Last month I met author Jonathan Cook in Nazareth and pushed my latest theory: that when forced to choose, many liberal Zionists will choose liberalism over the ideology of religious nationalism.
Cook is not so optimistic. Labor Zionism has always struggled to maintain the “illusion of a Jewish and a democratic state,” he says, lately by adopting security rhetoric to rationalize second-class citizenship for Palestinians inside Israel. Labor Zionists favored expulsion of Palestinians historically, and today the policy of Judaization of the territory that is being effected inside Area C of the occupied territories is going on in Israel too.
At 11:40 I push my point that human beings are remediable, and that liberal Zionists in the U.S. won’t support racist policies if the choice is made stark to them. Cook demurs. Based on Israeli political history, he says liberal Zionists will move rightward. “They side with the Jewish elements… the nationalistic element is likely to predominate.”
As to “Liberal Zionism”: [1] a question of Jewish or democratic? That’s only one question, maybe not the most important, a distraction. How about [2] a question about continual violation of international law, conventions, etc. and continually renewed war-crimes versus NOT being lawless and war-criminal?
No-one to my knowledge, no PEP, no LZ, has answered the question: How does the settlement program help provide for Israeli “security”? The answer to that is that it does not. It is merely part of a land-grab, and illegal during the occupation.
My thinking is that Likud knows what it’s doing so does Labour.
The thinking is to build as many settlements as possiable and everytime there’s a flare up build more in the name of security, block off additional tracks of land for security “reasons” than give the land to settlers for deveoplement to the point that the pot burst and than use this as a excuse to cleanse the majority if not all Palestinian from the west bank any critisim against such action will be meet with revoking Israeli non-jewish citizenship. Than forcing egypt to take control of the southern part of gaza and the northern becomes a no-go zones.
I think many Liberal will still be on board and justify it by pointing out the violent actions of Palestinian (of course ommitting violent actions by both setters and the IDF or Israel itself). The difference between the Likudnites vs Liberal Zionist is the Likudnites are doing it out in the open(which makes it hard to attempt to justify rationally). It’s going to get even more nasty as Israel loses more and more support in the U.S.
“I push my point that human beings are remediable, and that liberal Zionists in the U.S. won’t support racist policies if the choice is made stark to them.”
Great post but I disagree because such ideology will not allow them to see themselves supporting racist policies. This can be seen in many liberal zionist responses to Israel Violations of human rights. How many leaders/journalist make false equivalence when Israel does something? Dismiss,ommit or outright don’t talk about it? Even the most serioius comments made by rabbi lior, rabbi Yosef, Avigdor Lieberman,danny danon, are ommitted in U.S. press yet all receive praise in one way or another. Don’t forget Oren.
NPR for example praised Yosef when they were talking about Bibi speaking his support while his comment about abbas was never mention,
The lines that will be repeated now as it will be repeated later by Liberal Zionist will be “security” and “there not citizen’s of Israel” It will follow with “Israel has the right to defend themselves” and “arabs will_____ to Jews if_____-”
Recall that alan dershowitz considers himself a liberal zionist and CAMERA while liberal in terms on american issues this does not often translate in regards to Israel and it’s more likely that “Liberal Zionist” will embrace Likud actions more than back away from it as Cook thinks.
“Great post but I disagree because such ideology will not allow them to see themselves supporting racist policies. This can be seen in many liberal zionist responses to Israel Violations of human rights. ”
We used to have a daily, even hourly, demonstration of that before a certain commenter here was banned. Not all self-described liberal Zionists are the same, but he was probably somewhere in the middle, better than some, worse than others. There’s a regular in the comments section at Open Zion who claims to be liberal and sounds like Genghis Khan most of the time.
There’s a regular in the comments section at Open Zion who claims to be liberal and sounds like Genghis Khan most of the time.
Mongol and democratic :-)
“Mongol and democratic.”
Builds pyramids of skulls and shares our values.
On a bright side, corporations can be liberal. Which is part of the problem of course. Liberal Zionists are basically under auspices of Haim Saban. As we have read, he did invite Avigdor Lieberman and hired Siegel for the occasion, and Siegel was not critical at all, but Saban himself was. Jews are not simply Jews but have different grades of quality. A super-Jew can be super-religious, super-nationalistic or super-rich, so Saban may afford some slips and remain a super-Jew. And there are all grades of Jews down to trash Jews who are not religious, not nationalistic and egads, even not rich. A kind of folk that you have to ponder for an hour or two if they can be admitted to a plane bound for Israel (or from).
down to trash Jews who are not religious, not nationalistic and egads, even not rich
No need to get personal ;-)
Like the millions of native american skulls
“Jews are not simply Jews but have different grades of quality. A super-Jew can be super-religious, super-nationalistic or super-rich…
Sure, but times change, baby! Anti-Zionist is the new “super-Jew”. There is an opportunity, if grasped correctly (I suggest choking up a little and keeping the feet well apart, left elbow raised.) for anti-Zionists to out-Jew the entire field!
LOL
I know what you mean. I know someone on another forum who is a very strong PEP. Radical and possibly socialist on other issues and national liberation movements. Except when it comes to IP he says his views are like the Labor Party’s (Mapam), and that he likes settlements insofar as they hurt Palestinians and force them to submit.
Liberal zionism is almost worse than straight out right wing zionism. Hiding dominance, better than, we deserve, it’s ours, what ever it takes behind a cloak of deception.
Kathleen,
I find Likud Zionists like Benjamin Netanyahu to be much preferable to liberal Zionists like Robert Siegel — they are intellectually honest and straightforward, even if their beliefs are appalling to many of us. You know what you are dealing with. You can get into meaningful arguments with them.
Liberal Zionists are intellectually dishonest, manipulative, evasive, shape-shifting, etc. — in some cases, sociopathic. One day they will sing the progressive song of peace and tolerance, the next day they will threaten to “totally obliterate” entire nations or cultures (I am thinking of Hillary Clinton’s threat during the 2008 election to utterly exterminate Iran, which was motivated by her eagerness to please her Zionist paymasters in the Democratic Party — like “liberal Zionist” Haim Saban).
Imagine using the terms “liberal Nazi,” “liberal Italian Fascist,” “liberal white nationalist,” etc. to describe oneself — absurd. Liberalism is incompatible with militant ethnic and religious nationalism. People who try to package liberalism with messianic ethno-religious nationalism as a single product are either delusional or con artists. Zionism is radically illiberal at its core.
So, who are the liberal Zionists under discussion? A few that come immediately to mind:
1. Aaron David Miller
2. Abraham Foxman
3. Al Franken
4. Alan Grayson
5. Ann Lewis
6. Anthony Weiner
7. Barbara Walters
8. Barney Frank
9. Bill Clinton
10. Bill Maher
11. Bob Shrum
12. Carl Levin
13. Charlie Rose
14. Chuck Schumer
15. David Axelrod
16. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
17. Dennis Ross
18. Ed Koch
19. Ehud Barak
20. Eliot Spitzer
21. Gary Ackerman
22. Haim Saban
23. Harry Reid
24. Henry Waxman
25. Hillary Clinton
26. Jane Harman
27. Jeremy Ben-Ami
28. Jim Lehrer
29. John Kerry
30. Ken Pollack
31. Larry King
32. Larry Summers
33. Leslie Gelb
34. Madeleine Albright
35. Marc Rich
36. Martin Indyk
37. Michael Bloomberg
38. Nancy Pelosi
39. Peter Beinart
40. Rachel Maddow
41. Rahm Emanuel
42. Richard Haass
43. Robert Satloff
44. Robert Siegel
45. Ronald Lauder
46. S. Daniel Abraham
47. Sandy Berger
48. Shelley Berkley
49. Shimon Peres
50. Steny Hoyer
51. Steve Grossman
52. Thomas Friedman
53. Tzipi Livni
They have been far more effective in providing cover and protection for Israel’s drive to construct Greater Israel and crush Palestinians than Likud Zionists. Most of them are Democrats who claim to be enlightened progressives.
Any others?
In answer to my own question: any others?
1. Martin Peretz
2. Leon Wieseltier
“1. Aaron David Miller…/…53. Tzipi Livni”
You’re gonna re-order the world with a list of 53? Man, Annie Besant used to embroider samplers with longer lists than that! There’s no power in a list of 53, who’re you tr4ying to kid?
Uh-oh, we’re up to 55!
Two more “liberal Zionists”:
1. Jodi Rudoren
2. Terry Gross
Mooser,
What about a list of “liberal Zionist” organizations — what do you think:
# Liberal Zionist Organizations
1. Democratic Party
2. DLC (Democratic Leadership Council)
3. DNC (Democratic National Committee)
4. Forward
5. J Street
6. MSNBC
7. New Republic
8. New York Times
9. NJDC (National Jewish Democratic Council)
10. NPR (National Public Radio)
11. Open Zion (The Daily Beast)
12. PPI (Progressive Policy Institute)
13. Tablet Magazine
14. Union for Reform Judaism
15. Washington Post
Four more “liberal Zionist” organizations”:
1. Kadima
2. Labor Party (Israel)
3. Saban Center for Middle East Policy
4. WINEP (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
Now we’re at 70! When does a list become irrefutable? What’s the magic number?
Mooser,
From simple lists one can construct cognitive machines of superhuman immensity, complexity and nuance — and that is essentially a theosophical project.
Superhuman cognitive machines can be used to figure out Mideast politics or any other subject or knowledge domain. Lists of facts are fodder for advanced knowledge processing and inferencing.
By the way, my grandfather caught your act at a Catskills resort in 1956 — and he said you killed.
FYI, the Labor Party is not Mapam. It was allied with them electorally for some years (1959-1984 I think) but even then – it was not the Labor Party.
“Hiding dominance, better than, we deserve, it’s ours, what ever it takes behind a cloak of deception.”
Unfortunately, before it’s over, there will be people using that same cloak but calling themselves “former” Zionists, “non-Zionists”, “not-a-Zionists” and yes, even “anti-Zionists”.
“Liberal” has gotten a bad name (among some progressives) as a label for folks who talk a good game but do not deliver or do not really believe what they are saying, who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, and there are always the deeply suspect “limousine liberals”. (Hilary Clinton, are you listening?) SO: why should anyone expect “Liberal Zionist” to be the moniker for anyone respectable (as judged for universalistic humanistic values) (never forget that Nazis were trying to save the Aryan race from detestable contamination, just as southern USA white racists were trying to save the purity of white women, etc., and both might be said to have had non-universalistic humanistic values).
“From simple lists one can construct cognitive machines of superhuman immensity, complexity and nuance — and that is essentially a theosophical project.”
Yes many people in the 19th, and even partway into the 20th, thought that. And over that time it went from a provocative thought which may have inspired some early work with “thinking machines” or computers, and became a farce and a fraud.
And Seanmcbride, I want you to promise everyone here, that you will only use this “great cognitive power” or any other power bequeathed to you as an theosophical adept for good, not evil.
Mooser,
Google, Google Knowledge Graph, Google Translation, IBM Watson, Prismatic, Siri, Wikidata and Wolfram Alpha are hardly farces and frauds. One presumes that you use Google now and then.
For a good current article on this subject see “Google’s Second Brain: How the Knowledge Graph Changes Search”:
link to tech.slashdot.org
And as you speak you yourself (as are we all) are embedded in and enveloped by many invisible complex analytical webs based on advanced list processing. The human race is far along in developing a rapidly self-evolving global superintelligence — a vision that has been vividly imagined by theosophists throughout several millennia.
Some of these AI-based analytical tools — especially social network analysis and text mining — can be used to help figure out Mideast politics. Who did what when and where? Who said what to whom when and with what intention? These are simple (if very large) collections of facts and data in which patterns can be detected and from which inferences can be made in very precise ways.
As for human tools, from hammers to supercomputer networks — they have always been used for both good and evil. That is human nature for you.
There a few on the other NPR Member station threads, who not only will act Khanish like but will call on both other posters and Moderaters to codemn any comment that doesn’t give what I called
The Sandwich comment “In which one must first Criticized another country/group/people before Criticizing Israel than must follow up with Criticizing another country/group/people otherwise that person insert _____ personal attack. And these folks are as liberal as one can get with the exception of I/P conflict. What funny or sad depending on how one wants to look at it. These same people who attack the right for hate speech against minorities are the first to phase the same right for hate speech against arabs/Palestinians often times will top them while projecting such hate on critics of Israel.
What’s a stronger word for “Projection of ones hatred”?
@Donald:
There’s a regular in the comments section at Open Zion who claims to be liberal and sounds like Genghis Khan most of the time.
I protest in the name of Genghis Khan The Great himself. For one, he typically (some grievous exceptions noted) left the people conquered on their own land after removing their rulers, something which on many an occasion, actually benefited the populous who were often not so sorry to see their local tyrants go. For another, Ghengis can be viewed intermittently as ruthless (to those who resisted) or as a relatively benevolent conqueror – pay homage to us and we’ll leave you along, kind of guy. can’t say that about the Spanish conquerors of latin America (or anywhere else) can we? and thirdly, Ghengis did not impose or force the people to undertake a new religion, in which respect he was, what we call, relatively liberal.
Many historians say that good old Genghis got a total bum rap from historical PR – mostly because his conquerors were such a different race. this is especially true of his Jewish subjects who, for the most part, got a better deal from him wherever he popped up than their existing Christianized overlords. By the same token I’d suggest that the palestinians would have gotten a much better deal from good old Ginghis than their not-so-neighbourly zionists, who have the American indians in mind.
I think Khan did conquer Syria or someplace not too far from Palestine.
Regarding the clashes between the police and Israeli Arab citizens in the beginning of the second Intifada Cook is blatantly lying regarding “peacefull” nature of the demonstrations.
“Israeli Arab citizens”
They’re called “Palestinians.”
First of all, they aren’t “Israeli Arabs”.
Calling them “Israeli Arabs” indicates that the commenter does not recognize the existence of Palestinians as a people before 1948.
Second, the demonstrations were peaceful in nature. They did not devolve into violence until Israeli authorities started using force against the Palestinian citizens of Israel.
In addition, I don’t know if you’ve been in Israel long enough to know that Israeli authorities never use against Jewish Israelis the same brutal force they use against non-Jews.
Even when Israeli Jews demonstrate alongside non-Jews, police might manhandle the Jewish protestors while they arrest them, but they will strike the non-Jews with batons and spray them with pepper spray, even after they’ve arrested them.
Finally, accusing Mr. Cook of being a liar is quite rich coming from someone who habitually lies.
Cook is blatantly lying regarding “peacefull” nature of the demonstrations.
What Cook said (segment beginning around 05:10) is: “even though they’re non-violent demonstrations, the police react in the same way as the army in the Occupied Territories”.
Not all of the demonstrations were violent, particularly at the beginning (prior to 1 October), and many demonstrations turned violent as a direct result of police provocation and intervention (see e.g. Amnesty International, Broken lives – a year of intifada, 2001) and, at least in one case, in response to attacks perpetrated by Jews . The main point however is that loss of life could have been prevented, had the Israel Police acted differently — in keeping with international standards and its own rules of engagement. Cook’s argument (and he is by no means alone) is that the response to the demonstrations was guided by the perception of Israel’s Palestinian population as a “fifth column”.
oh no lets be clear the whole non-violence crap is senseless,
yes we the deployers of the drones and snipers etc insist on non-violence, anthony who is completely uneducated, his mother sold vegetables out of a bag, wonders what the fuck would you do, you can take non-violence and shove it
link to youtu.be
Jewish settlers torched an IDF outpost/camp/base during the summer I think.
This coincided with the murder of a Palestinian during a protest in the OT. The IDF posted a slingshot as ‘evidence’ that they *had* to shoot the Palestinian.
As if a slingshot is justification for firing a tear gas canister point-blank in the face.
Meanwhile, your Jewish settlers didn’t get killed or maimed or w/e.
Its a simple fact that Israel behaves as savagely as it does against the Palestinian ARABS because Israel is a racist country with racism in-built to the Zionist movement, ideology, etc. Racism is in-built to Israeli Jewish institutions.
Only a Zionist partisan hack would try to imply that Jewish nationalism exists outside of all other forms of nationalism and that it’s not subject to the same patterns (racism, bigotry, chauvinism, etc.).
Jonathan Cook. A moral giant.
I don’t think Cook is a moral giant. I’ve emailed him at his website several dozen times to contradict some of what he’s said in his published articles. He’s never once responded to my emails. Apparently, he is not someone who is open to dialogue.
Leaving aside whether your comments were worthy of response (I don’t know), a reporter on the I/P issue is probably going to get a lot of contentious emails from a lot of people. He’d be within his rights to ignore most of them, maybe all of them. If there are errors that he won’t acknowledge, then go to the editor.
Donald.
I sent one email to Jerusalem Bureau chief, Judy Rudoren, and she responded. I’ve sent dozens of email’s to Cook’s own website without so much as one response.
Over the years, I’ve found many of the people committed to the I/P issue to be brittle, narcissistic and unwilling to carry on a dialogue.
“Judy Rudoren… responded”
Duh. She believes in talking to Zionists. She is one.
Why should other people?
Jodi, I think, not Judy.
For all her flaws, I think she’s more open than most reporters to criticisms. She’s replied to me–she has also not replied to me. I didn’t take it personally in the latter instance because I don’t expect reporters to interact with everyone who emails them. She’s probably better than most when it comes to interacting with critics. (Which doesn’t mean she hasn’t said some really stupid things.)
I wrote David Shipler a letter a long time ago–he was a NYT reporter in Israel in the 80′s and wrote something I disagreed with about it in the 90′s. He didn’t reply. And my letter was respectful, even if I disagreed with him.
But I didn’t take the lack of response as a sign of great arrogance (though it could have been for all I know).
I’ve exchanged easily over a hundred emails with Norman Finkelstein over the years. On one or two occasions, we had all day email battles. Norm, who I respect (to a point), is not an arrogant man.
I’ve sent Cook several dozen emails to his website using various I.D.s and email addresses. He simply will not dialogue with Zionists.
Interesting slip of the keyboard there – so you are not commited to the I/P issue otherwise you would consider yourself “brittle, narcissistic and unwilling to carry on a dialogue”. Suggests you are either a self-hating Zionist or you are a racist as you believe there should be no Palestine alongside Israel. Either way, there would be little of interest to any rational person in having a dialogue with you since you are the one who is brittle, narcissistic and unwilling to carry on a dialogue.
ps. I know my logic is probably missing something but I can’t be bothered to work out what it is as I have better things to do like needlessly go and polish my trainers.
Polish your trainers?
You lost me.
“I don’t think Cook is a moral giant.”
I think you are a snowflake obsidian:
link to en.wikipedia.org
“He’s never once responded to my emails. Apparently, he is not someone who is open to dialogue.”
I also usually do not respond to spammers, but for you:
I have to say that you are not as sharp as the scalpels made of obsidian….
link to en.wikipedia.org
Au contraire. I have written to him on two occasions over the past 6 years and received two respectful and thoughtful replies. In my first letter I told him why I had quit reading his work over the previous 18 months because I felt he was too depressingly pessimistic. He empathized completely.
Obsidian – having read your past comments, I would guess that you are a Zionist or at least a pro-Zionist. My total experience with Zionists and pro-Zionists is that their grasp of reality is somewhat lacking and that there is, as a result, little point in debating anything about Zionism with them just as there is little point in discussing the Earth’s shape with a Flat Earther only it’s worse since being a Flat Earther does not necessarily include being a racist while being a Zionist or pro-Zionist always does. Now you could argue that everybody is a racist to some degree and I wouldn’t disagree with you, but Zionists and pro-Zionists of all descriptions are openly racist and seem to be proud of it.
I would comment that why I hardly ever agree with Obsidian, he is not a Ziobot, i.e. he passes the Turing test. By the way, I invented a very good slogan for GOP: the Earth is flat and so should be our taxes! Honestly, is it clear from the Bible that the Earth is flat, round or a slightly deformed ellipsoid?
@braciole
I am a 55 y.o. former New Yorker who has recently made aliyah to Israel.
I am no racist, and as Piotr said, I passed the Turning Test.
So, braciole, you are going to have to go and re-calibrate your Zio-meter.
Making aliyah is, under current circumstances, an overtly racist act and you seem to be quite proud that you have made aliyah…………..
An overtly racist act? How so?
Read “Another Jew describes his journey away from Zionism”, then explain to me why making aliyah under current circumstances is not overtly racist.
well you know the whole leaving country of birth to live on land stolen from indigenious population thing
Ha ha, what zionists write and whine about is seldom dialogue but a tedious, unsourced screed of allegations, dubious statements and ad hominem attacks. They are seldom remotely interested in facts or history but prefer their own mythical, selective fantasies. Your apparent goal was to ‘contradict’ him, rather than engage in dialogue. How typically arrogant and self-serving. That is probably why he didn’t reply, whereas a thoughtful, courteous request is more likely to elicit a reply. Do point us to an example where zionists are ‘open to dialogue’, I am intrigued.
An example of Zionists ‘open to dialogue’?
I’ll give you several. Me, Hophmi, OlegR, Bingbong, etc.
Facepalm……
“I’ll give you several. Me, Hophmi, OlegR, Bingbong, ”
Dialogue is a vague term. What do you mean by it?
Donald, interesting one would say that “Dialogue” is a vague term. It is precise, and very meaningful.
It means exchange, a sharing of thoughts and ideas. It is an engagement, a sharing. Dialogue leads to growth.
Some have observed that the Zionist posters do not have a dialogue among each other.
Here it the email I sent Cook this past August in response to an article he published about his hometown of Nazareth.
Hi Jonathan,
I just read your article, Welcome to Nazareth, and I have a question.
I drove around Nazareth last Saturday and was so put off by the traffic and crowds that I never bothered to get out and walk around. I suppose I’ll have to give it a try another time.
You said,”Why do almost all of them stay in Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, which unlike Nazareth suffers from uncomfortably high levels of humidity through much of the year?
First, Jonathan, I’ve been to Tiberius half a dozen times and even hiked there and never once noticed high humidity.
Second, what’s there for a tourist to do in Nazareth for more than one day? I know Nazareth has some religious and historical sites and restaurants, but isn’t that about it?
Tiberias, and it’s outlaying enviorns, has many more religious and historical sites, particularly for Christians and many hotels to cater to tourists not to mention water sports of all types (including paragliding).
If I’m not mistaken, pilgrims would even go to Tiberius to take the hot, mineral baths.
You make it sound like there was a 60 year old conspiracy to develop Tiberius at Nazareth’s expense!
Am I wrong about Tiberius and Nazareth?
———————–
Well. That’s it. No wonder he couldn’t reply do this email and the dozens more I’d sent him.
So you want to engage him, faux naif style, about the weather? lol
IMHO, Cook deliberately lied about the weather in Tiberias in order to bolster his argument that the government of Israel has deliberately relegated Nazareth to be a third-rate tourist attraction.
Of course, you wouldn’t know this was what I was getting at on account the polite tone I used in my email.
IMHO, Cook deliberately lied about the weather in Tiberias
Are you serious? You may disagree with his conclusions, but it is a fact that “Tiberias … suffers from uncomfortably high levels of humidity through much of the year” (4-5 months). With all due respect to your visits and hike, Tiberias consistently hits both the highest temperatures and the highest humidity levels in the country. I can’t think of a more unpleasant place to be in Israel during the summer (well, maybe Afula).
Dont’ worry, you would know what you were getting at, the snarky tone is transparent. ‘Politely’ calling him a deliberate liar (in your ever so ‘humble opinion’) will ensure you get no reply, I would imagine. Cook has no need to lie to make the case of Israeli manipulation of populations and towns on ethnic lines, the discrimination and bigotry – it is well documented and reported. Zionists, on the other hand, have every need to fabricate, allege and falsely accuse.
he couldn’t reply do this email and the dozens more I’d sent him.
lol! he probably has a life.
Temperate climate in even the summer months with relatively low humidity.
link to meoweather.com
relatively low humidity
LOL. Relative to where? The Amazon?
I assume you read Hebrew: link to israelweather.co.il
Note in particular: “The summer is very hot and muggy, and the winter rainy and cold…. In the summer the weather is very hot and humid. This creates the perception of heavy to extreme heat almost every day of the summer. The combination of heat and humidity creates the sensation of 45-50°C and even higher. The high humidity in Tiberias is due to the evaporation of water above the Kinneret Lake….”
>> At 11:40 I push my point that human beings are remediable, and that liberal Zionists in the U.S. won’t support racist policies if the choice is made stark to them. Cook demurs. Based on Israeli political history, he says liberal Zionists will move rightward. “They side with the Jewish elements… the nationalistic element is likely to predominate.”
I agree with Mr. Cook. The words of a “liberal Zionist” familiar to (some? many? most?) MW readers will help to explain why:
There’s no reason to expect that “liberal Zionists” who accept, endorse, justify and excuse injustice and immorality as “necessary” for the creation of a supremacist state will fail to do the same in defence of a supremacist state that has a gawd- and Holocaust-given right to be there.
“my point that human beings are remediable, and that liberal Zionists in the U.S. won’t support racist policies…”
Your point is very, very weak. The overwhelming majority of people, before a choice between inconsistency with self and a dark, emotionally potent tribal allegiance (or even any earlier commitment) will make the system consistent by kosherizing the indefensible. If that fails, they will then change their political orientation rather than their emotionally held allegiances. There are oodles of experimental proof of that.
This is why, for example, Iraq war fanatics “cannot” see they were wrong, and also why perpetuating the myth of a “Jewish” non-religious identity helps Zionism, no matter your personal belief that you are using it against Zionism.
Now that is good definition of cognitive dissonance, and you manage to do so without using that term which is so often misapplied as to have lost its impact. One quibble is that the “overwhelming majority of people” respond that way. Especially, some time after the cognitive crises, people’s attachment to the irrational group will weaken. It is the hope of most of us here that that is currently happening within the Zionist tribe.
ToivoS: I’d love to share your optimism.
Yes, “some time after the cognitive crises, people’s attachment to the irrational group will weaken” but, at least in terms of major violence like wars, the so-called cognitive contradiction generally only intensifies up to physical defeat and utter catastrophe (case in point, “Israel”.) Then, the survivors if any do get some sanity for a while. Exceptions seem to me to be few and far between. Fewer than in everyday life, where there are limits to rationalizing one’s bad choices.
inconsistency with self and a dark, emotionally potent tribal allegiance . . . perpetuating the myth of a “Jewish” non-religious identity
I don’t live very far from “Little Sweden” (Lindsborg) or several old order Amish Mennonite (Yoder), and Mennonite (Haven) towns. 40 percent of Kansans claim German ancestry, and that doesn’t necessarily include those who claim Russian German, Pennsylvania Dutch, Austrian or Swiss ancestry. There are still many communities nearby that were founded by Germans from the Volga River, Moravian, and Bucovina colonies of the Russian Empire. The older generations still speak various dialects Volga German Deitsch and Low German Plattdüütsch. My own Grandparents were born in failed socialist Jewish colonies in Arkansas and Kansas in the 1880s. My father was born in 1904 and didn’t speak a word of English until he started school. None of them were religious, “mythical”, or gave a damn about Zionist or Marxist collective social experiments. They thought, with more than a little justification, that settlement in Palestine was just another “get rich quick scheme” put together by a criminal syndicate of bankers, gangsters, and crooked union bosses who employed talk about religious destiny and collective national ownership as tinsel to attract the necessary source of cheap indentured labor.
I can assure you that my warm personal family relationship with my “bobeshi” (Jewish grandmother) wasn’t “a dark, emotionally potent tribal allegiance” at all.
Hostage,
That may be best summary description of Zionism I’ve read anywhere. Key phrase: “criminal syndicate.”
“They thought, with more than a little justification, that settlement in Palestine was just another “get rich quick scheme” put together by a criminal syndicate of bankers, gangsters, and crooked union bosses who employed talk about religious destiny and collective national ownership as tinsel to attract the necessary source of cheap indentured labor.”
Hostage, I am going to have that sentence tattooed on my chest. There it is, just as it is.
You don’t know what that sentence did for me. For over forty years I thought I was the only one. I know, that’s dumb, and I didn’t look, but at least I’m seeing it before I die. I better go, I’m starting to sob.
Ouch! Could we settle for just copying it and printing it out in large type and tacking it on the wall of my office? Besides hurting like all heck, this is almost impossible to do in the mirror.
Besides, the information you gve us about Kansas is giving me a whole new outlook on “The Wizard of Oz” as political and social allegory.
“I can assure you that my warm personal family relationship with my “bobeshi” (Jewish grandmother) wasn’t “a dark, emotionally potent tribal allegiance” at all.”
I was once (when I was 10-12 y.o.) shown an elderly, emaciated, tiny women muttering to herself and gesturing, looking at her through a window (she was in a ground-floor room) at Pilgrim State Hospital. They said she was my grandmother. I have no way of knowing for sure, now, nor did I then. We drove back out to Long Island.
Mooser, thanks so much, I am in (metaphorical) stitches. You lighten these terribly dark discussions so much. Imagine tattooing yourself in the mirror, using mirror writing. If you write small enough why stop at that one measly paragraph? You could get all of — of — of — well, your choice. Thanks.
Hostage:
- in your two quoted segments, the first part is not the subject of the second. The second part is subject in another statement (“perpetuating the myth of a “Jewish” non-religious identity helps Zionism”)
- I never presumed to know if you personally had any emotional tribal allegiances, which remain irrelevant
Well Hostage. My family emigrated to Jerusalem in 1811 as messianic followers of the Vilna Gaon. They found nothing but trouble in 19th century Eretz Yisroel; victims of the local Arabs and the Ottomans.
Montefiore put them on his dole. Rothschild lost money trying to help the early Zionists.
The Zionist of the first Aliyah were from the Pale settlements and weren’t allowed to buy land to farm and support themselves.
“Get rich quick” in Palestine? Really? How?
By buying land at inflated prices and working it yourself? By buying a crappy stall in Yaffo like the urban Jews did in Palestine in the 1920′s?
The Zionist project would likely as not have failed but for the influx of German Jews in the 1930′s fleeing Nazism.
Hostage. What did you family have to say about Jews fleeing oppression and finding haven in Palestine?
“Get rich quick” in Palestine? Really? How?
Emigration from Europe was the result of a number of factors, including land enclosure in places like the United Kingdom, where agricultural uses of common or public lands had come to an end. The possibility of securing the free use of trust or public land for raising crops or grazing animals represented an economic boon for many poor families.
For others it presented the opportunity to establish lucrative legal monopolies or trade preferences. Those could be exploited in exactly the same way that others enriched themselves through the operations of entities like the Dutch West India Company, East India Company, Portuguese East India Company, et al
Herzl didn’t found “The Jewish State”, he just wrote a pamphlet by that name which proposed the establishment of “a British company”. The Jewish Colonial Trust eventually had several subsidiaries, like the Anglo-Palestine Bank (Bank Luemi) that were operated by Herzl’s cronies and patrons.
The Jewish immigrants, union members, and depositors, including victims of the Holocaust, were treated as a source of windfall profits that accrued through unclaimed deposits, sky-high currency exchange rates, dues, various management fees, and in a multitude of cases – good old fashioned corruption and embezzlement.
The Zionist project would likely as not have failed but for the influx of German Jews in the 1930′s fleeing Nazism. Hostage. What did you family have to say about Jews fleeing oppression and finding haven in Palestine?
Refugees are not a source or sign of success. The Zionist project was in even more trouble after the war than it had been before. It would have collapsed from within under its own weight, if countries like the USA, hadn’t extended it hundreds of millions in loans and guarantees and the West Germans hadn’t stepped in to make “reparations” payments and supply the Zionists with arms under military cooperation agreements.
In short, Ben Gurion’s secret to success was the same one used by the Rockefeller children: “Here’s a hundred million dollars, try not to loose it.”
P.S. Re: “Get rich quick” in Palestine? Really? How?
A variety of sources reveal that Herzl wanted to establish a global empire and that he viewed the Jewish state as his own personal fiefdom.
Here is an extract from David Zax, The Fall of the House of Herzl:
When Herzl’s children were re-interred in Israel, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, reported that Herzl’s children had always been an embarrassment to the WZO. The report said that Herzl envisioned that his son Hans would one day serve his people as a prince and that their messy personal lives and hardscrabble existences hardly resembled the royal future Herzl imagined for them. See Dina Kraft, “Belated homecoming for Herzl´s children”, November 30, 1999
link to jta.org
“The Jewish immigrants, union members, and depositors, including victims of the Holocaust, were treated as a source of windfall profits that accrued through unclaimed deposits, sky-high currency exchange rates, dues, various management fees, and in a multitude of cases – good old fashioned corruption and embezzlement”.
Your source please?
Sorry.
How does citing to Herzl’s kid’s playmate explain how your family determined that Zionism was a ‘get rich quick scheme’?
I don’t need to mention that Herzl’s family died destitute.
Your source please?
The World Zionist Congress discovered that the Anglo-Palestine Bank partnership with the Third Reich was not limited to transactions involving the assets of German Jewish refugees. The Bank was serving as Hitler’s agent in sales transactions with other countries. When the incoming WZO Executive was ordered to take over the Haavara, it was also bound by secret resolutions which attempted to end that and other shady practices:
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Favor Transfer Agreement Continuance, September 4, 1935
link to archive.jta.org
The Knesset’s own blue ribbon commission discovered that the Anglo-Palestine Bank and its successor, Bank Leumi, had concealed the deposits of Holocaust victims from their heirs or estates. A New York State commission reported that the Anglo-Palestine Bank, and its Third Reich partners, had charged refugees and immigrants a 30 percent fee for exchanging their currency when they fled Germany. The same or higher rates were charged for currency exchanges involving refugees from other countries who settled in Palestine or the new State of Israel. The Anglo-Palestine Bank served as the new State’s Reserve Bank before it was privatized, although the State of Israel is still the largest shareholder. Journalist and political activist Naeim Giladi reported that the Zionist’s banking subsidiary viewed the newcomers as a source of windfall profits:
– Ben Gurion’s Scandals, 2nd ed, Dandelion, 2006, page 16
See also:
*Jerusalem Post, Nadav Shemer, Bank Leumi agrees to pay NIS 130m. to Holocaust victims: Despite high hopes, restitution organization agrees to ‘cut our losses’; money will go to heirs of victims, projects to help survivors, 28 March 2011. link to jpost.com
*The JTA report: Holocaust survivors say Israel kept their assets
link to jta.org
*Ha’aretz, Anshel Pfeffer, “Bank Leumi called account worthless, but Holocaust victim’s sons to get NIS 400,000″, Tuesday, 8 July 2008
*New York State Banking Department Holocaust Claims Processing Report
link to dfs.ny.gov
Readers here already know that the State of Israel played a central role in instigating the mass exodus of Jews from the Arab countries like Iraq, Yemen, and Morocco. See Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs (Jones), Secret [WASHINGTON,] August 2,1951. Subject: Israel’s Concern Re Peace With the Arabs and Other Matters. Participants: Mr. Theodore Kollek, Embassy of Israel and Mr. G. Lewis Jones, NE, Foreign relations of the United States, 1951. The Near East and Africa, page 815 link to digicoll.library.wisc.edu
Several years ago the Jerusalem Post complained that the Histadrut federation of labor unions treasurer who had embezzled funds was being scapegoated and explained that:
– Jerusalem Post, Don Ganchrow, Histadrut scandals, April 6, 1995
See also:
*Jerusalem Post, Ben Hartman, ‘State siphoned off Palestinian workers’ insurance money’: Report: For over 20 years, Israel withheld over NIS 1b. from laborers for national insurance, 29 January 2010. link to jpost.com
Sorry.
How does citing to Herzl’s kid’s playmate explain how your family determined that Zionism was a ‘get rich quick scheme’?
Of course, I forgot you are illiterate. Those sources actually stated that it was Herzl himself who harbored “dynastic ambitions” and that he envisioned his own children as the nobility of the new Jewish state. They also indicated that he took steps to train them by hiring private tutors and nannies.
I pointed out that my great-grandparents had participated in failed Jewish socialist experiments in colonies in Arkansas and Kansas. The various movements to resettle Jews in other countries all had the same European origins.
As for my family, they and many other people were aware that the Zionist leadership were politicians, bankers, charlatans, braggarts, anarchists, and freeloaders who were looking to make a quick buck for themselves. By the late 1890s, there was nothing new about the idea of founding a chartered colonial company and fleecing religious pilgrims and the destitute, while forcing them into indentured servitude. The only difference was that Jews in Palestine ended up owing their soul to a Zionist company store operated by, and for, the people running the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, the Zionist Organization, the Histadrut, et al. The whole enterprise would have gone underwater long ago, if not for billions in bailouts in the form of West German reparations, Import-Export Bank loans, US backed loan guarantees, and millions of olim who are suckered into IDF service in exchange for a bundle of foreign subsidized freebies and illegally acquired land.
I don’t need to mention that Herzl’s family died destitute.
It appears that Bernie Madoff’s family might die in the same condition. I hope you’re not suggesting that ill-gotten gains and get-rich-quick schemes don’t ever end in disaster.
Obsidian,
It’s always a mistake for pro-Israel activists to demand reliable sources for Hostage’s claims with the hope that he will come up empty-handed. :) Some folks never learn.
Hostage,
Data mining challenge: sort people worldwide in (*, 1900:2012) by earnings from Zionism. (That translates to a sorted list for each year from 1900 through 2012.) Focus on the collected set of the top 100 individuals for each year of that time span.
Data mining challenge: sort people worldwide in (*, 1900:2012) by earnings from Zionism.
LOL! Keep in mind that the perks like the ones involved in the ‘Bibi-Tours’ or ‘The Galant Affair’ are almost never booked as cash receivables or reported as income. For example the top contender for IDF Chief of Staff, got in hot water for seizing state lands and annexing them to his home out of force of habit. Here’s the way Haaretz described the place:
Court records reveal that it would be a mistaken view to believe that people like Rabin, Barak, Olmert, or Netanyahu only take home the $4,200 in Prime Minister’s salary that they report as wages each month too, e.g. Israel’s Netanyahu posts pay stub on Facebook link to reuters.com
Naeim Giladi, vanity publisher of ‘Ben Gurion Scandals’, isn’t a reliable source. Naeim Giladi is a nutcase and Hostage should know better.
@Hostage
But can you please source your claim that Palestine Jewish Colonization Association exploited immigrants.
“By the late 1890s, there was nothing new about the idea of founding a chartered colonial company and fleecing religious pilgrims and the destitute”.
My understanding was that the collective pioneer enterprise, in which your family were members, failed after Stephen Wise appropriated their farming equipment in retaliation for their having leased their farmlands to cattlemen, who were the enemies of the farmers.
“Readers here already know that the State of Israel played a central role in instigating the mass exodus of Jews from the Arab countries like Iraq, Yemen, and Morocco”.
Please. Not the ‘Baghdad bombings’ again. Doesn’t anyone tire of that libel?
Ah yes Naem who was a prisoner in Abu Ghraib before it was famous, he wasnt very well treated there but this is what he has to say
Naem Speaks
Naeim Giladi, vanity publisher of ‘Ben Gurion Scandals’, isn’t a reliable source. Naeim Giladi is a nutcase and Hostage should know better.
In “The Jewish State”, Herzl had explained that Zionists would employ anti-semitism as the engine to drive their movement. He noted that unfriendly Gentiles would benefit from outward emigration of the Jews to a state of their own by taking over Jewish properties, businesses, and the positions vacated by the Jews. It was no accident then, that Herzl, Jabotinsky, and Arlosoroff allied themselves or formed business partnerships with anti-Semites like the Kaiser, Petliura, or Hitler. If your family had read Der Judenstaat, they’d have known all about that plan of action.
In “Every Spy a Prince: the complete history of Israel’s intelligence community”, authors Daniel Raviv and Yossi Melman described Mossad Aliyah Bet as “an economic empire and an operational masterpiece”. They said “the Jewish state has never had anything else like it” and that it was a huge global organization. More importantly, they note that the Iraqi Jewish community came to believe “that Shiloah’s Mossad was trying to grab their impressive assets.” (page 38). So it wasn’t Giladi alone who leveled the charge, and it wasn’t very far-fetched.
Giladi was one of the leaders of the Israeli Black Panthers Movement who fought racism against Mizrahi Jews. His reports about Mossad false flag attacks were very credible and in line with the tactics that were employed by Mossad in Operation Susannah (the Lavon Affair). Other very credible sources, like the State Department’s FRUS, that I cited above, prove beyond any doubt that the government of Israel was responsible for inciting the mass exodus of Jews from Arab countries. In late 1954, AJC Executive Vice President John Slawson was critical of Zionists who encouraged the “panic migration” of North African Jews. He said he saw “salesmen for the Jewish Agency actually empty out whole villages. See pages 83-84 of Michael Fischbach, Jewish Property Claims Against Arab Countries, Columbia University Press, 2008.
So, Giladi ‘s hardly the only person who complained about the practice of inciting panic, the State’s organs charging exorbitant exchange rates, or the only source that can be used to verify all of that. The New York State report explained that the Zionist Organization’s partners in the Third Reich kept 30 percent of the proceeds from the transactions with the German Jewish emigres.
The Encyclopedia Judaica 1971, vol. 7 explained that Havaara company also subsidized the “Palestinian importers” to make up for the deteriorating value of the Reich mark, and “so the German goods could compete with other imports”. The subsidy was financed by an exchange fee, borne by the immigrants. It increased from 6% in 1934 to 50% in 1938. So the “Palestinian importers” windfall profits were subsidized and guaranteed. link to geschichteinchronologie.ch
Please. Not the ‘Baghdad bombings’ again. Doesn’t anyone tire of that libel?
Please explain then why “the Iraqi operation” for “the ingathering from Iraq” was described by the US State Department as “a deliberately generated exodus”.
Ingathering of Exiles
At the close of the interview I asked Kollek to tell me frankly whether Israel planned to start the ingathering of 70,000 Jews from Iran along the lines of the ingathering from Iraq. I said that so far as I knew, the level of anti-semitism in Iran was not abnormally high and I thought the friends of Israel, including the United States, would not favor a deliberately generated exodus there.
Kollek replied that there was a school of thought in Israel which believes that when a nationalistic government of the Mossadegh type comes into power sooner or later they turn against their minorities and this has caused consideration to be given to the Iranian Jews. He did not believe, however, that efforts would be made to bring them to Israel unless the situation generally deteriorates. There could be no doubt that the need of the Roumanian Jews to come to Israel is far greater than the need of the Iranian Jews.
I opined that the Iraqi operation had been bad for Iraq. I said that I hoped the Iraqi Government would not disenfranchise the Jews who had elected to remain Iraqi citizens. Kollek argued that short range, Iraq may have lost some skills, but he thought that long range it is “better for a country to be homogeneous” as would be the case if all of the Jews left Iraq. I asserted that homogeneity of population is not always a good thing and pointed with pride to the fact that the United States is in no sense homogeneous. Kollek’s only answer was “The United States is different.”
– Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs (Jones), Secret [WASHINGTON,] August 2,1951.
Subject: Israel’s Concern Re Peace With the Arabs and Other Matters.
Participants: Mr. Theodore Kollek, Embassy of Israel and Mr. G. Lewis Jones, NE, Foreign relations of the United States, 1951. The Near East and Africa, page 815
link to digicoll.library.wisc.edu
But can you please source your claim that Palestine Jewish Colonization Association exploited immigrants.
Well first of all, here’s an article which explains that Baron Hirsch’s colonization society was an abject failure. In the 19th century, most Jewish immigrants got to their destinations by their own means. The author only credits the colonization societies with bringing the available destinations to the attention of the persecuted Jewish masses, but admits that despite the stated ambition of the Baron to assist 3 million he only financed a few thousand. Edgardo Zablotsky, The Project of the Baron de Hirsch: Success or Failure? (May 2005). CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo No. 289. Available at SSRN: link to ssrn.com
Scams were a cottage industry. Zablotsky mentions that many Jewish arrivals wrote letters back to the associations requesting that they end their programs of individual, non-systematic immigration. They complained that they had been swindled by persons who identified themselves as the association’s agents. The letters and responses were published in the Jewish Chronicle. The problem was so bad that the Executive Council of the Anglo Jewish Association (A.J.A) wrote to the Alliance Israélite Universelle (A.I.U.) “with the purpose of putting an end to present immigration and the alleged frauds damaging Jewish immigrants.”
White slavery and prostitution also were a significant threat that faced potential emigres. See:
*Donna Guy, Argentina: Jewish White Slavery
link to jwa.org
*The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman Garland, 2000
Prior to the mandate era, the Palestine colonies only assisted about 9,000 Jews. So they were not a realistic solution for millions of persecuted Jews in the Russian Empire or Romania. Even after the JCA merged its staff with the Palestine Jewish Colonial Association and stopped its own activities in Palestine, it still owned the land and the colonies still owed it large sums of money. See Eric Engel Tuten, “Between Capital And Land: The Jewish National Fund’s Finances And Land-purchase Priorities In Palestine, 1939-1945″, Psychology Press, 2005, page 7, link to books.google.com
The original colonies in Palestine were started-up with funds from public contributions and indigenous Jewish families from Safed. Montefiore, Hirsch, and the Rothschilds weren’t Ottoman subjects. So they employed agents who were Ottoman Jews to purchase and register their lands. The indigenous Jews would have been better off cultivating idle land and acquiring ownership for themselves under the provisions of the Ottoman Land code. All the land owned by the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association was eventually signed-over to the Jewish National Fund in the 1950s under the terms of James de Rothschild’s will, not to the Jewish tenants or cultivators.
The Rothschild and Hirsch colonies in Palestine and elsewhere were operated as for profit businesses, with cheap immigrant or local labor. They encountered crop failures and setbacks. The model never scaled-up to the level required to rescue millions of Russian refugees. Here’s how one source describes the conditions:
– Ronald Florence, Lawrence and Aaronsohn: T. E. Lawrence, Aaron Aaronsohn, and the Seeds of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Penguin, 2007, pages 42-43
My understanding was that the collective pioneer enterprise, in which your family were members, failed after Stephen Wise appropriated their farming equipment in retaliation for their having leased their farmlands to cattlemen, who were the enemies of the farmers.
No the Rabbi in question was Issac Wise and his son Leo. Unlike the experiments elsewhere, the colonists acquired their land, but not their equipment, under one of the Homestead Acts. So it was theirs to dispose of, in whatever way they saw fit. link to fhsu.edu
The Jewish colony in Newport Arkansas was decimated when 90 percent of the members became ill with malaria and yellow fever. Everyone left within a year for other parts of the United States. link to isjl.org
Many of the colonies in western Kansas were simply not profitable – even with the advice of a farmer who had been sent there by the Hebrew Union Agricultural Society. The colonists lacked raw materials and lived in mud dugouts and sod homes. Most simply took better jobs with the railroads and eventually sold their land and left for better parts of the country. link to skyways.lib.ks.us
Director Jones was mistaken. He was probably relying on the confessions (by torture) of the Iraqi Jews arrested in the plot. Teddy Kolleck’s reply cannot be deemed as an admission. His reply was not on point and he was probably not in the position to know what happened in Baghdad to begin with.
In hindsight, it appears as if the Zionists were not libel for the bombings. See Moshe Gat. At worst, a rogue Zionist may have harmlessly thrown a bomb AFTER the initial bombings and arrests, and then, only to cast doubt on his friend’s arrests.
So your family weren’t victimized by a ‘get rich quick’ scheme but, nonetheless, felt qualified to call Zionism a ‘get rich quick’ scheme.
Interesting how sick and destitute Jews, in early 20th century rural America could have gleaning so much insight into a contemporaneous political movement going on thousands of miles away.
“that Shiloah’s Mossad was trying to grab their impressive assets.” (page 38).
No. Hostage. I read on page 38, “As had Arthur Ben-Natan an his Political Department operatives the previous year, Aliyah B’s staff members objected. They charged that Shiloah’s Mossad was trying to grab their impressive assets.”
This is political infighting and poaching charges leveled by Aliyah B as against the newly formed Mossad, not a claim by Iraqi Jewry.
Giladi blames Ben Gurion for deliberately sinking the Jewish refugee ship Strouma, a ship that had really been torpedoed by a Soviet submarine operating in the Black Sea during WW2.
Please.
To rely on a lunatic like Giladi makes one what? Gullible?
Poorly planned immigration plans by Baron Hirsch and a paternalistic Baron Rothschild, are not examples of ‘get rich quick’ schemes and exploitation of colonists.
The ‘complaint letters’ you cite, that were published by the Jewish Chronicle only concerned late 19th century Jewish immigration to Argentina, not Palestine.
The Jewish White-slave trade in Argentina also has nothing to do with Zionism.
BTW. Giladi, fruitcake that he was, also accused Ben Gurion of sinking the World War II Jewish refugee ship, Strouma, which historians have long known was sunk by a Soviet submarine operating in the Black Sea.
Whatever.
So your family weren’t victimized by a ‘get rich quick’ scheme but, nonetheless, felt qualified to call Zionism a ‘get rich quick’ scheme.
I supplied you with links to articles which said that Rabbi Isaac M. Wise appealed to the Cincinnati community to provide funds to send Jewish refugees to Beersheba. The article noted that 1) the Rabbi’s son, Leo, just so happened to be put in charge of leading the group to Kansas; 2) after their arrival, merchants, hotels, and railroad agents took advantage of the group’s situation by charging them more for their rooms, food, and the supplies (that the colonial society purchased on their behalf); 3) the society sent a superintendent, named Baum, who could confiscate their equipment at any time if he thought they weren’t doing well; and 4) the colonists didn’t get along with Baum. link to fhsu.edu
The immigrants were treated like indentured servants on their own government homesteads. My grandmother and others said that when their parents took other jobs or leased their lands, they would find fires set in their pastures or in their fields and that their equipment was vandalized. The superintendent would show up shortly after these setbacks and demand return of the damaged items and claim compensation for the societies’ losses. Here is an article from the local newspaper which explains that:
See Amy Bickel, The Hutchinson News, “Colonies here didn’t last long”, 13 August 2011, http://hutchnews.com/todaystop/Rural-Routes–Jewish
I notice that you’re not responding to the reports in Jewish newspapers, periodicals, and books about the many Jewish immigrants that were swindled by scams, high fees, or impoverish and oppressed by one of the colonial societies and their agents. Instead, you’re trying to engage in pilpul to reframe the discussion.
Interesting how sick and destitute Jews, in early 20th century rural America could have gleaning so much insight into a contemporaneous political movement going on thousands of miles away.
Okay, I’ll bite. My family didn’t loose any large sums of money when the Stock Market crashed in 1929 either. Although Wall Street was 1500 miles away, they nonetheless heard reliable reports about it and felt qualified to call it a “financial disaster”.
FYI, my grandparents had siblings who immigrated to Palestine. Like everyone else, they were pressed into compulsory service in the underground militias and there were few regular jobs outside of the organs, subsidiaries, and businesses operated by the Zionist Organization or the Jewish Agency for Palestine. They encountered plenty of examples of scandals and scams and relayed the news and gossip about events there to the rest of the family. Then, as now, events in Palestine were also fodder for all of the Jewish newspapers, periodicals, and yearbooks in Europe and here in the Americas.
Director Jones was mistaken. He was probably relying on the confessions (by torture) of the Iraqi Jews arrested in the plot. Teddy Kolleck’s reply cannot be deemed as an admission. . . . At worst, a rogue Zionist may have harmlessly thrown a bomb AFTER the initial bombings and arrests, and then, only to cast doubt on his friend’s arrests.
Apply Occam’s razor and let the document speak for itself. In any event, after the S.S. Patria and Lavon Affairs you really need to find a better explanation than the dissimulation, hasbara, and rogue Zionist stories.
You said:
“They thought, with more than a little justification, that settlement in Palestine was just another “get rich quick scheme” put together by a criminal syndicate of bankers, gangsters, and crooked union bosses who employed talk about religious destiny and collective national ownership as tinsel to attract the necessary source of cheap indentured labor.”
And I replied:
Baron’s Hirsch and Rabbi Issac Wise’s plans were to relocate destitute Jews to Argentina and the United States respectively. These efforts were not Zionism as the merely transplanted Jews from one sovereign country to another. Whether or not they were exploited is irrelevent to Zionism. Similarly, Jewish White slave trades isn’t Zionism.
I pointed out the Giladi claims are baseless or irrational and I referred you to Moshe Gat and your referred me to Ocxam’s Razor.
I pointed out that your cite to Raviv and Melman’s book was inaccurate.
Similarly, Herzl’s delusions of grandeur are irrelevent to whether or not Zionism was a “get rich quick scheme’, whereas the fact that his family died destitute militates against your claim.
Without a cite, I cannot comment on your claim that Anglo-Palestine charged exhorbitant sums to exchange currency. You did provide a cite which explains that:
‘thousands of European Jews opened accounts at Anglo-Palestine Bank….Under British Mandate regulations the funds were later frozen, classified as belonging to residents of enemy countries. While many account owners and heirs had been lead to believe the money was transferred to Britain, it was later discovered it had never left the country. A lawsuit recently filed in Jerusalem’s Magistrate’s Court alleges Anglo-Palestine Bank’s successor, Bank Leumi is withholding information on some 6,000 accounts worth $120 million.
In January 18, 2000, Bank Leumi admitted to holding 13,000 unclaimed accounts worth NIS 7.8 million, many of which are believed to belong to victims of Nazi atrocities. ”
Okay. So the British Mandate froze assets of immigrant Jews and subsequent to World War II, Leumi, a private bank, hid assets.
So Zionism is culpable for the actions of the British Mandate and a private bank?
Did the Mandate oversee the charging of exorbitant currency rates by the Anglo-Palestine bank? Dunno. You haven’t provided a cite.
Baron’s Hirsch and Rabbi Issac Wise’s plans were to relocate destitute Jews to Argentina and the United States respectively. These efforts were not Zionism as the merely transplanted Jews from one sovereign country to another. Whether or not they were exploited is irrelevent to Zionism. Similarly, Jewish White slave trades isn’t Zionism. Whether or not they were exploited is irrelevent to Zionism. Similarly, Jewish White slave trades isn’t Zionism.
Actually those are all characteristics of the type of charlatans who preached and practiced Zionism in that era. Hundreds of little societies, cooperatives, and so-called “unions” hung out their shingles and went into business operating scams and rackets. Ben Gurion himself worked as a union organizer in Plosnk, with other young revolutionaries. They extorted money for Palestine from wealthy Jews at gunpoint. Then he went to Palestine and helped found a union there that became synonymous with systematic corruption. link to books.google.com
You still have not addressed the fact that a multitude of sources, including Herzl himself (in Der Judenstaat), said that a great period of prosperity would commence in countries which were anti-Semitic when the multitudes of Jews departed and that Zionists would harness that antisemitism as the engine to drive their political movement.
But let’s cut to the chase. Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman describe the situation at the time of the Iraq synagogue bombings in 1951 and say that the Iraqi community, not just Galidi, suspected the Mossad. They say that Ha’Mossad Le’Aliya Bet (a branch of the Jewish Agency Haganah) was a global economic empire. They say there was nothing like it before or since. That’s a complete non-sequitur. From 1949-1951 the Jewish Agency was bankrupt. The 7th and 8th Sittings of the First Knesset in March of 1949 were devoted to a $100 million US Credit Loan. By 1950, the Zionist Organization had turned to the US Congress for $150 million in emergency grant aid, because the economy had collapsed, and there was no housing, food, or shelter for the hundreds of thousands of refugees who were literally facing death by starvation and exposure to the elements in many cases. At the same time, the Ha’Mossad Le’Aliya Bet supposedly had vast assets and could purchase 50 ships with crews just to deliver arms and ammunition alone, while at one and the same time, transporting those multitudes of refugees to Israel. There were contemporary reports from Jewish journalists that charitable donations for refugees were diverted to paid propagandists, political activities, and massive frauds that siphoned-off millions from the Keren Hayesod. I’ll post one such account separately. Please explain to us, where did that Mossad money come from, and why did it suddenly disappear when there were no more multitudes of panic-stricken Jewish refugees?
If we go to a typical Ha’Mossad Le’Aliya Bet website, they say that they cooperated with governments who wanted to get rid of their Jews and that they couldn’t have carried out their efforts on such a vast scale without that cooperation. That is exactly the modus operandi Herzl proposed. More importantly, they admit there was moral hazard involved in their corrupt system of financing:
link to palyam.org
We know that the Zionists were business partners with the Third Reich and that they profited off the assets of the refugees in that situation. There’s no reason to doubt that the Zionists collaborated with other governments to do the same thing in other situations in Europe. In fact, Hannah Arendt wrote about that collaboration in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem. In the case of the Arab countries, holocaust historian Rafael Medoff documents a number of Jewish Agency schemes to raise money from the US and other partners to bribe various Arab government officials so that they would cooperate in facilitating their massive plans for forced population exchanges. See Baksheesh Diplomacy: Secret Negotiations Between American Jewish Leaders and Arab Officials on the Eve of World War II. Lexington Books, 2001
I pointed out the Giladi claims are baseless or irrational and I referred you to Moshe Gat and your referred me to Ocxam’s Razor.
No, his claims can’t be “irrational”, because we know of several instances, like the Lavon Affair, the bombing of the Patria, and various hotels and movie theaters in Jerusalem, where the Jewish Agency or the government of Israel carried out similar terrorist bombing schemes against Jews. There’s also undeniable documentary evidence that the state’s own banking institution concealed inactive accounts and charged refugees exorbitant currency exchange rates. I referred you to an Encyclopedia Judaica article and a New York State Banking report about that situation and:
*A State department memo which documents the fact that the United States government warned the Ambassador of Israel against starting another mass exodus of Jews from Iran, like the one Israel had initiated in Iraq. The Israeli Ambassador said the government of Israel considered Iraq and other countries better off in the long run with a ethnically homogenous population. Note: Medoff’s book documents the fact that the US government colluded with Jewish Agency officials and volunteered to help fund Arab population exchange and transfer schemes.
*Michael Fishbach’s book documents that agents of the Jewish Agency were responsible for initiating mass exodus from Tunisia and other North African communities – and that those refugees were able to find ways to flee with their assets to Israel.
Did the Mandate oversee the charging of exorbitant currency rates by the Anglo-Palestine bank? Dunno. You haven’t provided a cite.
I did provide evidence that the Zionists earned windfall profits from the refugees. What moral difference does it make if the Brits helped them do that?
P.S. Here is a report about the dire financial situation in 1950-1951, when Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman say the Mossad was a global economic empire. Note that it covers a scandal involving two Keren Hayesod Executive Board members, who granted themselves private ownership of a $2.5 million subsidiary company that had been established using communal funds.
Writing in Israel’s Impact, 1950-1951: A Personal Record” journalist Alan Lesser said:
– link to books.google.com
That is either a classic example of moral hazard and fraud for personal gain or its an example of diverting money for clandestine, “dirty” purposes. In any case, the cover story doesn’t pass the laugh test.
In January 18, 2000, Bank Leumi admitted to holding 13,000 unclaimed accounts worth NIS 7.8 million, many of which are believed to belong to victims of Nazi atrocities. ”
But several private and government commissions that looked at the evidence concluded that figure was wrong. The attorneys for the victim’s heirs and estates said that they were simply “cutting their losses” when they settled the bulk of the claims. Bank Leumi and the government of Israel have always been a day late and a dollar short paying out the money they owe the Holocuast survivors and their estates.
Without a cite, I cannot comment on your claim that Anglo-Palestine charged exhorbitant sums to exchange currency.
I gave you a citation Encylopedia Judaica which said that the Bank charged a transaction fee of up to 50 percent and that it was used to subsidize the Palestinian importers against financial losses and to help them price their products more competitively. Are you simply illiterate, or don’t you know how government franchised monopolies are exploited for windfall profits by political cronies?
I pointed out that your cite to Raviv and Melman’s book was inaccurate.
No you ignored the fact that the Jewish Agency was using dirty sources of funding and operating a global economic empire, while it was supposedly flat broke.
You also ignored the fact that, when the Iraqi and Egyptian governments arrested and convicted indigenous Jews for acts of terror committed during the Lavon Affair and Synagouge bombings, they confiscated Mossad-supplied weapons. If it was irrational to suspect Mossad involvement, then why in both cases, did Ben Gurion appoint state commissions, in order to exonerate the intelligence agency of any direct role or involvement?
We now know that Israel deliberately lied about the role of Mossad in the Egyptian debacle. In any event, here is ample proof from Raviv and Melman’s book that Giladi was not alone in suspecting Mossad supplied the large weapons caches that were captured in Iraq and that it was widely suspected that it was responsible for the terror attacks:
That’s hardly relevant, since Melman and Raviv have accused Mossad of using non-Jewish proxies, like the Iranian MEK or Kurdisk PKK operatives, to carrying out attacks in support of its recent and on-going terror operations.
Obsidian, your logic makes NO sense. Similarly, Herzl’s delusions of grandeur are irrelevent to whether or not Zionism was a “get rich quick scheme’, whereas the fact that his family died destitute militates against your claim.
Lots of (and maybe most) get-rich-quick schemers die poor. Madoff’s family will be poor.
Herzl had a life of scheming for events and attention. He was such am embarrassment that the Jewish community in Munich refused to have anything to do with the first Zionist Congress. So instead of Munich, it was held in a casino in Basel.
Before he got onto his Zionist gig, he had this bizarre plan for all the Jews of Vienna to be baptized as Christians in a mass ceremony. And yes, money was involved in that plan as well.
Point is, your arguments and leaps of logic and projection in this debate make little or no sense. The Herzle-died-poor-so-that proves he was not into a get rich quick scheme is just an example.
Giladi blames Ben Gurion for deliberately sinking the Jewish refugee ship Strouma, a ship that had really been torpedoed by a Soviet submarine operating in the Black Sea during WW2.
Please.
To rely on a lunatic like Giladi makes one what? Gullible?
Correction: Giladi did not blame Ben Gurion for sinking the Strouma. He noted on page 42 that in connection with the Patria:
1) the Jewish Agency gambled with the lives of the passengers on board the Patria by refusing to admit them into Palestine with the 29,000 unused immigrant visas they had on hand at the time;
2) the the Haganah took an enormous explosive charge onto the vessel to prevent the British from taking the 1,700 refugees to the island of Mauritius;
3) that reports say between 250 and 300 passengers, crew, and policemen were drowned when the ship sank.
In connection with the Struma, pages 42-43:
1) The refugees on board Struma were being sent by a man named Stouffer who was not a regular Zionist emissary;
2) Stouffer would raise money and hire ships to send anyone who wanted to escape the Nazi hell and that this violated the rules used in the Jewish Agency selection process;
3) That the Jewish Agency refused to use the 25,000 unused entry permits to allow them to continue the journey to Palestine;
4) That the ship lacked any supplies and was eventually towed to sea by the Turkish Authorities, were it was subsequently sunk;
3) Gildai cites a number of “theories” which he says were not correct in light of Shabeti Ben Zvi’s research on the matter, including the inadvertent sinking by a Soviet submarine and an act of deliberate terror as in the case of the Patria;
4) He notes that “another theory” emerged, which surprised no one, that the had the Jewish Agency placed the saving of lives above its own political goals it would not have sunk this ship, and that Moshe Sherrets remarks (about the Patria) had confirmed that the Zionists had chosen to arouse public opinion using the plight of these refugees.
Here is a verbatim quote
http://archive.org/stream/Ben-gurionScandals–HowTheHagannahAndTheMossadEliminatedJews/giladi#page/n43/mode/2up
The ‘complaint letters’ you cite, that were published by the Jewish Chronicle only concerned late 19th century Jewish immigration to Argentina, not Palestine.
That’s false. The complaints dealt with agents in Europe, and Hirsh used the same ones for his colonies in Palestine. I also responded to your request by pointing out that the Land Code would have allowed the Ottoman subjects to homestead on unused land and acquire it by simply cultivating it. The colonial associations and the Jewish Agency usually kept their immigrants from obtaining the lands they cultivated and eventually signed them over to the JNF. I cited a very specific example of Romanian immigrants to a PJCA colony who were dependent on stipends and oppressed by their overseers. I noted that the JCA still owned the land of its colonies when it ceased operations and that the immigrants ended-up owing it substantial sums of money.
“By the late 1890s, there was nothing new about the idea of founding a chartered colonial company and fleecing religious pilgrims and the destitute, while forcing them into indentured servitude.”
Yes, yes, yes! Why is Zionism always discussed as if it was sui generis?
The Strouma was sunk by a Soviet submarine.
link to amazon.com
The sinking of the Patria was not an act of ‘terrorism’, as Giladi claims. The Zionists had only meant to disable the Patria and prevent her from leaving for British Mauritius with her refugee passengers. She sunk accidentally when too large an explosive charge was used.
There you go again, Obsidian. The sinking of the the Patria by Zionists was not terrorism because they claim by accident the explosive load was too great.
Right. Any size explosion on a packed ship would have a high likelyhood of sinking. Even if they used firecrackers, it was a terrorist act!
Keep on debating with your insane arguments. The more you do so, the more it shows the deranged thinking behind Zionist apologetics.
The sinking of the Patria was not an act of ‘terrorism’, as Giladi claims. The Zionists had only meant to disable the Patria and prevent her from leaving for British Mauritius with her refugee passengers.
The motive for using a bomb to disable a maritime vessel or conveyance would be irrelevant, but attempting to prevent a government from carrying out a policy decision through intimidation or coercion is terrorism.
In addition, when any person sets off an explosive charge on a ship or other public conveyance with the intention of deliberately causing damage substantial enough to disable the vessel, that would satisfy the necessary elements of the international crime of a “terrorist bombing” contained in the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 15 December 1997. The government of Israel obviously agrees, it signed the treaty on 29 Jan 1999 and ratified it on 10 Feb 2003.
* link to treaties.un.org
* link to treaties.un.org
The Strouma was sunk by a Soviet submarine.
Let’s be clear. The Strouma was safely towed into Istanbul on December 15, 1941. The refugees sat there for two full months waiting for the Jewish Agency to issue them some of its 29,000 unused entry permits. During that time the British government agreed to allow passengers with expired visas to complete the journey by overland route to Palestine.
The Turkish officials refused to permit the other passengers to disembark. They and the Strouma were finally towed-out to sea on February 23, 1942 and it was torpedoed on the 24th. But for the actions of the Jewish Agency in withholding the readily available entry permits, all of the passengers could have completed the overland trip from Turkey to Palestine.
What Giladi accused the Zionists of doing was:
1) screening and choosing only those Jewish immigrants who met their criteria for work in the settlements;
2) recklessly gambling with other peoples lives for political purposes in order to arouse world public opinion in favor of so-called “unrestricted immigration”; and
3) Responsibility (causation) for the unnecessary loss of life and the sinking of the ships.
According to proponents of Haavara, while some immigrants did lose up to 35 percent of their capital, they would have lost more had they tried to transfer their capital in any other legal way.
See, Tom Segev, Seventh Million, pg. 22, citing to Werner Feilchenfeld, Dolf Michaelis, Ludwig Pinner: Haavara-Transfer nach Palästina und Einwanderung deutscher Juden 1933–1939, Tübingen, 1972, p.76.
So it’s really up to the green eye shade guys. Right Hostage?
Bottom line. The Haavara Agreement between the Zionists and the Nazis saved the lives of over 20,000 German Jews.
According to proponents of Haavara, while some immigrants did lose up to 35 percent of their capital, they would have lost more had they tried to transfer their capital in any other legal way. . . . The Haavara Agreement between the Zionists and the Nazis saved the lives of over 20,000 German Jews.
Correction: The German foreign currency control laws allowed any Jewish émigré to take an amount of currency equivalent to the 1000 Palestinian Pounds that were needed to freely enter Palestine as a “capitalist” under the applicable British laws. The Haavara Agreement only stipulated that in cases where the Emigration Advisory Office confirmed on behalf of a wealthy Jew that “further sums of money were necessary and adequate for the purpose of starting a new life in Palestine, and that the minimum amount of 1000 Palestinian Pounds required for immigration into Palestine was insufficient”, the person could be granted an additional excess sum in any amount on condition that it was paid at the Reichsbank into the Special Jewish Trust Account. None of that was possible if the poor Jew didn’t already possess the 1000 Palestinian Pounds in hand that would guarantee entry into Palestine.
So the Haavara Agreement only rescued rich people’s money, not their lives, and the Havaara partners were guaranteed windfall profits under the arrangements. That was because there was no other legal way to transfer excess amounts of Jewish assets out of Germany. In other words, the “proponents” you are talking about obtained a franchised public monopoly for themselves alone from their business partners in the Third Reich under the terms of Circular 54/1933 of the Reich Ministry of Finance, August 28, 1933.
There isn’t any question that Jewish and other emigres lost 25 percent of their assets under the terms of the German “Flight Tax” that was adopted in 1931. Here is how the US Holocaust Museum describes the situation: :
– link to ushmm.org
I’ve already cited the Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group which says the rate of exchange was adjusted by the Haavara according to the disagio and that it had increased from the original 6 percent in 1933 to 50 percent in 1938. That was never attributable to depreciation in the value of the Reich mark alone. It was supposedly “necessitated by the subsidy which the Haavara granted the Palestinian importers” to help them more effectively compete against other non-subsidized imports. So we are talking about a subsidized monopoly that passed all the losses along to the émigrés and charged them transaction and management fees. The disagio was an additional loss incurred by the Jewish émigrés over and above the 25 percent flight tax, i.e. 25+ 50 = 75 percent. You don’t need “the green eye shade guys” to tell the difference between a 35 percent loss and a 75 percent one.
I think it’s pretty obvious that the émigrés would have saved themselves a great deal of money, if they had only been permitted to buy and sell the equipment themselves – without all of the subsidized middle men. But there is certainly no basis for the proponents claim that they would have done worse if other legal avenues had been available.
The Haavara Agreement is far more nuanced than Hostage makes it out to.
First, the Zionist’s interest in obtaining German-Jewish capital was not to ‘feather their own nests’, but to expand the absorptive capability of the fledgling yishuv in Palestine.
“In this sense, the Transfer Agreement, which proposed to salvage as much Jewish capital as possible and use it to expand the absorption capacity of Palestine, proved to be a correct and farsighted measure, even if it did not provide a solution for German Jewry as a whole.” 1
-and-
“The money that the Transfer Agreement would bring to the Yishuv was needed to help build the economic infrastructure with which the country could absorb the out-flux of Jews from Germany.”2
Second. The Transfer Agreement could not have produced the windfall profits for the Jewish Agency that Hostage claims.
“The Transfer Agreement remained in effect throughout these years, although difficulties in implementing it emerged. The root of these difficulties was the inability of the fledgling economy of Palestine to absorb Jewish capital in the form of goods. Consequently, an attempt was made to expand the sphere of trade from Palestine to the entire Middle East.”3
1,2,3. Yf’aat Weiss, ‘The Transfer Agreement and the Boycott Movement:
A Jewish Dilemma on the Eve of the Holocaust’. Yad Vashem Studies Vol. XXVI, Jerusalem 1998, pp 129-172
Lastly, it is doubtful that the Zionist proponents of the Transfer could have
‘swindled’ German Jewry considering the highly contentious, highly politicized nature of the Transfer Agreement whose merits had been publicly debated within the yishuv and actively opposed by the ‘Boycott Zionists’, including the Revisionists.
Obsidian, the Zionists and the State of Israel have systematically ripped-off Holocaust survivors. Studies have shown that Israel nationalized the claims and established an enormous bureaucracy that doesn’t even have list of the survivors or care if they are being paid any benefits. They would be better-off living in almost any other western country.
*Report: Better to be a Holocaust Survivor Outside Israel: Boaz Arad of the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies says that Israeli Holocaust survivors have a harder time receiving compensation.
According to Boaz Arad, a researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies who published a paper on the property rights of Holocaust survivors in Israel, it appears as though it might be better for Holocaust survivors to live outside of Israel.
“Being a Holocaust survivor in Israel puts you in a very difficult spot,” Arad told INN TV. “On average, every Holocaust survivor who is supposed to receive a handicapped rent, will suffer from a sum of 1.6 million shekels that will be omitted from his payment because of the fact that he’s living in Israel and the payment is not made directly to him.”
The reason for this, explained Arad, was the decision to nationalize the payments being made to survivors. “Israel took charge of all the payments made by Germany as compensation,” he said. “This is the reason that Israeli survivors are suffering from poor treatment, from a lot of bureaucracy and from a lack of funding that they are supposed to get.”
Arad’s report also notes that certain properties in Israeli cities like Tel Aviv, which today are home to bases which belong to the army and the Ministry of Defense, were originally meant for Holocaust survivors.
“Part of the compensation agreement was that all the Templer [a group of German Protestants who set up colonies in then Palestine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries -ed.] properties in Israel were supposed to be part of the agreement in order to compensate the survivors,” he explained. “These properties, which are worth millions of dollars, are actually in the hands of the Israeli army.”
Arad believes that the reason for this situation is that “Israel was established with a lot of socialistic influence and a sense of urgency and surviving, but right now I think we need to reconsider our behavior towards the survivors who are with us today.”
He noted that “two thirds of the survivors perished without getting any compensation. There are resources, there are many agencies that are taking care of the survivors, but we need the guiding hand that will tie all these agencies together, save the duplication in cost, and give them a real service.”
link to israelnationalnews.com
66 years later, state still unsure who to call a ‘survivor’: Lawmakers try to push legislation that will create official authority to maintain database, improve treatment of survivors before they pass away.
link to jpost.com
Holocaust survivors’ benefits cut, but Israeli foundation officials earn big: The Foundation for Holocaust Survivors in Israel informs beneficiaries that due to its shortage of funds, they will no longer receive financial support for urgent medical needs, while management salaries and expenses make up half of the foundation’s deficit.
link to haaretz.com
*Police: Employees embezzled millions from Holocaust fund: Some 10 people arrested following lengthy undercover investigation over suspicions they pocketed funds from association for Holocaust survivors
link to ynetnews.com
No further proof needed that zionism is a racket. You can take away your messianism, your mitzvot, your chosen people guff and replace it all with the fact they didn’t even look after the people who made it all possible. Their own people. Appalling.
I have no reason to doubt anything you’ve said regarding Holocaust reparations, about which I know nothing.
But that wasn’t what we were discussing. We were discussing the Haavara Agreement and your families claim that, “that settlement in Palestine was just another “get rich quick scheme” put together by a criminal syndicate..”
Perhaps you should refute the findings in the Y’faat Weiss article I cited before moving on to the subject of Holocaust reparations.
Hostage, you are a treasure!
And Obsidian should change his name to Obtuse.
seafoid,
All messianic ethnic and religious cults are basically rackets and criminal enterprises designed to enrich the leaders (self-appointed priesthoods) of these cults. All of these cults rely on large pools of exceedingly gullible people, of which apparently there is no end.
@Seafoid
Tens of thousands of Jews were saved from the Holocaust by the Zionists.
What did Ireland do for the Jews?
link to independent.ie
I have no reason to doubt anything you’ve said regarding Holocaust reparations, about which I know nothing.
Let’s see, you were also clueless about the fact that:
*Zionists, including Ben Gurion extorted money for Palestine from other Jews at gunpoint;
*Jewish colonists in Palestine were treated as indentured labor, were oppressed, owed large sums of money to the colonial societies, and that land ownership accrued to the interest of the Zionist organization, its subsidiaries, and cronies, not to the individual immigrants;
*Jewish periodicals and newspapers had exposed pervasive fraud among Zionist agents in Europe and publicly called upon the colonial societies to abandon their programs for non-systematic, individual immigration.
*Owners of government franchised monopolies, like colonial charters or the Havaara agreement, usually employ them to generate guaranteed profits;
*Members of Mossad Aliyah Bet readily admit that their global economic empire was funded from “dirty sources”;
*The Jewish Agency and the government of Israel played an active role in triggering the mass exodus of Jews from Arab and Muslim countries.
*The interlocking directorates of the Zionist colonial trust companies, banks, federation of labor unions, holocaust reparation funds, and Keren Hayesod have been widely criticized for moral hazard and numerous scandals involving fraud, embezzlement, and other corrupt practices.
I’m not getting rich off invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan or Mali myself, but I see the amassing of weapons and hoarding of land/resources/labor and the pigs at the top exactly as Hostage describes the zionist project: “get rich quick” (or colonizing). It looks clear to me.
As for the main topic of this post, Americans are no benchmark for what “liberal” means. People tell me they are liberal and proudly voted for Obama, but I don’t actually see any liberals anywhere here.
Maybe I just didn’t know what it means, in which case, “liberal zionist” makes perfect sense.
“Maybe I just didn’t know what it means”
I don’t know what it means in the American context, either. (Here in Australia they are members of the Liberal party, which is very conservative.)
On most of the blogs I read, Americans seem to hate “liberals” and blame them for everything. They never say what liberals are, though. I suspect they are mythical creatures. Some sort of demon, perhaps.
“On most of the blogs I read, Americans seem to hate “liberals” and blame them for everything. They never say what liberals are, though.”
I’m one, RoHa. So you can easily see why they’re blamed for a lot.
I think Cook has a sound analysis, namely:
1. Most liberal Zionists(at least those who are more active in the political arena) will probably choose pure ethnic Zionism if given a choice, at least initially. Partly this is because that is where Israel is heading right now, among the masses. Relatives, friends etc. Being right can be a socially isolating experience in a society where you are dependent upon others, specifically close family.
2. Many of them, also, are probably not that liberal to begin with. Even Beinart is teaming up with Dershowitz these days. He comes across as less liberal by the day. Look at the (de)volution of J Street. The same phenomenom. The former head of Reform Judaism in the U.S. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who has written glowingly how he “just doesn’t want to live with too many Arabs”.
I also think Cook is right in that it would have to get a lot worse before it could get better. But it is interesting to note that his analysis on improvement rests more on the effects of social punishment than any interior and self-motivating force. In other words, he does not think there will be an internal force of liberalism coming from the Jewish community.
My response to that is; maybe in Israel, but America is a different story.
”2. Many of them, also, are probably not that liberal to begin with. Even Beinart is teaming up with Dershowitz these days. He comes across as less liberal by the day. Look at the (de)volution of J Street. The same phenomenom. The former head of Reform Judaism in the U.S. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who has written glowingly how he “just doesn’t want to live with too many Arabs”.
Absolutely true.
I’ve found it so so many times when in discussions with self-styled ‘liberal Zionists’. Scratch a ‘liberal’ and you’ll find a Dershowitz. I’ve had so many on-line conversations with Israelis who want me to be believe they’re oh-so-moderate – and that most Israelis are too – but investigate just a teeny bit and it’ll quickly become obvious that they believe the ‘settlements’ ‘have to stay in Israel’, that the IDF is the world’s most moral army, that Palestinians teach their children to hate, and all the other nonsense associated with hard-core Zionism.
That’s why I said above that there is no such thing as liberal Zionism. It is essentially Zionism which refuses to own up to the very un-liberal reality that is, and always has been, Zionism.
“I said above that there is no such thing as liberal Zionism. It is essentially Zionism which refuses to own up to the very un-liberal reality that is, and always has been, Zionism”.
You put it in a great nutshell for many of us, thanks.
Of course there is no such thing as liberal Zionism (if there is, I have yet to see it in action). It’s a ‘entry drug’, a rhetorical department of Zionism, similarly to the way ‘male right activists’ use the few examples they are of male discrimination in the Western world to wean you into their cesspit of misogyny.
AhVee, research seems to indicate that PEP pilpuls can be a gateway drug for a full-on Ziocaine syndrome.
Mooser, what are PEP pilpuls, and why so complicated? A severe blow to the head probably has that effect, too.
“Mooser, what are PEP pilpuls, and why so complicated?”
AhVee, earlier in the 20th century, amphetmine pills were known as “pep” pills because they stimulate. pilpul is a Yiddish or Hebrew word for, aproximtely, circular reasoning. “PEP” as used here, means ‘progressive except for Palestine’
And as far as Ziocaine goes, you can look it up. It seems to go pretty far.
I see, thanks, goes to show you learn something new every day. I’m familiar with the term pilpul only through my religious studies, the PEP threw me off, though now I vaguely understand what’s implied. Not sure if you’re old enough to answer that question, but could you spare a moment to tell someone born in the late 80′s around what time amphetamine was called PEP? Sounds 70′s to me, along with rad and groovy. :,)
“Not sure if you’re old enough to answer that question, but could you spare a moment to tell someone born in the late 80′s around what time amphetamine was called PEP? Sounds 70′s to me, along with rad and groovy. :,)”
Small pills (sometimes called “cross tops”?) of amphetamine sulfate were called “pep pills”. They were supposed to stimulate, and give one “pep”. “Amphetamine was first synthesized in 1887…” Scroll down to “history”.
What a great interview — much more substantive and insightful than what can be found on NPR, Bill Maher’s Real Time or even Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now. (Of course MSNBC and CNN aren’t even in the running.)
Jonathan Cook’s insights into Avigdor Lieberman’s strategic thinking were especially percipient.
My own prediction: most liberal Zionists, after being forced to face up to their self-contradictions — as inevitably they will be — will side with Zionism over liberalism, and even over modern Western democratic values. They will try to push the United States and the West towards the hard racist and fascist right, relying heavily on Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism to push their program forward. Actually, this process has already been in motion for several decades now in American and European politics.
And then what? If the policies they promote lead to disastrous consequences for the United States and Europe we will possibly be looking at a major new historical wave of classical antisemitism — a development which many Zionists would welcome. Think about that: Judeo-Christian Armageddonists would succeed in achieving their messianic and apocalyptic mission — with the aid of “liberals.”
Zionism has the potential to trigger the biggest explosion of antisemitism in world history to date. That is my prophecy — and it is based on a rational strategic calculus.
Regarding your prophecy, I don’t think it will go that way. I think the natural constituency for any future American fascism is precisely the group of people you are talking about–the Islamophobes and Palestinian-haters. The demonizing and rhetoric and paranoia are already there, manifesting even in stupid ways (like the belief that Obama is a Muslim and therefore bad–I don’t like Obama myself, but that is neither here nor there.)
You’re postulating that if far right policies fail, there will be a backlash and people will turn anti-semitic. I don’t think so. When far right policies fail, the far right blames the people they already hate. And I don’t imagine the Americans who don’t hate Muslims now are going to decide to start hating Jews. They might become intensely critical of Israel, but that’s a different thing, as we ourselves are forever pointing out. The people inclined to demonize entire groups have already made their choice as to which group they are going to demonize. Hating Jews is out– in fact, supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism are the excuses for hating Muslims. These folks take fascist positions in the name of fighting (Islamo)fascism. They don’t even recognize the irony, they are so wrapped up in their paranoia.
I agree with Donald.
Antisemitism is out. We live in the most philo-semitic society on the planet.
Jews are part and parcel of the Establishment.
It’s Muslims, Arabs, and Islam that are under attack and will only continue to be attacked as the discussion becomes more ‘democratized’.
“Hating Jews is out– in fact, supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism are the excuses for hating Muslims. “…Donald
Dont count on that…haters are haters period. I think the existence of anti semitism is over- hyped and exaggerated …but Americans or any people can turn on a dime and become a mob in a heart beat with a big enough incitement or provocation.
And I disagree that Israel is the ‘excuse’ for hating Muslims….be leery of the propaganda that America was always anti Arab, it wasn’t….the current anti Islam came directly from 911 and the zionist promotion of evil Arabs…..the zionist were promoting the evilness of Arabs even before 911…since the inception of Israel. Look up what Leon Hadar at the Cato Institute has written on this.
bullshit American
This isn’t the 20s or 30s and it isn’t Reconstruction.
Jews are part of the Establishment. They contribute to popular culture. They are ‘White’ most importantly.
So to think Americans are going to turn on them overnight (that they have it in them to I suppose) is bullshit.
Think of how old you are and how old the youngest anti-Zionist non-Jew or non-Arab is. Or what it took a White, Christian, conservative – who is young – to criticize Israel meaningfully and to eventually transition to anti-Zionism.
It’s hard enough for just an ordinary person to do so. It’s hard enough to get political on a touchy issue with so many ethnocentric gatekeepers, violent extremists and all the rest – ALL AMIDST the identity politics of our morally bankrupt political culture.
It’s always worthwhile to hear someone explain how they became an anti-Zionist. Things don’t happen out of thin air. And your identifiers matter.
Ask yourself if it is EASY (in that there is an inclination towards anti-Zionism in the average American) to turn against Israel and the Zionist project.
Because I think in the case of Islam, ‘the war on terror’, etc. it is EASY to get motivated and to agree with the majority view on the matter. It’s saturated in our culture.
And how long before all the cheap shots taken at Muslims in movies and books and by intellectual gatekeepers – as well as the genuine crazy stuff Islamists do, which in-turn degrades Islam in it’s entirety in the eyes of the simple-minded (incapable of nuance and delineating Islam, Islamists, and the political context integral to both and ALL) MORPH into outright hate?
In the anti-Zionist ‘movement’ or ‘community’ which is the same as just being ‘involved’ or ‘interested’ in the Israel-Palestine conflict – there are plenty of pressures and checks and balances that prevent people from going overboard and becoming antisemitic.
For one, Jews are a part of the movement and a lot of Jews have contributed the most scathing critiques of Zionism. Another is the association of anti-Zionism with minority issues, gender equality, environmentalism, etc.
Is the SAME TRUE for the war on terror crowd?
Which is more saturated in our culture? Call of Duty? Or… oh yea, there is no ‘intellectual’ equivalent for the other side.
Don’t be flippant about this. There is NO PHANTOM ANTISEMITISM (the phantom menace) in American society. It’s a farce to think so.
While anything is possible – GET REAL.
Cliff’s response is more or less what I think, with minor disagreements. I think there are still some anti-semites, but it’s sort of a vestigal prejudice, so to speak. Dangerous in a few crackpots, but it’s fringe lunatic stuff. The really energetic sort of hatred is in Islamophobia–Republican Presidential candidates indulge in it and it isn’t the death of their candidacy, which anti-semitism would be (and rightly so). It’s mainstream. Even self-described liberals fall into it–several years ago the British novelist Martin Amis said some stupidly vicious anti-Muslim remarks after a terrorist attack and the NYT writer I cite below seems to sympathize with him–
New York Times link from 2008
The NYT puts limits on how many times you can read their stuff for free, but I think the above link is worth looking at. I can’t imagine a writer who said something equally stupid and vicious about Jews after an Israeli atrocity would get that sort of sympathy.
this part is definitely true tho.
i don’t recall an ounce of anti arab sentiment while i was growing up. nothing. and this persisted throughout my college years and way into adulthood. than it was as if a storm of negative racism was thrust upon our culture coming from multiple directions. i don’t think it will prevail, were stronger and smarter than that.
i was a junior in high school during 2001
when 9/11 happened, some asshole racist in the grade below (who got held back after being suspended from the school) made Islamophobic comments towards a Muslim girl
i dont recall much Islamophobia during my high school years before or after 9/11
i had 2 years to experience it before and after in high school as well
i remember as an 8th grader – being called a ‘camel jockey’ (I’m Indian and I suppose we all look the same to racists) at an away basketball game in Indiana. Was 1998 or 1999.
in my elementary school years – nothing
in middle school – nothing
No anti-Arab sentiment or Islamophobia. I grew up in the 90s and lived in New York City, Penn. and Ohio.
aside from the anti-Arab remark, I was insulted a few times in middle school for being Indian – but I also had only non-Indian friends of all backgrounds and I’ve dated only non-Indians (mostly white)
so ive had an ‘integrative’ experience. not insulated by my ethnic group (never took part in the cultural get-togethers like diwali and never went to temple as soon as I was old enough to dismiss them flippantly without reproach!)
truth be told, i don’t really see much anti-Arab or Islamophobic sentiment first-hand but I see it’s residue everywhere. whether it was my history professors going the extra mile to pad discussions about contemporary politics with PC considerations or graffiti on walls around my college that said things like ‘fuck iraq’
so in my immediate experience, things weren’t as bad as they are country-wide
i do remember my sister telling me about a Muslim girl who got picked up viciously by her classmates in junior high/middle school
my sister and i are 10 years apart so there is a generational gap which could explain why said Muslim girl was abused so much
i went to junior high in a southern ohio town during the mid-90s – we had ‘nigger’ carved into our bathroom stalls and a kid brought a gun to school (before columbine, was a big deal at the local level)
i had teachers also give me preferential treatment if i got into a fight with a black kid (happened once, and the principal said he was going to give me the benefit of the doubt) – i remember thinking after those incidents, ‘fuck this town’
it was bad as i was going through it first-hand but i never processed up ‘anti-Arab’ or Islamophobia in the experience. it was always anti-Black or anti-asian
i think racism in our society is everywhere and i think its insightful to examine colonial america, the civil war and reconstruction to understand ‘American’ culture in this regard
in the I-P conflict, you have so much diversion by Zionist Jews to disassociate the Jewish identity component from the topic (while they exploit it to guilt-trip and intimidate) but when you look at other conflicts, its always pertinent and forms the foundation of the behaviors we can relate to presently
just look at the discussion about the postcard from Palestine and the Zionist trolls posing as anti-Occupation activists
unbelievable. this level of pablum inundates anti-Zionist discourse and it’s meant to dumb down the intellectual investigation
Don’t be flippant about this. There is NO PHANTOM ANTISEMITISM (the phantom menace) in American society. It’s a farce to think so.
While anything is possible – GET REAL….Cliff>>>>>>>
I have no idea what you are ranting about in what I said. Was it that thre existence of anti semitism is over hyped and exaggerated? Or that Americans aren’t suspectable to same mob mentality as other populations? Or that people who “hate’ –Muslims, blacks, etc. etc.— are inclined to hate anyone they perceive as not like them and can be incited by propaganda or whatever to do so?
So you get real and explain what you are talking about or where anything I said probably is inaccurate or not true.
I don’t either annie….one of our home town friends, very pretty and accomplished girl, married a Egyptian Arab she met at UNC….he finished up medical school here and then they went to Egypt, which she loved, but they moved back here when they had children. Her family wasn’t upset about it, they thought he was brilliant and charming……didn’t hurt I suppose her father was also a doctor and had that in common with his son in law. Then my cousin was in the oil business from the late 50′s to the 90′s and use to visit the sheiks, –literally —and go on forays into the desert with them—-staying in elaborate tents—-literally—-he loved all that Arabia of old adventure and thought highly of them and their culture.
One way to look for American anti-Arab propaganda is to look at the movies and the Arab characters in them. See the-vilification-of-arabs-in-hollywood-movies. Have to read a bit to get dates, of course. See particularly Dr. Jack Shaheen’s book, Reel Bad Arabs (“a stunning and disturbing collection of clips”).
I agree with Sean and Jonathan Cook here. Someone once said(who was it now?) that the mark of the intelligent person is the ability to hold two contradictory views at the same time. This is how many “Liberal zionists” feel – supremely intelligent, ie, capable of self-contradiction. That is how they handle cognitive dissonance – by taking it as the hallmark of intellectual superiority. Psychologically this is the way traditionalist fascists and humanitarian serial killers handle contradictions too. By turning the logical dilemma into bonus points.
not being guilty of rosy eyed hopey changism , I must agree with Cook’s realism and chuckle a bit over Phil’s continued optimism. I suggested before that the reason for Phil’s generally positive outlook – even in the face of calamitous events – is that he lives in a bubble populated by people of good intentions and deep reflections. This shields him from the sad reality of what’s actually out there, not just among fellow Jews but the potential for a backlash from the long-despised-and-knowing-it goyishe population. I have made a point in my life to escape bubbles – even the best kind. Not for any great personal merit but because i find bubbles boring. It’s probably how I escaped from the israeli “consensus”. But I think Phil’s bubble is an especially attractive one – and i can’t blame anyone for not being eager to sample the often barren and desolate spiritual landscape outside (speaking now of the jewish/mixed intellectual elite bubble).
I think it is interesting how one can be all too aware of the not-so-attractive triumphalism that runs like a current through the New Wasp (ie the Jewish elite) but not process what it means to have – and display that triumphalism – as all too many Jewish writers and columnists do (think Brooks, Stanley Fish, friedman and the rest of the NYT).
What phil doesn’t – or chooses not to see – at least not so clearly is that hint of glee that peeks just from under the most liberal of the liberal Zionist ‘class”. I saw that the other day in Makovsky on a PBS segment. I see it whenever Bronner speaks, and in Siegel’s “moderation” of the Saban forum and in too many others to name. that glee that hides a certain guilty satisfaction – and even pride – as in “that Yahoo – he is getting away with it, isn’t he? look at us – it’s bad but isn’t it about time we stuck it to the goys”?, and “just look at them falling all over themselves to please the “jewish” state ! ain’t turnabouts fair play great?”I watch for that secret glee, the hidden pleasure reflected in the glint of an eye, and I know – they WILL trade away their liberalism – by far, most of them will. Jews are not Quakers and that’s that.
But quickly after I also know something else – I am not the only one who sees and takes note of that glee, the one that betrays an inner smugness and to others bespeaks of a certain contempt for the non-tribe insiders. And those others who are just now beginning to get sensitized to what’s going on, to that new hierarchy built right before their eyes, of which they are not part, they are more numerous, and the seeds of resentment, once planted, can grow if they keep getting daily nourishment, as they are.
That’s why I fear the same things Sean mentions here. Netanyahu in his place and the jewish supporters outside that place are riding on the back of a tiger even as many choose to ignore the stripes and call it a horse.
“I have made a point in my life to escape bubbles – even the best kind.”
What the heck, Danaa, is so wrong with Jewish grandpa….oh,”bubbles”. Never mind, carry on.
” that glee that hides a certain guilty satisfaction – and even pride – as in “that Yahoo – he is getting away with it, isn’t he? look at us – it’s bad but isn’t it about time we stuck it to the goys”?, “…Danaa
That reminds of how Karen Kwiatkowski described the I -First zios at the pentagon under Feith acting….she recounted one incident where he or one of the others accosted some visiting Arab generals and verbally roughed them up and refused to let them see who they were there to meet with, telling them ‘they were in charge now’ and the Arabs weren’t welcome and didn’t have the run of the place any more…or words to that effect.
What was it the Japanese commander said about bombing Pearl Harbor?…” I fear we have awakened a sleeping gaint”.
I know the zionist think Americans are dumb and easily lead but let them keep poking the tiger and it will eventually eat them…they really are very stupid people in the long run…..they always under estimate everyone else and over estimate their own cleverness.
I watch for that secret glee, the hidden pleasure reflected in the glint of an eye, and I know – they WILL trade away their liberalism – by far, most of them will. Jews are not Quakers and that’s that.
You hear it on NPR all the time.
I am not the only one who sees and takes note of that glee, the one that betrays an inner smugness and to others bespeaks of a certain contempt for the non-tribe insiders. And those others who are just now beginning to get sensitized to what’s going on, to that new hierarchy built right before their eyes, of which they are not part, they are more numerous, and the seeds of resentment, once planted, can grow if they keep getting daily nourishment, as they are.
It’s throbbing in silentio. Because there’s one big nut you didn’t mention. A very deep and profound sense of having cared what happened to the Jews in WWII once they found out, the sense of guilt that we did not help enough, and an iron will that it will not happen again. But that sweetmeat is encased by, is inside of, the tough nut of Americanism, of the melting pot and shared values and one group is not better than another, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. A lot of people and their relatives (ancestors) in pain found refuge here in the 20th C, have horrific stories, but sucked it up to become American, to join something new that linked them to a different commonality that they embrace because they think its based on justice and freedom, and just lets them live. That’s being betrayed in that smugness. The sweetmeat is shrinking, it’s shriveling, because they feel duped, played for suckers. How could this group do to others what was done to them? How can we be asked to condone it when it’s wrong? It’s producing revulsion and real soul-searching that we produced, or contributed to it. The worst hasbara argument is the ‘well you did it to the Indians, so why are you complaining about us doing it to the Palestinians’. The tone-deaf who utter this don’t understand the hard American shell in the 21st C. The silence you’re hearing is the mortal combat with their own souls while they sort this out. It’s not that they are unaware in the great expanse between LA and NYC. They are. I hear it increasingly day by day. I’m hearing 180s with a profound sense of sadness and stunned awareness that it has to be addressed. I’ve said multiple times on this blog that support for Israel here is 3,000 miles wide and an inch deep. That blanket now has as many holes in it as there are coordinates. The glee and contempt are going to shred it.
Chomsky was forced to choose. As a result, he became a vocal critic of Israeli policy, says he wouldn’t live there now, but at the same time seems to see anarchist Zionism as an ideal, maintains strong personal connections (he says), and has attacked BDS and the right of return. He also reduces the importance of the Lobby and the independence of Israeli actions vis a vis the US.
Important observations as these “sins of omission” are indeed troubling, particularly when dealing with someone who is otherwise highly regarded as a truth-teller.
Sure, Lance.
I generally like Chomsky, and I believe he is sincere and tells the truth about Israeli policies. He also admits that what he considers his personal connection to the country may bias him.
So for example, due to his feeling of closeness to the society, he may have an instinctual reaction against civil society’s practical opposition and thus he finds pretences for some of the positions I mentioned. OK, the right of return is “impractical”, but what are the conditions that prevent it, and can those conditions eventually be changed? Since Chomsky has found the idea of the people’s return to the land “deeply interesting” before the State was even founded, perhaps Palestinian refugees’ return to their homeland could also be “deeply interesting” before it has become a reality?
P.S. You can give Chomsky credit that he recognizes what the reality has become, but the out in such ideological cases is that the reality is bad, but the ideal itself is still good. It’s kind of like admitting to oneself that there are “bad” democracies, but still being faithful to the ideal of democracy.
This is one outcome of the dilemma that Cook and Phil are discussing: to say that the reality is bad, but the “ideal” is still a good one. I think Slater has something of this position too, proposing that the State could have turned out different, and Slater does give an arguable justification for having such a state.
“I think Slater has something of this position too, proposing that the State could have turned out different, and Slater does give an arguable justification for having such a state.”
I think maybe, big maybe…it could have turned out differently too. But I’ll never be convinced Israel was a good idea or necessary.
Think about it….the zionism premise was Jews have to live separate from Others because Jews will never be safe living among others or get along with others.
So with a State established on the belief in the eternal hostilities between people odds were it would turn out like it has.
I find the logic of Isaac Deutscher partly persuasive. He rued that he might have saved more people if he had told them to emigrate from Europe around WWII, instead of advising them to stay. So the idea of a safe haven, particularly around WWII seems to me arguable.
But I’m not persuaded either that this alone justifies a separate state on land where another people is living too. This strategy of a safe haven could have been accomplished by moving to another, safer area of the Allies’ lands (eg. Africa or Birobidjan). And even if the safe haven was Palestine, it seems they could still have been safe from the Nazis without statehood. But then again, it seems arguable.
Trotsky on the other hand, felt that collecting the people in one point, like Palestine, actually put them in greater danger than being spread out. But his ideas on the topic are perhaps more troubling for me. Apparently he shared the widespread misconception that Palestinians are ethnic Arab nomads from the Arabian desert, and he told the JTA that in the ideal coming socialist era, the scattered peoples of the world would ideally ask to be transferred back to their homelands. I think he was referring to the “Arabs” too in this context. This is troubling for me. (the JTA Interview is on marxists.org)
“But his ideas on the topic are perhaps more troubling for me.”
Don’t lose any sleep over it, Jones, Trotsky is long gone. He gave his all for Marxism, and in return Stalin gave Trotsky his awl.
The second sentence shows that he is an important person, I think, representing a democratic alternative to totalitarian socialism. Similarly, Chomsky (a very intelligent and insightful person) and his Zionism will still be relevant I think, because it reflects the understanding and contradictions within the most liberal of Zionists.
In any case, I am not sure how to explain or justify Trotsky’s view. Perhaps he simply was unaware that Palestinians’ connection to the land goes far enough back that it indeed overlaps with the Jewish people’s connection. And perhaps he did not think or learn enough about the depth of those people’s connection to the land.
As a result, he appears to have shared the common and simplistic misconception of “Jews” vs “Arabs” in Palestine.
Admittedly, Palestinians often do identify as “Arabs”, so the misconception could be understandable for someone who hasn’t studied them much. But this categorical way of thinking still feels retarded.
The Jews in Palestine WERE saved from Nazism before the birth of the State of Israel. They were saved because the Allies defeated Rommel in North Africa. Had the Nazis occupied Palestine, the Jews there would probably have perished, even if the State of Israel had already been established. A real safe haven would have had to be as far as possible from likely threats — Australia, for instance (and in fact there was a Russian rabbi trying to establish a Jewish territory in Australia).
Sorry, but there is no such thing as a ‘liberal Zionist’ any more than there is such a thing as a ‘liberal racist’.
A ‘liberal Zionist’ is merely a Zionist who is in denial about the stark reality of the ideology they support.
Liberal Zionism is an oxymoron every bit as much as liberal Islamophobia, or liberal Judeophobia for that matter. Liberalism in general has a strong tendency to get wrecked on the rocks of self-interest or personal prejudice.
At 11:40 I push my point that human beings are remediable, and that liberal Zionists in the U.S. won’t support racist policies if the choice is made stark to them. Cook demurs.
I share that hope, but one should also appreciate heroic efforts to refuse to recognize what the stark choices are. We see a stark choice between encouraging extremist policies executed through oppression of Palestinians, of which settlements are an important part but only a part by imposing blanket immunity on all those policies, and they see the stark choice between supporting the only democracy in the area or not. One could think that the letter of 15 Christian denominations demanded to use CIA and allies to convey arms, ammunition etc. to the resistance movements from the reaction of liberal Zionists.
PHIL- “…liberal Zionists in the U.S. won’t support racist policies if the choice is made stark to them.”
As Chris Hedges notes, US liberals have ceased to exert any moderating influence whatsoever. Rather, they now provide liberal sounding pretexts to justify the rightward drift in US policies. Obama is the most right-wing President in history as judged by his actions. When have we ever been involved in so many wars and covert operations at the same time as under Obama? When have civil liberties been under such concerted attack as under Obama? When before have US citizens been subjected to indefinite arbitrary imprisonment or summary execution on Presidential authority? When have whistleblowers ever been under such retaliation as under Obama, including Bradley Manning and Julian Assange? When has a so called liberal President ever lead the assault on Social Security and Medicare as Obama is now doing with his “Grand Bargain?” Where is the liberal criticism to all of this? Where is the liberal resistance to all of this? Under Obama, the situation isn’t stark enough for you? Or is it only in Israel that things seem clear?
The reality, Phil, is that Wall Street and the corporations have such total control over the global system that the government is racing to the right in order to keep up with the oligarchy’s illiberal priorities, and “liberal” elites are scrambling to maintain their privileged positions of influence within the power structure. This is true in both Israel and the US. Liberal Zionists and liberal capitalists are cut from the same cloth, they both fundamentally support the system which benefits them.
Thanks, Keith. Those are my complaints about Obama and the direction this country is headed in in a nutshell.
“Under Obama, the situation isn’t stark enough for you? Or is it only in Israel that things seem clear?”
Keith, why on earth would any of the things you listed about Obama bother Phil Weiss? That’s all stuff which mostly hurts poorer people and minorities.
A ‘liberal Zionist’ is like a ‘liberal communist’
A ‘liberal communist’ was someone who critizised the Soviet Union by quoting Marx’ early writings or some other socialists of standing. – His criticism had to stay in the ideological Marxist-socialist framework.
Same thing with ‘liberal Zionists’ who criticize Israel. Their criticism has to stay in the Zionist ideological framework. For instance by quoting Herzl, as Phil did in his interview with American settler Marc Zell (although Phil isn’t a Zionist he argued as a good one).
It is true that the bloc of liberal-minded supporters of Zionism – Jewish, Christian and other – is manifestly crumbling round the edges. That is happening already and the story of the growth of Mondoweiss is itself evidence of it. But the massive centre of the bloc is still almost completely intact,as the political situation shows, and the likes of us are still something of a rag-tag band of eccentrics by the standards of the prevailing moral order in the West. The serious people are still on the other side.
“In addition, I don’t know if you’ve been in Israel long enough to know that Israeli authorities never use against Jewish Israelis the same brutal force they use against non-Jews.”
I understanding is that no Jewish Israeli has EVER been killed in a demonstration by security personnel.
That tells you something.
that when forced to choose, many liberal Zionists will choose liberalism over the ideology of religious nationalism. ”
&
”I push my point that human beings are remediable, and that liberal Zionists in the U.S. won’t support racist policies if the choice is made stark to them. Cook demurs”…Phil
I demur too. Liberal zionist in the US won’t change. They don’t have ‘to chose’ anyway….they can have their liberal here in the US and their racism in Israel…iow, they have the best of both worlds, have their cake and eat it too….democracy here and zionism there.
If they haven’t switched after Cast lead and all the other world famous Israeli killings and assassinations and shitty acting out then they aren’t gonna switch.
Cook lives in Nazareth, is married to a Palestinian and he knows Israel and its treatment of its Palestinian population inside out.
He knows Israeli society. It’s not as if there is a switch that can turn the institutions nice. I think at this stage Zionism is like alcoholism. The Jewish population of Israel needs to be dried out.
What will probably happen is that more of the lefty Zionists will leave as the country is taken over by the settlers and the orthodox. Maybe some sort of dialogue will open up amongst the emigres in Galut but expecting it to happen in Tel Aviv or Haifa is nuts.
. I think at this stage Zionism is like alcoholism. The Jewish population of Israel needs to be dried out. To your analogy: What stage of alcoholism?
Most all later stage alcoholics drink themselves to death.
Before death, the last weeks or days spent in a coma after the final binge….often after years of manipulating and blaming all around them for whatever woes they may suffer.
Very advanced but still some small chance of recovery if consumption ceases immediately. Now causing extreme embarrassment to relatives, interfering with the patient’s work. Unable to function without torture/ a shot before 9am . The only answer is to cut it out entirely. Patient has not yet understood this.
Mother thinks nothing is wrong.
Actually, Jews were always known both for their low rate of alcoholism
and their political liberalism. – Nathan Glaser and Daniel Moynihan in
“Beyond the Melting Pot”, 1963 (50 years ago):
———————————–
” Whatever the sources of the low rate of alcoholism among Jews – and certainly the surviving effects of Orthodoxy may be an important source – … At the elaborate Bar Mitzvah parties for boys that are held in middle-class Jewish areas, one finds a huge array of liquor, and everyone drinks before, during, and after the meal, but the alcoholic and semialcoholic are nowhere in sight.” – The authors go on to say:
“In these well-to-do areas another old Jewish pattern holds up – liberalism in politics … Protestants and Catholics, as their income rises, do turn Republican [Jews don't].”
“At the elaborate Bar Mitzvah parties for boys that are held in middle-class Jewish areas, one finds a huge array of liquor, and everyone drinks before, during, and after the meal, but the alcoholic and semialcoholic are nowhere in sight.”
Who on earth would want to drink cruddy wine and weak drinks when the Bar Mitzvah boys (or Bat Mitzvah girls) older siblings are snorting fine Peruvian flake and smoking KGB out in the back? Klaus, you go say hello to all the older relatives, then meet us back there.
No really Klaus, I understand, I prefer to make my acquaintance to exotic, strange and possibly dangerous people through books. I mean, why take chances?
It’s interesting Mooser that you don’t scold me for generalizing and stereotyping about Jews having a low rate of alcoholism – although
my source is 50 years old. Very telling.
“It’s interesting Mooser that you don’t scold me for generalizing and stereotyping about Jews having a low rate of alcoholism – although
my source is 50 years old. Very telling.”
Klaus, everybody knows I get erratic and miss stuff when I’m drinking. But if I wasn’t, I would have commented on that base slander. When I sober up, Klaus, you’re in for it!
“I think at this stage Zionism is like alcoholism.”
Why make far-fetched analogies, when a perfectly good word to describe the syndrome is already coined and in use?
Excessive use of Ziocaine can lead to Ziobotulism .
It is a dreadful condition which reduces connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala.
The only effective treatment is 4 months in a Gaza refugee camp.
In Israeli society, left-vs.-right plays a secondary role to religious-vs.-secular. Whoever leaves Israel in the coming years is going to do so on the basis that the religious types are taking over many historically-secular domains.
Good observation Avi! Now I understand why Meretz and Yisrael Beitenu were in the same coalition! They were not?
One aspect of life in Israel seems to be that it matters how good Jew you are. Deep down, Secular or Reform Jews admire how Jewish the Orthodox are, and in some sense they feel inferior. They came to Israel where you can be as Jewish as you want, and they are ho-hum Jewish. The Orthodox can be obnoxious and backward etc. but they are sooo Jewish! Thus secular parties never will have stomach to curtail their privileges. The same goes for the settlers (even more obnoxious and more Jewish).
“liberal zionist find a way to square the circle here they don’t think about it they don’t allow these contradictory elements within the state to bother them to much they avoid thinking about it”
Are you listening to his words. As long as they keep quiet, making no noice causing no trouble. Normalized apartheid. “even though they are non violent demonstrations. The police react the same way the same way as the army they use live ammunition, rubber bullets” Liberal Zionism equals normalized apartheid
I think you could fit liberal zionism and the way Israel has ‘normalized ‘ it’s hatred and violence in it’s supporters under the banality of evil…. ..the unthinkingness that whatever it actions are aren’t evil but just ‘necessary’.
”Banality of evil is a phrase used by Hannah Arendt in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.[1] Her thesis is that the great evils in history generally were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.
Explaining this phenomenon, Edward S. Herman has emphasized the importance of “normalizing the unthinkable.” According to him, “doing terrible things in an organized and systematic way rests on ‘normalization.’ This is the process whereby ugly, degrading, murderous, and unspeakable acts become routine and are accepted as ‘the way things are done.’”
Zionism was always based on moving or eliminating an indigenous people. Nothing liberal about that stance and action what so ever. Zionism is founded in racism.
Ah Cook explains the myth of liberal zionism better than anyone I have heard. “liberal zionism” exposed
Whenever Israel suffers a setback, the “appropriate Zionist response” involves either murder or land grabs.
Zionism does not have a decency setting.
Racist in its very foundation
It is far worse than Ulster Unionism which at least has a rational wing.
The Palestinian initiative to seek Statehood is a clear violation of the Oslo accords, which for all intents and purposes, is a treaty.
How else should Israel have penalized the PA for having violated this binding agreement?
The Palestinian initiative to seek Statehood is a clear violation of the Oslo accords, which for all intents and purposes, is a treaty.
Okay, I’ll bite. From the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969):
The Oslo Accords didn’t mention Palestinian statehood as either an interim of final status issue. In fact, the Interim Agreement of 1995 specified that neither party shall be deemed “to have renounced or waived any of its existing rights, claims or positions” (Art. 31-6).
So I would guess that means the PLO couldn’t have signed a “treaty” with Israel, until after the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization – in accordance with a decision by the Palestine National Council – was entrusted with the powers and responsibilities of the Provisional Government of the State of Palestine back in 1988. See the annex to UN Doc. A/43/928, 9 December 1988, “Declaration of the formation of the provisional Government of the State of Palestine, 15 November 1988.”
In the original 1989 application for membership in UNESCO, the co-sponsors list 92 states which had formally recognized the State of Palestine. See Annex II of UN Doc. 131 EX/43, 12 May 1989 link to unispal.un.org
So Palestine was already widely recognized as a State before it signed the the Oslo Accords.
Obsidian,as a palestinian ,I have no desire to converse with any zionist any more.Mr cook is a moral giant.
Jewish history bears out Cook’s analysis – extremism has long been the default position…