Religion & Beliefs
Notes on the “New Anti-Semitism”
By Daniel Saunders / January 26, 2009
There is little doubt that antisemitism in Britain, continental Europe and the USA, is on the increase, with attacks on Jews, synagogues, Jewish schools and the like on the rise (see, for example, the Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism in 2006). However, racial antisemitism, of the kind prevalent in Europe from the nineteenth century until the Holocaust, is still limited to fringe groups, mainly on the far right. This has led some to postulate a ‘new antisemitism,’ a hypothesis that others have denied and, in some cases, decried as an attempt to demonise legitimate criticism of the State of Israel. Part of the problem is that, as I suggested in a previous post, Jewish identity is multi-faceted, and any kind of anti-Jewish prejudice may concentrate on a single aspect of it. However, I would like to make some general points that help identify the new antisemitism, or rather new antisemitisms.
The first of these, not often identified as antisemitism, is a kind of replacement theology among Christians, Muslims and militant atheists. Replacement theology strictly defined, is the belief that one religion has replaced all others. In the past, this was directed at Judaism by Christianity and Islam; increasingly, militant atheism is adopting the same approach (not literally a theology, of course, but the effect is the same). However, uncomfortable though this can be, it is not in itself antisemitic. One of two factors can turn it into antisemitism:
1) Calls to convert or die (increasingly present from fundamentalist Islam);
or
2) Lying about Judaism to discredit it. These can include claims that Judaism encourages Jews to put their interests ahead of the good of society as a whole; claims that Judaism allows or even requires Jews to harm non-Jews, to the point of ritual murder (blood libels); claims that Jews lie about Jewish law to cover these things up. As I mentioned in a previous post, this type of argument is increasingly appearing from militant atheists).
The second type of antisemitism is the kind more often identified as ‘the new antisemitism.’ It is harder to define precisely, perhaps because being related to Jewish national identity, it is more closely related to political issues, and hence its definition can become something of a weapon. Nevertheless, it is increasingly clear that it does exist and needs defining. However, this is not intended as a definition (a task that is beyond me), but as a checklist of attitudes, a list of symptoms rather than a diagnosis of the disease. While displaying some of these attitudes does not necessarily make a person an antisemite, the more of them a person exhibits, the more likely it is that he or she is antisemitic, even if that person has no racial or religious prejudices against Jews:
1) Denying Jewish national/ethnic identity. It is worth stressing that British law considers Jews to be an ethnic group as well as a religious one, so Jews are covered by race hatred laws. Nevertheless, a trend has developed over the last couple of years whereby Trade and Student Unions pass resolutions affirming that Jewish identity is only religious. As a result, it is declared that anti-Israel sentiment can never be antisemitic, even if expressed in the crudest terms; and that university Jewish Societies have no right to challenge anti-Zionist motions even in debate – a serious curtailment of free speech, and one carried out quite deliberately by those wishing to present anti-Zionist views without debate.
2) Denying the Jewish right to national self-determination. Strictly speaking, this would only be suspect if only the Jewish people were singled out for such treatment. However, since the failure of Marxism, few people in the west openly support the abolition of all nation states. While the Jews are not the only group claiming a right to national self-determination that is not unanimously accepted, it is rare indeed to hear Basque, Kurdish, Chechen or even Palestinian national aspirations decried in violent terms (for example, being dubbed inherently racist ideologies) in countries not directly affected by their existence.
3) Denying that the land of Israel is the only legitimate place for Jewish self-determination. This involves one of two subsequent claims:
(i) Denying the existence of Jewish states in Israel in the past. There is abundant archaeological and historical evidence (not just the Bible) for the existence of Jewish states in Israel in the past, and no evidence against it, but people still make this claim. The claim that most Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Khazars of Eastern Europe is simply absurd (and irrelevant: most Israelis are Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews of Spanish, North African and Middle Eastern descent, even if political Zionism did originate among Ashkenazim).
(ii) Denying the continuous Jewish presence in Israel for thousands of years. For example, The Guardian website’s brief history of the Israeli-Palestinian problem begins with the creation of the Ottoman Empire and gives the historically inaccurate impression that there were no Jews in the region before the 1880s, and that most of the Jewish immigration to Israel was a result of the Holocaust.
(4) Stating that Israel exists on sufferance. This tends to involve stating that the world could withdraw Israel’s ‘right to exist’ if it does not ‘behave itself’. Since World War II, no state in the world has ever lost its right to exist in this way. Even Germany’s post-war dismemberment was reversed with the end of the Cold War. If the Holocaust did not make Germany lose its right to exist, and if Japan’s wartime atrocities did not cause it to forfeit its right to exist, it is difficult to imagine what any state could do to lose its right to exist. Many states are currently in violation of international law without this threat being levelled against them. It is difficult to see why Israel deserves special treatment (for the argument that the Holocaust should have ‘taught the Jews a lesson’ see (10) Other inappropriate rhetoric below).
(5) Telling lies or misleading half-truths about the State of Israel. Popular lies include portraying it as undemocratic; theocratic; harbouring expansionist, imperialist ambitions; and denying civil rights to non-Jews. Being completely untrue, these attitudes have to be ‘proved’ with falsified evidence or left as mere assertion. In Arab propaganda, it is common to claim that in the Knesset, there is a map showing a future ‘Greater Israel’ reaching from the Nile to the Euphrates. Needless to say, no such map exists, nor is there any such plan or desire for such an empire, but the myth will not die.
Half-truths can be spread through photos and news footage with inadequate or misleading commentary to produce an emotional response that would likely not be produced if the images were placed in context; the stationing of combatants among civilians to increase the chances of photogenic civilian casualties; threatening journalists who try to photograph such illegal use of civilians with violence (during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Hezbollah made it quite clear to journalists that it was "not safe" to photograph their emplacements in civilian areas).
Some things can straddle the divide between half-truth and outright lies, usually by using the fog of war to ‘enhance’ the story with faked photos or footage, or by making headline-grabbing claims of war crimes in the knowledge that such claims can make the front-page, while articles disproving them, months later, will be a few small paragraphs inside the newspaper (or equivalent in the broadcast media), by which time most people will have lost interest and will assume the original reports to have had at least an element of truth.
A good example of the way government bodies, supranational agencies and the press can collude in such lies and half-truths is the massacre that wasn’t. In spring 2002, after a series of suicide bombings that killed more than one hundred people, the Israeli army launched a series of incursions into the West Bank in an attempt to destroy the terrorist network there. This prompted allegations of war crimes, even ethnic cleansing. In particular, operations in Jenin were alleged by the PA to have led to 500 deaths, while the British press reported war crimes, even a "massacre" (see here for a subsequent evaluation in The Guardian of the way the British broadsheets reported the story compared with Israeli and American newspapers). However, the UN report into the matter found the Palestinian death toll in Jenin to have been around 52 (compared with 23 Israeli soldiers), of whom at least half were combatants (given that Palestinian combatants do not wear uniforms, the exact number of combatants will never be known; neither will it be known how many died in the crossfire as a result of the terrorists deliberately hiding among civilians).
Nevertheless, the annexes to the UN report contain wild, unsubstantiated allegations that "it is probable that a massacre and a crime against humanity might [emphasis added] have been committed in the Jenin refugee camp – a probability that was enhanced by the statements made at some point[emphasis added] by the occupying forces about hundreds of Palestinians being killed in the camp." (PA report on events) and that "On 10 April, the Israeli army attacked the camp and began a systematic operation to destroy houses, killing hundreds of young people. Eyewitness accounts have confirmed that the Israeli army carried out summary executions of captured Palestinians" (information from the Jordanian Representative to the UN – information which shows its neutrality by referring to alleged casualties as "martyrs"). Although the body of the report does not support these assertions, they are nevertheless now on the UN record, and available to be quoted as ‘evidence’ against Israel (incidentally, The Guardian website still alleges "unconfirmed reports" of Israelis removing bodies for mass burial; the findings of the UN report are not mentioned, nor are the absence of such mass graves).
It is also noteworthy that in 1991 the Syrian Ambassador to the UN stated in a session of the UN Commission on Human Rights that Jews kill Christian children and use their blood to make matzot. It was months before this was struck from the record, and then only after intense US pressure. In 1997, the Palestinian Representative told the Commission on Human Rights that the Israeli government had had 300 Palestinian children injected with HIV. Needless to say, this allegation is totally unfounded, but no action has been taken to remove it from the record, despite Israeli and US protests. Note also the lack of protest from the rest of the free world. Such propaganda seems crude, but harmless, but it has a slow, cumulative, almost unconscious effect on public opinion, like drops of water slowly eroding a stone.
(6) Abusing the public’s lack of knowledge. I have taken the time to read the Geneva Conventions (here, here, here and here), the Balfour Declaration , the Hamas Covenant , the PLO Charter and the Hezbollah Programme . Most people will not. They therefore accept what is said by ‘trustworthy’ people: academics, broadcasters, journalists, politicians. Obviously few people are so trusting as to believe everything these people say, but when enough of these people repeat the same thing enough times, it begins to have an effect on even the most cynical person. The kind of statements I mean fit many of the categories I am listing here, for example, using terms like "war crimes" when these did not occur or denying the ancient Jewish presence in the region. Also relevant are statements that can only be proven false with access to documentary evidence, for example claims that Hamas are willing to negotiate if only the Israelis would let them, while in fact the Hamas Covenant calls, not just for the destruction of Israel, but for the death of all Jews worldwide. Similarly, it is often stated that Israel is in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 242 , which, it is alleged, calls for an immediate withdrawal from territory occupied in the Six Day War. Actually, the resolution merely calls the Secretary-General to send a Special Representative to the region to promote a peace settlement, and to report back to the Security Council on progress. True, it asserts that a just and lasting peace will be based on an Israeli withdrawal (although it does not say total withdrawal – a deliberate ambiguity included to allow the drawing-up of defensible borders for all parties), but it states that such a peace will also be based on recognition and guarantees of the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of every state in the region (meaning Israel, as no one disputed the Arab states’ sovereignty).
(7) Moral flexibility. In recent years, Israel has been criticised for causing civilian casualties, for stopping and searching ambulances at checkpoints and for using cluster bombs. The Geneva Conventions explicitly state that "all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects" must be taken, but that attacks likely to harm civilians (e.g. those being used as human shields) are only forbidden if civilian casualties are likely to be "excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated". Likewise, ambulances can be stopped and searched by the army if there are grounds to suspect they are being used for military purposes (they were used to move arms during the second Intifada, and suicide bombers have used them to gain entry to Israel ). Cluster bombs are also legal. Now, it may be argued that these things are immoral and should be made illegal (I would certainly support a campaign against cluster bombs), but to criticise Israel for acting within the letter of international law is unfair; to criticise Israel alone for doing so is doubly unfair. Occasionally, this argument is countered with outright antisemitic claims such as "you Jews think you’re better than the rest of us; why don’t you act like it?"
On the other hand, those who want to hold Israel to the strictest standards of morality, far beyond the letter of international law, frequently excuse clear breaches of law and morality when committed by the enemies of Israel. The antisemitism of Hamas and Hizbollah is ignored or ‘justified’ by supposed Israeli actions. Attacks on civilians (Israeli, Lebanese or Palestinian), hostage-taking, the use of human shields, disguising combatants as civilians, hiding military installations in civilian areas and using ambulances for military purposes (all war crimes under the Geneva Convention) can all become permissible when performed by Fatah, Hamas or Hizbollah.
(8) Fair-weather humanitarianism. Many critics of Israel claim to be motivated not by anti-Israeli feeling, but by humanitarianism or love of the Palestinian people. Strangely, many of these ‘humanitarians’ are indifferent to the Darfur genocide, the oppression of the Burmese people or the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Likewise, these friends of the Palestinians uttered no protest when the Lebanese were shelling the Palestinian refugee camps in 2007, or when civilians were being killed in the crossfire of the Fatah-Hamas civil war. Nor did they protest against the illegal brutality of that conflict (people being thrown to their deaths from tall buildings etc.).
(9) Traditional antisemitic rhetoric. Traditional antisemitic rhetoric has made a disturbing return recently, sometimes with ‘Jew’ simply replaced with ‘Zionist’ (the Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism noted that this has been happening in particular among both the far right and Islamic fundamentalists). It has been seen in the form of blood libels; allegations that Jews are a fifth column who look after themselves and hate non-Jews (far right, militant secularist and Islamic fundamentalist rhetoric all overlap here); conspiracy theories that Jews/Zionists control business and finance, the media, political parties and governments (an allegation made at a fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat conference last year); assertions that the War on Terror or the invasion of Iraq are ‘Jewish/Zionist wars’ (despite the fact that Israel advised against the invasion of Iraq , and that al-Qaeda was formed primarily to remove US bases from Saudi Arabia), whether by arguing that Israel’s existence or actions have given legitimate grounds for Islamic terrorism or through conspiracy theories alleging that Jews or Zionists control western governments or even that terrorist attacks in the west, including the September 11 attacks, were staged by Israel and/or Jews/Zionists in the Bush administration (again, far left, far right, Islamic fundamentalist, militant secularist and even moderate liberal opinion all meet here). The absence of evidence is taken as ‘proof’ of the success and awesome power of the conspiracy.
It is worth pausing to debunk two conspiracy theories that are increasingly becoming part of mainstream discourse, despite their ancient antisemitic lineage. Firstly, there is, of course, a Jewish lobby, just as there is a Muslim lobby, a human rights lobby, a business lobby, a trade union lobby, an environmental lobby and so on. Organisations that put the views of a group of people to politicians and bureaucrats are a legitimate, healthy part of every functioning democracy. What there is not is The Jewish Lobby, a sinister, secret organisation dedicated to controlling the governments of the world in the interest of the Jewish people or the State of Israel. There is no Jewish lobby exercising any kind of conspiratorial control over the news media or politicians in any country. The fact that a couple of comparatively minor figures in the Bush administration happened to be both Jewish and pro-Israel in their sympathies does not mean that they either put Israeli or ‘Jewish’ interests ahead of US interests or exercised some kind of hold over more powerful, non-Jewish, figures like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and Rice. Such allegations are the product of classic antisemitic conspiracy theories, with no factual basis whatsoever.
It is also sometimes claimed that Israel the amount of aid Israel receives from the USA is proof of an unhealthy relationship between the two states, an indication of a malign Israeli influence over the US budget and sympathies, taking unnecessary money and diverting US aid, attention and friendship from Arab and Muslim states. However, this claim does not stand up to scrutiny. Initially, Israel received relatively little aid. It was the very real threat to its existence, proved by the wars of 1967 and 1973 that increased US aid (see figures here ). The USSR was supporting the Arab states that were determine to destroy Israel; supporting Israel was therefore justified on the grounds of both morality and Cold War strategy. The demise of the Soviet Union and the peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and Jordan changed the state of affairs somewhat. While Israel remains the only stable democracy in the region, and while states like Syria and Iran maintain their eagerness to destroy it, it is both moral and pragmatic for the US to support it. However, it is a less pressing priority than previously. Aid to Israel has been decreased, while that to Arab states has been increased. For example, in 2006, US military aid to Israel was $2,257,200,000. US military aid to other states in the Middle East and North Africa alone was $1,557,269,000 (country by country breakdown here page 104). However, concentrating on military aid alone gives a distorted image. True, until recently, Israel has been the top US aid recipient (Iraq has replaced it). However, its aid is being reduced, while other Arab and Muslim nations receive significant amounts of aid. For example, in 2004, Israel received $2.62 billion, while Iraq received $18.44 billion, Egypt $1.87 billion, Jordan $0.56 billion and Turkey 0.15 billion. Pakistan received $0.39 billion, Sudan $0.14 billion, Afghanistan $1.77 and Indonesia $0.13. This is just to mention predominantly Muslim countries; a look at the other recipients of aid show that it is distributed according to a mixture of humanitarian and strategic reasons, but that there is no reason to suspect the malign of the mythical all-powerful Jewish lobby taking money from worthier states to bankroll Israel. (figures here page 17) It is also worth stressing that Israel, unlike most other countries in the Middle East, has no oil reserves (the PA owns off-shore gas, incidentally). Although it developed oil fields in the Sinai peninsula after the Six Day War, when the region was returned to Egypt as part of the peace deal, the oil rigs were left intact for Egyptian use. In itself, this goes some way to explaining the reason so few Arab countries need aid, even if their economies are otherwise undeveloped. It is also worth noting that while US aid to the Palestinians is far smaller than that to Israel, or even to Egypt and Jordan, it is still quite substantial, especially given the relatively small Palestinian population and the understandable desire of the US government that aid should be used for the purposes for which it is intended, and not embezzled by officials or used for terrorism. Although levels of aid have fluctuated substantially, $72,000,000 was given in 2002, $134,484,000 in 2003 and $74,558,000 in 2004. More recent contributions have been complicated by Hamas’ formation of a government in 2006, but in 2006 alone $300,000,000 of aid was given, primarily for humanitarian purposes.
(10) Other inappropriate rhetoric. It has become common to use Holocaust imagery with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian question. This is completely inappropriate. Even the most anti-Israeli reading of the evidence must acknowledge no comparison between the Holocaust and current events on the West Bank. There are no death camps, no roaming murder squads, no programmed genocide, no slave labour. UNICEF figures show Palestinian infant mortality to have fallen since 1990, while population has been growing at over 3% p.a. since 1970. Life expectancy at birth in 2006 was 73 years. The WHO report for 2006 stated that, "Effective health services have prevented any major outbreak of disease or significant deterioration in terms of health indicators." It adds, "The Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territory is undergoing a demographic transition as the result of relatively low infant mortality and under 5-year-old-mortality rates (28.3/1000 live births), a high fertility rate and an increase in life expectancy." Infant mortality is higher than in Israel, but lower than the average for the Middle East and North Africa. The 2008 UN Human Development Report puts "Occupied Palestinian Territories" at 106 (of 179), only just behind Iran (84), Jordan (90) and China (94) and Syria (105) and ahead of Egypt, Morocco, India, Pakistan, Yemen and many, many more. Palestine is not Paradise; its economy has stagnated as a result of the conflict – but that has taken its toll on Israel too. Still, it may not be Paradise, but it is not Auschwitz either, not even the Warsaw Ghetto, and there are plenty of worse places in the world.
Using Holocaust imagery in this context is not only unsupported by the facts, it is hurtful to many Holocaust survivors and, indeed, to other Jews. The Holocaust was a unique tragedy, unique in both its destructive force (six million lives, one third of the Jewish population, the virtual destruction of the most culturally vibrant part of the Jewish world) and its ruthless, mechanised nature. To take it from us and appropriate it for other causes is tasteless at best; to use it against us in such an unjustified way is cruel and sadistic.
Similarly, the use of apartheid imagery is also distasteful. Again, it can not be supported by the facts. Even former American President Jimmy Carter, author of a highly critical book on Israel calledPalestine: Peace Not Apartheid admits that the term ‘apartheid’ in the sense that it was actually used in South Africa can not be applied to Israel. The security measures Israel has introduced in the Palestinian territories in response to terrorism are a regrettable necessity, but they are not comparable to South Africa under apartheid, nor (the real litmus test) are they paralleled in Israel-proper, where Arab Israelis enjoy full rights and citizenship. As with the use of Holocaust imagery, it is not just a cheap debating trick that polarizes opinion among people who have not got the time or inclination to investigate the matter independently, it is a calculated insult to the many Zionist Jews who were active in the campaigns against segregation in the USA and apartheid in South Africa.
(11) Redefining ‘Zionism.’ It has become routine to redefine ‘Zionism.’ As the Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism put it, "in some quarters an antisemitic discourse has developed that is in effect antisemitic because it views Zionism itself as a global force of unlimited power and malevolence throughout history. This definition of Zionism bears no relation to the understanding that most Jews have of the concept; that is, a movement of Jewish national liberation, born in the late nineteenth century, with a geographical focus limited to Israel." In this way, Zionism is redefined as a racist, imperialist, conspiratorial ideology. Not only is this insulting, it is an effective way of preventing debate. Many forums for debate, especially universities, have a ‘no platform for racists’ rule. Zionism is redefined in such a way that Zionists can no longer identify themselves as such and hope to have their case heard, effectively silencing them and passing victory to their opponents automatically. Indeed, ‘Zionist’ frequently seems to be used to mean ‘lying apologist for Israel’ to prevent debate. The former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, never seems to use it in any other sense. This redefinition of Zionism also feeds in to antisemitic conspiracy theories of Jewish attempts to control the world and subvert non-Jewish civilization. Just see the way that Ken Livingstone, once the darling of the militant left, is now being championed for his views on the website of Ku Klux Klan head David Duke.
(12) Acting oppressed. It is common among critics of Israel to claim that Zionists use claims of antisemitism to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel. Actually, I would say that the reverse is true. Granted, some individuals can be overeager to make accusations of antisemitism in letters or on blogs, but institutions like the Board of Deputies are very wary of accusing anyone of being antisemitic (if nothing else, doing it indiscriminately could lead to expensive libel suits). In my experience, it is much more common for anti-Zionists to stifle any legitimate defence of Israel by ‘warning’ audiences that their opponents hide behind allegations and implications of antisemitism. In that context, even denouncing anti-Jewish conspiracy theories can be made to seem like an over-reaction to hide the existence of a real conspiracy. This is not just my opinion. The Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism stated, "most of those who gave evidence were at pains to explain that criticism of Israel is not to be regarded in itself as antisemitic. It is perfectly possible to be critical of the policies and actions of the government of Israel without being antisemitic. The Israeli government itself may, at times, have mistakenly perceived criticism of its policies and actions to be motivated by antisemitism, but we received no evidence of the accusation of antisemitism being misused by mainstream British Jewish community organizations and leaders."
(13) Doubting the rise of antisemitism. Unsurprisingly, the new antisemitism further covers itself by casting doubt on its existence. Antisemitism is often restrictively defined as Nazi-style race hatred, so that far left, Muslim and liberal figures are automatically removed from suspicion. In more extreme cases, even figures showing the rise in antisemitic crime over the previous decade or so can be ridiculed. For example, Norman Finkelstein has claimed that reports of the rise of antisemitism are unreliable simply because they are compiled by Jewish agencies who would have a vested interest in exaggerating them. This is analogous to saying that statistics about fires are unreliable, because the fire brigade records them. True, when dealing with any statistics, one should exercise caution and remember the likely motives of the people recording them, but one should not dismiss them out of hand, especially not when a growing amount of government data seems to support them.
The following is speculation. While most of the new antisemitism seems to be due to Islamic fundamentalism, neo-Nazism, militant atheism, anti-capitalism, revolutionary chic and so on, some, especially from Jews, seems to stem from bizarre, almost philo-semitic views. This viewpoint sees the Jews as the ultimate outsiders, powerless, hated and, as a result, holding the superlative moral high ground. From this point of view, true Judaism consists of being persecuted. In this context, any use of power by Jews, even having a state, is an abuse of power. In a way, this view of the wandering Jew as moral arbiter of mankind is flattering, but it is ultimately infantilising and discriminatory. It is tantamount to saying that Jews should never have a state, or even hold positions of power in other countries, that they should rely on the policies of others and merely critique them righteously. It effectively ghettoises intelligent Jews who care about the world into academia, journalism and the arts – which is where most of the Jews who think like this are to be found.
One final thought. One horrible statement by antisemites (old and new) is that so many people have hated the Jews that there must be something wrong with them. If you have got this far, you will have read through five thousand words or so challenging views held on the right and left and continually disseminated (by accident or design) by the media, in all its forms. Despite the fact that I have attempted to give references from impartial sources wherever possible, it would not be surprising if you were still sceptical of some of my claims. After all, if so many people say Israel is so irredeemably bad, if so many people think the Jews have too much influence, perhaps there is something in it after all. I therefore close with a thought from Ahad Ha’am (pen-name of Asher Ginsberg), writing about blood libels, which, as I have shown, have made a frightening return in recent years:
"This accusation is the solitary case in which the general acceptance of an idea about ourselves does not make us doubt whether all the world can be wrong and we right, because it is based on an absolute lie, and is not even supported by any false inference from particular to universal. Every Jew who has been brought up amongst Jews knows as an indisputable fact that throughout the length and breadth of Jewry there is not a single individual who drinks human blood for religious purposes… Let the world say what it will about our moral inferiority: we know that its ideas will rest on popular logic and have no real scientific basis… ‘But’ – you ask – ‘is it possible that everybody can be wrong and the Jews right?’ Yes, it is possible, the blood accusation proves it possible. Here, you see, the Jews are right and perfectly innocent."
Cross Posted at Yisrael: Struggling with God.
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Really a great original post. Worth reading and re-reading. Sure, I can pick out a few assertions I would not make myself, such as that not recognizing Israel as the only legitimate place for a Jewish state is necessarily antisemitism, but really, the breadth and cohesiveness of this piece deserve praise.
And that is why none of the detractors can really debate the points and must instead turn to farce and creating strawmen.
At the end of the day it is the primacy of arguments like this that win out in the world of logic and ideas. The more logical and thorough the argument, the more desperate some people become and the angrier and more knee jerk their vitriolic responses are. But any objective mind could see that the argument is on a much higher plane than any of the "rebuttals". And that’s what matters. Daniel Saunders wins, shooting sparks et al lose. Of course, the losers can and will blame this continued defeat on the various Zionist ill forces at work in the world conspiring to keep them down, and never stop long enough to face the hard truth.
Of course, sometimes the mob wins out over logic and reason, so there’s always hope for shooting sparks et al to have their dreams realized.
Indeed, many people do seem to be motivated by the "love of the Palestinian people", which is strange when most of it advocates have never been there and don’t know any of the people they purport to love. Of course, there are human rights activists who do have extremely strong opinions about the Myanmar government’s (if one can refer to it as such) oppression of its people and the Chinese government’s crackdown (especially during the 50th anniversary this week) of Tibet. It’s all such hypocrisy, really. And how many of these so-called "friends of Palestine" have any idea about the Lebanese shelling the Palestinian refugee camps? Very few, I would guess. I really don’t see why such radical tribalism should exist in today’s world, but it seems more rampant than ever before.
It is nice to see apice on Jewcy not attacking Judaism, Israel, Republicans, or boogymen Christians. (Of course, the undeniable antisemites posting responses is disturbing)
From all the repitition, I actually forgot Israel’s mixed position on the Iraq war.
It is nice to see apice on Jewcy not attacking Judaism, Israel, Republicans, or boogymen Christians. (Of course, the undeniable antisemites posting responses is disturbing)
From all the repitition, I actually forgot Israel’s mixed position on the Iraq war.
I’ll agree that the best interests of the nation come somewhere within his general ideology of personal loyalties to others that he think do care abotu the nation – and that its confusing at best and certainly not good.
My mom hates him with a passion for the whole incident and I just think too many Jews are way to harsh on him.
Glad to hear you aren’t from 5 towns and claiming to be Southern.
Go Vols!
Please. I’m neither from nor live on Long Island- just citing it as an example of people who don’t make a conscious effort to "represent," which I think is relevant to this thread. Anyway, I’m more of a Tarheel than anything.
But back to Lieberman, because I think he’s also an interesting case- we’re talking about the 2000 Democratic nominee for Vice President. Very few Americans have enjoyed the red carpet political treatment that Joe Lieberman was afforded. For him to shrug and say "circumstances have changed" isn’t exactly a lesson for the ages in loyalty. But whatever the rationale for Lieberman’s behavior during the 2008 presidential race, and I will concede an obtuseness to my attribution of his motives, I still can’t locate the interest of the nation anywhere in the vicinity of the heart of his actions.
I dont disagree on the why of Lieberman losing the nomination.
And I agree that it was a poke in the eye for him to speak at the RNC. That saidm I think it is looking for the reason you have already decided to claim he did so and then backed Palin because of Israel. A simpler and more plausible answer is that once he climbed out on his ledge (speaking at the RNC to piss back at the people who had pissed on him, and because he genuinely supports his friend McCain – although more of the first), he stayed on the ledge. If you have followed his career, tenancity to the point of stubborness is one of his traits.
You can’t be from Long Island and be a Southern Jew att the same time (no offense, Yankee ;)
My favourite thing in the whole wide world is that, in the middle of a giant comment designed to explain how claiming that he believes that Muslims are inherently bad is misrepresenting his views, lbjack calls Muslims "morlocks". A tip:
your efforts to convince us that you’re not a racist asshole would be so much more convincing if you could, you know, leave the racist asshole-ery at bay for more than ten seconds.
Anyway, if lbjack wants to pretend that all Muslims in the world celebrate violence, or that the only way Christianity ever asserted itself was through the sending of missionaries (never Crusades, Inquisitions, or anything so barbaric!), I guess that’s up to him. But I’d echo Reality_Check’s question: so what? Even if you’re right, and the Muslim is inherently evil, they still have to be dealt with for practical reasons. As you point out, there are a billion Muslims out there in the world – do you seriously propose killing them all? If there’s no possibility of compromise with them, where do we go from here? One sixth of the world’s population is, according to you, inherently and irrevocably evil. Surely some big steps have to be taken, but what?! It would be nice to know what the plan is from all the doomsayers, but the fact that they haven’t taken up arms and gone on a rampage, or moved to Montana with an arsenal and a practically endless supply of canned beans indicates to me that they don’t actually believe Islam represents the kind of threat they say it does. Because if I thought a billion people were out to get me, you can be damn sure I wouldn’t react by telling those who disagreed with me on the internet that they’re wrong. And yet, in the face of what surely is the greatest threat civilization has ever seen, that’s all lbjack seems to do.
Yeah Stuart, but Lieberman lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont for one big reason- his unflagging support for the war in Iraq. Now I won’t flirt with the canard that a cabal of Netanyahu acolytes cooked up that war for purposes of "securing the realm," but I will venture to say that conflating it into a post-9/11 necessity is a great steaming pile of camel dung that Lieberman continues to shovel down our national gullet. He could have endorsed McCain, made a few appearances with him and let that be the end of it. Speaking at the RNC and tagging along with Palin and Joe the Plumber are not actions dictated by loyalty to McCain alone. If it was revenge on the Democrats, I wonder why. He lost the CT Democratic primary fair and square and then the party is obligated to support the nominee. In the case of Lamont, they did so unenthusiastically, which is one of the reasons why Lieberman was able to hang onto his seat. But the guy’s still a shandhe.
I’m with you on being a Southern Jew though. Not that I minded, but I always felt like I was representing. Not quite the same in the Five Towns.
Brian,
Lieberman ‘shilled’ for Palin after McCain had picked her as his Veep. He was already out there shilling for McCain, and his suppoprt had little to nothing to do with Israel.
Lieberman is on the right edge of the Democratic Party, as was shown in his last reelection campaign when the party threw him out to vote in a relative newby to attempt to fill his seat. That he ran as an independednt and won shows his support in his home state and the stupidity of some Democrats – would you rather be right or happy? They chose right and are now unhappy. Lieberman did not screw the party until the party screwed him.
Lieberman (like McCain) is known for his steadfast loyalty and personal relations. His loyalty to McCain stems from that, compunded by the dumping on he recieved at the hands of the party. That some Jews were afraid of an Obama presidency and its implications for Israel make sense except for the fact that Lieberman was out front for McCain when everyone thought Hillary would be the nominee.
I think Palin is a dipstick. When she said she loved Israel to Biden, I cringed. That said, it is unfair to look at every action of Jews through the narrow slits of tribalism. Man may well consider whether it is good for Israel, but also do so with a strong belief that as a nation that shares our value system and as a symbol of how the US treats even the least popular of its allies, what is good for Israel is probably also good for the US. But it is hardly the only thing that goes into anyone’s calculus.
I have lived all my life in small Southern towns very reminiscent of your example #2. I can say there were many right wingers surprised by my support of Obama rather than Israel lysynching Palin. As I explained to them (and now to you) you may not mean to, but assuming that Jews actions are defined by whats best for Israel is a little bit racist (and while per Avenue Q, we are all a little bit racist sometimes, doesnt mean we go around comitting hate crimes- that doesnt excuse it.)
Also, I think the distinction between "invited" and "uninvited" antisemitism, or however you want to put it, is important because it maintains the hope that some people who harbor antisemitic attitudes are capable of coming back around. That’s a good thing.
One guy grows up taught that Jews are horn-headed, hook-nosed beasts who turn off the faucets of a nation’s currency whenever they feel like it. As per Stewart A. Konigsberg’s perscription, best way to deal with him at minimum is with bricks and baseball bats.
Another guy grows up in a rural community with very few Jewish acquaintances. He hears the discourse of Jewish advocacy and he hears the discourse of antisemitism. He is inclined to extend his belief that people are people to folks of all stripes. Then one day Jack Abramoff, in the course of a chat about his deeply held religious beliefs, bilks the guy out of his life savings. That guy then says, "I don’t trust Jews" and somebody hears him and tells him he’s an asshole who has no right to think that way. Now the guy says, "Man, those crafty Jews got that guy fooled."
Generalizations to be sure, and I don’t endorse the reactions of guy #2, but, in light of the discursive landscape that Mr. Saunders sketches, there are times when tribalism hurts rather than helps. For example, when Senator Joe Lieberman shills for a nincompoop like Sarah Palin, it is no stretch to think that he cares more about a candidate’s rubberstamp policy toward Israel than about what’s truly best for America right now. That’s a prominent Jew inviting people to believe that he cares more about Israel than about America. We can dismiss the popular susceptibility to draw such a conclusion, or we can simply expect our senators to stand up for what they truly believe is in America’s best interests, regardless of their religions. I opt for the latter and I think that Lieberman was derelict in this. It’s not treading lightly, it’s just recognizing that when a person or a group of people deviates from serving the larger good of the community in which they thrive, calling them on it is a good way to ward off getting tarred with their brush. But instead, someone might be inclined to say that I am guilty of something for trashing that mensch Joe Lieberman like this. But not only do I think that he doesn’t get a pass merely by virtue of his Judaism, but I don’t apologize for suspecting his Judaism was a factor in his advocacy of Sarah Palin as viable national leadership. And that fucking frightens me.
Brian, you would seriously seek a distinction between intractable anti-semitism and that which is "invited" by Jews? I find it hard to believe that you would propose such a thing. Who will determine the distinction between intractable hatred and invited hatred? Who is to determine what is a legitimate invitation? Would you somehow distinguish from intractable hatred of blacks that which is somehow "invited" upon them? How about legitimate "Islamophobia"?
I think the distinction I had noted here (and earlier) is much more useful and humane. There is a difference between criticism and hatred. I do not understand what makes everyone so reluctant to distinguish between the two. Every culture should be open to self-criticism. And there is a difference between a blind, immature glorification of one’s background and a mature appreciation for it. The former sets up a false choice between simply pride and humiliation - a grossly oversimplified and, in some parts of the wordl, dangerous dichotomy.
One question I would like to pose is if antisemitism as it is expressed can be categorized into that which is intractable hatred toward Jews and that which is invited by Jews. Are all cases of antipathy toward Jews examples of the same crime?
I don’t ask this to try and dilute the vigor needed to combat a very real and pressing tide. But neither do I believe that "once you go antisemite, you never go back" applies to all cases. Sometimes, Jewish behavior, both collective and individual, influences the larger community’s attitude toward Jews. This should seem natural, but there’s this sense I perceive that some Jews think that everyone should love Jews by default, based on a rich history of essential contributions to humanity, in spite of a litany of chapters of horrific persecution. While others seem to operate under the assumption that it doesn’t matter whether the world likes us or not, we should assume that they don’t and conduct ourselves accordingly.
My own belief is that Jews benefit from living harmoniously among the larger community. To those who would lump this belief into some leftist nonsense that comes at the expense of Jewish identity, I say go fuck yourself. Not being an affront is not the same thing as apologizing for being Jewish. To me, this distinction is essential to Jewish survival, in the Diaspora as well as in Israel. LBJack may find it exhilirating to eschew conciliation altogether, but how can he reconcile his sterling opinion, unfettered by the intellectual snags of leftism with the fact that the Ottoman Empire took us in after we were kicked out of Spain, or the Albanian and Central Asian Muslim communities that gave safe harbor to Eastern European refugees during WWII? Our enemy as named by diatribists like him have saved our lives hundreds of thousands of times. So are we absolutely certain that their hatred of us now is completely unrelated to our own actions?
Daniel Saunders’ posting here "the New Antisemitism" is a pretty fair effort, although he could have easily cited the substantial level of antisemitism among leftist Jews in Israel and elsewhere as an additional factor adding to antisemitism. Hence, anti-Israel advocates can quote liberally from the Jewish press to buttress their own claims.
It is interesting that Jewcy has so few responses to its various topics but antisemites have made this thread a big "winner" and perhaps this proves the point that antisemitism is still a big problem. And when we say that it is a problem, we mean to say that Jews face threats to our existence in a way unprecendented since the second World War. Daniel Saunders makes many points and I have read no refutation or counter-argument from "Realty-Check" or Ismail or "Jer."
Ibjack has made a correct case concerning the fact that there is a big problem with Muslim violence. Isaac would do well to stick to the topic and stop name-calling and yet I am surely on his side.
It might be helpful if we could focus the argument on one point at a time–establishing clear winners.
Lastly, it would help if Daniel S would defend his writing if he feels he has been challenged in any serious way.
They are not the same thing as facts, you know?
Yes, yes… the topic. Feel free to explain how my staying on the topic of anti-Semitism in the previous comment was not topical enough for you. Feel free to explain how my highlighting that comment – which was made specifically in reference to the focus of the article, or my interest in being able to make an actual point out of that, or of comments in response to it, is a distracting deviation from what you consider to be "the topic". By all means.
People who have no point to make are stubborn and obfuscatory.
the funniest thing about you and lbjack is your complete unawareness of how incredibly delusional you guys come across, especially when a little pressure is applied on you.
So, can we get back on topic now?
Facts are stubborn things
"Where is Isaac when you need him to discipline hotheads and get a lively discussion back on topic?"
I don’t know… out having a life, maybe?
Didn’t you hear me? I said that your hotheadedness was beyond my ability to discipline. I gave you the satisfaction of declaring your trolling abilities so exemplary as to sufficiently kill a thread. What more did you want? (I mean, other than for all others with divergent viewpoints to bow down and kiss your ass?)
I like facts as much as the next person. But far be it from me to indulge the cult of someone so arrogant and narcissistic as to believe that endlessly rambling off with them obviates the need to make a coherent point. But that’s right. You don’t need to make a point. Like a supercomputer that calculates pi to the millionth decimal point, your obsessive-compulsive regurgitation of facts isn’t actually meant to yield any insight.
In the meantime, I had a point to make in agreement with Brian regarding anti-Semitism – the actual topic of the article, in case you forgot. Did your automaton-mind have anything to say about that? Of course not. To do so would have distracted you from your own masturbatory pissing match.
Ok, I admit it. Thanks to lbjack, I’ve finally seen the light. His magisterial prose, his unsurpassed mastery of the history and deeper spiritual meanings of all major religions, his incredibly penetrating thought, the clarity of his arguments, all so superbly blended with such vigorous passion, have finally exposed the error of my ways. Yes. I am convinced. Completely, utterly convinced.
So what do we do now, Master? How will we confront such barbaric evil? How can we advance our Civilised Man’s Burden? Should we invade Islamic countries and force them to accept Western Values, Democracy and Modernity like we did with Iraq? Should we avoid the sacrifice of treasure and precious civilised lives such a humanitarian effort would cost us and just drop a few nuclear bombs instead? And while you ponder our Grand Strategy, should we join Kach in the meantime and go throw a few grenades on some Palestinians to blow off some steam? Please, show us the way, Master.
Btw. Where is Isaac when you need him to discipline hotheads and get a lively discussion back on topic? Isaac? ISAAC?
Facts are stubborn things
Brian, thank you for your fair-minded assessment. As you are well aware, we have had some disagreements in the past, but none that I think are unbridgeable, and certainly none that cause me to have any less respect for your understanding of historical detail, methodology and the often-missed (by others) but ever-present sense of irony that is revealed by those things.
We are in agreement that there is nothing unfair a priori about criticism of Israel. But I believe you are even further justified in pointing out that those who would equate Israel with Nazi Germany are not only speaking to an amazingly ignorant or dishonest mindset, but to one whose aims are incredibly ethically dubious at best. And when people like Buchanan (who is on record as admiring Hitler) use their current dissatisfaction with Israel as a rationale for diminishing the importance of the Holocaust, or when people like David Duke use their concern over the geopolitical implications of Israel’s actions to advance their own racist agendas, I think it’s fair to say that we are beyond the territory of just Godwin’s law and the ignorant perversion of history, and are bearing witness to a much more nefarious, patently uncivilized and often political phenomenon.
The fact that these dynamics arouse the hateful sympathies of increasingly outspoken if disreputable political actors is most problematic, and symbolizes — to me at least — that the social concerns they purport to represent cannot be isolated. Because politicians inherently seek to advance their own agendas, the lines of interest between guys like Buchanan and Duke and politically "untainted" groups or individuals cannot be easily unblurred. Which makes me wonder how easy it is to unblur the lines between the sympathies that drive their own agendas and those that we assume belong to a more respectable sort.
Whoa dude, how long did it take you to write that?
accusations of true Muslim behavior being inherently bad
Another misrepresentation of what I said, in order to score points (the customary tactic of the usual suspects here). I said that to the degree someone is civilized, he’s is not authentically Muslim. As dishonest as it is as a depiction of what I said, on its own it’s still arguable. Every time Muslims dance in the streets at the murder of Jews or Americans, their Western stooges repeat their noisome refrain, "But this is not Islam." Every time, around the world, in Darfur or Somalia or Pakistan or India or Malaysia or Indonesia, Islamic "militants" bomb, murder and kidnap, the stooges again parrot the self-serving claim of Muslim spokesmen for consumption of credulous western nincompoops: "But Islam is the religion of peace!" Every time the Muslim occupiers of Europe take to the streets to go on another rampage, over some imagined slight, or commit an honor killing or female circumcision, or engage in the flourishing slave trade, or the Saudis stone another adulteress or the Iranians hang gay teens, the twits sing out, "But this is not Islam." "But Hamas doesn’t represent Islam!" "But the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t Islam!" But Hezbollah isn’t Islam!" But the Sunnis and Shi’as murdering each other in Iraq isn’t Islam!" "But the Iranian ayatollahs aren’t Islam!" But the Maghreb North Africans aren’t Islam!" "But the Somali slave traders and pirates aren’t Islam!" The internecine chaos that is Afghanistan and Pakistan is not Islam. Oh, then I guess all this is just a big misunderstanding.
Why do they all sing out like this? Because they are idiots, who swallow the fiction that a religion qua religion is sacrosanct. Balls! A religion can be wrong in minor ways or major ways; it can be morally wrong. It can be wrong in the relatively benign way of polygamy, or it can be grossly wrong in its mandate for all true believers to conquer, enslave or kill the unbeliever. This kind of "grossly wrong" is evil in my book, and I don’t care if this tweaks the superior senibilities of this effete, preening cohort, who are horrified at the thought of insulting "One of the World’s Great Religions".
I understand that this is a personal thing with them, that admitting to the inherent barbarity of Islam would destabilize their sense of being perceived as tolerant and nice. Acceptance of any evidence as to the intrinsic evil of Islam would demand action to confront it. Confronted with murderers – be they domestic ot international, individuals or groups, even nations – today’s feckless, overweening narcissist blinks, sits back down and continues his 24/7 program of self-gratification, girded by the handy rationalization, provided by academic hucksters and pundits, that his moral, intellectual and physical sloth is actually tolerance. And this is the ilk showing off here, patting themselves on the back, for being so broadminded, so inclusive. Hey, equal time for mass murderers! After all, we’re talkin’ one of the world’s great religions, which a billion people cleave to. Ho…don’t want to offend them! No, Eloi don’t offend Morlocks.
What’s so disgusting is to see those who should know better repeat their politically correct mantra of "This is not Islam," when repeatedly confronted with one example after another of real-world Muslim barbarity, buttressed by black-letter Koranic authorization and fatwas issued by mullahs, whose madrases are notorious nurseries of hatred and violence; the Muslim propaganda aimed at pompous twits like Jer, that jihad actually refers to an inner struggle, like a New Age spiritual exercise, and not the Muslim version of Mein Kampf, that jihad isn’t real war against all infidels who are either to be converted, enslaved or annihilated. Ah, you say, but that’s just rhetoric. Another clever excuse to sit on your butts and do nothing, calling yourselves, "tolerant".
Of course, the mountain of evidence, the historical scholarship (not the marshaling of facts by polemicists), the exegesis, the current behavior, the intellectual quality of Muslim apologia, seem to matter naught to the politically correct cultural relativist and academic poseur, whose ostentatious badge of "tolerance" will not allow for the possibility that Yes, the world view of a billion people is informed by atavistic, barbaric, evil values. What’s monstrous isn’t the belief that this could be true but fact that it’s true, that a third of the world at least nominally profess a so-called religion that is fundamentally antithetical to humane civilization.
Despite what others have said, humane I doesn’t necessarily allude to the West or even modernity. Islam is antithetical to non-Western Buddhism; Islam is antithetical to non-modernist Jainism; Islam is antithetical to non-Western, non-modernist Confucianism. In fact, Islam is antithetical to anything that is NOT Islam. This antipathy lies at the core of Islamic belief.
Islam’s spread was effected by slaughter and rapine. Its presence has benefited none of those it subjugated, the tolerance of whom was always merely a matter of convenience to the Muslim. Certainly a polemicist, with the infantile mentality of "well, they did it, too" can marshal history, even recent history, to find examples of barbarity committed by non-Muslims. But the question is, have non-Muslims emerged from the barbarity of a past they shared with the Muslims? Humane societies have moved on, and the evolution of their respective religions have reflected this. Jews and Christian, though still far from paragons, are closer to living the lives their religons preach. Cultures who embrace Islam hace not moved on, and nor has their religion. The dream of the Muslim remains the name of its religion: submission, either to the will of Allah or to the ummah. If that does not in itself betray Islam’s malign nature, then there is no hope for those who’d rather jack off in the mirror of their own niceness than to confront evil when they see it.
Oh yeah, as for this "religious belief of a billion people," it springs not from initial conviction or persuasion, but from murderous conquest and coercion. And before the usual assholes here start blathering about the Conquistadors, the story of the spread of Christianity (like Buddhism) has been the story of missionaries, not the caricatures of Maugham and Michener, but individuals possessed of benevolence, dedication, courage and sacrific of a nature far beyond the comprehesion of dwarfs like Ismael and Jer. (And no, Children, missionaries were not just the advance guard for the imperialists.) To attempt to impose moral equivalence between the civilizations expressed by of Judeo-Christianity, Buddhism, Confusianism, Taoism, or the like, and the "civilizations" expressed by Islam betrays a moral and intellectual obstusenss which no facility of language or glib casuistry can conceal.
Meanwhile, instead of reinforcing their stupidity in their a priori echo chamber, Ismael, Jer and their ilk should shut up for a change and actually study the history. Bernard Lewis’s What Went Wrong? is a good short primer. The previously cited Legacy of Islamic anti-Semitism, by Ibn Warraq, is another. But I suspect these twerps have nothing to learn.
One quick thing before I’m away from the internet for the weekend, but I read an article in the New Yorker (I think) recently about hardcore nationalist Chinese youth. What struck me most was the way they claim that China is unfairly singled out for its treatment of Tibet, and the way that the violence of Tibetan protesters is ignored when the western media discusses China/Tibet. For example, apparently a picture of Chinese troops moving through Lhasa was cropped such that a mob of Tibetan protesters was left just out of the picture.
Sound familiar? So, while certainly some opponents of the occupation of Tibet are unfairly picking on the Chinese, I think we’d all agree that criticism of China does not equal antiChinese sentiment. Similarly for Israel.
A survey of this thread, with its wild detour into accusations of true Muslim behavior being inherently bad and ardent defenders of Israel being comically deluded is a great indicator of how muddled any attempt to address the rising tide of anti-semitism is.
Ismail (and I must say, for a guy raised by Domenican nuns, your English is excellent!), your vociferous criticisms of Israel cause me deep discomfort, a dicomfort borne of my Jewish upbringing, into which was enfolded a belief in Israel’s heroic justness. To you, any attempt to allay these criticisms, or to chalk them up to antisemitism is a moral and intellectual outrage. But the distinction to be made here is that some of the harsher criticisms leveled at Israel since she launched her Gaza offensive have been grossly overheated and this can lead to unwarranted problems for Jews the world over, including, most alarmingly, a diminishment in the scale of the tragedy of the Holocaust. To this point, the rash of world figures who are boycotting Holocaust memorial ceremonies, as well as the prominent voices (Pat Buchanan and Norwegian diplomat Trine Lilleng) who are equating Israel’s crimes with those of Nazi Germany is an outrage that is not nullified by Israel’s own outrages. To the point of Israel behaving like Nazis, I don’t personally object to the term "use of Gestapo tactics," but the fact remains that Gaza had a population of 300,000 when Israel occupied it in 1967 and today the population is 1.4 million. This is not evidence of Israel’s great humanitarian work, but it is evidence that people who say she’s perpetrating a Holocaust are caught up in a wave of terribly dangerous rhetoric. And this is what I believe Saunders addresses in his post.
I further believe, insomuch as my comments on Jewcy have value, that it is Jewish conflation of any criticism of Israel with antisemitism that contributes to this problem. If somebody says, "Man, it ain’t right what Israel’s doing in Gaza!" and a Yom Ha’atzmeut-celebrating person of the Jewish persuasion nearby counters with, "Oh yeah? What about Darfur? What about Myanmar? What about Sderot? Why does it always have to be about the Jews dammit?!" then that dynamic leads to a climate more inducive of antipathy toward Jews, not less. We must defend Israel when she is unfairly attacked, but we must also recognize that not all (rhetorical) attacks are unfair.
And if you think that countenancing "fair attacks" is an existential threat to Israel, what does that say about your belief in the fairness of her existence in the first place?
Also, as I am unable to resist commenting on the sub-thread about Wahabbis v. Haredim, one of them cuts off women’s clits and the other one doesn’t.
To pretend that subconscious biases either don’t exist or are irrelevant to discussions of anti-semitism, racism, and the like is the most utterly bogus assertion made on this thread.
It’s fine to argue against paranoia. For someone to confidently discern paranoia in the minds of some, however, while asserting that absolutely no biases exist in the minds of others (especially when there is evidence to the contrary), requires a level of hypocrisy that is nothing short of ridiculous and shameful.
The problem people have with Israel generally (and not with any specific and correctible transgressions on its part) is that, like American exceptionalism, Jewish nationalism is at least in part a creed-based phenomenon. The fact that both of these creeds are less parochial than Israel and America’s congenital detractors – who are to be distinguished from good-faith critics – would wish them to be is what drives them crazy.
I think that the anti-Semitism trump card has been way overplayed, but its use is understandable. It is the only card left in the age of the internet, when way too many people can now access background information that was once available only to dedicated specialists. May I also add my suspicion that the only aim of articles like this one is to make us reflexively even more paranoid when dealing with gentiles. I mean, gee, we might now be dealing with anti-Semites who have no racial or religious prejudices against Jews, or who might even be unconsciously anti-Semitic. I am sorry, but this is fear psychosis bordering on paranoia.
As far as ‘selective sensitivity’ goes, I really like Ran HaCohen’s take on this one:
"… Much more disturbing is the intensive resorting to "anti-semitism" claims by
Jewish individuals and institutions who do try to maintain a look of integrity.
Such claims take many creative forms: for example, some Jews have a morally
repulsive pastime of looking for worst cases of oppression – Russian atrocities
in Chechnya (whose veterans, by the way, join the Israeli army), Chinese in Tibet – which
supposedly "prove" that the media focus on Israel is anti-semitically
motivated. As if it were not outrageous enough to be on the shortlist of
evil-doers, as if only the gold medal in this satanic competition, but not bronze
or silver, is worthy of protest."
Ran HaCohen, Abusing anti-Semitism
Facts are stubborn things
"How’s that for on-topic and responsive to the points?"
First-rate, and thanks for your comments. Lest you become tainted in the eyes of many around here by the praise of such an unrepentant monster as myself, let me add that I found your opening remarks (regarding unconscious antisemitism and the like) entirely unnecessary and logically questionable. You seem to be performing absolutely Procrustean acrobatics (maybe some benighted soul might possibly express a sentiment that, unbeknownst to her, could conceivably be assumed to be antisemitic, etc etc) in order to be fair and judicious, qualities that you embody in spades-almost to a fault, I’d say.
There, that mild criticism should insulate you from the shame of my admiration. I especially like your addressing the claim that criticism of Israel, unless coupled with equally vigorous opposition to the planet’s other malefactors, must be antisemitic. This is a logical solecism that has been my bete noire forever. A moment’s reflection will reveal that this principle, if applied consistently, would render any political action suspect. Unless that action were against the world’s unquestionably worst felon, determined by purely objective methods, of course.
We all choose our issues for a variety of reasons. Among opponents of Israeli policy, there are surely some whose reasons include antisemitism. But the vigor of someone’s opposition, or its centrality to their overall political life, can not be the proof of such bigotry. Activists of all sorts-feminists, Tibetan nationalists, et al- may devote all their energies to their cause, despite there being no planetary consensus that defending abortion rights or freedom for Lhasans are our most urgent obligations. And no one accuses them of sinister motives because of their devotion to their cause.
No, if one accuses an opponent of Israel of having antisemitic motivations, one must provide something more than his zeal as evidence of his bigotry.
I thank Jer for his sober and reasonable comments, but not so much as to make his life here miserable.
Alright, because everyone seems to have decided to get back on topic, and because I have forty minutes with nothing to do (well, nothing that I particularly want to do), I’m going to respond more substantively:
For all that the author is making some outrageous claims here, I understand and sympathize with what I think he’s trying to say. Of course you can’t be an antisemite without harbouring prejudice against Jews, but one can of course be unaware of one’s prejudices, and so there is an argument to be made that, while none of these attributes necessarily indicate a conscious antisemitism, they may still signal antisemitic tendencies unknown to the person in question. I guess there’s also an argument to be made that one can ACT as an antisemite without harbouring any prejudice; someone who has been misled into holding certain beliefs without any examination, might say things or act in a way that an antisemite would say/act, but without fully understanding what it is they’re doing. Fair enough. It would have been nice to spell this out, rather than get absurdities like "you can be an antisemite without prejudice against Jews", but whatever.
And I’ll even grant that a lot of the stated attributes can indicate antisemitism. Even the one I find most ridiculous, "Fair-weather humanitarianism", can be antisemitic. Obviously, someone who cheers the bombing of civilian populations in every other corner of the world, but who decries it when Israel does it, has something going on. However, even being charitable, I still have some problems with this post.
First, to stick to the humanitarianism argument for a bit longer, there’s the fact that there are other reasons than antisemitism why one might focus one’s attentions on Israel over Darfur. As Shira Danan notes, as Jews, we have a greater interest in watching what goes on in our names, and so the idea that any Jew who criticizes Israel over Sudan must be self-hating (the Jewish version of being an antisemite) falls apart. Similarly, Americans, whose government funds Israel to the tune of 2.4 billion dollars a year, have a greater interest in what is being done with their tax money than they do in what is being done in Sudan, or North Korea. Further, since American politicians are almost unanimous in their unwavering support for Israel, whereas there is less consensus for supporting Sudan, it makes sense that humanitarians would focus their efforts on a cause that is marginalized in the U.S. If America gave China billions of dollars a year, and constantly reiterated their support for China, then it would make more sense for Americans to worry more about humanitarian crises in China than elsewhere.
Similar arguments can be made about other attributes on the list, notably "doubting antisemitism is on the rise" (what if there is credible evidence to actually believe this?) and "abusing the public’s lack of knowledge" (particularly since some of your examples imply that what you "know" is the only possible interpretation of facts. Some people just honestly believe different things than you, and to claim that when they try and argue for their views in public they are being antisemitic is ridiculous).
Because my forty minutes are almost up, I will quickly use one more example to illustrate the sort of problem I have with this post:
your 3.ii. accuses the Guardian of "denying the continuous presence of Jews in Israel for thousands of years". Given your explanation of the Guardian’s website, however, it’s clear that they do no such thing. How much context is needed to discuss an issue is always going to be complicated. Ownership claims in the mideast go back millenia, but there is a convincing argument to be made that the I/P situation really dates from the birth of Zionism in the last quarter of the 19th century. Just as a debate over Cyprus can go back to the Bronze Age Greeks, we can look back to Biblical times, but to understand the politics of the current crisis, 1880 is a reasonable starting point. Even if you disagree that 1880 should be as far back as the website looks, there’s no reason to claim that they are deliberately hiding the fact that Jews have lived on the land that became Israel/Palestine for millenia, and certainly no reason to claim that this is antisemitism. And this is the problem I have with so many claims of the accusations of antisemitism being thrown around, even though I have sympathy for the viewpoint. In most cases, it is nearly impossible to tell whether someone has taken a certain position due to legitimate disagreement or secret antisemitism. In the Guardian’s case, I think it’s transparently obvious that the Guardian simply didn’t want their website to deal with two thousand years of history when they felt 130 would do. But you’re calling them antisemites. While we should be on guard against antisemitism, even when it’s disguised as legitimate discourse, we should be careful not to throw out legitimate discourse for fear it is antisemitic. And I feel that articles like this are far too much on the "ignore it, it’s antisemitic" side.
How’s that for on-topic and responsive to the points?
The reasons you gave for your opinions were discussed and were shown to be lacking. Of course, when one confuses opinion with fact – like Ismail does, or worse, when one is arbitrarily selective with facts, incapable of determining relevance, or interested in making the perfect the enemy of the good – like certain others are, the last thing to worry about is the cogency of their arguments.
I urge people to return to commenting upon the very disturbing trend that Saunders’ post exemplifies. Some may recall that I questioned his enterprise on several specific grounds, challenges to which I would welcome. But instead we are getting the rank racism of the sullen and belligerent lbjack who never deigns to reply to the actual substance of a remark he disfavors, or the increasingly creepy mouthings of Isaac, of greater clinical than intellectual interest.
To summarize, I don’t believe Saunders’ exertions at this particular time (i.e., as more people are beginning to see the savagery at the base of Israeli policy in Palestine) are a matter of coincidence. Furthermore, the algorithms he offers for the speedy and certain diagnosis of ill intent towards Jews are largely preposterous. I have given some reasons why I think so. Others disagree.
Now, discuss.
Arabs, by and large, seem not to understand this — and that’s why they
remain backwards, despite being able to purchase the trappings of
civilization that were, almost without exception, invented by
non-Arabs.
If you don’t even need any prejudice against Jews to be an antisemite, how anti-Arab does a statement like this make you?
People are what they do, and insofar as nominal Muslims behave like civilized human beings, they are not authentic Muslims.
If people are what they do, then if someone acts like a civilized human being, and also acts like a believing Muslim, then they are an authentic Muslim. Unless you claim that these "nominal" Muslims don’t ever do anything in accordance with Islamic precepts, your point is contradictory.
And, to get us back on topic, I absolutely love the thirteenth attitude indicative of antisemitism: Doubting the rise of antisemitism. Never mind that the author concedes that "when dealing with any statistics, one should exercise caution and remember the likely motives of the people recording them". Although, I guess if insufficient concern for other humanitarian crises counts as antisemitism these days, you’d have to be crazy to doubt that it’s a growing problem.
Lol. What is this third person thing, are you now the appointed man for Jewcy gossip on new members? And do you actually imagine that you have an audience in a thread you just pronounced dead ???
And yeah, this discussion had quite a lot to offer on topic, like Islam’s backwardness and your friend lbjack’s touching efforts to become Jewcy’s Marty Peretz! Oh, wait. Islam wasn’t the topic!
Gee, Isaac. Get a grip.
P.S. Just don’t follow me around like you do Ismail. For some strange reason you seem to have such a masochistic tendency when someone shows how easy it is to drive you nuts as a consequence of your lack of knowledge or arguments. Like I said, reading is fundamental. Just don’t bother reading me. You’ve been warned.
Facts are stubborn things
Reality Check is either:
A) Retarded, or
B) Has a credible case for equating "independence" with individual freedom, or
C) Has a credible case for equating Ismail’s words with those of lbjack, or
D) is illiterate.
Facts are indeed stubborn things. So is someone too dumb to realize that sarcasm is the only way to show him how irrelevant his tendentiousness makes him to rational discourse. Well, at least he didn’t need to "scream" and throw around rambling ad hominems to make himself feel important! Oh wait…
I think it’s safe to say the thread is dead. A thread that might have had quite a bit to offer before a troll came in from on high to pronounce virtue and dispense wisdom in the last round by deviating on a wild tangent that had nothing to do with the dozens of previous posts. Good job!
What are the accomodations like in your cave? I imagine something like a curtain and extensive machinery, much like the Wizard of Oz.
yonahred: "
nonetheless i don’t see in the long run how israel can avoid talking to hamas…"
Israel can’t avoid it if it wants at least some calm on its borders. And the tide is changing in the international scene. Many voices in the EU are already challenging current policy as counter-productive and there are rumours that there are such voices whispering close to Obama’s ear as well. The first to try to break current policy was, of all people, Sarkozy!
Haaretz: Israel stymies French push to lift European boycott of Hamas
"Using intense diplomatic pressure over the past two
days, Israeli officials blocked a French attempt to weaken Jerusalem’s
stance with Hamas at the pre-written closing statement of the meeting
of EU foreign ministers in Brussels last night.
… In the past two days Israeli officials conducted a
frenetic diplomatic battle to torpedo the unwanted changes, applying
significant pressure on senior EU representatives. The Czech Republic,
the current holder of the EU presidency, together with Germany, Italy
and the Netherlands, worked together to push the French initiative off
the agenda.
… Israeli diplomats in Europe have been reporting a new
willingness in various European capitals to reevaluate international
policy toward Gaza as well as the Quartet’s conditions for recognizing
Hamas since the end of Operation Cast Lead. The latter includes
abandoning terror, recognizing Israel and recognizing previous
agreements between Israel and the PA.
Israeli officials are particular perturbed about recent comments by
French diplomats, in off-the-record meetings, which claim Hamas cannot
be ignored.
"We cannot return to the status quo that existed in Gaza before the
Israel Defense Forces operation, and we must come up with creative
solutions," one diplomat said.
According to a senior source in Jerusalem, there has been a recent
French effort to change the Quartet’s terms for recognizing Hamas.
French diplomats have told their European colleagues, as well as
Israel, that a Palestinian unity government including Hamas cannot be
ruled out, pointing to Hezbollah’s participation in Lebanon’s
government as an example.
"If the paralysis in the peace process and in the rehabilitation of
Gaza continues, the efforts to soften the Quartet conditions will
persevere," an Israeli official said. "It’s uncertain that the boycott
of Hamas will continue for much longer, especially if a Palestinian
unity government is formed."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1059097.html
Facts are stubborn things
i wonder if i have to kick a few shins to get some attention around here. jane, you ignorant slut! (snl- original cast)
i don’t think one can ignore hamas’s charter. it is a rather ugly document, uglier than any israeli party’s charter.
nonetheless i don’t see in the long run how israel can avoid talking to hamas, given that fatah is hopelessly corrupt and the upswing in islamic observance still possesses forward momentum. but in the short run the prime minister of israel will probably be bibi and even livni or barak will continue with the ignore hamas strategy.
ephraim halevy and yossi alpher (bitterlemons.org) are in favor of engaging hamas.
but the current stage is certainly unstable until the return of gilad shalit and a truce established.
given iranian ascendancy there are other factors involved as well and therefore there is some sense to the quarantine hamas strategy. i just don’t see it working in the long run.
Wow! I guess I hit a nerve there. If you think that getting angry
and screaming and using ad hominem attacks will get you far and not make a complete fool of yourself, then be my guest.
Now, let me address your drivel. Your whole first paragraph is irrelevant.
You are comparing a stateless people under occupation with an internationally
recognised State that lives in freedom. Secondly, Likud has indeed announced
that it is not bound by any previous agreements on the Palestinian question,
including the Road Map. Repeatedly. Thirdly, Israel has still the distinction
of having ignored the most UN Security Council Resolutions (this includes the
US, btw) than any other nation in the world. It kind of undermines your
argument about an Israel which is supposedly an example of an entity that
behaves lawfully, but never mind, I know that mentioning the UN will probably
give you a heart attack.
Your second paragraph proves you haven’t done your homework. And you don’t
really explain yourself adequately, so please enlighten me: Are you implying
that pre-State Jewish terrorism only targeted military targets? I hope you are
not that ignorant!
Now, this is truly wonderful. You wrote: "And what "freedom" is any
militant nationalist fighting for?"
Well, one might consider the freedom for self-determination and not living
under occupation pretty important. Whether they will then live under a
theocracy or a democracy or any other political system is for them to decide.
However, you also seem to believe that history started with liberal democracy.
Well, let me enlighten you: In the course of history, liberal democracy has
been a rather new phenomenon. Authoritarian and theocratic regimes were rather
the norm for several millennia. If you had a brain you would have realized,
that indeed, not only groups, but whole nations "chose to live for a
significant period of time under an authoritarian theocracy", including
the ancient Judaic kingdoms! This didn’t deter them to think of themselves as "free" or to defend this exact freedom of self-rule against invaders and occupiers.
May I suggest you get a world history book, but since I’m pretty sure you
will not, I’ll offer something easier for you to digest, like a simple
Wikipedia entry:
"It was first coined [theocracy] by Josephus
Flavius in the first century AD to describe the characteristic government
for Jews. Josephus
argued that while the Greeks recognized three types of government: monarchy, aristocracy,
and anarchy,
the Jews were unique in that they had a system of government that did not fit
into those categories. Josephus understood theocracy as a fourth form of
government in which only God and his law is sovereign. Josephus’ definition was
widely accepted until the enlightenment era, when the term started
to collect more universalistic and undeniably negative connotations,
especially in Hegel‘s
hands."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy
Your fourth paragraph is also a little confused. First of all, I feel compelled to inform you that not every
country with a predominantly Muslim population is a theocracy. You also try to
minimize the role of the Chief Rabbinate but the fact is, there is no
separation of Church and State in Israel. And family law is pretty important if you ever decide to make aliyah to finally put your money where your mouth is. Now, if you want to compare this to, say,
fully theocratic regimes like Saudi Arabia to feel good, feel free. I happen to
choose a higher standard because I thought Israel was a part of the Western
World.
As far as equating Hamas with Israel goes, I never said anything of the
sort. I do see though some similarities between Hamas and other groups who chose terrorism as a tactic in order to achieve their political aims. That doesn’t mean there are no differences. Either you have a problem with reading comprehension or you are
misleading intentionally.
As far as lbjack goes, I didn’t put any words in his mouth. I quoted from
his post. These posts are still there in all their glory. Even Craig commented
on a quote of his that Ismail highlighted for God’s sake! Let me repaste the
wonderful quote I chose:
"Religions don’t make people, people make religions. People are
what they do, and insofar as nominal Muslims behave like civilized human
beings, they are not authentic Muslims."
My understanding of this comment was that according to lbjack, there is
no
such thing as an authentic Muslim who behaves like a civilized human being.
If I misunderstood, correct me. But I guess you won’t because he has too many
comments of this sort here. The fact that you are trying to defend him and his
typical racist drivel by saying I put words in his mouth simply for
copy-pasting says more about you than about me. At least it makes it easier for
me to realise what I’m dealing with here!
Finally, being a veteran of this kind of debates, I’m all too used to seeing
halfwit semiliterate debaters like you avoid the issues discussed and resort to
personal attacks. Just admit you can’t debate me because I have done my
homework and go away. I don’t need your permission here. Feel free to start
your own website and decide who the participants will be.
Until then, my sympathies.
Facts are stubborn things
Grow the hell up, man! If the PLO didn’t want to negotiate with Israel (a multi-party democracy that doesn’t have one party staging coups against the other), then it didn’t have to. But it did, under a government led by LABOR! Likud has not staged coups against the government of Israel, Likud has not prevented Labor or Kadima-led governments from exercising their authority to lead Israel while in pursuit of negotiations with anyone. Likud has not proclaimed that it has the authority to declare previous agreements signed by the Government of Israel to be null and void. That’s the difference. Well, that’s a few of the many differences, at least. But let’s just leave it at that for now. You seem very confused and I don’t want you to blow a microchip.
Which pre-Israel tactics do you pretend to be relevant here? The ones employed against British military? Even Tzipi Livni draws a distinction between military targets (which she doesn’t call terrorism) and non-military targets (which she does). And what "freedom" is any militant nationalist fighting for? You go find significant groups who choose to live for a significant period of time under an authoritarian theocracy and then I might be persuaded that you are not confusing that concept with "independence". Geez. Get a freaking dictionary.
Yes. Israel’s retention of Ottoman-era religious authority in the sphere of family law and family law alone is so damned theocratic. Nevermind that with the rest of its body of law secular courts have the ultimate authority. What planet are you living on? This is a problem. How it compares in scale and scope to a polity where religious courts decide everything is something that someone would have to be blind to see. Maybe family law is the only aspect of law on your planet. On mine there are also traffic courts, criminal law, tort law that has nothing to do with family issues. Make sure to write to the law schools and tell them that such things do not fit into your definition of what constitutes a monopoly on what the law is.
You are the one revising history to fit your preferred conclusion of an equivalence between Hamas and Israel. That’s YOUR conclusion. Facts are irrelevent to it. Be as selective with them as you please.
You are not worth debating because you lie. Your first line has nothing to do with your precious links, and everything to do with the fact that you put words into someone else’s mouth. If you want to have a demonstration, round up the ditto-heads and start making some signs. But there was a discussion that was taking place here, no matter how much you resented not being a part of it.
Now go away and stop pretending you are relevant.
1) Isaac: " I don’t see much reason to debate you."
Obviously. I bet you didn’t even read the links I provided. Some cognitive dissonance avoidance here?
"And although I’m sure many Likudniks will be touched to see…"
You don’t address the point. If the Hamas charter means there is no partner for negotiations, then would you admit this also the case for Likud, Israel Beitenu, Shas and quite a few other parties? Either a charter is important or it is not. Dodging the issue will not help. Please focus. We are talking about charters.
"As for Shamir, was he the first prime minister of Israel? …"
This was not the point. Again, you are avoiding the issue. The issue is whether you can have groups that use terrorism at some point in order to achieve their national aspirations who can then lay down their arms and function differently. History, and especially Israel’s history, proves that this is indeed not only possible, but the norm. The problem for you is that if you believe in the right of self-determination, and accept that even terrorism can be used to achieve that political aim, as so many prominent Jews did for Israel, then you can’t deny that same right to Palestinians and/ or Hamas. It’s the classic problem of "someone’s terrorist is someone else’s freedom fighter". You can’t have it both ways by accepting Jewish terrorism and even someone like Shamir becoming Prime Minister but denounce Hamas for their tactics.
You can of course argue a la lbjack that Hamas and Palestinians in general are an exception, irrational psychopaths who will never stop. However, if you accept that logic, then you can never have a settlement, only permanent war and sooner or later ethnic cleansing. Don’t be fooled. This is indeed what far too many people, and very powerful people – who won’t admit it publicly – want. For my part, I would rather try first by giving the Palestinians a real State than accept the inevitability of ethnic cleansing, which in my opinion, would be the end of Israel anyway.
As far as the "ethos" of Israel goes and its’ "guiding principles", you would be better off reading Jabotinsky and even Ben Gurion’s diaries than beautiful proclamations. Remember that for all the beautiful concepts of the Declaration and the Constitution of the US and the hagiographies of the Founding Fathers, nothing in those documents stopped the practice of slavery or gave women equal rights until a few centuries later. So much for "all men are created equal" (the catch being that "men" where white males who owned property).
Maybe someone should also inform you that Israel still does not have a Constitution.
2) Since I see that the question of Islam’s backwardness became a fashionable topic here thanks to lbjack, I would like to add some food for thought. Would you consider the Ultra-Orthodox to be backward? Do you agree with the laws in Israel where there is still no civil marriage and where very, very important matters are decided by the Chief Rabbinate? Do you know what an aguna is? Did you know that in Israel there is still no separation of Church and State?
Just as there are millions of secularized Jews, so there are tens of millions of secularized Muslims. If you are going to criticize the whole religion because of the clergy (or I should say, part of the clergy), then one should be prepared to look at his own clergy. And I’m sorry, it is truly difficult to consider the Chief Rabbinate or the Ultra-Orthodox in the US as anything other than very, very backward.
Yes, I know. It’s always easier to criticise the neighbours instead.
Facts are stubborn things
No fair! She was obviously a Zionist conspirator of colonialist oppression. Either that or a Nazi. Whatever is the standard dismissal of the day, I suppose.
lbjack: "Yes, I’m just full of hate. Of course, some would
call them values."
"People are what they do, and insofar as nominal Muslims behave
like civilized human beings, they are not authentic Muslims."
lbjack brags about the values of hatred, then informs us that there is no
such thing as an authentic Muslim who behaves like a civilized human being.
Edits my words, so he can call me a racist.
Facts are stubborn things
So are liars.
???? ???
"Reality Check", seeing as how you perceive your job to translate what Ismail meant to say, rather than to debate something based on what he did in fact say, I don’t see much reason to debate you. And although I’m sure many Likudniks will be touched to see that you believe that Palestinians need Israel’s say-so (actually Likud’s! Other parties – the one in power, in fact - have stated opposing viewpoints) to legally declare and fight for (or negotiate for) a state, I don’t. And neither does its primary sponsor, apparently. But at least you seem to implicitly agree with a perspective they can respect. As for Shamir, was he the first prime minister of Israel? The one who defined publicly the precedent-setting principles of how the state would be subsequently led? What ethos would guide it? I don’t think so. But then again, relevant questions and cogent thought are sometimes at least as important as the facts are. But if you disagree feel free to publish an emotive diatribe that overlooks that principle.
It confuses my little brain, and may give people the unfortunate impression that you’re just another airhead with a Word-A-Day calendar and a thesaurus trying to "pass."
Also, a Palestinian neurosurgeon or an Iraqi astrophysicist who thinks that other people’s disapproval of his sister’s or daughter’s sexual habits can bring shame on him, Is. A. Barbarian.
And if Ayn Rand is not worthy of your attention, here’s essentially the same thing expressed by Eleanor Roosevelt: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Arabs, by and large, seem not to understand this — and that’s why they remain backwards, despite being able to purchase the trappings of civilization that were, almost without exception, invented by non-Arabs.
P.S. Shukran for distilled alcohol, though.
?????
Is there a reason you instinctively equate segments of Arab culture with distinct professional classes, Ismail? I believe McGee was thinking more along the lines of general political sentiments and personal philosophies. But perhaps such things are an extravagance in your guild-centered vision of Arabian society.
It’s ok. Western societies were once similarly structured as well. But surely Karl Marx straightened that whole thing out before bringing us (and you?) into a brave, new phase of existence, no?
Make sure to figure out how you want to insult me before deciding not to answer intelligently. A perceived slight unreturned is a dangerous thing in the era of craftsmen, artisans and merchants.
1) lbjack: "Yes, I’m just full of hate. Of course, some would
call them values."
"People are what they do, and insofar as nominal Muslims behave
like civilized human beings, they are not authentic Muslims."
lbjack brags about the values of hatred, then informs us that there is no
such thing as an authentic Muslim who behaves like a civilized human being.
One wonders if Jewcy or someone like Mr. Daniel Saunders would like for once
to write something about the New Racism of the kind lbjack feels free to
express here so openly. You see, under this new thinking, some people, even
hundreds of millions, deserve to be hated for their religion, because, you see, their
religion "never grew up" and the burden of proof that they are not
"barbarians" is on them. Can it be selective sensitivity, of the kind
Mr. Saunders accuses others of on points 7 and 8, that makes me suspect I shouldn’t
hold my breath for a scathing critique of this particular kind of racism on
Jewcy?
And since in his wonderful world the burden of proof is not on the accuser,
but the accused, let me suggest that he is an elephant with typing skills.
Does he feel compelled to prove otherwise?
Even better, let me accuse him of being a pedophile. Now, following his
logic, the burden of proof to prove otherwise is on him.
2a) Isaac: " Yep. With a UN vote granting statehood. What a horrific
way to instantiate one’s nationalism."
This evasion won’t help. I think it is clear Ismail was writing about a) the
ethnic cleansing that immediately followed, which has been irrefutably
documented by the Israeli New Historians, including Benny Morris, who dug into
the Israeli State’s archives a few decades ago, and b) the policies of the
Settlement Project since 1967, which has been advanced by Labour and Likud
governments alike, and which even the US does not endorse, but which has had
grave consequences not just for the Palestinians, but also for well-meaning
Israel supporters everywhere who found it increasingly difficult to accept, let
alone defend this travesty. You might find it interesting to note that support
for Israel has been declining among gentiles, especially liberal ones, since
1967. This is no coincidence. In fact, the cognitive dissonance created when
many people made aliyah to live in an idealistic, liberal country only to find
themselves in an increasingly theocratic and nationalistic Israel with
expansion (Greater Israel) and occupation it’s only truly national policy had
the same result for many Jews as well. Tony Judt is one of them and one might
read his essay on Haaretz to learn a few things about the real reasons for
Israel losing the support of world public opinion (instead of creating a straw
man like the new horrific anti-Semitic villains lurking in the dark),
here:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/711997.html
2b) Ismail and Isaac on claims of historical ownership of the Land.
Obviously, this line of argument is dubious at best. It usually has two
sides, the first presenting the almighty as a real estate agent and the second
claiming hereditary (alas, genetic) bonds to the owners of the Land at a
specific period in time. Leaving aside the fact that this is very tricky,
recent genetic studies don’t help – they even exposed several such favorable
genetic studies of the past as fraudulent. It seems that this line of argument
will backfire by proving that if there is any group having any genetic
relationship to ancient Jews, it will be the native Arabs and Jews still living
there by the time the Zionist project started. And even if it weren’t so,
Ismail is unfortunately right. Anyone who has read some history books knows
that peoples wandered endlessly, fighting, conquering and being conquered since
time immemorial. Any attempt to choose a specific point in history for our
claims to this Land will be judged self-serving and rightly so.
If we want to have a real moral argument here, our best shot is our right of
self-determination. But even then we can’t deny the Palestinians’ right for
self-determination. This leaves us either with the option of taking the
religious nutcases’ path, who are at least honest and straight-forward in their
approach, or admit that Zionism accomplished what it could and that it is time
to settle down and offer the Palestinians a real State, something which we
haven’t done yet. There really is no other way. Either we will have Bibi or
Lieberman and Shas at some point finish the project by ethnic cleansing (the
Benny Morris option) or we will have a real, viable Palestinian State. Any
other half-solution will be a disaster.
Some food for thought on the national mythology of Israel and how tricky
things are (a must-read, including the comments):
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966952.html
2c) Isaac: " And Likud is not running the government of Israel."
Well, Bibi will be soon running it. Will you then admit that because of
Likud’s charter, reasonable Palestinians will not have a partner for peace? I
also wonder, with you probably being a Jewish American who doesn’t seem to know
a lot about Israel, would you be willing to discuss the charters and opinions
of other Israeli parties? Are you informed of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel and
its’ opinions? Are you sure you really want to go there?
This demonisation of Hamas is counter-productive and just a pretext for
those who play the disingenuous game of moving the goalposts all the time in
order to avoid a solution. What did Abbas get? Checkpoints, expansion of the
settlements and the Wall. And when did Israel specifically recognise the right
of Palestinians to a State? That’s right. Israel hasn’t.
The truth is, if the Palestinians are offered a real State, they will make
peace. More bitter enemies have historically made peace. Any charter means
nothing when negotiations start. You can’t expect Hamas to recognise Israel
when Israel doesn’t recognise the right of Palestinians to a State, nor can you
expect them to come to the negotiating table having already agreed to
everything Israel wants. Recognition of Israel, the refugees’ right of return
etc are all the Palestinians have in order to get something of value in
return.
Don’t be fooled dear Isaac. What was Ben Gurion to the British? What about
Mandela? Did you know that the reason Mandela stayed for so long in
prison was because he refused to sign statements renouncing terrorism? What
about the IRA? What was the Irgun? What about Lehi? Did you know that Lehi
proposed to the Germans to fight on their side in WWII because they thought it
would be helpful to their aspirations for a Jewish homeland? In 1940? Did
you know that one of their leaders was a certain Yitzhak Shamir?
Here are the opinions on the methods terrorists use by a former terrorist:
"There are those who say that to kill Martin (a British sergeant) is
terrorism, but to attack an army camp is guerrilla warfare and to bomb
civilians is professional warfare. But I think it is the same from the moral
point of view. Is it better to drop an atomic bomb on a city than to kill a
handful of persons? I don’t think so. But nobody says that President Truman was
a terrorist. All the men we went for individually — Wilkin, Martin, MacMichael
and others — were personally interested in succeeding in the fight against us.
So it was more efficient and more moral to go for selected targets. In any
case, it was the only way we could operate, because we were so small. For us it
was not a question of the professional honor of a soldier, it was the question
of an idea, an aim that had to be achieved. We were aiming at a political goal.
There are many examples of what we did to be found in the Bible — Gideon and
Samson, for instance. This had an influence on our thinking. And we also
learned from the history of other peoples who fought for their freedom — the
Russian and Irish revolutionaries, Garibaldi and Tito."
Yitzhak Shamir, later to become Prime Minister of Israel.
Facts are stubborn things
"Arab culture is fundamentally barbaric and backwards…"
Which Arab culture would that be? Lebanese bankers? Palestinian physicians?Iraqi archeologists? UAE stewardesses?
Yes, I did read Atlas Shrugged, shortly after I moved on from the Farmer Grey series in kindergarten, which I found infinitely more nuanced and stimulating. I exaggerate, of course (Rand’s silly schoolgirl fantasies didn’t yet exist when I was in 1st grade, under the tutelage of Dominican nuns, McGee will be happy to learn). Unreadable and jejune nonsense, with the literary and philosophical heft of a gnat’s fart. Next question.
May I suggest you focus your attention on chewing your cud at dinner and don’t bother expanding upon what is sure to be a tiresome and brainless exercise in Sesame Street Bernard Lewis-isms.
If we Arabs were capable of the higher sentiments, I’m sure I would be most grateful.
i’m no expert on arab culture, but it is not barbaric and it is backwards. i guess honor killings are barbaric and stoning adulterers is barbaric, but i don’t think that predominates. the problem is that the arab countries are led by secular autocrats and the democracy movement is islamic in nature and what percentage of that is jihadi islam i cannot tell.
as far as backward or progressive- notably the arab countries who have petroleum have petroleum wealth and those without it are poor and the petroleum wealth has not been used to promote other wealth producing endeavors. so given the world economy, (which is in the toilet as we speak,) the arab world is not a big contributor, only the oil underneath their feet is a big contributor.
but the relevant problem is that the only democratic movement is bubbling up from the islamic movements which are clashing with modernism at the same time that they use modern means of communication. this does not mean that every voter is clashing with modernism, but the movement’s intellectuals were not and are not at peace with modernism.
What Edward Said and George Habash and perhaps even Ismail may all have in common with each other is a fear they have internalized — failing sufficient displays of allegiance to "The Friday People" — about what will happen to "The Sunday People" after "The Saturday People" have once again been subdued.
There is a difference between hatred of a large group of people that have been a significant and organic portion of humanity for quite some time and hatred of a cult or sect of individuals that recently formed specifically in opposition to - or as a form of resistance against - existing liberal norms. The fact that Islam may or may not have structural beliefs that have not yet been reconciled with modernity is a different matter and one more analogous to the fact that Catholicism or Orthodox Judaism may or may not have structural beliefs that have not yet been reconciled with modernity. Even if the specific issues differ w/r/t the degree of intensity or propensity for violent tension that arises from them when confronted with modernity, the problem is still analogous in that it involves large communities of belief in which identity is at issue – an identity that is formatted around things that go beyond simply the potential for tension when confronted with modern, liberal norms.
But this takes us further from the point. The point is that Ismail is intelligent enough to understand all this and if he were intellectually honest would do a better job accounting for the way his other Old Left sympathies create blindspots that prevent him from getting his mind around both this and several other recurrent issues. (I mean seriously, Ismail’s latest expression of outrage against Obama was based on the fact that the president had promised to send more troops into Afghanistan. I mean seriously! Afghanistan!). So I can understand why Craig asks Ismail if the people he believes we aren’t doing a good enough job driving away includes Muslim fundamentalists.
The other way of seeing this is more mundane, but more succinct and easier for a Westerner to relate to. If he’s going to keep offering ritualistic defenses of Palestinianism and other sacred cows of the Left, Ismail should at least do that on a basis that is rooted in reality and respectful of Western moral norms. That is, he should feel free to rail against specific Israeli transgressions all he likes as long as he does so in a manner that implies that the U.N.’s acceptance of Israel’s existence and statehood actually mattered. I say this because we all know that he would do the same for the Palestinians (well, except for that part about railing against their specific transgressions. That part is still more problematic for him. But at least that problem can then be addressed once he drops the shield of his contempt for Israel - which is used here largely as a rhetorical device that he cannot reconcile with his other, obviously pro-Western sensibilities).
A civilized people should not apologize for laying the burden of proof that he’s not barbarian on the Muslim.
You’re getting close to the painful truth that Ismail needs to admit — which is that Arab culture is fundamentally barbaric and backwards, and this barbarism has spread to other cultures that have been conquered by Islam, which is at heart driven by a belief in Arab supremacy.
Edit: It occurs to me to wonder whether Ismail has ever read The Fountainhead. (I was a Randroid for a few years in college, but I got better — yet I’m grateful for that Rand phase, just as I’m grateful in some ways for having been raised Catholic.)
The reason I wonder this is that I think the whole "second-hander" thing is a significant part of what holds Arabs back. But I’m going out to dinner now, so I’ll have to expand on that later.
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I don’t read Ismael’s garbage, but I take it from the subsequent posts that some actually do take him seriously.
First, "delusional" and "irrational" is not hate speech. And yes, I call for the extirpation of jihadists. Yes, I hate jihadists. I hate The Aryan Nation. I hate Nazis. Yes, I’m just full of hate. Of course, some would call them values.
Sorry guys, a religion is not like taste in food, much to the chagrin of cafeteria Catholics. A religion is the articulation of values. Religions don’t make people, people make religions. People are what they do, and insofar as nominal Muslims behave like civilized human beings, they are not authentic Muslims. And let’s stop with the equivalence malarky. Most mindsets, and the religions which reflect them, grow up. Islam has not, and it’s a nuisance for the rest of the world. A civilized people should not apologize for laying the burden of proof that he’s not barbarian on the Muslim.
According to Isaac, Ismael is not Muslim. Yeah? Edward Said was not Muslim. George Habash was not Muslim. Which makes my point and goes to the topic, which Ismael has once again succeeded in diverting. Scrupulous reasoning and, as Saunders does here, painstaking explication, amount to naught before the anti-Semitic mind, which is synomymous with the Muslim mind. (see Ibn Warraq, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History)
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Well, analysis is a sort of destruction, I guess (and etymology supports).
Ismail, you may think that your efforts amount to:
ana • lyzing
…but I fear that you’re parsing the syllables incorrectly. (There are only four syllables — one for each of your adorable little trotters — so I’m sure you’ll be able to work out what I’m getting at.)
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You must mean Muslim fundamentalists?
…are, possibly, the answer to many seemingly intractable problems, but not to the problem of Jihad-minded young Muslims. I’m guessing that lbjack did not spend his teenage years hanging out with Evangelical SuperChristians, like I did — they took enormous pride in not masturbating (or so they claimed), not sneaking beers (let alone smoking pot), and not listening to secular music. (It must be admitted that they DID listen to "rock and roll," if you’re willing to count Christian Rock in this category.)
So bombarding young Muslims with SD&RnR is just giving a bunch of pimply reactionaries something else to react against. What the world needs, I guess, is the Muslim equivalent of Amy Grant or (swoon) Michael W. Smith, singing about how totally awesome Allah’s love for us is.But that’s not exactly what Islam is about.
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"The thing is, the Muslim is by nature delusional."
What can I say? If this sort of 19th century racism doesn’t drive people away, then the site is attracting the wrong sort of people.
"I think at heart Ismael is a troll, whose jouissance derives from destruction…"
Well, analysis is a sort of destruction, I guess (and etymology supports).
Careful readers will note that the knuckle-dragging lbjack accuses me of "trolling" and "distracting from the topic" and "driving readers away", yet he addresses not a single one of the substantive critiques I made of Saunders’ original post, each of which, whether mr. jack endorses them or not, are precisely on topic. Much easier to make an assertion than an argument, eh, lb?
How nice it would be if my points were actually tackled on their merits instead of being launching pads for cowardly and patently false accusations about me, personally.
". . . for the sake of the lurkers" isn’t trivial. Presumably, those who post are a small minority of visitors. Responding to the bores does no favor to the lurkers aka the audience and, in turn, to the Website – on the contrary.
By the way, good point about the best folks to debunk the "Ishmaelists". Probably the most powerful voice since 9/11 was that of Abdul al Rashid who, as editor of al-Sharq al-Awsat, said, "It is a fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslim."
On the other hand, I wonder what impact such voices really have. To us, they’re preaching to the choir; to fellow Arabs/Muslims, they’re traitors. The thing is, the Muslim is by nature delusional. Remember the EgyptAir suicide crash? Muslims are convinced it was a CIA/Mossad plot. Even more pitiful is the al-Dura case, the cowering little boy who was killed in Palestinian-Israeli crossfire. The response of the mullahs, when confronted with evidence that the boy was killed by Palestinian bullets, was: "We don’t care about the evidence. We have decided that he was murdered by the Jews."
Reason is utterly futile with Muslims, whose atavistic mentality is pre-rational. I see only two solutions. One is the civilized world’s mobilizing, as we did against the Nazis, to extirpate the jihadists and the regimes that harbor them. If Afghanistan/Pakistan is any indication, we are too enervated and addled by our preoccupation with self-gratification to effect this solution. The other solution is one offered by an author I recently heard, whose name I can’t recall. It’s about demographics. The force of Muslim militance is in its youth. Osama posters on their bedroom walls is not about Islamism but about "Jihadi cool". He says, the only hope of ridding the world of this nuisance is "sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll".
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Um, what’s with the scare-quotes around my surname, shootingsparks? (I think I know what the answer is, but I’m just wondering how fucking stupid you are, since the quote-marks could indicate stupidity on any of several levels.)
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The classic dilemma: On one hand you’re faced with a situation like the Swift Boaters or the Willie Horton scam. Don’t dignify the filth — the filth being both lie and source. On the other hand, what’s the saying – calumny unanswered is calumny believed?
I think at heart Ismael is a troll, whose jouissance derives from destruction, which not coincidentally describes the mentality of his constituency. The problem with responding is that it further distracts from the topic and drives away readers. He’s a bore, but debating him is like the Apprentice trying to chop up the Sorcerer’s mindless broom — you just multiply the boredom.
If he’s ignored and isolated, then readers will skip over him as the local crank. It’s infuriating to let his malignant diatribes go unanswered, but it’s the lesser of the evils.
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you obviously missed the video of the Israeli terrorists who were caught on film dancing and celebrating as they filmed the attack. There ave been no Palestinain’s arrested in connection to 9/11, whereas there have been a whole raft of Jews and Israeli spies who have been arrested in connection with the attack, which was planned and executed by Israeli’s and American Zionists…
As corrosive as Ismail is to intelligent discourse, is it really better
let him spew his rhetorical filth unfettered and without objection,
Throbert?
It depends on the forum, I guess. As a general rule, if you find yourself tempted to respond to arguments like Ismail’s simply "for the sake of the lurkers," it’s time to push yourself away from the computer and go shopping or go rent a video or spend some quality time with your pets or pretty much ANYTHING but waste your time responding.
Also, Ismail’s apologetics on behalf of the Palestinians are probably best debunked by someone who used to be in the "Ishmaelist" camp — that is, an ex-Muslim, and ideally an ex-Muslim who is Arab — and not by a descendant of Isaac.
Of course, I can speak only for myself, but in my case, I was gradually won over from the "Palestinians and Israelis are BOTH crazy and someone should take away their toys" position (one held by a lot of secular Americans) to being more of a "secular goy Zionist" as a result of hearing arguments from various camps. But arguments made by Jews like Isaac in response to people like Ismail were probably the least important factor.
More important were:
(1)Testimonies from secular Arabs and apostate Muslims, as I mentioned above;
(2) Hearing about Palestinians who rejoiced at 9/11, and reading the rapid attempts of liberal American academics to explain away this rejoicing, and taking both the rejoicing and the reflexive apologetics in the spirit of res ipsa loquitur; and
(3) Listening to Israeli Jews simply argue for the necessity of Israel without trying to directly answer Palestinian accusations against Israel or Jews, and listening to Palestinian Arabs similarly argue for the necessity of a Palestinian state without trying to directly answer Israeli accusations against the PLO or Hamas or Muslims and Arabs in general. Listening to both sides, again in the spirit of res ipsa loquitur, led me eventually to favor Israel strongly, and to conclude that for the most part, Palestinians are losers who richly deserved to lose.
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As corrosive as Ismail is to intelligent discourse, is it really better to let him spew his rhetorical filth unfettered and without objection, Throbert?
I suppose that Ismail’s strategy is not unlike that pursued by the Palestinian factions. The latter believe that they will win by dragging their opponents into the corrosive dregs of war and occupation, and by forsaking all ethical reasoning for games of moral one-upsmanship that reduce matters of right and wrong to popularity contests.
Illegitimati non carborundum.
So, in being as selective with confronting his B.S. as he is with acknowledging the truth, I suppose Ismail is reduced to a side show – useful to the moderators behind the scenes as a preening devil’s advocate and not much more. But if all he wants is attention, I don’t see what’s so self-defeating about making him realize that it’s of the negative variety. His ego might be full of even more than his usual measure of bravado right now because of the protective self-deceptions he’s internalized regarding the Gaza episode, and his recent reluctance to speak to me is bred more of his dismay over what happened to his genocidal pet cat. But it won’t be long until conditions keep changing and even he can no longer avoid realizing that he’s only perpetuating the perception of simply being more delusional than anything else.
"It’s not the abstract notion of Jewish nationalism that animates the passions of anti-Zionists (although the question of Jewish nationhood is more interesting than S. seems to think), it’s the particular fashion in which it was instantiated in Palestine."
Yep. With a UN vote granting statehood. What a horrific way to instantiate one’s nationalism.
"And there is abundant evidence of a Roman presence in England and a North African presence in Italy, etc., etc. So what?"
So, I guess the Picts and Scots can tell Rome to recall the Anglo-Saxons they called in to quell the restless "indigenes" after they were confined behind that wall – built by… wait for it… wait for it… the Roman emperor Hadrian.
What a nitwit! Ismail reveals himself to be a bigger and bigger ignoramus every time he deigns to comment on a historical matter.
"S is of course being disingenuous here. Hamas’ stupid charter no more renders it an unfitting partner for dialogue than Likud’s charter (which talks of all of Eretz Israel, including [cough, cough] Judea and Samaria as being the Jewish national home) renders that increasingly likely next majority party to be unsuitable."
And Likud is not running the government of Israel. Of course, since Israel is capable of practicing a politics that is ever so slightly less crude than the politics closer to Ismail’s heart, I’m not surprised it escaped his attention that a former Likudnik PM transformed his coalition into a new party, one specifically devoted to a pragmatic separation that the Likud wouldn’t endorse. That’s what happens when people take their charters to be more than just words, not that Ismail would ever impart such significance to language, meaning and relevance that it would matter. Instead he prefers a manner of expression that is so selective and irrelevant as to border on mendacious.
"Can we not remain awed and disgusted by the horror of the nazi crimes against the Jews without needing to rank order them against other appalling human atrocities?"
This is pretty rich coming from someone who has not once seen fit to decry the popularity achieved by Arabic-print editions of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". While I’m not surprised that Ismail didn’t mind using someone too uneducated to keep from applying moral equivalence to Israel by comparing it to Nazis, here we finally witness Ismail’s admission that he has no use for any yardstick by which to measure the moral dimension of any given atrocity – let alone that which has rightly achieved infamy in the assemblage of useful historical lessons by virtue of representing civilization’s most astounding failure to prevent a particularly advanced, industrialized form of genocide – and one with significant forewarning, at that. Not surprising, given how little use he has for any sane or literate understanding of history generally.
As I said, when it comes to any ability on his part to assess the actual lessons of history, Ismail is an utter joke – useless to anyone but the most embittered and disingenuous partisans, the blindest propagandists, and those too ignorant to know the difference. But at least it gives him good copy. And as long as he wants to trivialize the distinction bred of noting fallacies like reductio ad Hitlerum, let me remind the reader that der Fuehrer himself also took great pride in being an unusually good propagandist, and not much else.
Along with philosophy and neuropsychology, have you ever tried your hand at painting, Ismail?
As far as I’m concerned, Isaac is that proverbial wrestler who foolishly gets himself all covered in filth while giving his opponent nothing but fun — and you’re the proverbial opponent.
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Hey, McGee, leave me out of this. You won’t see me wrestling with poor Isaac. And if I did, taking off my shirt and exposing the stunning and sculptured magnificence that is my physique would give me too great an advantage, and I’m far too fair for that.
Oh, wait. That was twenty years ago. Never mind.
If you guys are gonna mud-rassle, could you at least take your shirts off? It’s less boring for the spectators that way.
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jewish statehood for eight hundred years of the three thousand years of recorded history is not a hummingbird’s eyeblink. and modern notions of what constitute political legitimacy include the 1947 u.n. resolution and the 1920 league of nations mandate. or is that not modern enough for you? all religious christians recognize the jewish homeland as israel. only some of them consider the jews in need of punishment and thus their exile is justice. all religious moslems recognize the jewish homeland as israel. only most of them consider the jews in need of punishment and thus their exile is justice. israel is recognized by two of the world’s major religions as the jewish homeland, except their theology condemns the jews to exile.
Ah, just in time. Like locusts, we may expect a plague of accusations of antisemitism to coincide with the public’s increasing intolerance of Israeli malfeasance. First, Forster and Epstein, then the Perlmutters, followed by the clownish Chesler, and now, to misdirect from the world’s disgust with Israel’s latest aggression, we have Saunders’ contribution to the canon. (By the way, given my "locusts" metaphor, shall I expect an addendum to Saunders’ exhaustive list, such that comparisons between apologists for Israeli crimes and swarming invertebrates are to be included in his catalog?).
I haven’t the time to do a point-by-point, but let me go over some of Saunders’ highlights and do my bit for enlightenment and edification.
The alert reader will be tipped off to Saunders’ overall intentions by the following remarkable assertion:
"While displaying some of these attitudes does not necessarily make a person an antisemite, the more of them a person exhibits, the more likely it is that he or she is antisemitic, even if that person has no racial or religious prejudices against Jews…"
After acknowledging his inability to come up with a definition of antisemitism, S. provides us with this ad hoc yardstick, an additive model of his own device -the more of his standards one transgresses, the more likely one is an antisemite. We have this on his own authority, so it must be true. Note especially that final clause; "…even if that person has no racial or religious prejudices against Jews…" Wow. I can be an antisemite despite my harboring no prejudice against Jews. Incredible. That sound you hear is Orwell, spinning like a dreidel (oops…antisemitic?)
"While the Jews are not the only group claiming a right to national self-determination that is not unanimously accepted, it is rare indeed to hear Basque, Kurdish, Chechen or even Palestinian national aspirations decried in violent terms "
And when the Basques or Kurds manage to displace 750,000 indigenes and torment them for a half century, give me a call. It’s not the abstract notion of Jewish nationalism that animates the passions of anti-Zionists (although the question of Jewish nationhood is more interesting than S. seems to think), it’s the particular fashion in which it was instantiated in Palestine.
"Denying that the land of Israel is the only legitimate place for Jewish self-determination."
This renders many of the early Zionists antisemites. You sure you want to take that tack?
"There is abundant archaeological and historical evidence (not just the Bible) for the existence of Jewish states in Israel in the past…"
And there is abundant evidence of a Roman presence in England and a North African presence in Italy, etc., etc. So what? The Jews’ hegemony over what is now Palestine/Israel lasted no longer than a hummingbird’s eyeblink in historical terms, and is in any case entirely irrelevant to modern notions of what constitutes political legitimacy.
After citing a couple of slapstick comments from some Arab nitwits from Syria and Palestine, S. concludes that
"Such propaganda seems crude, but harmless, but it has a slow, cumulative, almost unconscious effect on public opinion, like drops of water slowly eroding a stone."
Right, we’re all up in arms over the Matzoh ("Now in regular flavor and new Gentile Blood!"). That must be it. It’s not the 1400 dead in Gaza or the 50 year occupation or the jailings without charge. Nope. It’s the matzoh stories stories that really closed the deal.
S. assures us that he’s done his homework so that we won’t have to. An example? Why,
"…claims that Hamas are willing to negotiate if only the Israelis would let them, while in fact the Hamas Covenant calls, not just for the destruction of Israel, but for the death of all Jews worldwide."
The clever Arabs have kept this document secret from the bovine American public, famously aglow with admiration for Hamas. Who knew about this covenant? Where was our press? Let us take a moment to thank S for his labors, without which we would all still think of Hamas as an auxiliary of the ADL.
S is of course being disingenuous here. Hamas’ stupid charter no more renders it an unfitting partner for dialogue than Likud’s charter (which talks of all of Eretz Israel, including [cough, cough] Judea and Samaria as being the Jewish national home) renders that increasingly likely next majority party to be unsuitable.
And speaking of disingenuous, consider
"Even former American President Jimmy Carter, author of a highly critical book on Israel calledPalestine: Peace Not Apartheid admits that the term ‘apartheid’ in the sense that it was actually used in South Africa can not be applied to Israel."
No, he says that it cannot be applied to the situation WITHIN Israel; it’s entirely apposite in describing Israel’s behavior in the OPT, where Israel is by any rational standard the ruling power.
"The Holocaust was a unique tragedy…To take it from us and appropriate it for other causes is tasteless at best…"
All tragedies are unique. What’s tasteless, as increasingly larger numbers of Jews and Gentiles have come to realize, is to claim bragging rights over them. Can we not remain awed and disgusted by the horror of the nazi crimes against the Jews without needing to rank order them against other appalling human atrocities?
Saunders’ nutty screed is a variant of that peculiar hairtrigger sensitivity to grievance that we find in more and more of political discourse. Anti-abortion? You must hate women. After all, the right to abortion is central to women’s wholeness as a political class, so any opposition is perforce anti-woman. Troubled by affirmative action? Racist! And so on.
But I have given Saunders’ tiresome musings too much time. Really, all you need to know is contained in that remarkable sentence:
"While displaying some of these attitudes does not necessarily make a person an antisemite, the more of them a person exhibits, the more likely it is that he or she is antisemitic, even if that person has no racial or religious prejudices against Jews…"
You have been warned.
tell ya what chicken twirler, refute my argument on it’s merits…
before getting distracted by SS (hmmm…what an appropriate acronym), is that I can’t disagree that most of what you are talking about is real and of major concern, but I am not sure how much of it is really new and not the same-ol’-same-ol’ wine in a relabeled bottle, though clearly on the upswing. However, I also agree with Shira Danan that your point #8 is a bit of a straw man, although it’s difficult to pin down how much straw is there, since when you say "Strangely, many of these ‘humanitarians’ are indifferent to the Darfur genocide, the oppression of the Burmese people or the Chinese invasion of Tibet," it’s impossible to tell what you mean by "many". This is one case where I doubt you can quote any real statistics, only your impressions. I can only say that it doesn’t apply to me, nor to most of the people I know (or choose to know?), whether they are Jew or gentile.
I also think that none of these things makes the case for automatically labelling any Jewish dissenter from Israeli policies and practices as "self-hating," "antisemitic," or "anti-Israel." I would go so far as to call some of the rhetorical excess I’ve seen, heard, and read, a 14th category of "new antisemitism" - Jews hating on other Jews in a particular way that wasn’t possible before Israel was created. If you don’t think this is real, just follow any comment thread under a Ha’aretz article (or here, for example) on Gaza. No criticism of Israel or concern for Palestinians is too slight not to garner at least a rejoinder or two to the effect that the writer must hate himself, Israel, and Judaism, and on to "why don’t you convert to Islam" or some such.
Which is really not surprising. The majority of humans on this planet are concerned mainly with themselves and their own tribe, however they define it, and in a struggle will find a multiplicity of ways to dehumanize their opponents. Jews, being no different from other people, are prone to do the same. Having experienced the absolute worst that the rest of humanity has to offer, one might think we ought to be more sensitive to the same problem when it affects others, and in fact many of us are. Sorry to use that vague term "many" myself, but I don’t have a statistic to quote, only my experience and impressions. But my impression is also that a Jew can dish out prejudice and blind hatred as well as any other human, along with unreasoned excess and just plain bad decision making. No one is immune.
I was about to give up on Jewcy, and then I read this concise, well-reasoned essay. Dude, good job!!
After all, it ‘must’ be their fault, right?
no mention of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", you putz? Here I was, about to come up with some reasoned dissent from some of Saunders’ points, and here you are making his case in spades. "ad nauseum" indeed. How about WTF? Or are you yourself a member of this conspiracy, sent to make reasonable counter-arguments look silly?
I dont have the time…
The reason for the "new anti-semitism"?
It’s simple.. The plague of political zionists, and terrorists..
Here’s where they hang out.. AEI, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Democratic Leadership Council, all likudnik front groups, aka globalist Jews, or what Henry Ford referred to as "The International Jew"
Hows about the 1000 Israeli’s engaged in ethnic cleansing operations in South Ossetia which forced Russia to go in and put the heavy foot on Saakashvilli?
Here’s one of my big favorites, Israeli and American Jewish complicity in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, from Bruce Ivins Zionist Jew anthrax terrorist, to all the Israeli’s and NY Jews involved in the Twin Tower attacks.
Then there is the Rothschild mafia…the banking cartels, The Federal Resere scam, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc …ad nauseum
I thinkIsrael Darfur ?Darfur and other human rights injustices, yet b) as Jews
this post is useful because in it you lay out point by point the ways that
valid criticism of
especially by Jews, can be misconstrued as a new anti-Semitism. I’m especially
struck by #8, which is a classic argument used by many who would rather not
look closely at the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government. Rather
than saying, yes, we need to admit that Palestinians have been treated unfairly
and work to better the situation, the argument goes, well, if you care so much
about humanitarianism, then why aren’t you asking about
And to Arab countries, why aren’t you asking about the poor and disenfranchised
in your own country? To which I would say that a) many Jews are talking about
I believe we have a unique responsibility to ask about Palestinian suffering,
which is perpetrated in our name. But no progress can be made by turning the
finger of accusation around to avoid taking responsibility for our collective
failure to improve the lives of Palestinians under Israeli occupation.
InIsrael
addition, under #7, I notice you say that the new antisemites claim “you Jews
think you’re better than the rest of us; why don’t you act like it?” I think
that is just what we should be asking ourselves (is it less threatening if the idea comes from within?).
demonstrate the positive Jewish values of justice and charity. Yes, let us take
it upon ourselves to hold ourselves to a higher standard!
Shootingsparks: there is no penalty for converting to Christianity in Israel. On the other hand, persecution of Christians in Gaza has increased under Hamas rule.
As for whether my article contains factual errors and lies, I have given my sources. If you want an intelligent debate, I suggest you do the same.
this article is junk, Zionist propaganda rife rith factual errors and outright lies…
What’s the penalty for converting to Chrisitanity in Israel?? 2 years?
I’m glad to see you also spell it "antisemitism." So many people spell it anti-Semitism, which, as the antithesis of Semitic, actually used by antisemites to demonstrate that Israel is actually "anti-Semitic" toward the Semitic-speaking Palestinian Arabs.
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