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Total number of comments: 12 (since 2010-04-11 17:29:06)

unverified__dci7ge76

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• The Toulouse killings and the false specter of European anti-Semitism
  • Laurent Weppe March 30, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    Laurent, you’re referring to Geert Wilder and that sort of phony philo-semite?

    Why, yes

    Can you provide the Guardian link?

    The link was already provided earlier, but here:

    link to guardian.co.uk

  • Laurent Weppe March 30, 2012 at 11:18 am

    The “segment of Jew-haters” of old is negligible

    On the contrary: the great majority of antisemites still come from this section, except that as explained in the Guardian article, today, they disguise themselves as «philo-Semitic friends of Israel who “plight their troth” with Israel’s struggle», the far-right activists and politicians -as well as the core of their voting block- who claim to looooooooove Israel still hate Jews, but they have, by "pragmatism" decided to hide their animosity, for now. The difference between the fake friends of Israel and the fake friend of Palestinians is purely cosmetic

  • Laurent Weppe March 30, 2012 at 7:14 am with 38 replies

    It’s not that virulent anti-Jewish sentiment doesn’t exist in Europe [...] so much as Israel’s use of it to justify its calls for Europe’s Jews to come to Israel freely

    Note that when israeli politicians are calling european Jews to come to Israel, they do not merely say accurate things like "Anti-semitism still exists in Europe": they either implies or openly state that the situation of european Jews is as bad, or about to become as bad, as it was in the 1930s. Or, as I stated much earlier, before the "Whaaaaaaaa, anti-semitism should not be used because not all Jews are Semites and all Semites are not Jews" kerfuffle, studies about it have been made and show otherwise.

    Anyway, the article, while good, underestimate the level of cynicism on the far-right's side: for instance, in the 70's François Duprat (Le Pen senior's gray eminence) himself a raving antisemitic holocaust denier, was among the first to devise what would become the MO of European far-right parties: using anti-immigrant rhetoric as a tool to gain enough vote to attain power, and once there, use the firepower of the state against Jews as well as against immigrants.
    The problem was that -at first-, part of the rank-and-file of the far-right refused to stop expressing their hatred of Jews, it seems they were either too limited -or too bloodthirsty- to even play pretend (a question that every politically-savvy asks at least once is whether Le Pen senior's anti-semitic provocation are the result of a lack of self-control on his part or a way for him to keep the morons in line). But after several decades, of trying to teach the same trick to their troops, european far-right leaders were moderatly succesful and their troops became more skilled at hidding their intents.

  • Laurent Weppe March 29, 2012 at 8:24 am

    At some point, one would be excused to wonder how obsessing over the meaning of antisemitism and/or whether the ancestors of Ashkenazi did at some point enjoy to add yogurt sauce to their grilled beacon has anything to do with far-right israeli politicians making unsubstantiated claims about the situation of french Jews.

  • Laurent Weppe March 28, 2012 at 4:03 pm

    why you think it is there is such an attachment to it?

    Because it's a useful term: antisemite is an efficient way to quickly describe someone who tries to justify his animus toward Jews by proclaiming them a ethnically monolithic perfidious über-tribalistic group, reality be damned.

  • Laurent Weppe March 28, 2012 at 10:29 am with 12 replies

    That's bullshit: anti-semite is a term that the anti-Jew biggots themselves chosed to use during the 19th because they believed it sounded smart. You're not going to tell that racism is a word not to be used simply because modern biology shows that the notion of different human races does not hold water.

  • Laurent Weppe March 28, 2012 at 1:08 am

    The suspect allegedly also killed Muslim citizen of France. Strangely, I don’t see Saudi Arabia calling on French Muslims to leave France for the “safe haven of Islam in Saudi Arabia”

    One of his victims among the soldiers was a Catholic, but since he had an arabic family name, Merah (the killer) believed he was another "muslim traitor" and targeted him as well.

    ***

    As for whether antisemitism is on the rise or not, here is the last report of the french National Consultative Commission of Human Rights:
    link to scribd.com

    According to this repport:

    25% of the french population sees Jews as being a group aloof from the rest of society. In 2004, 40% of the population saw Jews as being aloof; in 2009, 29%
    40% of the french population sees maghrebi immigrants as being a group aloof from the rest of society. in 2004, 57% of the population saw maghrebi immigrants as being aloof; in 2009, 33%
    51% of the french population sees Muslims as being a group aloof from the rest of society. in 2004, 63% of the population saw maghrebi immigrants as being aloof; in 2009, 44%

    So it appears that expressed feelings of alienness toward Jews are diminishing in France, while the expressed feelings of alienness toward Muslims or the main group of arabic immigrants are rising again after a period deflation between 2004 and 2009.

    Also, while observed by political affiliation, it appears that tolerance of minorities remained stable among left-wing and centrist French, and diminished a lot among right-wing Frenchs, from nearly 52% of right-wing Frenchs displaying tolerant opinions in 2008 to 43% today, the lowest level since 1992.

    When it comes to studying ethnocentrism in the population, French people used to show a very low level of ethnocentrism from the hard left to the moderate right: only the far right displayed in 2009 a high level of ethnocentrism, while in 2011, centrists displayed a level of ethnocentrism nearly twice as high as two years prior, center-right people displayed a level of ethnocentism similar to the 2009 far-right's level of ethnocentrism and the ethnocentrism of the far-right was also rising.

    When it comes to threats, vandalism or actual acts of violence against persons, last year showed a reduction of antisemitic acts and a dramatic rise (+33,6%) of anti-muslim acts, but it is hard to know whether this rise came from an increase of islamophobic acts or from the fact that victimes come forth more easily today than in the past.

    So the last available data show no rise of antisemitism (at least in France, it might be another story in other countries) but a clear rise of the anti-muslim/anti-arabic animus fueled virtualy exclusively from the Right Wing of public opinion.

• Desch: Bloom misses the historical shift re anti-Semitism
  • Laurent Weppe May 11, 2010 at 1:19 am

    You know, I'm not even jewish, so why would I be satisfied if "til everybody in the orchestra, and all of the solists, are Jewish"?

    Anyway, classical antisemitism is a problem, even if you look only at the israelo-palestinian conflict: as I said, you do not want to have them as your bedfellows: antisemites exist (a well known fact), and some of them have tried to masquerade as pro-palestinians (another well known fact).

    While the Likud & cie apologists have claimed that every pro-palestinian is an antisemite, which is a repulsive lie, those two facts have helped such a lie to appear legitimate, which is the reason why keeping the antisemites outside of any pro-palestinian initiative is vital.

  • Laurent Weppe May 10, 2010 at 8:39 am

    "By the way Shamir, Israeli Scholar Shlomo Zand has written a thesis that claims the notion of a Jewish people is a myth"

    Actually, Sand's thesis is that there is no "pure" jewish ethnic group (which is a very good thing, unless you are in favor of inbreeding). That does not mean that there is no "Jewish people".

  • Laurent Weppe May 9, 2010 at 5:59 pm with 2 replies

    While I agree with the idea that there is a huge difference between antisemtism and critics of Israel's policies, this does not mean that the classical antisemitism has disappeared. Besides, while it has been overused as an argument to deny the legitimacy of any critics, there are antisemites who will try to hide between the critics of Israel, saying that "If Israel and its supporters are not members of the international society because they do not abide by common standards of decency" it "proves" that "Jews cannot be members of the international society" and therefore legitimate their desire to restart the slaughter.

    The existence unwanted bedfellows (antisemites masquerading as "critics of Israel", who mirror the crowd of the anti-arabic racists who claim to be "simply friends of Israel") remain a problematic matter.

  • Laurent Weppe May 9, 2010 at 5:56 pm

    "Was there ANY UN condemnation for Russia? Same goes for China and Tibet."

    Three words for you: Security Concil Veto
    That did not stop some efforts to be made:

    link to actfortibet.org
    link to news.bbc.co.uk

• Tutu: Issue is the same in Palestine as it was in South Africa, 'equality'
  • unverified__dci7ge76 April 11, 2010 at 12:41 pm with 1 replies

    Well, they could defer to a white and universally respected Jew from South Africa and...

    Oh yeah, Justice Goldstone has ALSO been called a Jew hater

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