates? Thanks!”
I would argue that Enlightenment Europe and America, with many “slipups” of course (including acts of genocide), have made substantive efforts to transform ethnic and religious messianism into something relatively productive.
Enlightenment values are trying to channel the natural human tendency towards feelings of aggressive tribal exceptionalism. chosenness and supremacism into universal meritocracy — one expresses aggressive instincts by creating great works that are of value to all humanity — in the arts, sciences, technology, commerce, etc. Survey the membership list of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences — it’s all about excellence, not ethnicity, religion or nationalism.
Really: isn’t that what Americanism is all about? It’s not about your tribal affiliation defined in narrow ethnic or religious terms — it’s about what you can do.
Have you ever noticed that ethnic and religious nationalists tend not to bring much to the table in terms of excellence, universally defined? Often they use ethnic and religious nationalism as a crutch, as a means to puff up their sense of self-importance.
You’ll have to fill me in on the story of Plato and Socrates. :) Of course Socrates is your archetypal universalist free thinker. I don’t recall ethnic nationalism playing a significant role in his thinking.
I am not arguing that ethnic and religious cultures aren’t valuable, by the way — they provide our ground of being. But they need to be taken with moderation and flexibility — with the room to expand their horizons. I rejoice in the world’s ethnic and religious diversity.
Note on the Jewish angle on this discussion: Jews achieve the greatest success, prosperity and security in those societies which most respect Enlightenment values and universal meritocracy. The reason is simple: Jews tend to be high achievers — when given the opportunity to rise to the top they will do so. Ethnic and religious nationalism works against their best interests. (The rise of messianic ethnic nationalism in modern Germany, for instance, led to the Holocaust.)
Any counterarguments from pro-Israel activists here?
seanmcbride, Yes, I agree, The Enlightenment and America’s highest values, which themselves grew out of The Enlightenment, are good examples of good energy channeling benefitting the most people regardless of their more insular identification. I don’t see how the concept of choseness has much to do with Enlightenment values per se. Yes Socrates is my archetypal universalist free thinker–but he ate the hemlock. Plato did not.
“(The rise of messianic ethnic nationalism in modern Germany, for instance, led to the Holocaust.)”
What do you mean by messianic ethnic nationalism anyway?
What do you mean by messianic ethnic nationalism anyway?
In the case of Germany there was a cult of personality centered on Adolf Hitler, “The Führer” or The Leader. It included laws which mandated that all civilians render the now familiar Nazi salute usually accompanied by the saying “Heil Hitler!”. link to en.wikipedia.org
playforpalestine,
I wrote:
“The rise of messianic ethnic nationalism in modern Germany, for instance, led to the Holocaust.”
You wrote:
“What do you mean by messianic ethnic nationalism anyway?”
Messianic ethnic nationalists believe that God has chosen their ethnic group for a special mission in history (Hitler and his fellow Nazi ideologues believed this about “the Aryans”). They mix together ethnic nationalism with religious myths and symbols. They believe that God is on their side vs. the rest of the world and that nothing can stop them. They often suffer apocalyptic confrontations with reality which leave them in ruin. Ethnic nationalism combined with messianic and mystical euphoria tends to cloud the judgment.
Messianic ethnic nationalism is more about psychological than political issues. There is something fundamentally deranged about it. It’s a mental disorder.
Messianic ethnic nationalists have a strong tendency to indulge in mass murder, ethnic cleansing, genocide and massive human rights abuses of all kinds. Messianic ethnic nationalists are always racists and are often ethnic, racial and religious supremacists. They are “overexcited” about their ethnic identity and issues — that is, fanatical on those matters. Their ethnic identity is the only issue they care about or talk about. They are bristling with paranoia about their ethnic enemies and they often mention those enemies in their private and public speech and writings.
Trying to conduct a rational discussion with a messianic ethnic nationalist is a waste of time — these are not rational people.
seanmcbride, I agree with your emphasis on the cult of personality but find the Dialectic of the Enlightenment to offer the most plausible explanation toward the roots of the Holocaust.
link to amazon.co.uk
The Holocaust was an Enlightenment project.
Chris Hedges speaks here: link to dailymotion.com
aiman,
You wrote:
“seanmcbride, I agree with your emphasis on the cult of personality but find the Dialectic of the Enlightenment to offer the most plausible explanation toward the roots of the Holocaust.”
What’s the core argument?
The Holocaust was driven by messianic German ethnic nationalism — very much an anti-Enlightenment ideology and project.
But it is true that there is a strong strain of antisemitism in Enlightenment thinking (including Voltaire, Diderot, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, etc.), and the reason is simple: most Enlightenment leaders despised messianic ethnic nationalism, religious fundamentalism, Old Testament cultism, etc. They were into reason, science, univeralism, etc.
Israel is currently on a collision course with the West and modern Western democracies over precisely these issues. Israel’s remaining enthusiastic supporters in America consist primarily of anti-Enlightenment militants — Christian Zionists like Sarah Palin, John Hagee, Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, etc. They especially loathe science and haven’t a clue about the Enlightenment values of the American Founding Visionaries. Many of them are crypto-white ethnic nationalists and neo-Confederates who are attracted to the racist doctrines of religious Zionism.
Hedges premised his chat on the theory that the Enlightenment was to blame because it ditched the theory of original sin. He doesn’t address to my knowledge and/or satisfaction how the Jewish idea of “calling and duty to repair the world” fits into his premise making The Holocaust “an Enlightenment Project.”
# Traits and phenomena strongly associated with messianic ethnic nationalism
1. ethnic aggression
2. ethnic agitprop
3. ethnic apartheid
4. ethnic authoritarianism
5. ethnic belligerence
6. ethnic black ops
7. ethnic chauvinism
8. ethnic cleansing
9. ethnic collectivism
10. ethnic colonialism
11. ethnic conspiracies
12. ethnic cronyism
13. ethnic cultism
14. ethnic euphoria
15. ethnic exceptionalism
16. ethnic exclusivism
17. ethnic extremism
18. ethnic fascism
19. ethnic feuding
20. ethnic fundamentalism
21. ethnic gangsterism
22. ethnic genocide
23. ethnic grandiosity
24. ethnic groupthink
25. ethnic holy wars
26. ethnic hysteria
27. ethnic imperialism
28. ethnic lobbying
29. ethnic megalomania
30. ethnic messiah complex
31. ethnic militancy
32. ethnic militarism
33. ethnic military dictatorship
34. ethnic mysticism
35. ethnic narcissism
36. ethnic nepotism
37. ethnic neurosis
38. ethnic organized crime
39. ethnic pack hunting
40. ethnic paranoia
41. ethnic persecution complex
42. ethnic plutocracy
43. ethnic propaganda
44. ethnic racism
45. ethnic resentment
46. ethnic segregation
47. ethnic self-deification
48. ethnic self-election
49. ethnic self-ghettoization
50. ethnic self-idolatry
51. ethnic self-obsession
52. ethnic self-pity
53. ethnic self-promotion
54. ethnic self-worship
55. ethnic separatism
56. ethnic sociopathy
57. ethnic supremacism
58. ethnic territorialism
59. ethnic terrorism
60. ethnic totalitarianism
61. ethnic tribalism
62. ethnic triumphalism
63. ethnic ultranationalism
64. ethnic vendettas
65. ethnic vigilantism
66. ethnic world destruction myths
67. ethnic world domination myths
68. ethnic world salvation myths
69. ethnic xenophobia
Chris Hedges speaks here . . .
. . . and pretty much and fails to provide well reasoned arguments or dialogue in support of the central thesis of “The Dialectic of The Enlightenment”. He talks as if the Holocaust had been perpetrated by Jacobins and Communists who rejected the wisdom of original sin and put their faith in science. But it was an undertaking of the Nazis who embraced classical Aryan mythology, which in-turn was firmly entrenched in age-old ideas of Iranian dualism. George William Cox provided a 19th century study on the comparative mythology, including the many struggles between a Redeemer “seed of the woman” and the Evil One or “serpent” similar to the Genesis account, in “The Mythology of the Aryan Nations, Volume 1″, Longmans, Green, and Company, 1870, pages 23 & 24, et seq.
“The Dialectic of The Enlightenment” doesn’t distinguish between the affects of the equality that resulted from minority rights protections and the intended equality that would be held by the remaining population as a result of the genocide perpetrated by the anti-Semites. The book is somewhat dated, since it’s based upon the flawed pre-Nuremburg proposition that existing laws didn’t recognize the unity of humanity or prohibit crimes committed against humanity. The product description explains that the central thesis of the book was a paradox: ‘”Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology.” This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book.’
Applying Occams razor, I’d suggest that paradoxes, like “War is peace”, “Freedom is slavery”, “Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology”, or comparisons of the beliefs held by fascists, communists, and Jacobins regarding original sin, seldom offer the most plausible explanations or result from the most reasoned arguments about the immediate causes of the Holocaust.
Sean,
Big fan here of your list-skills hahhahahaha!
Citizen,
This link goes into it further: link to powells.com
Chris Hedges writes quite accurately:
“The Enlightenment was a curse and a blessing. Its proponents championed human dignity and condemned tyranny, superstition, ignorance and injustice. Because French philosophers including Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot, who influenced the ideologues of the French Revolution, called for social and political justice, the Enlightenment led to the emancipation of Jews in Western Europe, freeing them from squalid ghettos. But there was a dark side to the Enlightenment. Philosophers insisted that the universe and human nature could be understood and controlled by the rational mind. They saw the universe as ruled exclusively by consistent laws such as Isaac Newton’s law of gravity or Galileo’s law of falling bodies. These laws could be explained mathematically or scientifically. The human species, elevated above animals because it possessed the capacity to reason, could break free of its animal nature and, through reason, understand itself and the world. It could make wise and informed decisions for the betterment of humanity. The disparity between the rational person and the instinctive, irrational person, these philosophers argued, would be solved through education and knowledge.
“The Enlightenment empowered those who argued that superstition, blind instinct and ignorance had to be eradicated. Kant, in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, published in 1798, asserted that Africans were inherently predisposed to slavery. Thus the Enlightenment gave the world the “scientific racism” adopted as an ideological veneer for murder by nineteenth- and twentieth-century despots. Those who could not be educated and reformed, radical Enlightenment thinkers began to argue, should be eliminated so they could no longer poison human society. The Jacobins who seized control during the French Revolution were the first in a long line of totalitarian monsters who justified murder by invoking supposedly enlightened ideals. Their radical experiment in human engineering was embodied in the Republic of Virtue and the Reign of Terror, which saw 17,000 people executed. Belief in the moral superiority of Western civilization allowed the British to wipe out the Tasmanian Aborigines. British hunting parties were given licenses to exterminate this “inferior race,” whom the colonial authorities said should be “hunted down like wild beasts and destroyed.” The British captured many in traps and burned or tortured them to death. The same outlook led to the slaughter of the Caribs of the Caribbean, the Guanches of the Canary Islands, as well as Native Americans. It justified the slave trade that abducted 15 million Africans and killed even more. And it was this long tradition of colonial genocide in the name of progress in places like King Leopold’s Congo that set the stage for the industrial-scale killing of the Holocaust and man-made famines of the Soviet Union.
“Reigns of terror are thus the bastard children of the Enlightenment. Terror in the name of utopian ideals would rise again and again in the coming centuries. The Nazi death camps and the Soviet gulags were spawned by the Enlightenment. Fascists and communists were bred on visions of human perfectibility. Tens of millions of people have been murdered in the futile effort to reform human nature and build utopian societies. During these reigns of terror, science and reason served, as they continue to serve, interests purportedly devoted to the common good — and to vast mechanisms of repression and mass killing.”
aiman,
The argument that Enlightenment ideals can be twisted to motivate and justify massive human rights abuses, mass murder and genocide in the pursuit of utopian progress makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is the claim that Nazism was motivated primarily by Enlightenment ideals. In truth Nazism was a radically anti-Enlightenment ideological movement, in many ways quite similar to religious Zionism and Tea Party white nativism.
Enlightenment ideals motivated opposition in the West (particularly in the United States) to slavery, Nazism, fascism, communism, etc.
Here is how I profile Enlightenment values:
1. anti-aristocracy
2. anti-dogmatism
3. anti-ethnic nationalism
4. anti-ignorance
5. anti-monarchy
6. anti-religious fundamentalism
7. anti-superstition
8. anti-tribalism
9. pro-capitalism
10. pro-critical thinking
11. pro-education
12. pro-egalitarianism
13. pro-excellence
14. pro-exploration
15. pro-humanism
16. pro-individualism
17. pro-innovation
18. pro-knowledge
19. pro-liberalism
20. pro-meritocracy
21. pro-pragmatism
22. pro-progress
23. pro-reason
24. pro-science
25. pro-scientific method
26. pro-skepticism
27. pro-technology
28. pro-tolerance
29. pro-universalism
Actually, the situation is much more complex than this: there are numerous contradictory currents within Enlightenment culture. But it seems to have the ability to learn and self-correct — to discard bad ideas and policies through experience.
Hostage,
Good points contra Adorno’s “The Dialectic of the Enlightenment” and the Chris Hedges’ essay. I dug around a bit into discussion about Adorno yesterday and came to the conclusion that I am skeptical of the judgment of anyone who thinks that Arnold Schoenberg was a great composer. :) In Adorno perhaps we see the unfortunate triumph of clever abstraction over grounded common sense.
The leading Nazi ideologues were all race mystics who despised universal reason.
But: there are dangerous currents among some Enlightenment-inspired and Enlightenment-connected movements. One shouldn’t romanticize or overpraise the Enlightenment and all its works and products. But overall I prefer Enlightenment to anti-Enlightenment values. As they say, consider the alternatives — not very appetizing.
playforpalestine,
# Messianic ethnic nationalist states
1. Afrikaner South Africa
2. British empire
3. Confederacy
4. Fascist Italy
5. Imperial Japan
6. Nazi Germany
7. Zionist Israel
Any others?
Perhaps messianic ethnic nationalism at its core could be defined as religious racism or mystical racism.
Thus the Enlightenment gave the world the “scientific racism” adopted as an ideological veneer for murder by nineteenth- and twentieth-century despots.
To take-on only one of your examples, the Enlightenment gave us the abolitionist movement, not racism, slavery, or genocide. You could certainly argue that there had been criticism of the practice of slavery since the advent of the Enlightenment, and that scientific racism was the rationale adopted by those with anti-Enlightenment values who favored the status quo ante (including in some cases racism, slavery, and genocide). There was nothing contained in the doctrine of “original sin” which prohibited racism, slavery, or genocide. The Bible is full of accounts about massacres or prophecies about pending massacres.
Despite the beliefs held by Chris Hedges, the majority of modern scholars, e.g. theologians, scientists, anthropologists, lawyers, and etc. reject the notion that our concept of race has a biological basis, or that the social construct can be used to legally justify domination of racial groups; enslaving members of racial groups; or targeting members of racial groups for physical destruction either in whole or in part. That represents quite a moral advance over the pre-exising Western social culture which had embraced original sin and the views on slaves and masters, the nations, and etc. contained in either the Jewish or Christian scriptures.
The proposition that the Enlightenment is to blame for the unscientific theories advanced by its opponents or those who favored the status quo ante in some particular area is an “argument”, but it’s not a very good example of the high quality of argumentation I’d label dialectic.
seanmcbride,
I would agree with you here. I think when Hedges and other writers such as Adorno talk about the Enlightenment, they refer to its time period and the implications that it created with systems of thought and reason that had rarely come to man before, and what are blessings and opportunities to some can be used as curses by others.
Modernity has had both positive and negative impacts on human society and nature as in the proliferation of factory farms. I subscribe to the positive elements myself, but think of those more in terms of general human virtues which found fertility in the European Enlightenment because of the brevity and righteous anger of many thinkers. Many of these thinkers were depressed at wanton injustice and hypocrisy and took up the pen.
Just as bad ideas did. The Enlightenment, like any age, was host to two strands of thoughts and actions: bad and good. There are always moral and amoral actors and authorities in every tradition and age, and their victories over each other tell us the story of the world. Like you, I am on the pro-egalitarian, pro-universalism, anti-tribalism, pro-knowledge (that is used for the good) side but believe that we share this space and context with others who oppose these.
>> The one who…
- believes that any Jew, anywhere, has more rights than the Palestinians do to their own land;
- insists upon special political and social privileges, like a supremacist “Jewish state” and a Jewish “right” of “return” to Israel;
- denies or trivializes the Nakba (by referring to it as a “necessary” or “required” evil);
- dismisses or outright ignores the number of Palestinians killed by the Glorious Jewish State of Israel; and/or
- actively supports or defends the Glorious Jewish State’s 60+ years, ON-GOING and offensive (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder;
…is an immoral, Zio-supremacist asshole.
“Anti-Semitism is the world’s oldest social pathology”
Wasn’t Moses an eugenicist?
No anti-Semitism in the 6 quotations. Thanks for the essay, Phil.
Who’s the Anti-semite? Might as well ask: Who’s the anti-BIG-Banks-ite? Answer: almost everybody these days (in USA, EU anyway, and with good reason). But the BBs prevail! (As Israel, the darling, the creation of the Zios, also prevails). And why? The lavish and skillful application of big-money in politics. The political “echelon” is thoroughly corrupt, unembarrassedly taking money to serve big-money (sometimes aka “special interests”) AGAINST what many would consider the national interest.
All 6 of the quotes in the essay are about big-money-Jewish-”leaders”. No one of them says “all Jews * * *”. No one of them, for instance, says “all Jews are rich” or “all USA Jews agree with the big-money Jewish leaders”. Not even, “All Jews support Israel.” (These 6 are not examples of anti-S.)
The so-called self-hating Jews are those who (noisily) state that their interests are distinct from Israel’s (or from Israel’s settlement project’s). The dirty trick of the Zios is persuading a lot of people that the Zios ARE “the Jews” and that what they say is good for the Zios is “good for the Jews.” And you are self-hating if you do not agree, because, like it or not, your “self” is part of the Zio crowd. (Fiddlesticks.)
These 6 quotations all say that the big-money-Jews control politics and although THESE QUOTES do not say it, I’d say, “Just as big-BANKs control the economy by controlling the politicians.” SAME MECHANISM. SAME CORRUPTION.
pabelmont, re your “(Fiddlesticks)”: How does the concept of “the Silent Holocaust” fit in, in terms of the concept of the individual, the self versus the concept of “a people” and/or “nation” sans borders? Does the tradition of “worshiping” one’s ancestors, as aspect of some oriental groups, also fit in? And then apply also the worship of future generations of one’s group? Is the end game, an implied notion of a collective people, past, present, and future–as eternal God On earth (maybe “as it is in heaven”)? How about the Nazi notion of the Jews having “earth-based souls”? (The Earth-Centered Jew Lacks A Soul, by Alfred Rosenberg, citing inter alia Otto Weiniger, and derived from Dietrich Eckart’s Ein Vermachtnis, edited by Rosenberg (1928). The article concludes that Zionism would take away an alleged Jewish role of staying the non-Jewish urge towards heaven or compulsion not to be of this world, in contrast to Judaism. (If I understand the translated text)
That’s a very interesting question. Moses had an Egyptian name, so may not have been an Israelite by descent. Exodus 2 says that he married a Midianite, Numbers 12 that he married a Cushite, which in our terms would probably be an Arab and and an Ethiopian. In Numbers 25 the zealot Phinehas skewers a mixed-race couple – a literary passage whose sharp, terrifying effect is hard to match. Followers of the theories about Moses favoured by Freud and his theological mentor Ernst Sellin might suspect that this is a garbled tradition of the death of Moses at the hands of his followers, finally unable to tolerate the ideas of ‘all children of the one God’ for which Moses stood. Less controversially we can see a complex web of tradition and redaction, difficult to analyse, in which both humanism and nationalism, Beinart might say tribalism, weave that fascinating pattern, still being woven now both inside and outside Jewish culture.
I have observed people here psychoanalyse, dispute, argue, repudiate, ignore, debate, refute and dismiss insinuations of anti-semitism and any entitlement Jews have to fight it and be supported in their efforts to do so.
What about the person then who is labelled as Islamophobic? It can be said he is perfectly entitled to use the same set of justifications that are trumped up by the non antisemitic ‘antisemite’.
Actually he has an extra defence to draw upon. Being Islamophobic only means having a ‘fear of Islam’ which, because of the actions and behaviors of many Muslims, is perfectly rational and is a far cry from being any kind of pathology.
I reckon the term Islamophobic is used too readily to attack those who are genuinely concerned about the advent of Islam, and who have something fair and reasonable to express that is not anti-Muslim.
Mayhem,
1. Nation of citizenship?
2. Ethnicity?
3. Religion of upbringing?
4. Current religion?
5. Religious or secular Zionist?
6. Political affiliations?
Where are you coming from on these issues? Biases and agenda?
Which ethnic nationalist movements around the world do you support other than your own?
Do you support or oppose white nationalists and Christian nationalists in the United States and Europe — and on what grounds?
Such an interesting discussion.
I think that actual anti-Semitism does exist, although very little is in evidence in USA. The professional anti-Semitism watchers acknowledge that there is “modern” anti-Semitism which mostly attacks Israel and Zionism. So perhaps it is good to compare with still existing “paleo-anti-Semitism”.
European paleo-anti-Semitism tends to be anti-Semitic. Namely, these guys do not have any sympathy for any Semites. Accordingly, they can be very approving of Israel. One of the “ancient” slogans was “Beduins to Palestine”. Even more, if the belief of undue influence of Jews working in concert on USA, EU, world finance is followed, it can be a patriotic duty to have very good relations with Israel. When Nazis were on top, the same kind of thinking would encourage collaboration with Nazis. Basically, the mentality is that the duty of a “tribal patriot” is the benefit of his tribe and not “so-called human rights”.
While web surfing I stumbled on a fascinating anti-Semitic story. This is from an anti-Salafi web page. In short, about several hundred years ago some members of Saud family fled their native Najd because of some local strife and join a caravan to Basra. There they contacted, unknowingly, a wealthy Jewish merchant who pretended to be their kin who migrated to Basra, and organized a rich caravan to travel back, with many goods for bribes and weapons and this Jewish impostor became a petty ruler. Subsequently he started to support a pernicious heretic al-Wahhabi with the goal of eradicating true Muslim from Arabia, and this family of crafty Jews succeeded only too well. Luckily, true Islam survived in India/Pakistan. An evil Jew is a stock villain in Tales of Thousand and One Nights (other typical villains are Christian merchants and Kurd bandits) and this story really fits.
By the way of contrast, Iranian anti-Wahhabi web pages make no references to Jews. They often quote a saying of the Prophet (PBUH) foretelling that evil and strife will come from Najd.
Piotr,
The House of Saud were Arabian jews who converted to islam. Books in Arabic have been written about them, shedding light on their jewish roots and basically saying that they converted not out of faith, but to sabotage islam. A friend of mine is reading one of them books in Arabic – I just tried to call him to get the name of the book and its author but I couldn’t reach him. Soon as I make contact with him, I will post the book’s details. I’m told that the author, a saudi academic, was ambushed in his bed, taken for a plane ride and while still alive, thrown from a great height straight into the middle of the desert. This happened in the 1950′s.
As Wahhabi’s wage religious wars on other Muslim (by means of ideas and weapons) for nearly 300 years, propaganda tracts vilifying them may have pretty old and “reputable” sources. Importantly, this story features a medieval stock character of a treacherous infidel merchant, but the targets are Wahhabi as the sect and House of Saud as its sponsor.
@seanmcbride: Why all the questions? Are you having trouble stereotyping me?
Try taking the points I made on face value for a change instead of looking to find a way to label or demean the person.
Antisemitism – as it is abused by Zionist charlatans like yourself, mayhem – is simply people/institutions that Zionism persecutes/hates.
And of course Jews bare some responsibility for antisemitism. To think people hate Jews for no apparent reason is absurd. That doesn’t legitimize irrational generalizations but it does explain the origin of hatreds.
Antisemitism is not unique and neither was the Holocaust. Jews are not unique snowflakes either. We are all human beings and made up of the same matter. Get that through your thick skull.
Mayhem,
You wrote: “Why all the questions? Are you having trouble stereotyping me?”
I am doing the opposite of stereotyping you: I am making no assumptions about you and asking questions that permit you to define yourself and your views in your own words. I am trying to pursue a reasonable discussion with you about your views.
But, like many pro-Israel activists, you are incredibly evasive, slippery and shifty about what your views and agenda are. Probably you realize that your views, when exposed to daylight, are indefensible and embarrassing. But maybe not.
So, once again:
1. What ethnic and religious nationalist movements around the world do you support other than your own? Do you see where I am going with this question? Do you grasp the implications?
2. Do you support white ethnic nationalists and Christian religious nationalists in America and Europe? If not, why not? Do you see where I am going with this question? Do you grasp the implications?
3. Your nation of citizenship, ethnicity, religion of upbringing, current religion and political affiliations? Should this be a top secret matter in a discussion about Mideast politics which you yourself have chosen to enter of your own free will? Where are you coming from on these issues?
Me: American, Anglo-Irish, Roman Catholic, agnostic, progressive libertarian. What would motivate Americans like me to get bogged down in ethnic or religious nationalist politics that have nothing to do with us and which are in fact contrary to our own best values and interests? Sell me. See if you can close the deal.
Mayhem still hasn’t answered the above questions regarding his views on ethnic and religious nationalism.
This is what I think he thinks (and he is free to correct me).
1. Mayhem doesn’t support any ethnic or religious nationalist movements around the world except his own (Jewish nationalism).
2. Mayhem strongly opposes white ethnic nationalism and Christian religious nationalism in America and Europe.
3. Mayhem is probably Jewish by ethnicity and religion, and definitely Jewish nationalist by ideology.
With regard to the apparent contradiction between 1. and 2.: narrow and rampant self-interest explains it. Jewish nationalism is good for Jews in Israel. Non-Jewish ethnic and religious nationalism is bad for Jews in America and Europe.
Many Zionists try to romanticize and sanctify their own ethnic nationalism while delegitimizing, criminalizing and demonizing the ethnic nationalism of others. They don’t even try to make sense on this subject from the standpoint of universal values and ethics — it’s all about psychological manipulation in the quest to gain competitive advantages over ethnic outsiders.
Don’t hold your breath. They cannot answer rational logic.
seanmcbride asked Mayhem: “Which ethnic nationalist movements around the world do you support other than your own?
Do you support or oppose white nationalists and Christian nationalists in the United States and Europe — and on what grounds?”
I guess Mayhem does not like specific questions as response to his original vague abstract comment here to seanmcbride.
Yes, Israel has just kept the same laws that existed in the Jewish community before 1948, and that religion and culture traditionally promoted, most treasured endogamy. Still does: google “Silent Holocaust”–
What other religion promotes, most treasures ethnic purity?
playforpalestine,
You and I clearly disagree on some important issues. It would be helpful to cut through the morass and identify precisely what those differences are.
Could you take the trouble to fill in the blanks below?
First, my profile:
# profile: seanmcbride
1. nationality: American
2. religion of upbringing: Roman Catholicism
3. current religion: agnostic
4. ethnicity: Anglo-Irish
5. political affiliation: progressive libertarian
6. 9/11 official story CON
7. Afghanistan War CON
8. Afrikaner ethnic nationalism CON
9. AIPAC CON
10. Americanism PRO
11. apartheid white South Africa CON
12. Arab nationalism CON
13. Arab nationalism in Israel CON
14. black nationalism CON
15. Christian nationalism CON
16. Christian nationalism in Israel CON
17. Christian Zionism CON
18. civic nationalism PRO
19. Clash of Civilizations CON
20. due process PRO
21. Enlightenment PRO
22. ethnic nationalism CON
23. European nationalism in Israel CON
24. German ethnic nationalism CON
25. Global War on Terror CON
26. Greater Israel CON
27. Iran War CON
28. Iraq War CON
29. Islamophobia CON
30. Israeli settlements CON
31. Jewish ethnic nationalism CON
32. Jewish nationalism in the US CON
33. Jewish religious nationalism CON
34. Jews-only settlements CON
35. Judeophobia CON
36. Likud CON
37. modern Western democracies PRO
38. neoconservatism CON
39. neoliberalism CON
40. Operation Cast Lead CON
41. Palestinian nationalism CON
42. religious nationalism CON
43. religious Zionism CON
44. targeted assassinations CON
45. torture CON
46. universal meritocracy PRO
47. US Bill of Rights PRO
48. US Constitution PRO
49. WASP nationalism in the US CON
50. white nationalism CON
And yours?
# profile: playforpalestine
1. nationality:
2. religion of upbringing:
3. current religion:
4. ethnicity:
5. political affiliation:
6. 9/11 official story
7. Afghanistan War
8. Afrikaner ethnic nationalism
9. AIPAC
10. Americanism
11. apartheid white South Africa
12. Arab nationalism
13. Arab nationalism in Israel
14. black nationalism
15. Christian nationalism
16. Christian nationalism in Israel
17. Christian Zionism
18. civic nationalism
19. Clash of Civilizations
20. due process
21. Enlightenment
22. ethnic nationalism
23. European nationalism in Israel
24. German ethnic nationalism
25. Global War on Terror
26. Greater Israel
27. Iran War
28. Iraq War
29. Islamophobia
30. Israeli settlements
31. Jewish ethnic nationalism
32. Jewish nationalism in the US
33. Jewish religious nationalism
34. Jews-only settlements
35. Judeophobia
36. Likud
37. modern Western democracies
38. neoconservatism
39. neoliberalism
40. Operation Cast Lead
41. Palestinian nationalism
42. religious nationalism
43. religious Zionism
44. targeted assassinations
45. torture
46. universal meritocracy
47. US Bill of Rights
48. US Constitution
49. WASP nationalism in the US
50. white nationalism
Once we isolate these differences, perhaps we can pursue a useful discussion.
Another cool list, Sean, LOL!
Sean,
I don’t even understand what you are asking. For example… AIPAC, you wrote CON. Does this mean that you disagree with the agenda AIPAC has, the power they wield, the fact that they exist, or do you oppose their very right to exist?
How could one oppose a lobby like AIPAC whose existence is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, while supporting the Bill of Rights itself? I don’t really understand this list.
playforpalestine,
You wrote: “I don’t even understand what you are asking.”
There is that peculiar evasiveness and shiftiness again that one runs into all the time with many pro-Israel activists.
Please: this is really simple stuff. Is it really that difficult to describe your policy positions on a few issues so that we can compare notes and understand our ideological and political differences in a meaningful way?
Re: AIPAC: CON for me. Overall I disagree with its policies since it has become an arm of the most right-wing government in the history of Israel and a close ally of Christian Zionists like John Hagee and Michele Bachmann. I strongly oppose interjecting religious fundamentalism of any kind into American politics — that is not what America is about.
Surely you have views on:
1. apartheid white South Africa: pro or con?
2. Iraq War: pro or con?
3. Iran War: pro or con?
4. torture: pro or con?
5. due process: pro or con?
6. Islamophobia: pro or con?
Spelling out your beliefs and positions on these major policy issues — all of which are of central relevance to Mideast and Israeli politics — should be easy to do. Please take a crack at it so that we can have a useful discussion that will raise our consciousness:
# profile: playforpalestine
1. nation of citizenship:
2. religion of upbringing:
3. current religion:
4. ethnicity:
5. political affiliation:
6. 9/11 official story
7. Afghanistan War
8. Afrikaner ethnic nationalism
9. AIPAC
10. Americanism
11. apartheid white South Africa
12. Arab nationalism
13. Arab nationalism in Israel
14. black nationalism
15. Christian nationalism
16. Christian nationalism in Israel
17. Christian Zionism
18. civic nationalism
19. Clash of Civilizations
20. due process
21. Enlightenment
22. ethnic nationalism
23. European nationalism in Israel
24. German ethnic nationalism
25. Global War on Terror
26. Greater Israel
27. Iran War
28. Iraq War
29. Islamophobia
30. Israeli settlements
31. Jewish ethnic nationalism
32. Jewish nationalism in the US
33. Jewish religious nationalism
34. Jews-only settlements
35. Judeophobia
36. Likud
37. modern Western democracies
38. neoconservatism
39. neoliberalism
40. Operation Cast Lead
41. Palestinian nationalism
42. religious nationalism
43. religious Zionism
44. targeted assassinations
45. torture
46. universal meritocracy
47. US Bill of Rights
48. US Constitution
49. WASP nationalism in the US
50. white nationalism
“There is that peculiar evasiveness and shiftiness again that one runs into all the time with many pro-Israel activists.”
Still, try and weather my inherent shiftiness for long enough to actually answer my question if you can. Are you asking whether I agree with the specific policies of these organizations or whether I think that they should have the right to exist within our political framework? For example, I disagree with AIPAC’s major policy platforms. But I think that it has as much of a right to leverage its viewpoint as any other lobbyist group. And I think that lobbying is protected by the first amendment.
Or #44. targeted assassinations. I don’t LIKE targeted assassinations. I have no idea if they are actually legal or not. But I think that using them is often preferable to some of the other available options.
So what are you asking? These are complex issues. Is it whether I “like” them? Support them? Or believe they DO exist at all? Or SHOULD exist?
If it’s all simple stuff then just explain it.
playforpalestine,
Your profile so far:
1. pro-AIPAC
2. pro-targeted assassinations
If you disagree with some AIPAC policies but support AIPAC’s mission overall, you are pro-AIPAC. I disagree with AIPAC’s mission overall and am anti-AIPAC.
If you support any official targeted assassinations at all, you are pro-targeted assassinations. I strongly oppose all official targeted assassinations for the good reasons that the American government opposed them for decades.
Why are you finding it so difficult to enunciate your basic political and policy positions? Or would you prefer that we don’t know them?
Let’s continue:
1. torture: pro or con?
2. Iraq War: pro or con?
3. Iran War: pro or on?
4. Israeli settlements: pro or con?
5. Jewish nationalism: pro or con?
6. white nationalism: pro or con?
7. religious Zionism: pro or con?
8. Benjamin Netanyahu: pro or con?
9. David Duke: pro or con?
10. Afrikaner nationalism: pro or con?
Stop playing evasive word games and declare your positions — then we might be able to have an interesting discussion about our different views on the world.