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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
Ah yes "ethnic" Germans, since although Jews have lived in Germany of over 1,000 years they are still not fully German.
Everyone and everything gets morphed in this conversation.
Patinkin is (at the least) a liberal Zionist, the kind who would be pilloried here in any other context.
In my opinion and experience Japan and Korea were on par in terms of xenophobia in the 1980's but now Japan is far more advanced than Korea in this regard as well as in women's rights.
Now, this is true for foreigners in general but particularly regarding Westerners (of all colors). The regard for other Asian groups in both countries is still retrograde, though here again, imo, Japan is a little more advanced than Korea.
um, ok. a Jewish/non-Jewish sticker. Better?
Inhumanity does not know borders.
Distinctive sometimes humiliating clothing such as non matching shoes were also part of some subjugation practices in the ME. The first use of a yellow badge for Jews was by AlMuktawakil in Baghdad in the 9th century.
This is sick because it is sick but given Jewish history, especially in recent Europe, its an especially creepy thing to do to Palestinians.
Though wouldn't the ethnic sticker be substantially worse than the already very bad segregation by license plate because that, as I understand it, does not discriminate against Jewish and non-Jewish Israelis. If the passport sticker identifies ethnicity alone independent of citizenship (which by the way shows how ethnicity is not such a hard category after all otherwise there would be no need for a signpost) that is like Apartheid and Jim Crow in a way that has no mitigation.
Cliff,
I am not a liberal Zionist and my point is not in support of Zionism.
Nor do I think they are all equally right or wrong. Simply as I put it, for each the discussion of Islam is serving a larger point.
And by the way, you slip into saying that I am agreeing with Maher and asking me if -I- accept blanket statements about Jews. Why? In fact, no, I don't accept blanket statements about Jews or Muslims and I agree that Harris spares Judaism (though not the OT) in ways he does not spare Muslims. Though he denies he is a bigot against Muslims. Have you read his rebuttal?
That said, I don't think any criticism of Islam no matter how strident is what is meant by Islamophobia. Nor do I think criticizing or even disliking the theology of Judaism is anti-semitism, as we mean it to define ethnic bigotry.
Greenwald's writing might be thoroughly researched on Civil Liberties (the issue that matters to him and the one in which he uses Muslims as the stand in for victim and Other) but he says almost nothing about the religion Islam, my point again.
"Islam" is a proxy vehicle for Greenwald's, Maher's and for Sam Harris' macro politics. All three dismiss anything about it which does not support the grand theory and focus on any aspect that does. As one of the competing versions of Truth on planet Earth for the last 1,400 years, Islam has enough history to supply each.
Israel has to split Jerusalem because its only claim to legitimacy is within international law.
But what your refer to in the Hamas Charter references the laws for treating the People of The Book, that is to say dhimmitude, and a paternalistic and two tiered system much like that decried here routinely as practiced by Israel.
One problem within white liberalism is the tendency to see whites as the sole and important audience. When he referred to his blackness, I took that -- and I know other people did as well, as addressing both whites and blacks since Homosexuality is demonstrably more taboo in the black community. This is true both in the "Down Low" culture as well as in the mainstream black churches.
As for pink washing, you are right Phil that changing the subject to Gay or women's rights is not an acceptable method of addressing (or rather failing to address) Palestinian rights in Israel and in the OT.
But the reverse is equally true. Israeli suppression of Palestinians and racist double standards for Palestinian Israelis does not mitigate Israel's measurable advancements in rights for these groups. If someone were to infer this as stemming from an inborn trait or even an essential ethnicity-- that would indeed be racist.
I think another huge aspect of this story is precisely that he went under everybody's gaydar. It helps people understand that not all gay men conform to one way of talking or acting. Bravo.
If the bombers were mistreated and if they had a coherent political philosophy this might be relevant but they did not. The older brother was thrown out by his (admirable) mosque for going on a natters rave about Martin Luther King.
The USA in general and the city of Cambridge in particular could not have been more welcoming and more supportive of these madmen and their families.
This inquiry does what it claims to be against and that is link legitimate foreign policy debates with murderous lunatics who blow up children.
Are you saying Ibish holds these positions? That would mean you have never read him.
? why uh-oh?
I have come to see Hussein Ibish as one of the brightest, most consistent and fair minded spokesmen on the I/P issue.
Wait, are you saying that Ira Glass did not produce this or consent to its being produced and reported on his show? Or, is it not his show and he is just one of several hosts or just a spokesperson for someone else's show?
"If Jews cannot work out how to live safely in their native lands, that is unfortunate, but that is their problem."
RoHa Just think about that statement and apply it to any minority or subjugated group including Palestinians. Its a rather despicable sentiment and in fact the essence of know nothing bigotry.
Louis Farrakhan had a version of that. "Everybody talks about what Hitler did to the Jews but (sic) don't nobody talk about what the Jews did to Hitler."
And PS of course Jews are not persecuted in every country least of all the US where Jews have flourished.
This is the posh stance of the elite and in-the-know but its not true by anything measurable. The Islamophobia, sadly yes. Polls such as Zogby show mistrust and dislike of Arabs and Muslims among Americans. In pockets these numbers are terrifyingly high.
General Ignorance about the world and history. The rude American asks compared to whom? America still publishes the most books and has the highest rated Universities where people from all over the world congregate at the entrances. When France elects and French man or woman of North African Descent to its highest office, when England elects a South Asian and the "royal family" marries a Catholic or someone brown then I will listen to lectures about American diversity and ignorance of the world. America is the world and places like NYC and Silicon Valley are the embodiment of cosmopolitain diversity and closer to meritocratic than 99% of the rest of the planet.
US is consistently in the top three of world travelers spending tens of billions of dollars in other countries. Yes, there are idiots abroad just as their are snobs who look down on Americans out of spite and player hatred (and yes America's imperialism too).
Florida loves Israel because a bunch of people at U of Fla. Hillel got together and created a "Florida Loves Israel" event. No state went through any hoops, and any other country-promoting group has the same right to free assembly, however worthy or dubious.
And it sounds as if Bernstein was not entirely propagandistic:
"But he cautioned his listeners to look beyond pamphlets they receive from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC, and consider multiple sources to find facts on the state of Israeli life and politics."
In fact its no straw man but a fundamental question to a One State solution.
Everyone wants an internet free of pushback which is how words (that also have true instances) like "antisemitic" and "hasbara" are employed as conversation enders.
Liberal racism that ascribes all good and bad to the West and exempts "natives" from moral responsibility, fear of contributing to an Israeli narrative, fear of being labeled a liberal imperialist, also stifles this inquiry.
When Omar Barghouti was at Yale he mentioned that the fear of Jews as a minority was irrational. He gave the United States and France as an example. He did not mention any state in the Middle East. (I am aware of varying records from tolerant to cleansing here, though find parsing expulsions to be distasteful).
How minorities were and more importantly are are treated in this part of the world is relevant but generally this is an important question. The whites of South Africa needed to be shown that they were free to remain as equals though not as conquerors.
I would go further, imo Palestine will flourish if Tel Aviv high tech and the gay pride parade endure. That is a practical as well as a moral statement. If the Palestinians as a majority chose to behave like Amin to the Indian community or Mugabe to white farmers that might be their choice as a majority but the world would have the right to judge and I think the results would be the same.
mj you only have one use to the people who frustrate you (no not the majority of MW commenters but a few). Any thing from you other than charges of Jewish sedition and interloppery are superfluous.
I suppose their could be a comparison to Hiroshima when you remember Admiral Halsey's claim that his campaign was simply to "kill Japs, Kill Japs, kill more Japs."
But it was a declared total war on both sides. And, the fact that Japan was pushing for a land invasion that would have killed more is not completely US propaganda.
I always wonder why Hiroshima is the stand in for evil killing -- dramatic I suppose. To die in the fire bombs of Osaka or Tokyo would have been far far worse. Gasoline jelly on a wooden city, people jumping into boiling canals. Gruesome, and slower.
A better comparison would be what the Japanese did in China, including Mengele like experiments.
But you know Phil at the Okinawa peace museum I saw someone wrote out the conclusion of the poem/song Oseh Shalom, "make peace," and had changed the ending from "alenu v'al col Yisrael" (on us and on all of Israel) to "aleinu v'al col ha olam" -- On us an on the whole world.
Indeed. The tracks on which the bullet train runs were laid with the idea of tunneling through to connect Tokyo and Seoul. Same when you ride from Seoul to Pusan. The Korean Peninsula was considered part of the interior country, as opposed to farther holdings in Asia.
When your citizens are wandering the countryside looking for bark to eat, when children who are caked in dirt are fighting over scraps of rotten meat in the town square, when you regime sends whole families to concentration camps for insufficient loyalty, when you fire missiles over neighboring countries and threaten nuclear war (against the people who are actually keeping your peole from all starving with food shipments while you build missiles), then you demonize yourself.
PS I got none of the first info from American news but from direct sources including videos smuggled out and books written in Japan.
Nothing worse than a well fed Westerner thinking of NK as some made up hoax. They are pure evil.
"You are part of the first stirrings of protest, not against Israel, not against the Israeli people, not against Jews, but against the illegal, unjust, immoral,and inhumane policies of the Israeli government. I am proud of you and stand with you in solidarity."
These are the kinds of words that make it into the hearts of good minded people and create similarity to Civil Rights and anti-Apartheid. They are also the basis of any real One State solution, since One State acknowledges all of the people living there and does not deny Jewish desire or legitimacy (within a moral structure) in that region.
"Khazar" as you use it here has the same low pedigree as "Fakestinian."
I understand pointing out the irony that Ashkenazim might be significantly descended from medieval Turkic converts in light of claims that Israel was given by God to the Jews and secular variants of that idea. But casual use of Khazar for Jew is despicable and embarrassing. (or, a la Farrakhan and Nazi history "so-called Jews," since the fake Hebrews are thus racial impostors and identity thieves.)
No other purely ethnic slight would be allowed here and for good reason.
As you well know, anyway, the guards could be Iraqi or Yemenite since half of Israel is non Ashkenazic.
Its a sad and moving essay and its seems (expressed also in his rejection of anti Judaism) that the author kept his humanity in tact which would be hard for anyone who went through that type of bullying.
Lastly, and in no way a defense of the above treatment, the implication is that any notification of travel to the WB means refusal but groups are traveling there all the time as are editors of this site. Do people just not say they are going there?
Well China is certainly expert in occupation, neocolonialism, and arresting Muslims and holding them without trial as "terrorists," and no this is not a deflection from Israel or BDS.
It was 1936 but still bad enough. The great scholar W.E.B. Du Bois toured Germany and, typical of his love for German culture, (he lived there as a student after Harvard), extolled the clean roads, the people the music. He also became one of the first Americans to comment on the worsening condition of the Jews, though he felt that it was not as bad at that time as black Americans had it. He was always treated better in Germany, even Nazi Germany, than he was in America, particularly the South.
Du Bois was right on all counts and had every right to be there as a cultural ambassador and to praise the praiseworthy aspects of German culture.
A legitimate One State (not one group dominating the other) will require tremendous acts of normalization and cultural engagement as well as acceptance of much of what Israel has built, even as the conqueror.
A movement rooted in universal justice does not need to spend much time cleaning house, just make the terms clear. When Ali Abuminah whacks Great Berlin and Gilad Atzmon he furthers the legitimacy of his positions. Pro-Palestinian and anti-Jewish are useful distinctions for everyone involved.
"American" is consistent in his regard of Jews as not fully or naturally American. I agree that Jews evoking transnational membership also can do this and that it can be confusing. I was not picking on a random poster but someone who has, as I mention, consistently referred to Jewishness as something which in itself denotes non-American-ness.
If, for example, you had written a similar sentence I would not have commented because you have made it clear many times that you don;t see Jewish or Muslim Americans as incomplete citizens.
I disagree completely with the supposed qualification and see it as more of the same.
"he’s grateful to or credits the Jews for his opportunities and success but doesn’t give America the country or Americans as people any credit for it.”
Its exactly my point. He did not say "other Americans" he contrasted Jews and Americans.
And, its the 300th time, not the first.
"Identifies with Jews more than Americans..."
I don't think you have written a single comment without the (absurd and bigoted) premise that these are somehow distinct categories.
If you don't see tribalism in the Palestinian movement you are not following the one here on planet earth. I understand why Palestinians would feel the call to group identity. I don't understand or feel a pass should be given to people who otherwise reject ethnic politics. This is another way to be PEP; progressive except Palestine.
Though two things that have to be admitted about BDS even by someone who rejects it on principle, as I do. (academic and cultural boycotts of Pakistan, Saudi, North Korea and Iran are or would be wrong too)
1) It is non-violent. For years people said if the Palestinians were non-violent they would be admired by the whole world, including Israelis. If they only had a Gandhi... Well, now here is a non-violent movement.
2) I don't know how Israel will be convinced to stop the settlements and support a Palestinian State. I cannot understand why on (frankly Zionist) tactics alone Israel is not the first to endorse a Palestinian state. There is a reason why so many active in this issue hate the idea of 2 States. It would be a victory for the dreams of 48.
Gamal, I think the onus is largely on the Israelis.
Yes, I think BDS and much of the One State impetus relies on non-normalization and yet normalization is the first principle of a just One State.
I reject all nationalism and tribalism including Jewish. I believe political Zionism is incompatible with democracy. There are those here and elsewhere who claim to work in the name of human rights but in fact accept tribalism and essentialism when it favors their (perceived) side.
Thank you professor. Very measured words in an area where it is nearly impossible to say anything balanced.
(I also thought your words at Yale at the Barghouti event about taking a moral stand without endorsing excesses were very careful and brave).
With Obama, imo its not the dream of identity in general which is particularly appealing, but specifically the allure of belonging to a place naturally.
It makes sense that he would want to heap legitimacy on essential identities since his own has been constructed. Over the course of his life he had to learn how to present hims self as legitimate both to the black and white community, or rather various black and white communities.
But, as you point out, his words in Cairo and Jerusalem mark a step backwards in the development of how we consider and appeal for rights.
I would also say, without endorsing equal narratives, that it is impossible to have One State until a sufficient number of Israelis and (more importantly) Palestinians abandon the idea that there is such a thing as someone who does not belong naturally to the place they are living. In fact, One State (based in rights and democracy) is the ultimate form of normalization.
You find reflexive essentialism among the Israeli right but also among the Palestinians across the spectrum and prominent in the international left. Which is why even here people who normally reject race and ethnocentrism rant about DNA, Khazars, are offended that Obama looked at the Dead Sea Scrolls, and argue usually for the assumed rights of a Palestinian people, not the individual ones of the citizen (or future citizen) whose parentage is irrelevant.
"Talking to them, they weren’t that different from my daughters, they weren’t that different from your daughters or sons," he said.
"I honestly believe that if any Israeli parent sat down with these kids, they’d say, 'I want these kids to succeed, I want them to prosper, I want them to have opportunities just like my kids do,'" he added to applause.
That is F'd up on so many levels. Its Nakba incitement.
Who do you think would so most of the dying?
Probably not Israelis and definitely not internet warrior Americans.
I don't think it is different. I think Israel has made Palestinians into dhimmi; A subdued people who are constantly made aware of their status as conquered people. I don't believe in two equal narratives but I do believe this type of supremacy should be challenged wherever and Hamas is blatant about it and deserves no pass.
Annie and MRW I am aware "sufferance" means those things.
back to "on sufferance" which is the relevant term here.
by mere toleration; as, to remain in a house on sufferance.
- Blackstone. (the free dictionary.com)
This is how the term is being used by the quoted author and clearly it is exactly what Hamas means in the passage of its charter I quoted.
I am glad you were not calling me Islamophobic.
I can read and I also understand that "on sufferance" means to be tolerated under someone else's authority, not necessarily to make suffer (as Annie seems to think?), the exact position Hamas holds towards other religions and to the secularism of the PLO also discussed in the charter (27).
Cheap shot Annie. I am surprised. The very kind of cheap shot that you and others here are quick to point out when "antisemitic" is used.
I don't think Hamas represents Islam or most Muslims or even most Palestinians. It is clear form their own words that they see the People of the Book as dhimmi to live "In the shadow" of Islam.
The author says the charge that -Hamas- believes Jews and Christians will live under Islam is unsubstantiated. Its in their charter.
Krauss,
I agree with what you say in spirit, but I don;t understand your demography. Blacks were a majority in most of the lower South since the 1700's until the Great Migration, esp. Mississippi and SC with other states were always at about 50% in this period. Unless for you Jim Crow means the 1960's perhaps? Even then there were many counties still majority black.
Unsubstantiated? Article 31 of the Hamas charter, for starts. Has this been revoked?
'Under the shadow of Islam it is possible for the members of the three religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism to coexist in safety and security. Safety and security can only prevail under the shadow of Islam, and recent and ancient history is the best witness to that effect. The members of other religions must desist from struggling against Islam over sovereignty in this region. "
I read the rejection quote and deduced that:
1) Citizen thinks that the editor was saying something other than "you are a terrible writer and have absolutely no chance of your novel being published."
2) Citizen really believes The Jews were the direct and indirect cause of his novel not being published.
3) Citizen does not mind telling the MW world that his novel was rejected not because it was lousy but because the editors had a gripe against its goyishness. Meaning in sum;
4) Citizen has a tenuous grasp on communication and probably wrote a crappy novel.
But, I could be wrong and would absolutely love to read it (skim) and the rejection notes and would promise to preorder if he published it on lulu.com.
Asians on campus are mostly not complaining about Jews. They are complaining in general about Affirmative Action. But I think the Asians are like the Jews of old in the sense that they need to over perform to beat a quota. Otherwise, Ivies would be 50% Asian.
It used to be easy to reject Asians based on lack of extra-curricular activities, but once Asian parents found out that things mattered besides music and math, Asians began to outperform in these areas too.
Asian, in fact means Korean and Chinese mostly. Japanese Americans have been richer and more established and tend to follow the same downward mobility as other Americans.
What a load of hearsay and, as you admit, anecdote.
The first generation of Jews to enter Ivy Leagues and high positions of Wall Street outperformed their gentile peers to make quotas. When my father interviewed in the late fifties (at a college that had been Lutheran associated) he was asked point blank, "why should we give up a perfectly good spot for a Jewish applicant). Yale was capped for years at a steady 5 - 10%. The Jews got in were lucky and gifted. One reason Penn was considered a "lesser Ivy" is because they admitted Catholics and Jews liberally.
If anything the later generations have benefited from networks over work but still no one is saying Jews are getting into Ivies without the requisite scores. Are you?
There is no doubt that ethnic groups network and that Jews have perpetuated success by extending assistance, often financial to relatives and friends. But that is in a sense how it should be. People should help those near to them and generally.
Jews outperform any other group in donating to academic prizes and endowments. Jews were traditionally among the largest non-black donors to the United Negro College Fund.
Its so easy to player hate a group for their successes. And so incredibly lame.
I asked as you see below. I am happy if it is as you say. There was no response. I do not find any pleasure in bigotry.
I wonder why it got a pass from MW? I think they have been good about cleaning up the comments section.
Thanks for a clear view of your mind and soul.
Your novel was not rejected because of The Jews, it was rejected because you don't even understand the editors comments which were about the quality of your writing, not geo-politics.
PS. Manhattan where Girls takes place is more than 2% Jewish and btw its about a bunch of over privileged mostly Jewish girls written by a Jewish girl.
How dare she be so successful while Jewish!
Jews "all have their heads up their arises" or right wing think tanks?
Jews were banned in early Connecticut.
Jews actually fared better in the South where there was a premium on whiteness.
Covenants were real. Maybe not in the neighborhood you were referring to but certainly in Fairfield County and many other places.
And, of course quotas in Universities as well as "White Shoe" law firms and some investment banks.
All this changed of course and Jews, whatever lingering prejudice exists here and there, are well established and secure in the US.
You are talking as if the majority of Israelis are first generation immigrants from Brooklyn and Moscow, and all Palestinians are descended from local people.
In fact there are more Israelis who are descended from Jews expelled from Middle East countries and whose family has been there since Palestine, a smaller number whose families have been there forever.
The issue is human rights moving forward and equality under law.
I understand abhorring genocide and whitewashing evil but what's the beef with civilization? It has touched every continent and been driven by people of every race and religion.
Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci contributed inordinately to human progress. Yes, human progress always facilitates evil. But saying that not having the technology for gas chambers means humans won't kill each other is absurd.
When Native Americans migrated to South America and build enormous civilizations with urban centers they named the regions after themselves too, ditto the Mali and Songhai.
Its case by case. The Quinnipiac sale to the English settlers of New Haven was imo a genuine sale. I believe the same for Manhattan and the land sold to William Penn. Much of New England was fairly contracted at the time though as more English came the land grabs began and the treaties were broken as whites spilled over the Appalachian Mountains.
And your point is?
Native American Indians are not immediately ennobled by the fact that various European tribes, first in competition and then in collusion, were better at conquest.
What Europeans and then a confederated Christian and (eventually self identified) white civilization did to Natives is one of the great crimes of humanity but Indians, particularly the Lakota, are not strangers to conquest and subduing less powerful nations and taking their land.
Therefore, a Native American has the right to lament the destruction of their people on human rights grounds but not, imo, on the grounds that white people and European civilization is bad.
I also reject the idea that this land, or any land, including IsraelPalestine belongs innately to a tribe or "race: or religion, not the last to conquer it and not the (supposedly innocent) people who had it before.
Human rights on human rights grounds is the only answer.
"That joking is shameful?"
Yes, calling someone an "Indian Giver" or using the term "HOnest Injun" is shameful especially in light of the American Genocide. Redskins for a football team is despicable.
Helen Thomas's comments that the Israeli's should "go back" to Europe were not exactly rejected here.
But if what you say is true I am glad. Its not a throw in. it a bright line between people who want to move forward equitably and those who want to fight a nationalist battle.
And the second part is important too.
I think Yassir Arafat (bEgypt) and Omar Barghouti (b.Qatar) are Palestinian because of their ancestry and cultural and political commitment and because they identify themselves as such. But I don't think that their immigration to Palestine is anything more magical than Miss Israel who immigrated from Ethiopia. I don't think a person of second generation NIgerian descent is less British than a person whose grandfather was born in London who "moves back" from New York.
..bought from the Quinnipiac I should have said...
People are not full of it for being American and Australian and caring about human rights in Israel and Palestine. Neither are Americans and Australians who believe in one or two Sates based on rights. But Americans who live on Occupied Mexico or stolen soil who think that all Israeli's should be ejected and that people who have been in a place for generations are still interlopers (while someone else of the "right" ethnicity can mover there and be a Native) are indeed full of it and hypocritical.
Barghouti said the same thing at Yale but in fact the land of New Haven was bought by a small band of Boston exiles from the Pequot who wanted protection from the Mohegan. It further begs the question (especially relevant to Israel/Palestine) as to whether land remains the essential marker of its inhabitants. Is Africa "black," Is Europe "white" and "Christian?
He said, correctly, that many land sales were coerced. But not in New Haven in 1638 and not in New York either.
So is Manhattan, essentially and eternally native?The Dutch bought Manhattan and before you say "yes but for some shiny beads" reflect if that is not a kind a racism to assume the natives did not know the value of their own land and did were not capable of a contract.
And the Lakota are migrated north over several hundred years and were at war with other (distinct as it is pointed out) nations establishing their territory.
This is not to deny the genocide of natives or the despicable ways in which native Americans have been made into mascots, slurs and the butt of jokes. That many of our cherished presidents were proud genocidal maniacs regarding Natives makes any such denial shameful.
It is, however, to say that racism of erasing Indians and their memory is not undone by the flip side of a caricature which makes Indians somehow innocent outsiders to human history.
The event was picked up by another synagogue.
Israel matters to Jews and Jews matter to Israel.
What happens in synagogues is very important and there is no reason why "goys" (your word) cannot participate just as here on mondoweiss a self described site from within the Jewish community.
talknic,
You don't really believe that. What Israel does in Israeli territory is of great concern here, as it should be.
I can never understand (except for politics) why these concerns are exclusive.
In fact, it makes sense to hold both concerns, for the rights of all Palestinians and for the rights of women in Gaza.
I do think its unfair to accuse Beinart of concern trolling and also not completely convincing that Hamas is out of the mondoweiss purview.
If you are a true One Stater based on rights for all and protection of minorities, that is to say a democracy of its citizens, than the values of Palestinian governments and movements are fair for critique.
By the way there was a MW article previously critiquing western feminism. Here is an article by Rema Hammami of Birzeit University, also relevant here; _Women, The Hijab and the Intafada_. I believe it its in the spirit of my opening comment that rights are rights and its is not just possible but morally consistent to apply rights concerns evenly: link to michaelpwolf.net
You are either for expulsions and ethnic cleansing or against it them.
If you think Arabs naturally belong in Israel but a "non-supremacist zionist," does not, even if her or his parents were there for generations, then you are not arguing for a one democratic state of all its citizens.
I think fortunately most people here do believe that anyone willing to obey an equal law in Palestine can belong.
Again, as someone who has actually had a NK missile flown over the city I live in, the NK threat is downplayed mainly because it is so severe and so dangerous. Washington, Seoul and Tokyo don't want to escalate a war of words into something else. As soon as there is an understanding with China, including ensuring that a collapse NK will not mean a million refugees over their border, the Kim regime is screwed.
Iran will be treated with the same care once it has "the bomb," which is exactly why it wants the weapon and why Israel and the US and other regional powers don't want it to acquire such a weapon.
Israel and the State Department and Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Not wanting this Iranian regime to have a bomb is hardly Zionism, even if Israel is a main agent against it.
America is hardly ignoring NK. (I say this as someone more likely to get nuked in Tokyo than people in LA.) Nothing that was said is waving the issue away and the US, South Korea and Japan are ready to pounce. The Chinese make the situation delicate.
Keeping Iran from having the same power as NK is a fear of people of many interests including outside of the Israel lobby.
You are being played because you are convinced Israel is going to fall apart next week and when the majority of Americans are allowed to see things as they are they will demand America cut ties.
Oren as you say below is a master. He is not going on any venue where he can't do his job and diffusing pressure on Colbert wile cracking jokes is an ideal platform for him.
Your last point is the exact purpose of Colbert.
We live in the Age of Snark and he is one of the masters. Everything is poked fun at nothing is serious.
This type of appearance take pressure off of Israel, even for clued in viewers.
Imagine that, someone using a (probably invented blood-soaked fantasy) from a religious text, as an inspiration for modern political propaganda. How rare!
Dershowitz's statement actually does not depend on what he believes or what is the actual rate of rape (and I believe that armies always rape and always underreport).
He is simply making the point that any presumably good thing about Israel will be used to prove how terrible is. A gay pride parade in Tel Aviv cannot indicate relative security for gays but only planned hasbara to cover other crimes.
The US, South Korea and Japan; the hated enemies of the NK regime, the murderous regime that tortures and murders its own people, are directly and indirectly responsible for providing tons of rice and other supplies to NK that keeps their people alive.
The several hundred men and women who run NK don't care about kindness or good intentions.
So, Jews have the right to return to the land where they came from?
In the case of half of Israel that was expelled from ME countries, is that even true?
People belong where they are, where they were born, where their parents were born. If you believe different you have no (non-hypocritical) case for any return, even of Palestinians.
A Jew whose grandparents were born in Palestine has as much claim to natural belonging as an Arab.
You can believe that the land is essentiality Arab (and Muslim or Christian) and that all Jews, no matter how long their family has been there are interlopers, and Arabs, no matter how recently they may have come there, are natural citizens. But then you are a nationalist fighting for your side not someone who truly envisions one democratic state of its citizens.
Well stated.
Personally, I think the burqa and niqab (not headscarf) are oppressive in themselves, but that's irrelevant to women's equality because a woman has the right to chose any type of dress she wants for whatever reason. The key is does she really have a choice. If the niqab was not socially and often legally enforced in Saudi Arabia, what percent of women would wear it? Certainly some, perhaps a majority which would be their right. But there is no reason a person in the "West" should not have the right to judge societies which force all women into veils, just as people in the "East" judge Western deficiencies and inequalities by their standards.
In places where women have a legal right to abortion they also tend to have redress when their fear is of their fathers, husbands, brothers and even sons having rights over them.
These are hardly exclusive concerns. One neither justifies nor mitigates the other.
The Taliban's treatment of women as property was reprehensible (by standards within the West and the majority of Islamic societies) when the US was Arming them and also when the US is bombing them.
I think there is a case (and it does not have to be "Western" since millions of Muslim women chose not to wear it) that the burqa erases a woman's individual identity and is oppressive.
The burqa is certainly oppressive in every place where women are coerced or forced to wear it. Most places where the burqa is worn are also places where woman are legally inferior to men in the most basic ways.
Equality is actually not very nuanced. Women (and gays and minorities) ether have equal access and rights or they don't. As annoying as patronizing white liberals can be, as much as feminism is used by colonialism for cover, and as much as humanitarian interventions have actually been disastrous and disrupting, anti-colonial feminism can be used to run interference for very conservative elements of "native" society.
PS Western culture is hardly unique in "civilizing" rationalizations for conquest.
And this particular discourse becomes a kind of one-upmanship in, ironically but not surprisingly, which resonates in Western venues of culture and education.
I had the chance to meet Audre Lourde once, a powerful human indeed.
Because ethnic nationalism is over for everyone.
Newclench, you politely state the Hamas vision but they are expecting divine intervention and force of arms.
In reality, the only path to equality and justice is the good will of humankind towards the Palestinians and the recognition by enough Israelis that every step towards implementing new and acknowledging existing Apartheid is a cut to the body (for the same reasons of depending on global good will).
That good will and sense of fair play means the Palestinians don't get to go back to the 19th Century any more than the British when all Britons were cousins and descendants of William the Conqueror.
And btw 5% of Palestine as you know was always Jewish and if you do go back to the late 19th Century 20% of Jews would have the right to live safely as citizens just as the 20% Arab Israelis have the claim to today.
The Jews of Hollywood are disproportionately gay, intermarried, self styled liberal, Democrat, and probably also sympathetic to Israel (in a J-Street not AIPAC way), that is liberal Zionist but prone to the underdog which is clearly becoming more so in the American mind the Palestinians.
I agree that the Jewish story has been portrayed sympathetically and that it also safe in a way to bash Christians and WASPs in a way no one would bash others.
I just don;t think, in fact I know, Jews in hollywood are not consciously promoting any particular Jewish agenda, not even Israel, and Mac Farlane was poking fun at people who think there is a secret synagogue for the elect.
Do your own google but from "A Price Above Rubies" to Fagin in Oliver Twist to Bugsy Siegel, yes I have. I would say the Jews in Gibson's Christ film were not such good guys either.
And, sadly not fiction, two movies with Israeli as clearly the bad guys just got nominated for Academy Awards.
... and Ted as a character is, like Bunker, a parody of racism, sexism, antisemitism and other bigotries. If that is your truth teller, ok then, but I think most Americans are not bigots who believe Jews of hollywood get their own plane to go to meetings at the Secret Synagogue.
Mark Wahlberg is one of the most successful stars in Hollywood and given by MacFarlane (another non Jew success) the voice of authority in this sketch.
Not ironic at all. Totally consistent with Mac Farlane's humor as shown in his cartoons and on display here where he is lampooning the denial that Jews are predominant in Hollywood and at the same time the conspiracy mongers.
There were those who cheered Archie Bunker on as a brave truth teller too, and they also were not in on the joke. The straight man in the duo, Wahlberg, calls Ted an idiot.
If you watch American Dad and Family Guy you know that 1) nothing is sacred and no one is spared and 2) MacFarlane lampoons anti-semites and conspiracies i.e. "Its a wonderful Day for Pie/Disney" segment.
"Secret synagogue meeting..." MacFarlane is also poking fun at the Jews-run-hollywood idea too. I mean MacFarlane, whose career is in no danger, is hosting the most important show in Hollywood making this joke which claims unless one kowtows to Jews a career will end. Its not antisemitism and its no sign that that gates are now open to discuss a taboo. Its a joke.
Jewish individuals do disproportionally run hollywood, but do The Jews run hollywood in a way that is somehow Jewish? Meaning the way Eddie Murphy once imagined how white people treated one another at banks and on the bus when no blacks were around. I don't see that.
Obviously you did not get me. I'll try again.
The exercise is a disgrace by any standard and though Hikind justifies it with it being Purim, in fact that excuse is incoherent.
And given that Hikind expects full sensitivity he is moreover a hypocrite.
Pretty uncool, Yoni.
And by the way, understanding the holiday of Purim means knowing that the Jewish people hail from every country, as the Megillah narrates, "from India to Eithiopia."
That might in turn make someone generally aware of diversity within and without. But, obviously not.
Oklahoma, her husband is Alan Greenspan.
Have you ever heard him comment on Israel?
Or, are you saying (on Mondoweiss no less) that his Jewishness makes him suspect.
This comment makes no sense unless you believe that "Jew" and "Zionist" are synonyms.
Zionism means the belief that a Jewish State in historic Palestine fulfills Jewish destiny and should be preserved as the homeland of the Jews.
As for identity, there are plenty of people (in fact increasing) who consider themselves Muslim and Catholic as part of a transglobal, transhistorical identity that is neither a race or ethnicity and not specifically religious either.
Where does Phil assert a racial Jewish identity (not saying he has not I just havenot seen it and would surprise me).
As your link says, it was not Islamists. It was Muslims and others sharing an Islamic and world civilization. The distinction matters.
Yes, its a crucial moment for unleashing the creativity of the ghettoes. Napoleon famously said (something like) "to the Jewish citizen, everything. To the Jewish nation, nothing.
And it speaks to the nature of humanity and society, not Judaism or Islam in particular.
- When Israel pink-washes shame on them.
-If other countries in the area and in Asia, Europe and Africa have no pink to wash with, shame on them.
-No need to compare Ibn Khaldun to Voltaire. They are both important and anyone who thinks Arabs and Muslims have not contributed to civilization is an idiot not worth arguing with.
-If you are a principled One Stater (based on democracy and rights), the pink in Israel -should- be a good thing in itself. As should be orthodox men getting thrown off buses for trying to make women sit in the back.
-Max Blumenthal rule works here too. You may hate the messenger and the context but refute the video. Gays in Tel Aviv do have more rights to free expression and more redress to homophobia. This is "baby" not bathwater." Refer to above.
Thanks Professor and Mondoweiss for this.
But isn't the pursuit (written in English or French, maybe German) of a pure alternative always more Orientalism even if a nativist variety.
An alternative "Spirit of Timbuktu" requires picking and leaving out. Picking an example of comparative gender equality (there are others), but leaving out a slavery as harsh and robust as Jefferson's, and a merchant class as sophisticated (and merchant like) as anywhere in the world of its time, more than most.
There is much to be gained from all the traditions mentioned and a lot better left by the wayside. Why the pure binaries? They are always romantic and misleading.
On Civil Rights, which is what Phil mentions, organized Jewry and many Jewish individuals (i.e. Spingarn and NAACP) was on the forefront from the turn of the century. But, as you note, not all movements. In fact, the organized Jewish community during slavery and the Civil War has a lousy record. There were only one or two rabbis who denounced slavery qua slavery (many said the problem with American slavery was that it was Roman and not Hebrew). But Phil's point here stands correct.
A democratic Israel (whose name would be changed to Palestine with a non-Jewish majority) could remain a state where Jews (or any other minority) is safe and free in equality. That should be the goal of all people of good will.
The exact wrong tactic thankfully rebuffed.
Wrong tactic especially because Barghouti is such a mild-mannered and articulate spokesman. Without a doubt there will be people who leave the Brooklyn event thinking, "that was the guy I am supposed to fear?"
I saw him speak with Professor Bromwich last night and he is open to discussing any criticism calmly (though he is obviously set in his ideas and avoids any discussion off his points). I had no problem asking him a question and he had no problem answering it.
Bromwich was amazingly clear and delineated his own ideas about boycott in a way that I would love to hear someone attempt to rebut.
As for above, I am surprised at those who would wave away Yonah's point on the grounds that Zionists have been successful in permitting their ideas in government and media.
So what. Free speech is free speech. The idea that "well were right and they are wrong so we get free speech" is even more ridiculous. Its free speech when you know for sure they are wrong and you are right.
The equivalent is not Oren and a BDS rep. The equivalent would be Oren and the ambassador from Iran or (if there was one) North Korea. In fact, there was once a representative of the Taliban who was on a speaking tour in the US (I remember because a woman reporter showed up in the kind of one-piece burka that has mesh over the eyes and asked him about women's rights). His response by the way was "I feel sorry for your husband."
All of the above were and would be be entitled to an uninterrupted hearing, though I realize as foreign agents their rights are not the same as a citizen.
And, what is true of Barghouti and Butler is true of Oren. Interrupting someone who is able to speak calmly and articulately about their cause makes the interrupters look unhinged.
"The European colonizers of Israel have intruded their warring ways into Palestine, oppressing the indigenous people with an alien violence they had no historical knowledge to draw upon in opposition."
If you are saying that modern nationalism including Zionism, and the nation state developed in Europe, then of course you are right the flavor of conquest and organization was slightly different. Though the British took over an Ottoman construct and modified it, right?
Anyway, there is no bright line between the so called West and the East and if there was it would not run through Palestine which is one of "the West's" points of origin. Palestine was never cordoned off from rest of the world, Arab North African, Persian, Ottoman and European, nor its developments including warfare. As you acknowledge, the Palestinians were not always Muslim, but even within a thousand years were also not only Muslim.
One of the most compelling arguments against Zionism is that the native Palestinians are the rightful inheritors of all of the cultures that have gone before it on that stretch of land, including the Jewish and Christian legacies.
And while a kind of romantic orientalism prefers innocent natives, it turns out "the natives" are fully human in their peaceful and martial abilities, certainly true in the case of Arab civilization.
Sean,
Yes, universalism is better than ethnocentrism.
About Goldberg, though, I think you overstate by kind and degree. You are comparing people who belong to the dominant ethnic category to someone who belongs to a minority group (however influential). Sullivan my have a better, more general heart than Goldberg and lets say he does, but he has also occupied in both the UK and the US (for just another 25 years though) the position of membership in the majority.
Goldberg is not a Duke or Farrakhan. He is in the sense of ethnic nationalism a Tavis Smiley or Al Sharpton, someone who sees the world through an ethnic lens. There are equivalents form every American ethnic variety and plenty of organizations which advocate not universally but for Latinos or Muslims etc...
Whether Jews or Zionism is more powerful than other groups lobbies is immaterial to the issue of specific group rather than general advocacy by ethnic journalists.
I have wondered but am not sure that Jews of color are less pro Israel than white Jews, though the official Jewish world (even what we think when we say "Jewish") is run by Ashkenazi Jews, mostly men.
I belong to several Jews of Color groups and know many other multiracial Jews and I am just not sure this is the case.
Shmuel,
I agree that is another reason why it is not an anti-semitic cartoon.
"the din isn’t rising ‘because of the history of europe’. it’s arising out of a specific late 20th century environment which has been constructed to defend zionism and the state of israel more particularly. would the image in a press photo of an IDF soldier shooting a palestinian woman in the head, for example, necessarily ‘evoke a taint’ (whatever the f*ck that means) of anti-semitism? it wouldn’t in my mind, and i have nothing positive to say about the mental state of someone who would associate anti-semitism with that photograph."
I agree with you completely about this example and it does not in anyway negate my comments about this specific cartoon.
There is no insinuation in anything I wrote.
The artist is correct that the timing blunted his work by mingling it with a specific legacy that was not his intent.
The work is not anti-semitic.
Really, Avi?
Have you read records of Jewish persecutions written by Jewish and non-Jewish historians. And what is the time frame of your (hopeful sarcastic) statement.
The artist commented that the timing was unfortunate (whoever caused it). He is correct, imo. And its further evidence of his intent (not antisemitism). As is the depiction of Assad shown here.
This event reminds me of one in Japan in 2008 when Obama was running for president. There was a mobile phone commercial with a long standing monkey character and in this case he was at a podium promising "hope" and "change" to cheering crowds.
Many foreign residents in Japan charged racism and many Japanese were bewildered by that charge since the monkey is often used as a stand in to depict Japanese people in a humorous way.
Is depicting a black man as a monkey ever possible without reference to a racist legacy? Perhaps in Japan where there was not the same history, but when the ad was taken down the company acknowledged the unintended reference was not illogical on those who were offended by it.
Artists use images. Images have histories and contexts, which an artists has to be aware of even if it is to say, I understand how that image has been used though it is not my intent here.
People who want to shield Israel will use this but those who are against Israel's actions should not feign innocence about why images like these will be sensitive for another century.
Regarding Islamophobia this is pointed out here routinely.
The artist was correct to apologize for the timing.
Because of the history of Europe any image with Jews and blood is going to evoke a taint intentionally or not.
But I think the anti-semitic charge should be saved for the most explicit and intentional cases.
I could only see the trailer on the linked site.
But at youtube it is $2.99 which in Starbucks terms is near free.
I cannot see any circumstances outside of child-porn where I take glee at the idea of the state troopers swooping in to intervene in private commerce, including with Iran. The Syrian regime, probably, Cuba? Definitely not.
Yes, so why indulge fantasies of the State swooping in?
Creepy fascist fantasies, really.
Donald,
Of course I did not and you understand me perfectly.
Not sure if Mooser actually misunderstands me or its just part of his snarky antics.
Shmuel,
Its a great question.
One way to answer is that the grounds for return are only that the conquest of Palestine was not fair, and that fairness can only be achieved by allowing a full return of the dispossessed and their descendants.
So to whom does this idea of fairness matter? It matters to people (usually calling themselves liberal or progressive) that have a really recent (Post colonial and post-WWII) code of human rights. A non-ethnic and democratic state can best achieve this vision.
Where in human history and on what continent and in what tradition has conquest ever been unfair? Sometimes regulated, but everywhere legal and even considered just (and the proof of divine favor).
Obama can say with no irony that any nation attacked by missiles would respond because on planet earth right now, American conquest is sanctioned, legal and even considered moral.
There are of course other ways to argue; The land belongs to Islam, the soil is Arab, might makes right, but those are not the arguments made here -- its fairness.
Yes, I think wherever this distinction is stressed it is in the service of some larger fabrication usually political, Zionism and otherwise.
So for 2013' sake, Mooser, what gives with you? Why do you insist that everything I say is in the service of something I have completely rejected, repeatedly? How about a straight answer from you if you can do it. What is your agenda, besides amusing yourself?
There is far, far too much made of supposed division between "East" and "West." This cultural separation wall is by the way, very very new. (and not likely to last). What comes next, hopefully, are the best practices from everywhere.
It is true that for the last few hundred years (that is hundred meaning a drop in the bucket of human history) the West ascended on a global scale that touches almost everything. But that West was sitting on a vast collective that was originated and developed elsewhere.
There is no need for an anxiety of influence since human ideas genuinely belong to all humans.
Its interesting because Walt has been pretty clear in using Israel Lobby and not Jewish lobby for the very reason he understands the tainted history of that term and does not want it to blunt his ability to write about the Israel Lobby.
And also, Sean.
This is not just lazy thinking, it is exactly what the Jihad Watch people do to all things Islam.
Sure thing. See below.
Just got busy and never came back to the thread.
My basic point is the term is sloppy, superfluous and has a bad history of use by people whose agenda was not pro human rights but anti-Jewish.
Israel Lobby works just fine.
Sean,
Sorry I was not avoiding you. Never came back to that thread.
Your definition :"The Jewish lobby is the worldwide social, organizational, political, financial, cultural and propaganda network that lobbies for Jewish interests."
Of course there are networks of Jews with various interests, including Israel. There is no unified network advancing Jewish interests. And frankly "financial and political network" really does get you into ugly company.
Its sloppy and dangerous thinking, and one with a bad history.
Why is this useful inquiry to you anyway?
What service does "Israel Lobby" not provide for you?
... and the idea of -The- Korean Lobby, is really sloppy.
Is Hagel on the level of Fred Phelps to you via gay rights?
--Not at all. I don't think Hagel is particularly anti gay or anti Jewish.
--I think self styled liberals also display traits of being Progressive Except Palestine (and other struggles they frame as West vs Natives).
Is gay rights more important to you than foreign policy? Do you think people value one or the other more?
I think they do. I think we all do. Some people care more about the economy.
-- I agree. Its part of my point here about minimizing Hagel's mildly homophobic remarks. Phil would not do it in other cases.
‘Domestic issues.’
Do you think pointing out that the New York Times – with a track record of subtle pro-Israel propaganda and framing (with close attention paid to language; example: Isabel Kershner and the legality of the settlements) – is focusing on the supposed anti-gay views to bolster the overall Zionist attack on Hagel does not merit reporting on an anti-Zionist website?
-- I think it merits pointing out here (is MW officially anti Zionist btw?) as does my comment.
I don’t think there is any equivalency. There is a rhetorical equivalency that leads nowhere.
---Some Progressives give Hamas a pass or roll their eyes when someone mentions their charter.
Pro-Israel types love to issue equivalencies – whether it’s praising the ‘resilient’ Israeli Jewish democracy juxtaposed against the Arab dictatorships (blanket generalization; as if you know anything about the ME outside of Israel) and so on and so forth.
--Can only answer for myself. I realize that anything outside of the echo chamber or in disagreement here is taken as pro-Israel and Zionist. I am happy to discuss anything with you but would prefer you not lump me into any category meant to shut down conversation.
Do you think there are perfect candidates? Who are good on every issue?
--I don't think Hagel is a bad candidate. I would like to see this government forced to the table and not given unconditional passes when the US is supporting their existence. I think Netanyahu tried to mess with Obama and its expected that there will be a slap back.
The point behind PEP is that a progressive should be progressive on Palestine.
--Yes, I agree but progressives align themselves and excuse all kinds of non-progressive things in Palestine and in other movements to which they are sympathetic.
Hagel is not a liberal. People in the Palestinian solidarity camp seem to like him for his common sense attitude toward Israel. I think it’s also important to examine political stands relative to the political culture.
Do you think it’s revolutionary to advocate gay rights in America? (rhetorical question, of course it is NOT – gay rights is mainstream in terms of activism in our political culture – gay rights advocacy is VISIBLE).
The same is not true for Palestinian rights and recognizing that the Jewish State is a Jewish colony.
Stop equivocating like a child.
Hi Sean,
I think in each of the cases above the term is ridiculously inaccurate and object to them for the exact same reason I think the term "Jewish Lobby" is both inaccurate and superfluous. Israel Lobby works just fine.
There is no such thing as an African American or Japanese or Irish Lobby.
The terms are lazy at best.