-
-
- Resume builders: Be a broken record on Iran, cheer authoritarians … 1
- UN Committee: Israeli system ‘tantamount to apartheid’ 0
- Slater on Beinart 0
- And we live on… 0
- US official — we went to Israel first 3
- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status … 23
- Israel takes 30 dunams of land near Salfit ‘for security … 4
- Aaron David Miller: After a short ‘peace process,’ look … 38
-
- BDS victory: South Africa strips Ahava’s ‘made in Israel’ label 713
- Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from … 475
- Day after pogroms, Likud MK calls for internment camp for … 427
- Neverending Nakba: Israel breaks lull, attacks Gazan farmers 413
- ‘This is not fair play’: Mahmoud Sarsak’s family demands his … 389
- March of the Flags 345
- Neocons in Washington Post: Military strike on Iran would ‘calm … 323
- Nabi Saleh’s Bassem Tamimi convicted by Israeli courts based on … 293
-
- The Messiah’s Donkey: Settlers fire on Palestinian villagers as the … 235
- Aharon Appelfeld’s rage at the German language (and Arendt’s need … 156
- US to differentiate between ‘personally displaced’ Palestinian refugees and their … 129
- March of the Flags 127
- Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism 110
- Feeling the hate in Long Island 97
- Israeli judge to issue verdict in Rachel Corrie case 94
- WaPo’s Walter Pincus says US is ‘going above and beyond … 87
-
Recent Comments
click link to see last 100 comments- Resume builders: Be a broken record on Iran, cheer authoritarians in Gulf (1)
- Annie Robbins: Having recognized its weakness, the US knows that it will be the UN that takes the lead in Syria and...
- Did Israeli Eurovision contestant watch too much Juliano Mer Khamis? (54)
- Annie Robbins: GL, urban dictionary has PEP, just no explanation of progressive except for palestine....
- German Lefty: Annie, it looks like you got infected with the Eurovision virus. Great. The more fans, the better. The...
- US official — we went to Israel first (3)
- traintosiberia: OMG! Why I don”t have that Stockholm Syndrome yet! How long do I have to feign that I have it.
- Annie Robbins: a U.S. official…asked to remain anonymous owing to the sensitive nature of the issue. sensitive?...
- Carllarc: proof of ‘Israel firsters’, for sure
- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status for millions (23)
- piotr: How many Jews who made aliya were actual refugees from Roman persecution? Thus the “Jew who taunted...
- Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism (113)
- yourstruly: what was that sound? the special relationship breaking down and the loud and sustained chorus that...
- MHughes976: I’m still a bit uncertain about what R.Brian means by ‘Zionism’: what proposition did...
- yourstruly: given, that the israel’s brutal occupation of palestine is why much of the arab/islamic world hates...
- Resume builders: Be a broken record on Iran, cheer authoritarians in Gulf (1)
Our Writers
- Philip Weiss
- Adam Horowitz
- Allison Deger
- Annie Robbins
- Kate
- Today in Palestine
- Alex Kane
- Eleanor Kilroy
Blogroll
The War of Ideas in the Middle East
I don't believe that. Jeff's on this new site with Atzmon and co.: link to deliberation.info
- readers of this blog will find it interesting
Contrary to the headline of this post, Penn's president doesn't 'condemn' the Gur article comparing the boycott movement to the Nazis. Nor should she. She should defend freedom of speech. You can't use p.c. university speech codes to defend Palestinian rights - dishonestly claiming that this Gur guy's ideas "incite against and endanger" attendees at the conference is an attempt to use the 'safety' argument to undermine freedom. Anti-fascists do it. Zionists do it. It won't work for supporters of Palestinian rights.
A good article about a successful suit against the Anti Defamation League is here:
link to counterpunch.org
'Wondering jew' says "Ward Churchill’s opinion is interesting but I disagree (vehemently). Attacking a specific person with specific current responsibility for a specific weapons program is an entirely different story than killing a technocratic elite". Then he/she gives her/himself away: "The Holocaust denial conference also adds to my hatred of the current regime in Iran as well and adds sense to view them as my enemies." So much for wondering jew's support for freedom of opinion: advocating murder for doing defence research, hatred for opinions.
This is way o/t, and I already got snipped once, but here goes. I used to agree exactly with 'notatall' (12:38pm). "Working-class brothers and sisters" - yes I agree. I'd like to see the end of nation states too. Ben Anderson's "Imagined Communities" is a nice expression of Marxist incomprehension of their remarkable persistence. There must be an explanation, and it will come from evolutionary theory. What is it in our stone-age-made genes that enables us to substitute a diverse nation of 350 million for a small tribe?
I'll try again. Raimondo implies it's OK to use the term 'Israel firster' because it was invented by an anti-Zionist Jew - otherwise, why mention it? Which means that, if a Zionist could prove otherwise, one would feel less able to use it. You've given too much ground. 'Israel firster' is a useful shorthand for a person who puts Israel first. It doesn't matter from whence it came.
Israel is happening in our own countries.
"How do you get the message down to the Limbaugh set"? Easy. You approach them from the right. You explain how they're unpatriotic.
"And there is something wrong with anyone, especially those who are not Jewish, who thinks this isn’t their problem as well". Well, I do think anti-Semitism isn't my problem. Thanks for the psychoanalysis, Mr. Smith.
It's not just Zionists who use psychoanalysis to explain away opinions they disagree with. It has a long pedigree. The eminently left-wing Frankfurt School used it in 'The Authoritarian Personality' to delegitimize conservative white people in the fifties. More recently, Naomi Klein in 'the Nation' claimed that 'conservative white men' have a psychological problem which prevents them from seeing the truth of the theory of global warming. So Goldberg's in good company. And no, you can't psychoanalyse back. I can't say 'liberal Jewish women' like Klein have a need to believe in climate change theory.
I agree. The phrase 'race for control of energy resources' is a bit of a Chomsky-style cliché in an otherwise sound article. Obviously, the USA and the EU are not boycotting Iran's oil because they are racing to control it. Mondoweiss is right to 'briefly consider' factors other than the lobby to explain Western Middle East policy. Very briefly.
There's not an anti-war left nor an anti-war right. You might have left wing views on many things, and be anti-war, but there is no necessary connection between them. Saying you are in the anti-war left is as trivial as saying you belong to New York Yankees fans against war.
Left-wing movements have initiated wars as much as right-wing ones. The German Social Democrats, the US Democrats... The BUF opposed war more consistently than the communists. Ron Paul's supporters are more anti-war than any Democrats. They are not 'the anti-war right'. They have libertarian views on economics. What matters is that they are anti-war.
"I don’t see how we can rely on Obama to prevent war". I don't see how we can rely on the Pope to prevent Catholicism.
The anti-war left disappeared with the election of Obama. This shows leftism is bankrupt. But Bruce generously volunteers this non-movement might "work together with elements of the right". The American left isn't 'anti-war', it's anti- saying nasty things about people's ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation while bombing them.
Sites must have policies. However, one mistake I've noticed on some sites and blogs is that having made a rule 'no discussion of X', they then bar discussion of the rule too. One should always be allowed to discuss whether the rules are right. Otherwise you get into the circular problem when you can't discuss on the radio, whether you can discuss on the radio, the seven words you are not allowed to say on the radio.
Something similar happened on Wikipedia - people were barred for attempting to change the rules (on the denial of two things, one of which was global warming).
This is an interesting discussion.
Toivos's comment about the word 'Pal' IS ridiculous. But Newclench does know several people online who do support Gilad Atzmon's ramblings, and think he is worth discussing with - the people who run this site, and many commenters.
I'd heard the thing about the 'Mufti' hanging out with Hitler during world war two. I'm not surprised - many religious leaders took sides in that massacre, and they were all in the wrong. They also believe nonsense today, from Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva, who believes its justified to kill babies if they will grow up to harm Jews, to evangelists, and Muslim extremists.
But looking out for 'anti-Semitism' in the pal solidarity movement is self-defeating. It's impossible to define - for example, you include Gilad Atzmon, and Zionists include anyone who 'singles out' Israel for criticism. Worrying about anti-Semitism is one of the main reasons the movement has been so ineffectual. Compare it with the movement against apartheid - there was a group which wanted to ethnically cleanse Africa of white people. But we didn't whine about it, we didn't worry about anti-whiteism, and it succeeded.
Later, pal
Newclench - do you mean when Israelis make false accusations of anti-Semitism, it makes it harder to make true accusations of anti-Semitism? That it's reasonable to attack Gilad Atzmon, but not Ben White? That the Palestine solidarity movement should be divided into good guys and bad guys? I hope I've misunderstood you.
I usually agree with 'Chaos4700', but I think this comment is an example of how out of touch the left tends to be. Minorities would be underrepresented among successful mortgage applicants, if it were not the case that lenders are obliged to prove they do not practice de facto racial discrimination, which they would if they were allowed to follow pure capitalist logic. Well-intentioned anti-racist lawsuits helped contribute to 'junk loans' and the economic crisis.
Despite Chaos4700's use of the time-honored argument "you're white", white racism is not a problem in the West today. Apart from Israel, the Western countries are possibly the least racist societies which have ever existed.
Here's a very interesting example of how AIPAC uses traditional anti-racism - 'The Israel Lobby Finds a New Face: Black College Students':
link to councilforthenationalinterest.org
To oppose Zionism successfully, you have to reject old-style anti-racism.
Israel and the US are arguing about when to attack Iran, and Donald is concerned about intemperate language against Israel on a blog. This disproportion is symptomatic of philo-semitism, the most important racial prejudice still alive.
This article by Donald Johnson says he knows "Christians who would be instantly disgusted at the least whiff of anti-semitism or even what they might think is anti-semitism but isn't". Right. Even Christians. Secular liberals are even worse. That's why we've been so ineffective in opposing Jewish apartheid, where the campaign against white apartheid was so effective. The solution is the opposite of what he recommends - LESS sensitivity, LESS white guilt, and no political correctness. Aggressive defiance of every trick in the lefty-Zionist book. Complete lack of concern about 'holocaust denial', 'white privilege' and the rest.
"zionism is not an ethnic war. zionism is a political construct in support of ethnic nationalism". Sorry, what's the difference? Is ethnicity 'constructed'? Maybe not.
"pro israel zionists i come in contact thru the blog continually try to reinforce the idea people who do not support zionism, don’t support it because it is jewish nationalism"... Some oppose Zionism because its against Palestinians, some because it is opposed to the ethic interests of the majority of Americans. They should unite. One shouldn't use political correctness to divide these two groups.
No, Woody, I didn't misread you. You think, with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been 'reasonable' for Britain to attack Germany in 1935, rather than waiting 'til 1939. What is 'known now' that makes an unprovoked attack on a country reasonable then? That Hitler was a bad guy? Stalin was just as bad - why not an attack on Russia? And Roosevelt was obviously a warmonger, even then, and was strongly opposed by pacifists, anti-war conservatives and most of the American population.
The word 'debate' occurs three times in Phil's comment (above). "Move the mainstream debate". 'Ethnic cleansing - discuss'. 'Dropping phosphorus on children - pros and cons'. "I’ll try and be a fairer and more thoughtful social media person going forward…" Jay.
The problem with Woody's answer to 'eee' is he gives the impression that, with the hindsight of history, it's reasonable to say that British hostilities were justified. These hostilities led to fifty million deaths, several semi-holocausts, and Soviet rule, whose victims were just as dead as those who died under German rule (or American bombs). What would it have had to be like to enable one to say that, with the benefit of hindsight, the British declaration of war was UNJUSTIFIED?
Jerome Slater and 'eee' say it's illogical to complain about Americans dying for Israel and at the same time denying the right to a Jewish state. OK, here's the deal. The US stops supporting Israel, and makes it a criminal offense to send arms or money to apartheid from any Western country. But it leaves the Jews to their own devices in Palestine. This is not as strongly anti-apartheid as the USA was re. South Africa, but it's a great step forward from the current subservient position.
If criticizing the Zionists for collaborating with the Nazis is anti-semitic, is criticizing the Nazis for collaborating with the Zionists anti-German? Just a thought.
Slater's back! Thank God. I was so upset we might have scared him off. Well done, Phil.
He backs down from his argument that murder is OK if a large number of people vote for it: "I’ll repeat the point I’ve made a number of times: the notion that you can decide on whether a war is justified or not by asking the families of those killed takes you nowhere". Maybe. He has also made the opposite point a number of times, choosing which principle to support on the basis of which better supports his conclusions.
"Most of the French people who weren't collaborating with Hitler" is a bit of a step back from his original 'the overwhelming majority of French people', but Slater can rely on the word 'Hitler' to head off any challenge to his logic. How about "most of the Latvian people who weren't collaborating with Stalin"? Oh no. Let's not go there.
Sean McBride - "the number of times one mentions one's ethnic identity, issues, problems, conflicts, enemies, etc." is not a useful criterion, because if fails to take deception, including self-deception, into account. Smart Zionists don't mention their ethnic identity. Up to the late sixties, they claimed to be for humanity, socialism, etc.. Since then, they've claimed to be The Project For The New American Century and so on.
"Jerry, I would urge you to stick around"... "I supported the Libyan intervention"... "That was my headline"...
Phil, why are you kissing ass?
Germany is not quite 'anti-war'. Every February, Germans hold up banners in Dresden saying Alles Gut Kommt Von Oben! Merkel sent a shipment of missiles to Israel, explicitly calling them reparations. She's selling them from which they could launch nuclear missiles. This is not a good basis from which to oppose a US attack on Iran. Ron Paul wouldn't stand a chance.
"Ron Paul would probably say that the US did not opt to negotiate with Japan in good faith". Pat Buchanan's book 'Churchill, Hitler, and "the unnecessary war"' provides evidence for that argument about Japan, and Germany too.
I'm all for undermining the official story of WWII, but we have to do better than subscribe to conspiracy theories which select - or invent - their evidence.
'MRW' claims "FDR let Pearl Harbor happen, which he knew about ahead of time, the telegrams are there, because Japan and Germany were aligned. Declaring war against Japan meant that we were also at war with Germany."
No it didn't. The alliance with Japan did not require Hitler to declare war on America. 'The telegrams' show FDR suspected something, not that he 'knew' it.
I saw John Walsh's letter on Counterpunch. It's even more naive than some of the comments on this page. He tells Amy Goodman "you have a duty to tell the whole truth" (about Ron Paul). No - her job is to pretend the Democrats are less warmongering and less anti-working class than the Republicans. And to ensure criticism of Israel is kept within bounds.
Several commenters above, including Slater himself, seem to think its irrefutably true that starting the biggest war in history was 'necessary', and that without it, things would have been worse.
Slater also uses democratic arguments when they suit him. He speculates about what the 'overwhelming majority' of Frenchmen wanted in WWII. Does he know how popular collaborator Marshal Petain was? In parts of Eastern Europe, the majority had no problem with the Holocaust. But his main drift not about what people want, but about how many of them will die if we, looking down from the viewpoint of Western utilitarian philosophy, urge our rulers to act, versus how many will die if we don't.
Slater calculates that more Libyans would have died if NATO hadn't bombed it. It would have been worse if Saddam had been allowed to keep Kuwait, or the Serbs Sarajevo.
Slater and other commentators not only try to calculate which wars to support, they want to influence how they are waged. They criticize Roosevelt for not trying to stop the Holocaust - murdering German civilians was a waste of good bombs. They complain that support for the first Iraq war was betrayed - the US government 'allowed' Saddam to suppress the uprising.
When Madeleine Albright said 'it was worth it' to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, Slater replies, in effect, "no, Madeleine - you've got the math wrong!"
One commentator offers hopefully "Howard Zinn took a very critical view of the US role in WWII". But when you sign up, they don't ask for your opinions. You are either for or against the war. "Many socialists during WWII took a strong antiwar position, considering the war on the western front to be a clash of imperialisms". What was the eastern front, then - a war of liberation? No, most of the left said the 'anti-imperialist' argument didn't apply, because of the unique evil of fascism.
Again, thanks for publishing this naive, revealing article, which illustrates why the myth of the good war still has consequences today.
Jerome Slater complacently claims "Everyone thinks WWII was a just war. But since Paul, as Pollitt puts it, is against everything the U.S. government does, domestically or internationally, there is every reason to think he would have opposed FDR's decision that we had to join in the fight both for moral and strategic reasons.". That's not true.
Japan attacked the USA and Germany declared war, so Paul would have supported Roosevelt. But it's not quite as simple as that. The British Empire and the USA treated both Germany and Japan unfairly in the years leading up to WWII, in effect saying "it's alright for us to have empires, but not you". Why did Britain and France declare war on Germany in 1939? Because Germany attacked Poland! But Russia attacked Poland too. Did Britain declare war on Russia? No. So attacking Poland was not the criterion.
Well, er, how about - Germany was a threat to the British and all good people? No - there is no evidence that Nazi Germany had intentions against the British Empire. It made enormous efforts to make peace, from start to finish. In Britain in 1939, there were two parties opposed to war, the Communist Party and the British Union of Fascists. Of course, each had their own bad reasons to oppose the beginning of the greatest massacre in history. Anyway, the Communists changed their minds in 1941.
Kudos to Mondoweiss for publishing Slater's attempt to defend the most barbaric period in the history of humanity. In effect, he's asking us to agree that Chamberlain's declaration of war on Germany was necessary, because otherwise things would have been worse. WWII killed 50,000,000 people. Without the heroic efforts of the Allies, it would have killed 50,000,001 or more people. That's what Slater wants us to believe.
The clarity and stupidity of his argument is welcome, giving us an easy opportunity to make another step forward in the struggle against the myth of WWII, and its greatest beneficiaries today, supporters of the state of Israel. Thanks again, Mondoweiss.
The analogy with South Africa isn't exact. There are fewer Palestinians knocking about the place than Jews (because most of them were driven away). Israel has broken many economic ties to Palestinians, and brought in others to do the low paid jobs.
But another difference is that South Africa really was an ally of the other Western countries (fighting Soviet-backed forces, keeping the place a capitalist free market) whereas Israel is not. Support for Israel is more irrational than support for apartheid. As for the moral argument, the analogy works - it's against the principles of Western countries to have a member with a constitution expressly based on racial discrimination. Unless it's Jewish.
On Philip Roth's novel about Lindbergh, see my review here:
link to portland.indymedia.org
It's a revealing book. Roth thinks war is peace, so he can't see the contradiction in calling Lindbergh's allegation, that American Jews tended to be in favor of war against Germany, anti-Semitic, at the same time as confirming the essential truth of the claim.
Well, Obama's Middle East policy IS soaked in blood, isn't it?
Unfortunately, I think 'American' is underestimating the power of anti-racism. Many Republicans are afraid of it, and that's why the Lobby is trying to use it against Paul.
So what's new? From the New York Times to Indymedia, stirring up hysteria against the non-existent menace of white racism is a diversion from understanding the only really significant form of racial oppression left in the Western world. The liberal left was an ally of the anti-apartheid movement, because it didn't challenge the Jewish apartheid state. That challenge has to come from outside the left.
Hannah Arendt is promoted as some kind of saint because she covered the trial of Eichmann and coined the banal phrase 'the banality of evil'. Her account of this trial seethes with special pleading and resentment - she says that the death penalty is necessary but insufficient for Nazi war criminals - but not Allied ones.
Like all left-Zionists, her main concern is that mass murder by Jews will provoke 'a new wave of Jew-hatred'. It's as if critics of the Nazis worried that it would cause anti-German prejudice - that it would produce people like Hannah Arendt!
See the section by Arendt in The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings – Neil Levi and Michael Rothberg – Routledge, 2003.
Ron Paul must "do a much better job of apologizing for that racism" before Phil will vote for him. And maybe change his views on climate change. Aren't you being a bit fussy?
This is way off topic, even by my standards, but...
link to telegraph.co.uk
A leader of the Falkland Islanders have compared his people to the Palestinians, claiming the latter get more support. He's probably never heard the word 'chutzpah'.
Jeff - 'eee' makes a goo point that AIPAC, the AJC, the ADL etc. mostly work legally within the democratic system. It's not illegal to manipulate white guilt about 'anti-Semitism'. One is allowed to persuade dumb goys to part with their blood and treasure and sons and daughters - its in the nature of an open society. Of course its immoral, but its not technically treasonous - treason is not defined as "working against America's interest" - if it were, we'd all be in camps!
Phil Weiss and others are aware that the longer it goes on, the nastier the payback could be. He argues that it's in the interests of Jews to stop manipulating democracy. Time will tell how many will see things his way.
Well, I DO follow the issue of global warming closely, and I was surprised at Weiss's comment about Ron Paul's view - "I can't stand his position on global warming, that could be a dealbreaker for me". Whereas I expect airheads like Naomi Klein to parrot the party line, intelligent leftists should be more discriminating. Alexander Cockburn, for example. Why? A hint: climate scientists use the phrase 'scientific consensus'. Real scientists don't.
Arguing about whether or not the Palestinians are a people is a trap. When the Western countries stopped supporting apartheid, it wasn't because they decided between the following propositions:
1. South African black people are a people,
2. they are several peoples,
3. they are the majority of the people of South Africa,
4. they are part of the people of Africa.
It doesn't matter - they were deprived of their rights as individuals, and that's why the individualist West forced one of its members to recognize their individual rights. It's exactly the same with the Palestinians. It doesn't matter whether they are a people or not - what matters is that they are being deprived of their rights in a Western country, and being granted those rights follows the values, and interests, of the West.
This is another example of a Zionist technique. Claim that a liberal Zionist organization is anti-Israel, and it makes it look good.
A technique used by Zionists is to attack liberals who are not really very staunch critics of Israel, making them look more critical than they really are. In this case, an AIPAC spokesman attacks Eric Alterman and a Democrat-affiliated body as anti-semitic. This leads themselves and other left-wingers to believe they must be anti-Zionists.
"Of course the Irish had access to Westminster". They also had access to Congress, if I can put it like that. What I mean is that people like Ted Kennedy was taken seriously in the US administration, and was part of the 'lobby' which eventually led the US to lean on Britain to talk to the IRA. Any politician who tried to get the US to have a more neutral stance on the Israel/Palestine conflict would be out of office.
Mooser's phrase 'pointing out the ways' implies that Greenstein points to something, and surreptitiously insinuates that it is true. But Greenstein goes further. “Zionism was first and foremost a Christian Evangelical cause”. "Israel is the guard dog and protector of western interests". "It is a stable settler-colonial state and the $3 billion it receives is cheap at the price". These lies, along with emotional blackmail and political correctness, defended by left Zionists, in decreasing order of consciousness, from Chomsky to Zunes to Greenstein, keep the left weak on Zionism.
Crypto-Zionists NEVER use the term 'Jewish supremacy'. Their purpose is to claim that Western and Zionist interests coincide. They carry out the same task on the left as people like Newt Gingrich carry out on the right. In contrast, those who wish to defeat apartheid have to 'point out' the complete conflict of interests between the West and Jewish supremacy.
Tony Greenstein says "Israel is the guard dog and protector of western interests in an area that is vital strategically. It is a stable settler-colonial state and the $3 billion it receives is cheap at the price. And it has fractured Arab politics".
Well, of course it's fractured Arab politics. But why is it in 'western interests' to defend Jewish politics against Arab politics? It isn't. Yes, the oil-rich Middle East is 'vital strategically'. But Israel does not 'help the strategic interests' of the USA and the European Union. This is the lie of the century, defended by Zionists left and right.
Greenstein says Israel is a 'settler-colonial state'. But the evil racist West has ditched most of those kind of states, like Rhodesia and South Africa. So why does it still defend the one remaining 'settler-colonial state'? Oh, because "Zionism was first and foremost a Christian Evangelical cause".
Give us a break. Zionism is Jewish supremacy. It's the only kind of racial supremacy still defended by the Western countries. The left-Zionists who deny it would be accomplices of the current Zionist war drive, were it not so transparently obvious.
"A feeling has taken root deep in the American Jewish community that Israel is hurting us, hurting our standing in the world and our future" - Philip Weiss
If this were true, we would expect, not just a few Jews, but the 'American Jewish community' to put boycotting Israel at the center of its political activities. It would continue to support the liberal causes it has always supported, but the struggle against apartheid would become paramount among them. I think we have a testable hypothesis.
Three points.
First, its the Community Security Trust
Second, its definition of 'anti-Semitic incidents' is so broad is to be meaningless
Third, 'a fair amount of criticism' from crypto-Zionists is simply a tactical discussion
See Laura Stewart on Gilad Atzmon's site about the CST: link to gilad.co.uk
When former vice president Richard Cheney was a businessman he wanted to trade with Iran. That's the oil lobby. When he became a politician, he wanted to boycott Iran. That's the Israel lobby. They don't fight it out in the open because the 'superstructure' makes the 'material base' keep its mouth shut.
Innana says "I don’t think that historical materialism can make predictions about who wins...". I couldn't have put it better myself!
Yes, lobbies are a good way to make money. But that fails completely to explain which one wins when the interests of two of them compete. If one faction can make money by trading with Iran, and another by threatening it, which wins? The one which will make the most money? No, the one which best serves Zionist power.
A good way to test the viability of an explanation is to imagine the opposite happening, and see if your theory explains it just as well. Suppose the USA worked for peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and ditched Israel. It would still make lots of money, save the money that goes into a black hole, and get lots of black gold in return. Marxism could still claim to have explained things. That's pseudo-science.
It's true there is a more sophisticated version of materialism than the slogans of the left. It says that material interests determine the behavior of classes of people 'in the last instance'. How would you test this? When people act in their material interests, its confirmed, and when they don't, it's not? If materialism is falsifiable, the West's relationship to Israel falsifies it. Support for that state is completely against the interests of all other states, yet it continues unabated. Marxism ignores ethnic power, and fails to explain this.
There appears to be a “mature symbiotic relationship” between Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and the Israel lobby. Yes, but that observation doesn't test the lobby hypothesis. Arms producers could just as well have a symbiotic relationship with any other country, or with many. All the materialist explanations beg the question: why Israel?
No, it's not at all like the "nature vs. nurture" debate. That's a false dichotomy, since nurture is part of nature.
Of course there's sometimes a convergence between various interests. It's only where they diverge you can tell which is dominant. Israel's and the USA's interests must sometimes diverge. Yet the USA never acts contrary to Israel's interests.
The value of materialist explanations are, they can prove anything, so they can't be tested. Whatever happens, there's a materialist explanation. If the US invades a country and the price of oil goes up, the oil companies benefit. If it goes down, all the other companies benefit. In either case, Marxism-for-dummies says 'war for oil!'.
W. Jones - you need to do some basic research - "the USSR and the US were still allies, circa WWI". No, it was in the 1950's, when the USSR and the USA were deadly enemies. And you mean World War 2, not 1. The executions of the Rosenbergs were terrible crimes, and in Ethel's case, she may not have known what her husband Julius was doing. Besides, giving nuclear secrets to Russia, the weaker power, did not make the world a more dangerous place. Yes, no non-Jewish spy was executed. Equally, neither were many Jewish spies. There is no evidence of anti-semitism in the case, but this claim is still made by crypto-Zionists trying to wring every last drop of sympathy out of us.
There was something to McCarthy's allegations, which came out after Soviet documents were released after 1989. But there are still people today who claim the Rosenbergs were victims of anti-semitism.
"There were Soviet agents". Indeed there were. And today, there are Israeli agents.
This article would be much better if it examined the difference between the Western countries dismantling of Rhodesia and its support for Israel. How Dorris Lessing and the other Stalinists were so good on white apartheid, and so weak on Jewish apartheid. And how this inbuilt racial discrimination within the left persists to this day.
I suspect what this Mazella fellow is saying is something like "there is discrimination in Arab countries". Indeed there is. But, unlike Israel, Sudan doesn't get eight million dollars a day from the US to do it. Israel is part of the West, but is given special dispensation to defy Western values because it's Jewish, so it's OK.
"The Obama message is loud and clear: the world would be a safer, simpler, and more peaceful place if not for the troublesome Jewish state."
If only it were true that the US government was able to state that obvious fact!
It shows the hubris of Zionists that they can make true statements about Israel, and falsely accuse people of believing them, without worrying that people will really do so.
Cojones.
That's not a correction of Kathleen's spelling, it's a comment on the article. Disputes between US politicians and Israeli ones are disputes within Zionism. The Americans sometimes defend Israel's interests better than the Israelis. Obama's advocacy of the Deir Yassin borders, and this outburst by Panetta, amount to advice on how best to continue ethnic cleansing.
Cops don't need to go to Israel to think of firing tear gas cannisters at peoples' heads. They have frequently fired live bullets at heads. So what else is new?
Imagine how an ordinary, non-leftist American would read this article. It claims, since September 11th, "America’s Israel lobby exploited the climate of hysteria". No, it's not 'hysteria'. It's a perfectly natural reaction to the murder of 2,977 people by terrorists - expecting the authorities to redouble their efforts to prevent terrorism.
The article is not as absurd the claims of Noam Chomsky and Stephen Zunes that American influence corrupts Israel. But it doesn't really demonstrate that it's the other way round. Israel IS "the Harvard of anti-terrorism", so how could you expect the US authorities not to try to learn from it?
Despite having learned from Israel, it's not true that policing here is like what happens in the apartheid state. They don't do ethnic profiling at US airports, because, though it would be convenient, it's illegal. Blumenthal is right to raise questions about the surveillance of Muslims, but this is again a natural reaction of cops to terrorism. They will spy on people for 'driving while Muslim' if they are allowed to - not because they seethe with Islamophobia as a result of Jewish influence, but because it makes their job easier. Sure, it should be challenged, but in the US, it can be challenged, whereas in Israel, racial and religious sectarianism is inherent to the nation's existence.
Police repression of students and people camping in parks around the country can hardly be attributed to 'Israelification'. Its a continuation of traditional American policing, and not as brutal as many examples in the past, none of which had anything to do with Israel either.
The best argument against Zionist influence in the USA is not liberal whining, but an appeal to American values, and most importantly, interests.
"The Israelification of America’s security apparatus". This article proves nothing. The 'security apparatus' (in less hysterical language, 'the police') repressed and killed strikers, protesters etc, long before Israel was founded.
The suppression of Occupy Wall St is the US state acting in capitalist class interests. Support for Occupy Palestine is the opposite.
Trying to amalgamate the two is typical left-wing fuzzy thinking, and bound to fail.
Why is it that Jews abandoning racial supremacy are regarded as heroes, where its expected behavior among other people? Imagine a reformed skinhead rambling on about how hard it was to abandon white identity. The author makes a false equivalence between 'white privilege' and Zionism. What percentage of white Americans support the re-creation of a white apartheid state? What proportion of American Jews support the continuation of a Jewish apartheid state? There's no comparison. White Europeans today are arguably the least racist people who have ever lived, and the leftist effort to claim otherwise is of no use to the Palestinians, who are not being oppressed by white racism.
One of the few sensible arguments to have come out of the far right is the question "why is white identity regarded as uniquely pathological?" (Well, they put it less coherently than that). There are two answers. One is the anti-racist left-wing answer, which says that ethnic identity is 'OK' only in oppressed groups. This is easily exposed for what it is by their support for Jewish identity. The other is that ethnic identity is highly adaptive, and that's why it exists. Which leads inexorably to the view that pathologizing one particular form of ethnic identity is the expression of the interests of another. Atzmon currently has no answer to that.
Angry Arab's analysis is typical of the pc left. Instead of complaining that it is news when 'Israel does it to white people', which implies a common interest between Jewish and European identity, it would be more effective to point out that Jewish supremacy is against the interests most of the inhabitants of the Western countries, as well as those of the Middle East. The left as it stands can't do that - that's why it has been so effective against white apartheid, segregation and so on, but not against Jewish supremacy.
One of the most effective techniques used by Zionists is to make hysterical attacks on moderate critics, making them look more radical. That's what Goldberg is doing. And the New York Times can be relatively critical, because that is not where most Americans get their impressions of the Middle East. The Israeli press is even more open, because it can afford to be.
"This is delicious. The New York Times is changing. Everyone smells the change in the wind", says Phil. It smells like the same old shit to me.
Brilliant article. But it does make the mistakes of claiming that Zionist influence pushes US politics to the 'right', whereas Zionism is neither left nor right, but uses whichever approach serves it, that some defense of apartheid against Iran could be justified in principle, and implying that Israel could remain a Jewish state but be nicer about it.
Asking Obama to condemn violence by the Egyptian government? Why not demand that the Pope stands up for women's rights?
At one time, spreading illusions in one of the major capitalist parties was a serious problem in the left in many countries. Today, it's just pathetic.
You need to ask a lawyer about that, Chaos. Here's the 1996 Act on Wikipedia: link to en.wikipedia.org
(it was amended in 1997)). Yes, Clinton signed it. Tony Blair is also subject to it - he conspired with Americans to commit war crimes in Iraq.
"Breach the Geneva Conventions"? The Geneva Conventions are for liberals. Rumsfeld & co. breached the 1997 US War Crimes Act, which prescribes the death penalty for a war crime in which anyone was killed!
Stalin moved 'nationalities' about like they were bits of furniture. Mao's China implemented Han chauvinism vs. minorities. Zionism was left-wing when it started. It was supported by the Soviet Union. Kibbutzes were described as a form of socialism. The HQ in Tel Aviv where ethnic cleansing was planned wasn't called 'the Red House' just because of the color of its bricks. Sean - your explanation of the phenomenon of liberals supporting a particular 'right wing' cause is an example of the logical fallacy known as special pleading. Why did they oppose right-wing South Africa but support right-wing Israel? Your explanation isn't the most economical. Ethnic supremacists using liberal or conservative means, whichever is convenient, is.
Oh, and the Red Army ethnically cleansed a few people in 1945. How 'bizarre' that they could reconcile left-wing beliefs with right-wing behavior.
The only issue I have with this informative post is the phrase 'on the right'. Surely the way Democrats and Republicans compete for AIPAC's support shows it has nothing to do with left and right. The Dems aren't outflanking the GOP on the right, they are outflanking it on support for Israel. Zionism is left or right depending on circumstances. There are just as many coherent conservative arguments for ditching this particular form of apartheid as liberal ones.
It's true that, from a purely class perspective, most Israelis are in the proletariat, and so are most Palestinians. When South African apartheid still existed, there were people who actually argued that the struggle against apartheid was a diversion from the class struggle - it divided white workers from black ones, and what was needed was for them to unite. This shows the world isn't just divided into classes. Today Marxism-for-dummies sounds even dumber than it did then, and its funny to see defenders of racial supremacy arguing against Palestine solidarity within the occupy movement using it.
That's a cops' definition of genocide, written by the United Nations, designed to catch anyone they want to - which is what happened to ex-Yugoslavian leaders. "In whole or in part" is so broad, its nonsense. On the other hand, the holocaust industry's definition is too narrow. 'Intent' isn't necessary. The Tasmanian aborigines were completely wiped out without a 'final solution' order signed by Queen Victoria.
On the other hand, something can be 'genocide' if the intent is to destroy a 'race' even if the targeted group are ethnically diverse. The Ukrainian 'holodomor' was as destructive as the Judeocide, but it was not genocidal, despite attempts to give it that status. The Chinese communists' purges exceeded the Nazi holocaust in scale, but they weren't genocidal either. The Red Army in 1945 carried out ethnic cleansing, but not genocide.
The definition shouldn't be so precise as to include complete extermination in reality or intent, but neither should it be so broad as to mean simply killing a bunch of people. The Serb militias didn't carry out 'genocide'; they weren't attacking a separate ethnic group, and they weren't trying to destroy the groups they were attacking. The Nazis clearly did try to carry out genocide of the Jews. Israel wants to 'destroy' the Palestinian people, without necessarily killing every last one. I think this fits into my definition of genocide - it includes 'destroy' and has something to do with 'race'.
I should have been a lawyer.
I don't know if the above account of what happened in Rwanda is right or not, but I am at liberty to find out. I can challenge the official story without fear of censorship or violence. If I write it up on my website, I don't have to avoid visiting Germany. This is because of racial discrimination.
"Still, the trend to contextualize the Holocaust has continued. Some institutions, like the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, now address other genocides, and the Washington museum has set up a commission devoted to stopping future genocides". How reassuring!
It makes it sound as if parts of the holocaust industry can be gradually reformed into doing something useful. But when the ADL under pressure said the Armenian massacre of 1915 onward was genocide, it was a tactical ploy. The concern of these institutions is Jewish power. They are political bodies, not research institutes trying to find out the truth. No, they are not interested in 'stopping future genocides'. On the contrary!
"All praise to the Jewish supporters and putting-bodies-on-the-line in 1960s. Indeed. And now, post 1967, near deafening silence. then and now. Pride and shame."
Surely a more economical explanation is ethnic interest, rather than the moral concepts pride and shame.
Fletcher's statement 'Palestinians are being made to pay the price for the Holocaust' is also a common mistake. In fact, Zionists planned their project before the Holocaust.
Tom Paine was the foremost example of a Brit who supported the revolution. Besides, the analogy is inexact. The position of an ordinary American in 1775 wasn't that different from that of an ordinary Englishman - they had no interest in that war. The empire wasn't ethnically cleansing white Americans the way Israel is the Palestinians. The people being ethnically cleansed had no reason to support the revolution either.
"EVEN the left..."? The Anti-Defamation League etc. have great influence on the left. How is the left more resistant to Zionist corruption than the right?
'Tokyobk' - I was being sarcastic. You are right that anti-whiteism in the left is boring and silly and not dangerous. Conspiracy theories in the past have been dangerous to Jews. But a. some Jews have also believed inaccurate and negative ideas about other cultures, and b. this is modern America, not ancient Russia. Concern about anti-semitism today is just as ridiculous as concern about anti-whiteism, yet it is much more common, exploiting the inverted hierarchy of "who is the most oppressed". The writings of 'critical race theory' illustrate clearly how this has the effect of weakening solidarity with the Palestinians.
Following the example of Jewish Voice for Peace, I'd like to say that the Aryan Nations does not speak for me as a white European. I have been particularly concerned to see the conflation of anti-whiteism with criticism of Western civilization. I repudiate the individual cases where attendees at OWS and related events have promoted the idea of a worldwide banking conspiracy or that WASPs as a group are to blame for recent economic woes. Because there are such people in the left. I have seen and heard them.
"Jewish Voice for Peace-NY, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and Jews Say No!". How many of these groups are there? There's some old joke about if you put two Jews in a room they come out with three opinions. Seriously, why do they form groups based on ethnicity? Because they're oppressed or something?
Massad is a perfect example of the US left's weakness on Israel/Palestine, compared with how successful it was a criticizing European racism. It helped end white apartheid. Jewish apartheid, not so much. If the US supported nuclear weapons because of 'European racial privilege', it would have given them to apartheid South Africa. But it didn't. In fact it helped bring that regime down. It gave them to apartheid Israel, and today backs that regime more enthusiastically than it supports itself. The test is simple, the results are clear: no, it's not European racism. It must be something else.
"OWS is about much more than banks, and the economy doesn't stop at U.S. borders. We honor the OWS message by casting light on and holding our community accountable to a substantial economic problem: the occupation of Palestine yields huge profits for American corporations and has absorbed over 33 billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer dollars" says this article.
As usual, the left is good on feelings, not so good on logic. Opposing Zionism doesn't follow from opposing 'corporations'. The fact that groveling to Israel yields profits proves nothing. ANY policy would yield profits for corporations. Support for Israel, Iran, both or neither would all be profitable. Corporations are like that. The only way you can distinguish between the profitability of political policies is by finding out how good they are for capitalism as a whole. "33 billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer dollars" is the key point. Corporations and rich people pay huge taxes, and Zionism is a waste of money from their point of view.
America's support from Israel doesn't follow from banking, or corporate greed, or whatever other inadequate critique of capitalism the Occupy movement currently holds. It is to do with ethnic power. 150 years ago, the US lived under 'white privilege'. But the average white person had more chance of dying on one or other side of a war in which they had no interest. In a way, the picture at the top says more than the article itself.
"To suggest the turn is connected to a protest against bankers... is fundamentally anti-Semitic" is not as illogical as it appears. What Goldberg is saying is, "why would a movement against bankers make a 'turn' against Israel?". What do bankers and Israel have in common? Well, nothing, unless you think bankers are disproportionately Jewish. In that case, what the two have in common is Jews. So the only reason a movement against one would turn against the other is anti-semitism.
I am of course crediting the guy's logic, not his politics.
Michael Neumann also argues against the one-state solution, following Chomsky's argument that it's impractical:
link to counterpunch.org
The Western countries don't fail to impose a one-state solution on Israel because it's impractical, it's impractical because they fail to impose it. The question is, why? Why are Jewish supremacists supported, where white supremacists were defeated?
Zionists often make a good point, in spite of themselves. 'Lefty protests' are indeed ineffective, especially anti-Zionist ones - the moralism, the apologetic tone, the political correctness, all work to undermine the effort. Opposition to Zionism is not an inherently left-wing cause. Giving it a left-wing flavor alienates many who might support it, if they were informed that its against their interests and against the traditions of the West, rather than a continuation of them. Pointing out that Israel is Christophobic, rather than emphasizing the Islamophobic aspect. That it's a waste of money. That organizations like AIPAC are unpatriotic. Etc..
I disagree. I'd never heard of Joe Paterno until this. Now I'm bombarded, whenever I look at a TV, with the insinuation that he is a child molester. He hasn't been convicted in a court of law, so how can we convict him in a blog? It's trial by media. In some countries, the media is not allowed to report allegations like this until after the trial.
Not at all, Dan. Israel appears to be more racist against Arabs and less so against other goys because it happens to be located in Palestine. There were proposals to put it somewhere else. The Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed, not because they are Palestinians, but because they are not Jewish. Jewish supremacy is against all non-Jews, and that is the key to defeating it - explaining to everyone else that it is against their interests.
The left, by amalgamating Jewish racism (against everyone) with almost-extinct European racism (against Arabs, black people and so on) misses the boat completely, and makes it look as if Westerners in general have more in common with Jewish supremacists than they really do. Israel is overtly Christophobic as well as Islamophobic, and the left don't say that. That's what needs to be said to defeat Zionist power.
Sean McBride's view that Israel is opposed to 'all traditional American values, both conservative and liberal' is not quite right. Large areas of the USA were founded by ethnic cleansing, just like Israel. The difference is that the USA, like all Western countries except Israel, has changed.
That is why the anti-Christian, anti-Western attitudes which exist in the left are no use in opposing Zionism, and that is why, though apartheid and segregation have been abolished, Zionism continues, stronger than ever. It's not white supremacy, it's not imperialism, it's not in the interests of capitalism - it's not among the things leftism is good at targeting. It's quite different, and has to be criticized for its own specific faults. The point is to make the rest of the Western population realize how different they are, how much more advanced they are than the defenders of Israel. It shouldn't be that difficult, given the open expression of racial hatred by powerful Jews in the media (see above), and the complete absence of such views among Americans generally.
The traditional left/liberal/radical approach (summarized amusingly by the bumper sticker about Christians and lions) has been completely ineffective against Zionism. Something new is needed.
Imagine if, during the movements of the 60s and 70s, people had said they don't want these movements to adopt an anti-apartheid perspective, because it would alienate white Afrikaners. Or if, like Zionists today, they used the touchy-feely language of the left to defend racial oppression: "Many Jewish supporters of OWS who do not identify as anti-Zionist... do not feel comfortable identifying with actions in solidarity with armed Palestinian militants". Or "I find such actions deeply offensive". Or that they'd 'grown weary' of the movement's 'co-optation' by black people who don't like apartheid. They would not have been interviewed. They'd have been laughed at, and shown the door.
But today, when Jews like this guy Sieradski argue for the inclusion of their supremacist brethren, they are taken seriously. This discrimination illustrates a prejudice on the left. He does make one good point - it is true that the media would criticize an Occupy movement which specifically opposed Jewish supremacy. But that's like saying, if movements in the 80s had been criticized by the media for explicitly denouncing apartheid, they should have stopped doing so. The media's bias - you can be anti-capitalist, or anti-America, but not anti-Israel - needs to be challenged, not capitulated to.
OK, she's just a person trying to do the best she can. You could say the same of the members of the Bolshevik Party. Political organizations don't follow how their members feel about things. Stalinism today is touchy-feely because its a more effective form of control than the old patriarchal version. "Some of these people post here too". Well, let's see them answer my arguments, then, rather than using how they feel about things as a political weapon.
Look at the website of link to
-
Young Jews say the settlements delegitimize Israel
Young Jews say the Occupation delegitimizes Israel
Young Jews say the siege of Gaza delegitimizes Israel
They don't want to delegitimize Israel - they want to save it from itself.
And the tone of these kind of organizations is so schmaltzy, it makes me shudder.
"I posted this comment hours ago. Why has it not been posted?" - because this is an offshoot of a group of crypto-Zionists who want to control solidarity with the Palestinians, like they manipulated the Move Over AIPAC conference. They say Jews have been persecuted throughout history as scapegoats. Thats\the reason they should 'speak out' against the 'occupation' of the West Bank. Which means that ethnic cleansing in 1948 was kosher, but not in 1967. The Deir Yassin massacre was OK, Shatillah was not. This is a fallback position. All they care about is Jews, no-one else.
'The Israeli colonization of historically Palestinian lands'? No, colonialism is one country colonizing another. Israel isn't occupying Palestine, Israel IS the occupation of Palestine. Anti-colonialists in India didn't claim that British people shouldn't live in Britain. Talk of colonialism makes it sound as if Tel Aviv is legitimately occupied, but Ramallah is not.
'Focusing on condemning Jewish racism'? Unfortunately, it's not true. The left throughout the Western world fall over themselves to avoid doing this.
"The Palestinian cause is not only a nationalist struggle, but part of a global condemnation of racism and colonialism" says Kayyal. Surely these tired old left-wing clichés are part of the reason for the Palestinian cause's dismal failure. A Palestinian nation is an impossibility. A two-state solution is apartheid. A one-state solution which rejects ethnic nationalism is the only solution. Opposition to Zionism is not necessarily part of 'the global condemnation of racism'. It only requires condemning Jewish racism. And how is Israel 'colonialism'? Of which country is it a colony? The USA? No, it's the other way round!
Important points, particularly for this left-leaning blog. The Zionist HQ in Israel was called 'the Red House', and not just 'coz of the color of the bricks. The Soviet Union supported the Zionist cause against Britain 'coz it was 'anti-imperialist'. In 1948, Jews worldwide, and Zionism in Israel, were overwhelmingly left-wing. The only congressman to call for an end to aid to Israel is a Republican. Ellen makes some good points also. Jewish power is neither left nor right, it adopts whatever politics it needs to serve its ends. I can't understand why the authors of this blog prefer left to right on the I/P question.
The article and the comments illustrate the weakness of the left on the Israel/Palestine question. The anti-apartheid movement wasn't too hypersensitive about talking about 'Afrikaner racism'. I don't conflate Judaism with Zionism, Maggie Lorraine (nice name!) nevertheless, I use the same phrase that is proudly used by many Israelis (and what Les calls 'anti-Semites') - "Jewish power" - special rights given to members of an ethnic group, like white power in America 100 years ago or South Africa 30 years ago. Calling using this term 'paranoid racism' as the article does is false, divisive, and a white flag to the Zionists.
This article says 'When a protester insists that "the smallest group in America controls the money, media and all other things.... Obama is a Jewish puppet...", we can discern an irreducibly anti-Semitic leap of logic... such superstitious belief still bubbles up, obscuring clear comprehension of the real class enemies.'
Never mind, we can always rely on Marxism to give us a warm fuzzy feeling. Seriously, it's not as simple as that. It's like saying complaints about white power in South Africa were a diversion from the class struggle. And Obama IS a puppet, where Jewish interests are concerned, as is the rest of the political establishment. Analyzing the incredible power of the Lobby is not 'superstition'. Denying it is.
If liberal Zios are moving to the left it's because they see it as a more effective way of defending racial supremacy in different circumstances.
"J Street is appalled" - by Rachel Abrams' tactical mistake. They want their ethnic cleansing hate-free.
All the commenters here have fallen into a trap. A Zionist attacks Amy Goodman as too critical of Israel, and this makes her look radical. She is not. 'Hophmi' says "she allows CERTAIN voices to speak for themselves and omits the voices of those who do not share her political beliefs". Right, but not in the way he means. She's never even had Alison Weir on her show. If Weir were a leading campaigner against apartheid, or the Vietnam war, or US policy in Central America, she'd be welcomed by Goodman. But she's not. She's a leading campaigner on Palestine, and Goodman is a gatekeeper.
Ellen: First, I know he's sincere. I'm talking about logic. You're make the same (sincere) logical error - you talk about 'occupation', which means you are taking a position on boundaries. You imply that the Irish Sea is a natural boundary, but the boundary of Northern Ireland is an artificial one. You say Britain divided Ireland but you don't say Irish nationalism divided the British Isles. "Citizens of all of Ireland may vote to remove artificial borders": you've made your mind up where the boundaries are, just as much as the Brits did!
By 'emotional blackmail' I mean the Brits turned initially Jews away from the Holy Land in 1947, but one of the reasons they then let them in was out of the manipulation of sympathy for the Jewish plight following the Holocaust.
Well, yes, except you've confused cause and effect. It's true that the Democrats regard people like you as 'cattle to be milked', but that's because you support them. I'm asking why you put yourself in this position in the first place.