How to Confront the Anti-Israel Fixation of the Left
Dear Belladonna Rogers,
Of all the challenges I face dealing with leftists, one of the most difficult is contending with their anti-Israel bias. I realize Ron Paul has also expressed and mobilized anti-Israeli sentiments, but I, personally, don’t have to deal with them and hope I never do. How can I deal with the growing, overt liberal animus toward Israel?
Chagrined in Chicago
Dear Chagrined,
Much of the malicious and inaccurate criticism of Israel stems from two sources: ignorance and anti-Semitism.
If the criticism is based on the first, you can counteract it with facts. Here are four of the principal, hostile myths about Israel and the facts to rebut them.
(1) Israel is a foreign implant, a Western outpost, alien to the Middle East.
To the contrary, Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, who were living there for centuries before Christianity or Islam began. Jews have lived in what is now Israel continuously for more than two millennia.
(2) Israel has imperial ambitions and seeks to expand its territory and dominate others.
When it was established by a vote of the United Nations in 1948, Israel accepted the borders that the UN drew. The year it was founded, the surrounding Arab countries, however, all attacked Israel in an effort to destroy it. Israel ended the war with more territory than it had had at the beginning. In 1967, Arab aggression led to another war of self-defense in which Israel captured more territory. The Israeli government immediately offered to return the territory in exchange for peace. In 1979-82 it did return territory to Egypt as part of a peace treaty brokered by the United States.
It has conducted negotiations with Syria to the north, and the Palestine Liberation Organization to the east, for the same purpose, but neither of them has been willing to make peace with Israel. For that reason the Golan Heights, to the north, and the West Bank of the Jordan River, to the west, have remained under Israeli control. At no time has Israel sought to enlarge its territory by attacking others in an “imperial” effort. Its boundaries have changed only as a result of wars initiated against Israel by its Arab neighbors.
(3) Israel is not a democracy.
The status of the Arabs living in the West Bank is the subject of negotiations, as discussed above. As for the rest of Israel, it is a Western-style parliamentary democracy in which full civil and political rights, including the right to vote, extend to all of its citizens, including its almost one million Arabs citizens, both Christian and Muslim, and to all women. (Full American-style rights are not available to the citizens of any Arab country.) Arabs have been elected to, and serve in, the Israeli legislature, the Knesset.
(4) Israel and its friends manipulate American foreign policy.
This is the canard of the vicious polemic written by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. They charged that Israel and its friends were responsible for the American war in Iraq, which the two professors opposed.
The president, vice president, secretaries of state, and defense and national security advisor of the George W. Bush administration (none of whom is Jewish), who made the decision to go to war, were not, of course, manipulated by anyone, nor was the United States Congress, which supported the decision.
Indeed, Israeli government officials privately counseled their American counterparts against the Iraq war, believing that Iran posed the greater threat.
WHEN ANTI-SEMITIC BIGOTRY IS AT THE ROOT OF ANTI-ISRAELI SENTIMENT
As for anti-Semitic bigotry as a source of anti-Israeli sentiment — a subject on which Eliot A. Cohen has written brilliantly — here are some telltale signs that this ancient hatred is the underlying cause of the animus against the modern Jewish state:
Short and sweet. Well done!
Well said Belladonna …
Personally, I don’t understand how the anti-Isreal animus became so vituperative over the last 20 (?) years. I remember watching the first pro-Palestinian groups on campus back when I was in graduate school. Much of the rhetoric then had an “odd” and overly hostile feel to it … and today it has morphed into a full-scale propaganda war.
My generation looked at grainy black and white photos from the death-camps and were appalled. Today’s generation looks at the “Palestinian” violence on television and … cheers … turns a blind eye … what? The lack of support for Israel is frightening.
Multiculturalism–combined with Western liberal guilt over colonialism.
Here in America, the new element that got added was black anti-Semitism–something that is still too controversial a topic for many in the media to touch. That really spread with the black militants of the 1960s who began to embrace Islam, right up to Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.
Another sea-change was when the Western Left, unable to defend Marxism anymore after the truth about the USSR and Red China became too well known, switched from Marxism to multiculturalism. The old line had been that capitalists exploited the poor. The new line was that the West was racist, exploiting “people of color” in Africa and the Middle East.
So what you hear today is that Israel is waging wars against the Palestinian or Arab “people of color,” and that Israel is “an apartheid state.” These folks see the Middle East as a race war between “white” Israelis and Arab “brown people.” You now see that kind of stuff in left-wing commentary all the time.
For Jews, it’s ironic: The European anti-Semites were white supremacists who didn’t think of Jews as “Aryan.” Today’s new anti-Semites think Jews are white racists waging war against “people of color.”
The Left is now increasingly guilty of a kind of upside-down racialsm, in which blacks and black Africans and Arabs are extolled by them as the salt of the earth and innocent victims of circumstance, while European and American whites and Jews are damned as racist and evil.
Well said, both of you. It IS funny to me how the left plays such a “blame” game constantly with nothing substantial to back it up. AND Germany ahs finally awakened to multiculturaism does not work. Unfortunately our airheads never will.
sinz54
Multiculturalism–combined with Western liberal guilt over colonialism.
It is important to stress that Israel is the least colonialist state in the Middle East.
The region was part of the Ottoman Empire, which as an ally of Germany’s was on the losing side in WWI. The Empire was dismembered in 1918; from it arose modern Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia (though not all at the same time). Not one of these states is more than 30 years older than Israel. Britain gave the bulk of “Palestine,” which it held as a mandate under the League of Nations, to the Hashemite family as a consolation prize for uprooting the Hashemites from ruling central Arabia and giving it to the Saudis; thus, if any Arab wants to find a “Palestinian Arab state,” they need merely go to Jordan (originally “Transjordan”).
All of these states, in short, were created by imperial Western powers. Israel alone was not—indeed, the Jews won their independence by fighting both the power of colonialist Britain, and the hostile armies of the Arab states built by colonialist Western power.
While the roots of the Jewish people go back in the land thousands of years, the roots of modern Zionism go back less far—to the 1880s, which is when the movement began among European Jews to build a modern state in Israel. Israel achieved independence in 1948, but it did not spring into being from the ashes of the Holocaust. Some 68 years of labor to build a modern state preceded Israel’s independence—more time than Israel has actually been an independent state.
How in the world do the plain facts of the Balfour Declaration and the admitted purpose of the British Mandate as stated in its preamble make Israel the least colonized state in the middle east?
You admit as much is true when you say the Islamic states were also created by Europe and then say only the Jews of Palestine are some 68 years old and in fact the vast majority who fought and created Israel were in the land far less time than that. Tens of thousands from Europe tipped the scales against the Palestinian Arabs in the year preceding the founding of Israel.
If you’re going to use reason and logic to make an argument then you should be susceptible to these things; something tells me you won’t be since the “facts” are not preceding the opinion but following it and not very well.
As for fighting Britain, I once again give you the Mandate and Balfour. Without Britain there would be no Israel.
Israel is the least colonial state because it is the one state which was created despite the opposition of not one, but two empires—the Ottoman and the British.
Jews who embarked upon the Zionist enterprise from the 1880s on did so despite Ottoman laws—occasionally enforced, occasionally held in abeyance—against selling land to Jews. It was in part to get around such laws (as well as for the purpose of acquiring the land for an eventual state) that the JNF was created.
I am sure you are aware that neither the Ottoman Empire, nor the British Empire, later, provided the Jews with much protection against the Arabs who marauded against the settlements built upon legitimately-purchased land during the 68 years leading up to Israeli independence—nor did the British protect the Jews against Arab riots such as those in Hebron (1929) or Jerusalem.
The British Empire and the French carved out the borders of all the post-Ottoman Arab states—Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia—and had a major hand in determining their rulers. The British also ran Egypt, despite the presence of a titular king. All of these nations came into being at the decree of the colonial powers; Israel alone did not. Israel had to fight to drive the British out, then had to fight to survive against the colonialist Arab nations.
The Balfour Declaration, issued thanks Chaim Weizmann’s invention of synthetic cordite having saved Britain’s ass in WWI, was undermined by the British from practically the first moment it took over the Palestine Mandate from the League of Nations.
Israel is the only nation in the Middle East that was created by its own people, against the express wishes of the colonialist powers that dominated the region.
BzMonkey would you please at least read the Balfour Declaration and the preamble to the British Mandate before making such startling declarations? And since no one was trying to implement a Jewish state before WW I, what the heck does the Ottoman Empire do with it? If the Turks hadn’t wanted the Jews there they wouldn’t have allowed so many in in the late 19th century.
And in fact the British not only worked with the Jews during the Arab Revolt but disarmed those Arabs to the point where some claim it was the clincher during the later Civil War at the end of the Mandate.
Are you seriously suggesting the British were unaware of the purpose of the Mandate they themselves had set up?
And in what world did the Palestinian Jews drive the British out of that Mandate? Oh yeah, the one where Jews saved the British Empire in WW I. Thanks for that dose of cultural superiority and bigotry. Not Aryan-style but close.
You appear to be unaware that the pre-Herzl Zionist movement got going in the 1880s, and that there were efforts prior to WWI to get the Kaiser to influence the Ottomans to grant the Jews the Land of Israel as a homeland.
You appear to be unaware that had Weizmann not invented synthetic cordite the British would have folded before the Americans entered WWI.
These are both historical facts, easily checkable by anyone interested in facts—but I guess that lets you out.
“If the Turks hadn’t wanted the Jews there they wouldn’t have allowed so many in in the late 19th century.”
That quote constitutes my unawareness? Of course I am aware of that situation and conspicuously refer to it. One need only read what I write instead of automatically disagreeing.
And I am aware that using Weizmann in the way that you did is cold-blooded and rather malarkey ridden racial superiority touted as a nice fact when it works for you and as a genocidal impulse when it doesn’t. It’s not like Weizmann popped up from Tunisia my friend; he innovated in a sea of innovation.
If you want to portray it as natural Jewish intellectual blood superiority that will win out regardless of place or situation then I think the neo-Nazis are always on the lookout for new members but you’ll have to ixnay on the ewishJay. Aside from that you are operating from that same intellectual space – hate speech-lite I call it.
The above rant is truly bizarre, referencing as it does “racial superiority” that I have nowhere suggested, dragging in some weird reference to “neo-Nazis,” babbling about “hate speech.”
Britain’s WWI war effort would have collapsed had they not been able to manufacture synthetic cordite. Fact. Weizmann is the guy who produced it. Fact. The Balfour Declaration, whatever else it may have been, was at least partly an expression of gratitude for that invention. Fact.
That Weizmann “did not pop up from Tunisia” (what has that to do with anything?) is irrelevant. He’s the guy whose invention saved Britain’s ass in WWI. Again: fact. Nothing in these facts says anything about “race” one way or the other—I have not mentioned the word—let alone about “racial superiority.” It is you who keeps babbling about that. Nor is there anything in anything I have said that could be remotely considered “hate speech,” whatever that means; usually, it is a “ca-ca-poo-poo-head” epithet hurled by someone who knows the facts are against him and has nothing of substance to say.
Your “facts” are either disingenuous or unaware: the “fact” that people just like you decry people who tout undue Jewish influence in the world while your at the same time singling out as a Jew one guy who saved the British Empire without a trace of irony is revealing as is distinguishing my own reasoned discourse from your own as a “rant.” If it is merely a rant why is it so hard to debate? If Weizmann was so meaningless, why even bring it up? Your sole defense is to say I read something into it but I didn’t.
The point about Tunisia has to do with Jewish culture expressing this native brilliance you bring up and then reject in Jewish enclaves in a larger N. African culture as opposed to a larger and technologically superior European culture. Since there is no sign of anyone creating tech innovations in a cultural vacuum such as N.Africa then it is the larger European influence that is the enabler rather than your (now denied) imagined superiority.
Everything I have written has substance and is directly to the point. People who are the biggest accusers of racism are often the biggest sources of racism since they are in fact projecting their own obsessions with race onto faceless and nameless people by race or lack of it, itself a racist game.
Not knowing what you said isn’t the same thing as not saying it. In fact you know exactly what you said and regret it; the same as you regret being taken down to your constituent parts in a public forum.
I’m dreadfully sorry, my little bigot, but I have said absolutely nothing about “Jewish influence”—”due” or “undue”—or “native brilliance.”
It is you, dear racist, who keeps bringing such things up and harping on them—all the while bridling at the indisputable fact that the British war effort would, indeed, have utterly collapsed had not the brilliance of a certain chemist enabled them to continue. It is in no way surprising that the crippled Empire should have shown some gratitude while the hostilities were still continuing—nor, alas, is it surprising that perfidious Albion should have done its level best to renege upon its supposed promise every which way as soon as it felt that it was safe to do so. Nations have notoriously short memories, and their honor is highly elastic.
In the meantime—read this slowly, and move your lips if necessary, so that it sinks in—I have at no time made the racial claims which you have falsely attributed to me, as anyone not of disordered mind can see. You, and you alone, own those racist utterances and fantasies. Enjoy them, for they are wholly yours.
Yes you have and you just did it again. I myself am simply convinced you are unable to parse ideas written beyond their most literal meaning and need every little bit spelled out in detail. Yeah, next time a I see a black person help an old lady across the street I’ll make a donation to the NAACP and there should be some kind of race pension for Jews what with the Nobels and such.
Really unbelievable.
Phillip Sam Career Fallnow: You are gibbering.
It is the increasing dearth of “facts, logic and reason” that is the sign of what was after all gibberish in the first place.
Fallnow Career Sam Phillip: You’ve ignored fact, logic, and reason; provided none of your own; and substituted fantasy and abuse to cover your lack.
It’s not clear whether what’s bugging you is Britain’s largely (though not entirely) shabby performance along the road to Israel’s independence, the fact that at least one element of Britain’s less-shabby performance was due to its gratitude towards a Jew, the fact that colonialist Britain was instrumental in creating the colonialist states which now falsely decry Israel as “colonialist,” some combination of these, or something else entirely.
What is clear is that your posts’ utter lack of content remains unredeemed by verbal grace or agility or anything else of interest. The stolid hostility of dullards is tiresome.
And on top of everything else you got the whole cordite thing all wrong. There is content, you simply choose to ignore it like no one here can read. The Balfour Declaration is content and so is the preamble to the British Mandate. A large part of that Mandate was to secure a homeland for the Jewish people. How is that obstructing a homeland for the Jewish people? Stop making such authoritative and totally wrong statements about a history you clearly know little about and you won’t feel so stung. The idea that Britain and the Mandate have anything to do with Weizmann’s acetone is plain wrong. I think the situation was just a tad more nuanced than a quid pro quo as a way of “thanks” as it involved many players on the job and lobbying for years before the war.
Sam – Think white paper (1939).
Envy alone is an ugly thing, but envy bolstered by incompetence is just sad.
This is in reply to Sam Fallnows. (I was Anonymous; I must have forgotten to include my moniker.) You said: “The Balfour Declaration is content and so is the preamble to the British Mandate. A large part of that Mandate was to secure a homeland for the Jewish people. How is that obstructing a homeland for the Jewish people?” It was in that context that I mentioned the White Paper. As far as I see it, the White Paper attempted to abrogate the Balfour Declaration. How many Jews would be alive today had there been no White Paper? As I see it, the British have a modicum of culpability in the Holocaust for their abohorrent act of preventing Jews from entering the Mandated territory in World War II.
“…you don’t stand a chance of persuading bigots by using facts, logic, or reasoning, because their attitudes are irrational, deep-seated, and often unconscious.”
“Life is too short to subject yourself to an unrepentant bigot, no matter how charming or attractive he or she may appear to be in other respects.”
You are indeed a dispenser of great advice.
One doesn’t stand a chance of fighting bigots using logic, facts and reason unless one is vulnerable to logic, facts and reason. Bigot is as bigot does so what is the opposite of “bigot?”
togib?
An interesting phenomenon for me is when I encounter the “anti-Israeli” sentiment among liberal Jews. The ones I know fall into the second category discussed by Belladonna and are oblivious to the idea that a non-jewish anti-semite won’t give them a pass for being “Jewish” v/s Israeli.
They also are the same people who, within seconds of beginning any converstaion, will ALWAYS, ALWAYS begin harping about how the “Religious Right” (ie: Christians) are racist, sexist, homophobic, islamophobic and are responsible for everything wrong in the world. Ironically they will become almost hysterical if you attempt to share examples of the darker side of Islam’s treatment of women and homosexuals.
The bottom line is these people not the way they are because of their ethnicity or their professed religion or politics; they are they way they are because they are bigots and cowards. Bigots can be found in any group and any ethnicity – no one group has any (dis)advantage over another in this regard.
Today, these people more often identify as liberals, because they find support for their malice and cowardice there. But it’s not exclusive to liberals by any stretch. These same people would flip on a dime and identify as Evangelicals, Jews, Muslims or Purple People tomorrow if, in their mind, calling themself such gave them a safe refuge to throw rocks and stinkbombs without fear of reprisal. That’s why they love bashing Christians and Israeli’s. There is no fear in doing so.
Palestinian women throw rocks at Israeli tanks because it makes them feel powerful and because they know the Israeli tanks won’t shoot back. They feel like they have dones something brave, and they lap up the back-slapping and cheers from the others around them. All bigots are just like this. No exceptions.
” liberal Jews. The ones I know fall into the second category discussed by Belladonna and are oblivious to the idea that a non-jewish anti-semite won’t give them a pass for being “Jewish” v/s Israeli.” Yes, Howard Jacobson skewers these folks nicely in his novel “The Finkler Question”, replete with a fictional but all too real group called ASHamed Jews (that’s not a typo). For some reason I now think of all similar ASHamed Jews as Finklers.
“ With the deep-seated anti-Semite, nothing will succeed.” Spending 20 years in an anti-Semitic church, makes you a deap- seated anti-Semite. I’m just saying.
An Anti-Semite is one who hates Jews more than most peole do.
“An Anti-Semite is one who hates Jews more than most peole do.”
Actually, from a historical perspective an Anti-Semite is one who serves an idol, and blames a “conspiracy” for any refusal by others to bow down in submission before the honor of their precious idol.
It’s not surprising that a majority of Anti-Semites are also Anti-Americans.
Well said, and good advice, Belladonna.
Anti-semites are typically those who fail The Israel Test (George Gilder), which is to say those who resent high achievers. In America, high achievers are typically celebrated and hence anti-semitism has not been a problem (although there is a certain American [P]resident who is currently trying to stir up resentment of “the 1%”). In Europe resentment of high achievers is fairly endemic.
A nice reminder of the age of the oldest extant civilisation in the world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcxEDy-lr0
Anti-semites are typically those who fail The Israel Test (George Gilder), “which is to say those who resent high achievers”
you are wrong. These are the same people who hate Evangelical Christians (often middle class) and who would have hated blacks in the early 20th century (poverty) or any other “approved” group to look down upon.
As I said above, they are no different than the Palestinian women who throw rocks at Israeli tanks. They are cowards and do so because it makes them feel powerful and they believe they are impressing others with their “bravery”.
It’s a personality type that has nothing to do with income, education, religion, ethnicity, nationality or anything else.
the key being that the Israeli tanks don’t fire back, blacks in the early 20th century could not fight back and Evangelical Christians and Israelis don’t threaten to chop off your head. The coward feels safe in attacking them.
Looking to the next step in the middle east swamp it is not so difficult to understand that the US has one solid base there.
This is not the time to debate legitimacy of Israel or US interests in the Persian Gulf. It is the time to answer the Iranian regime. Elections are being used as a fulcrum against a winning policy. Antisemitism is not the issue and will be used against us the way the soviets used racism.
Iranian regime is close to tipping point. Best thing most of us can do is go at it again tomorrow
Well you needn’t worry about the “Israel Test” being applied against your rather incredible comment which is little more than cheap psychology touted as one of the 4 classical elements.
Belladonna Rogers – Gut gesukht (well said) as said in the vernacular.
George Pshaw @6: No, an antisemite is one who hates Jews more than he likes himself. To wit: The Egyptians need help in agriculture and Israel has superb knowledge of how to grow food in less than ideal conditions. The Egyptians refuse to call on the Israelis to help because they hate Jews more than they love themselves. Another example: Hitler. He killed his Jews when he could have used them in his war effort. Apparently, Hitler hated Jews more than he wanted to win his war. Anthony Roberts in his book, The Storms of War, relates (probably anecdotally) a conversaton between an American and a Brit after the war about why the Allies won. One says to the other, “Because our German scientists (i.e, Jews) were better than their German scientists.”
To see just how vibrant and creative the State of Israel is, I suggest readers here ‘peruse’ the videos at the following you-tube site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYgDjdqkqQY
“Hitler. He killed his Jews when he could have used them in his war effort.”
Actually, he did both. The active pursuit of death camps over war production only took priority when it became apparent that he was running out of time.
“One says to the other, “Because our German scientists (i.e, Jews) were better than their German scientists.””
There was a little bit more to it than that. Berlin fell before the two bombs were detonated over japan, and that came down to old-fashioned firepower and attrition. I’m not really sure how close the germans were to fusion, but russia thought they were close enough to damn the torpedoes and get to berlin before the allies did to grab their tech. Had things dragged on another couple of years, and had germany been able to keep some supply lines open, who knows … and they were several years ahead of the allies on a delivery system.
As for the point of this thread, I can’t help but notice that the author wrote two whole pages on why people who might disagree with israel on any policy at all are either stupid or evil … and yet somehow managed to not mention the elephant in the room, the palestinian dispute. I guess they really must NOT exist after all. It’s not exactly a fair characterisation of the argument, though.
As long as the current situation in israel persists, annoying lefties will keep bringing it up in conversation, and certain sorts of people will keep calling them anti-semites for doing so.
In israel today there are two groups. One group wants a better deal, protection under law, citizenship and the return of its stuff. The second group just wants the first group to go away or at least shut up and stop complaining. Neither group has clean hands.
No, the (mainstream) left doesn’t hate jews – it dislikes bullies.
So, the Jews are bullying the Palestinians. Really? How many times did the Jews offer the Palestinian Arabs a state and how many times did the Palestinian Arabs say no and then launch an intifada. How many Jews were killed because of the ‘peace process.’ The Palestinian Arabs don’t want peace, they want the destruction of Israel. Just listen to what they say in Arabic, not want they say to the spineless MSM of the West. When this process was launched many of us said that sometimes a bad situation is better than a worse situation. Israel would have been well advised to keep Arafat and his murderous bunch out of the picture, but no, bowing to world pressure they brought him back, and all they got were a lot of dead Jews. West of the Green line, Jews, Christians and Arabs live together. East of the Green line, there are no Jews because the Palestine Arab areas are Judenrein and will soon be Christian-rein. How did it get that way? Who are the bullies there?
True — Belladonna Rogers wrote two whole pages without mentioning the issue of the Palestinian Arabs, mostly because they are irrelevant. Israel is simply put to a standard that no Western country would put itself to, and that is anitsemitism. Indeed, I think if Ms. Rogers had mentioned the Palestinian Arabs it would have been to illustrate how asymmetrical is the treatment of Israel vis-a-vis the rest of the world. Ask yourself, exactly how many civilians have been killed by American bombs in Afghanistan and Irag? Yet, no one holds America accountable because that is the collateral damage of war (as in firebombing Tokyo). When Israel kills several civilian who are being illegally used as shields, as in Cast Lead, that become an international incident that makes Israel worthy of condmenation. That is asymmetry, and that is antisemitism.
I agree it is not a fair shake but it is a leap of logic to declare it anti-Semitism. Look to politically correct Critical Pedagogy for your answer as he who occupies the correct racial and social space is the innocent. How many times do we have to have native Americans portrayed as morally innocent compared to the Europeans rather than technologically deficient to understand this?
You might be right if it were just about some random group. Unfortunatetly, we Jews have a lachrymose history with Western Civilization (at least in Europe), and so the kind of asymmetry I mention simply seems to more of the same. There is phrase for it in Yiddish (indicating this asymmetry has existed for quite a while): Ir maign’t und mir nisht maign’t – (trans.): He can do it but we can’t do it.
I was speaking of the Left’s dogmas of the last 20 years or so.
As for history, there have been many victims. The history of the founding of the state of Israel is a long and complicated one by no means as straightforward as some would like to portray it. Within the kind of nuance there is plenty of room for disagreement without hating Jews.
I agree there is a disproportion and yes some people, particularly Muslims, are shameless about having absolutely no nuance to their stand on Israel; in my opinion that is because of their self-obsessed and overweening arrogance which is easily bruised within Islam.
Generally speaking Americans take sides by issues and not race when it comes to critiquing internal affairs in other countries. I’m just not one of those who’s a big believer that we fought Germany over issues but Japan for race or that slavery existed in America because of race as opposed to everyone else, including blacks, who did it for money.
Of all cultures in the world Islam is clearly the one most lacking in tools or interest in taking a hard look at themselves. The disagreement about the West Bank within Israel itself is nowhere to be found within Islam.
So, the Jews are bullying the Palestinians. Really?
If you ask a western lefty to explain the thing that annoys them most about israel, yes. That’s the answer you’ll get.
How many times did the Jews offer the Palestinian Arabs a state and how many times did the Palestinian Arabs say no and then launch an intifada.
“A State”. Indeed. There were a few little details you might like to go back and check. Any reasonably intelligent person looking at the offer made to the palestinians at, say, camp david can conclude that the US and Israel saw the palestinians as being on the back foot and in no position to demand anything. It was an offer that all sides knew the palestinian leadership could not accept. If you think the palestinians should just take whatever they’re offered and not complain, that only confirms what I wrote.
How many Jews were killed because of the ‘peace process.’
How many palestinians have been killed, chucked out of their homes, had their land and assets taken away and been separated from their families in order to protect israel? Or for even throwing stones?
The Palestinian Arabs don’t want peace, they want the destruction of Israel.
When was it ever otherwise in violent conflict? Enemies always want our destruction. At least, that’s how the leadership wants the story told. In the balkans, the serbs wanted the muslims destroyed, and muslims wanted the serbs destroyed (at least in certain areas). In northern ireland, the catholics wanted the proddy rule destroyed, and the unionists wanted the catholic resistance and its supporters destroyed. And yet, somehow, enough people actually DID want peace that a settlement was eventually found. I suggest that the reality in israel is similar.
Just listen to what they say in Arabic, not want they say to the spineless MSM of the West.
Listen to what WHO says? The psychopaths who make the bombs? The nuts who’ve wrested control of the TV and radio stations? Or the palestinians themselves? See, if you ask the right israelis, you can get answers that involve the palestinians just being driven out entirely and the land being part of israel once and for all. Is that what all israelis want, then?
When this process was launched many of us said that sometimes a bad situation is better than a worse situation.
A bad situation would seem to be all that’s on offer. The original partition plan made sure of that.
True — Belladonna Rogers wrote two whole pages without mentioning the issue of the Palestinian Arabs, mostly because they are irrelevant.
It’s not irrelevant to (a) the palestinians (you know – the people who cause all that trouble with the bombs and rockets and stuff), or (b) the leftists who have a beef with israel. They people we’re talking about, in other words.
Are you really saying that if there was no israel/palestinian conflict then there’d still be condemnation of israel by western liberals? Get a grip.
Israel is simply put to a standard that no Western country would put itself to, and that is anitsemitism.
The situation that israel finds itself in IS an unusual one. The stupidity of the original decisions that underpinned the conflict today were not caused by israel. But if israel were replaced by any other western democracy, and if that democracy conducted itself the same way, the criticism would be no different.
Ask yourself, exactly how many civilians have been killed by American bombs in Afghanistan and Irag? Yet, no one holds America accountable because that is the collateral damage of war (as in firebombing Tokyo).
Er … who says we don’t hold america accountable? A short memory, I fear.
When Israel kills several civilian who are being illegally used as shields, as in Cast Lead, that become an international incident that makes Israel worthy of condmenation.
Actually, I’m with you on that one. The problem israel has is that its enemy hides in an urban area. And that’s a difficult place to conduct a war without harming civilians. But it’s not antisemitism – it’s criticism. Informed or otherwise. No country likes to hear criticism. Russia had the same problem in grozny, and was criticised for trying to flatten the place. Is that anti-russianism?
I was personally more impressed with cast lead than with the move on southern lebanon a few years back, because cast lead didn’t rely entirely on just bombing stuff. Ok, the use of phosphorus did seem a bit unfortunate, but I understand why they were doing it.
Techno – so Israel’s attempt to survive in an unfriendly neighborhood is considered bullying by Western Leftists? I suppose the brains of Western Leftists are so addled that they look upon self-defense as bullying. No wonder many of us are pessimistic about the future of Western Civilization in the face of the totalitarian political ideology known as Islam.
With regard to the number of times Israel has offered the Palestinian Arab a state, I believe the last time was under Ehud Olmert when he offerred them 96% of the west bank, and they said no. The extent of the interest Palestinian Arabs have in a two-state solution is that one state have Jews in it (currently Israel) and the other state be a Judenrein one. Of course, they’ll settle for a one-state solution as well – one that is all Arab. Be that as it may, let’s just wait a while for things to sort out in Egypt. The MB says it won’t recognize Israel and won’t honor the peace treaty. That will demonstrate the utter bankruptcy of the ‘land for peace’ mantra, and it will demonstrate the pointlessness of current negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs. In any event, look at the difference at Israel and the Arabs in November 1947. Israel was willing to establish a state on the territory allocated to it, the Arabs refused, and that was their first refusal, and that set the pattern for all subsequent refusals.
As regards the point of people killed and chucked out of their homes, etc., I think the balance here would show many more Israelis killed than Palestinian Arabs. Remember in the War of Independence, most Arabs left to get out of the way of the war or because their leaders told them to. Since then, Israel has, as far as I know, followed due process and not claimed Arab owned land when there is a deed to the property. (There were deeds in Turkey, and possibly deeds held by the British, but they have refused to share those with Israel, so if Israel is taking property, it’s because the Arabs don’t have their deeds handy; not Israel’s fault.)
Your reply to my claim about the Palestinan Arabs not wanting peace, with the following: “And yet, somehow, enough people actually DID want peace that a settlement was eventually found. I suggest that the reality in israel is similar.” It takes two to tango: Enough people Israel want peace, but not enough (or any) Palestinian Arabs want peace. Also the Northern Ireland example doesn’t apply because you’re dealing with Westerners, and the Balkans example doesn’t apply because they’re being watched by Westerners.
I said, “Just listen to what they say in Arabic, not want they say to the spineless MSM of the West.” You said: “Listen to what WHO says? The psychopaths who make the bombs?” No, Techno, listen to what the leaders say, such as Abbas, the president now in his seventh year of a four year term. Now, it is possible he is a psychopath and he may be making bombs, but he is considered the head of the PA.
You said: “But if israel were replaced by any other western democracy, and if that democracy conducted itself the same way, the criticism would be no different.” If you remember correctly, when the US felt in extremis after Pearl Harbor, it had no compunction pf putting its citizens of Japanese descent in confinement. When there was a dust-up between Iran and the US in the late 1980s and the US shot down a civilian plane with 260 passengers was there any criticism? When the Twin Towers were destroyed, the US had no compunction going into Afghanistan to root out the Taliban, and how many Afghani civilians died as a result of collateral damage? Yes, the US criticized for what it did to the Japanese, but most of it came after everyone could rest easy, and yes the US has been criticized for collateral damage in Iran and Afghanistan, but the US has not been subject to the orgy of criticism that Israel has been. It’s easy to criticize when you’re not in danger, much harder to do so when you’re survival is on the line.
so Israel’s attempt to survive in an unfriendly neighborhood is considered bullying by Western Leftists?
No.
With regard to the number of times Israel has offered the Palestinian Arab a state, I believe the last time was under Ehud Olmert when he offerred them 96% of the west bank, and they said no.
94%, actually. And Olmert had to stand down before the negotiations finished, and Abbas wasn’t prepared to sign a deal with a guy who wouldn’t be around to implement it.
As regards the point of people killed and chucked out of their homes, etc., I think the balance here would show many more Israelis killed than Palestinian Arabs.
Not even close. Far more palestinians have been injured and killed during the conflict.
Remember in the War of Independence, most Arabs left to get out of the way of the war or because their leaders told them to.
People do run away from wars, yes.
Since then, Israel has, as far as I know, followed due process and not claimed Arab owned land when there is a deed to the property.
Why is israel claiming any of it?
listen to what the leaders say, such as Abbas, the president now in his seventh year of a four year term.
You said “The Palestinian Arabs don’t want peace, they want the destruction of Israel”. Is that what abbas is saying?
If you remember correctly, when the US felt in extremis after Pearl Harbor, it had no compunction pf putting its citizens of Japanese descent in confinement … yes the US has been criticized for collateral damage in Iran and Afghanistan, but the US has not been subject to the orgy of criticism that Israel has been.
I’m really not sure where you get your information from, but the people who critise the things that israel does haven’t held back on criticising the US for any of that.
Techno – We’ve run out of thread so I am replying to your last comment that had a reply in it (your comment on 1/4 at 1:51 PM).
First I am a bit puzzled by your last answer, although I think I may see the problem:
I said: So, the Jews are bullying the Palestinians. Really?
You replied: If you ask a western lefty to explain the thing that annoys them most about israel, yes. That’s the answer you’ll get.
I said in a follow-up: so Israel’s attempt to survive in an unfriendly neighborhood is considered bullying by Western Leftists?
You replied: No.
I think the problem is that I conflate Israel’s attempt at survival in an unfriendly neighborhood with the attempt to survive in the face of Palestinian Arab attempts to destroy Israel. (Besides listening to what they say in Arabic, observe their flag in which their state encompasses the entire Mandated territory. There is no Israel there.) I guess your ‘No’ implies that in the (addled) minds of Leftists Palestinian Arab threats to Israel are somehow disassociated from the general Arab threat to Israel. I don’t see those as being disassociated.
With regard to Olmert, had the PA said yes, they could have guessed that Livini would then be in the catbird seat as far the upcoming elections would have been concerned. Besides, had they said yes, imagine the enormous pressure that would have been put on Israel to make 94% become 100%. Sorry, your excuse for Abbas doesn’t wash.
Coming back to the numbers, outside of collateral damage in bona fide military actions, I think many more Israelis have been killed. Israel has not conducted a terror campaign on the Palestinian Arabs where civilians are the targets. The same cannot be said for the Palestinian Arabs (and those intifadas were not conducted by individuals acting on their own; they were masterminded and directed by Arafat and his henchmen, e.g., Abbas). Israel has destroyed houses of Arabs, but it was houses of Arabs associated with terrorism. If the Arab has a bona fide deed to the house, Israel has not chucked them out. Note there were many houses in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem that were taken over by Arabs which may have been reclaimed by Jews whose families originally owned them, but I think that is only fair.
Then you make an interesting comment about Israel’s claims to the ‘West Bank’:
I said: Since then, Israel has, as far as I know, followed due process and not claimed Arab owned land when there is a deed to the property.
You said: Why is israel claiming any of it?
So, Israel is precluded from claiming territory owned by no one? Really? Let’s see, how much of the Southwest do you propose returning to Mexico, and the Great Plains to pre-Columbian indigenous native Americans (we used to called them American Indians)? I love the asymmetry.
Then you asked the following: I said “The Palestinian Arabs don’t want peace, they want the destruction of Israel”. You asked: “Is that what abbas is saying?” Short answer: Yup. Longer answer: He says it in Arabic and he displays it with the flag that shows only one state on the Mandate, an Arab state. Clearly, his aim is Israel’s destruction.
Finally, when I pointed out some of the things the US has done, you say that there has been criticism. True, there has been criticism (although the criticism about the incarceration of the Japanese was very muted until long after the danger had passed). Yes, there has been criticism, but it’s not the kind that has led to UN Reports (think Goldstone and the flotilla incident) and claims about apartheid and war crimes.
1. The issue about the German scientists: True, we dropped the bomb after Germany gave up, but if their German scientists had got their first (say, January 1945) I think that could have been a game changer. The Battle of the Bulge would have required any German divisions, just one bomb, etc.
2. The issue about gassing of Jews prior to 1945: True, the Germans were using able bodied Jewish males and females as slave labor, but they were either shooting or gassing the rest, and that was before they were losing the war. Moreover, they were using up scarce resources to transport Jews to the death camps and to guard them. That certainly must have put a damper on the productivity of the slave laborers. Imagine, how demoralized they must have been knowing the chances of seeing their loved ones being slim to (almost) none? Wouldn’t it have been more rational and resource conserving to simply leave the Jews where they were to work for the war effort?
Isn’t the “West Bank” west to Jordan?
No, Jordan gave up its claim years ago. Only the Brits and Pakistanis recognized Jordan’s claim to annex this part of the Mandate after illegally occupying it in 1947-48.
Since both England and Jordan used force there is no “legality.”
Just force.
Break off contact totally with anti-Semites? Let them rot in their own morass of sh-t? Yet a rose can grow from the mud. I’m not yet ready to give up my efforts at gardening entirely.
How can I deal with the growing, overt liberal animus toward Israel?
Link the morons to this fantastic parody/video
Thank you, Belladonna, for tackling this very important topic.
For anyone interested in a comprehensive study of the subject, including the relationship between leftism and antisemitism, perhaps the best – certainly the most comprehensive – new book about the history of antisemitism is “A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad” by Robert S. Wistrich. Although it’s 1200 pages long, you can get it for about $11 on Amazon. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Julianna, I don’t think I could get through all 1200 pages of the book you recommend without my heart breaking for good. Could you share a few of the leftist-antisemitism connections you learned from the book here?
Also, has anyone read Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Montefiore? Does it shed light on this question? Is it well done and worth reading?
Thanks….
Actually, an even better reference – because it addresses the issue under consideration in this interesting (and important) exchange – is a very short yet excellent study published in 2010 by Princeton University Press: Jerry A. Muller’s “Capitalism and the Jews.” Among the inspirations for the book was Milton Friedman’s seminal lecture with the same title, delivered exactly four decades ago, which I had the honor and pleasure of hearing at the University of Chicago along with my then-not-yet-husband Roger. Muller is professor of history at the Catholic University of America, a first-rate scholar.
Thank you, Juliana, I will track this down.
That must have been an incredible experience, hearing Freidman back then.
Belladonna, concise and excellent.
One minor point, the Arab population of Israel is now approaching 2 million. It also might be pointed out that Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a growing Christian population – a testament to Israel’s Western-style tolerance of minorities.
Among the left, many – even most – of Israel’s most vicious detractors are disaffected Jews. This is a problem the Jewish community has thus far failed to address. They hate Israel with a passion because they view it as an albatross around their necks that they can never remove. They desperately crave to be loved and accepted among non-Jews and there is no price too steep to be paid in the lives of other Jews.
Well done, mi bella, well done.
There may be a third category, neither ignorant (quite the contrary), nor motivated by Jew hatred or bigotry.
The leftist cultist. Just as fanatical as jihadists, but more dangerous to Israel’s existence. The jihadists can lob rockets and plant bombs and strap explosives to their puny chests. And, by doing so…they can kill a few schoolchildren and women and tourists…like the trembling cowards they are.
Ahhh…but the leftist cultist…does much, much, much more damage. They operate not out of having sublime ignorance…but out of spreading it. They are carriers of the slander. The distortion. The lies.
Quite often they obtain jobs in the media, academia and entertainment. They poison the information stream and watch as fools drink from it.
What, my dear Belladonna, we do with such folks…makes all the difference. Cutting off contact is impossible, their filthy tentacles reach into our homes every day. Teaching them the truth is a futile gesture, they have no interest in the truth, the whole point is to spread the lie.
And sadly…it is here that we find the ugliest betrayals of a people who number only 16 million on the entire planet. When the traitor hides behind the cloak of a Jewish name, to wield the dagger of treason against his own people. Chomsky, Soros, Goldstone…keep the dagger sharpened, his enablers polish the handle.
The leftist cult is a powerful siren song. As it thrives, truth dies.
Excellent advice. The website StandWithUs.com has a nice summary of the history of Israel and it is a good resource. I am going to have to mull over the idea that hypocrisy is a hallmark of bigotry. It seems this might be applicable to a lot of political discourse.
Totally ignored/forgotten is that the rich oil nations (Moslem) are now endowing seats in Western Universities. They are also “hiring” people who retire from various positions. Those retirees qualify for their no-show jobs by having an anti-semitic history.
“(4) Israel and its friends manipulate American foreign policy.”
AIPAC having “America’s pro-Israel lobby” at the top of its home page is by definition an attempt to manipulate American foreign policy unless you consider Israel the 51st state. So, I don’t accept the validity of No.4. That makes me an anti-Semite? Or is it only anti-Semitism if AIPAC is 100% successful in its goals? Am I less of a bigot if AIPAC is unsuccessful?
Please don’t tell me any disagreement with you relegates me to the province of either ignorance or racism. And what is the opposite of “bashing?”
You use of the term “manipulate”.
Would you describe the lobbies that support closer ties to Italy, Greece, Ireland or Britain as attempts to manipulate America or just as attempts to foster close ties and favorable treatment for their respective nations.
Manipulate suggests there is something inherently underhanded or unseemly, which is what you clearly think.
You gave away your game.
No, I gave away your game by quoting from the article. Thanks for the assist.
And for the record, any country doing the same thing would be the same thing but this article wasn’t about “Italy, Greece, Ireland or Britain.”
Ironically and revealing, it is that dumb argument that attacks “that” book about an Israeli or Jewish lobby. That type of thinking is like attacking a history book about the Crusades because it doesn’t have a disclaimer mentioning all other history that ever took place. Don’t you get that?
You’ve been out-argued. You’re out of practice and short on facts. steve is right on point. You’re not.
Pity you’re short on the words to accurately describe this imagined event.
“Phillip Career”: When you say you’re “quoting from the article” — you’re quoting from the italicized part of the column that lists four major hostile and malicious myths that Israel-bashers use to bash Israel. The word “manipulate” is one of the ways people who attack Israel and its friends do so. “Israel and its friends manipulate American foreign policy” is in the column, but not as a fact, as you would like, but as what it is: a myth, and a hostile, malicious myth, at that.
It’s obvious from your hostile comments what your career is. Not going so well, is it?
Nevertheless it was not MY term and it is an accurate quote from the article. Everyone who read it and I emphasize READ, knows its place in that article and that it is not mine.
I gave an excellent example of why No.4 is not accurate on its own merits. Why that would make me a career (enter career here) is of no account. Was it in fact my career to take apart silly bogey-men about a world that hates Jews and commenters that are clearly using the exact same language they decry in others, I’d say my imagined career is off to a rousing start since facts and reason are either ignored or not used in rebuttal.
You don’t win a debate simply by saying so but by debate. I am actually largely on your side as regards the depraved middle east but I am warning that to diminish one’s position with poorly thought out attacks causes credibility to wane where it is needed.
Who’s going to read real and actual stuff about Hamas for example after an article that is in many parts easily disproven? One must spend ones resources wisely and without undercutting what’s left.
Im afraid the demonization and delegitimization of Israel that is prevalent on the Left is the exact same that they express for European Christian nations.
They arent going to stop. They will have to be stopped. It is going to take some doing, ostracizing them from our institutions and polite society. What is necessary isnt going to be fun nor is it going to be polite…it is going to be a hard slog.
aggh. starting with the hard ones, instead of the easy? I’m not drying out until the 15th of this month. this hurts my head even reading!
One of the luxuries of living in a Red State is that there aren’t many (any?) anti-semites. It’s an evangelical majority state, too, so there’s serious stuff notions about God adopting Christians into the Jewish family tree.
IOW, it’s not my problem, and I don’t pay attention, so all your history is new to me. I think I’m still back at “…they gave the land back….” Who gives land back? They won it, fair and square. Who makes anyone give land back? What on earth? Has any other nation had to give land back after winning a war? The other guys got turfed- so why are they whining? They lost. Life is horrible for losers. My family lived through reconstruction- they are visibly shorter than their elders, and their off-spring. Black and white photos, all the way through the Baby Boom Kodak photos. The Depression was a step up, for most of them.
The place is the size of Connecticut. The Arab nations are bigger,like, crazy bigger. and empty. I don’t like Massachusetts ( who’s with me on this: romney, barney, and forever having to apologize as a Christian for the Salem witch trials-?) but I’m not proposing we wipe it off the map….
For that matter, these camps? Are they gelling into favelas? B/c favelas have deeds and land documents and ownership documents, and business documents. Hernando de Soto, from Chile, the economist, not the conqueror, has gone to favelas and slums, and found ownership documents that the people have come up with, and that the people recognize and use. The central government doesn’t, but that’s more that the central gov’t is not competent. We did it,too- mining camps in California fought and changed the US land laws, after the gold rush, to recognize their property rights. Apparently, it’s still in ferment- gov’t land, local use, etc.
There are developments on the Texas border that are gelling- they can’t build permanent structures, so they build adobe libraries, for instance. They are building sewer lines,and so on. It’s all supposed to be taken down, and can’t meet code, which is really peculiar, but they are gelling into recognizable towns…
Are palestinian refugee camps doing this, or are they the sort of fungal slurry that government housing spawns, like New Orleans? No boundaries, no borders, no coming to life as towns?
b/c if they’re towns, one can treat them seriously. If they are gov’t slums, they need to be closed, for the residents’ sakes. Nobody wishes a Cabrini-Green life on anyone.
But- I don’t live there, and I don’t worship there, and it’s not my real estate, and it’s not my border. I have no idea why anyone else is called to have an opinion on the subject. I don’t see editorials about Malaysian borders, or Bangladeshi borders, or Indian borders, and India has a nuclear bomb.
Would people quit picking on Israel if it straight up conquered and kept the Middle East? I don’t hear many people call Istanbul Constantinople these days.
Important distinction- Israel was not established by the U.N. , it was recognized by the U.N.
Israel was established by The Almighty as everyone who prays with a Torah, Christian Bible or Koran knows.
Of course, of course; we mean besides that. After all even a disembodied alien needs a host and an address.
A G-d you could explain I could not worship.
ps- Both the far left and far right of the political spectrum hate Israel and the USA because they hate the fact that G-d has given Mankind inalienable rights. Both the left and the right wish to supplant the rights given by G-d with their own desire to rule over Mankind. G-d gets in the way. That is why both Israel and the USA are hated- Israel as a living testament to the reality of His existence and America as a living testament to His gift of inalienable rights.
Menachem – Well said! They hate anyone who (and any idea which) usurps THEIR power to weigh, measure, and dispense rights and privileges. A new privileged aristocracy is among us, and it’s just as foul as the last ones. Disgusting …
Thank you for your kind words.
Most folks look for differing reasons for the hatred of Israel and the USA by supporters of authoritarian regimes. There is only one reason- hatred of G-d.
“THEY” Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Please no.
so went poking around trying to make sense of this.
youch. my eyes!
at least, if they start with the anti-semitism, you can get out quickly. b/c the rest of the crazy-train is pulling into the station.
When puzzling over the attitudes of the left, never forget the most powerful force behind their animus: anti-Americanism. Oh, I know they profess love for America, but they love not the America that was and is, but what they imagine America could be if they had the power to compel it. Their anti-Americanism is not firmly rooted in a coherent moral philosophy. It is more a howl of pain from those who have been denied the income, influence, leisure and/or recognition that they feel their intellectual and moral superiority entitles them. They hate the America that is tends to reward talent, dedication, prudence, hard work, thrift and ingenuity, but not educational credentials and certainly not educational indifference, sloth, lack of self control, and/or unwillingness to sacrifice in the present in return for future benefit. They hate Israel because normal Americans — and in particular, those big, bad Christians — support Israel, and any friend (Israel) of their enemy (the America that is) is their enemy. Similarly, any enemy (Cuba, Venezuela, the Soviet Union, etc) of America is their friend. The normal American is, to the leftist, a dumb, immoral, rapacious brute and must be opposed at all costs, even if the myriad oppositional rationales are in hopeless intellectual and moral conflict with each other. The various oppositional positions of the left may seem internally inconsistent to us, but they have a cohesive: anti-whatever the normal American values and promotes.
I agree: the Left is all about social and protected status for anyone who is a failure as it is assumed they are failures as a result of exploitation and oppression and not their own lack of brightness.
Israel does not occupy the correct Marxist social position and it is a success which is 2 marks against it right there. Meanwhile morons who even despise their own women can shoot off rockets right and left and because they’re crappy rockets it’s okay. Trying to kill someone doesn’t count. You have to actually be good at it to attract notice and the “disproportionate force” crap.
What you say of Europe is unfortunately all too true although Muslims are the cause of much Jewish harassment, there is also plenty from the white indigenous population as well. This comes both from the Right which may also hate Muslim immigrants but hates Jews more, whereas the hatred of the Left is exclusively for Jews. There is no future for Jews in Europe and although my wife and I emigrated in 2010 from the UK to Israel for entirely positive reasons there was also the subliminal ‘push’ of overt anti-Semitism which I personally experienced. The law-enforcement agencies do try and contain it but it’s in Europe’s DNA, endemic and ineradicable. Sad but true.
Thanks for that rousing slice of life that attacks tens of millions of European who have the misfortune to not be Jewish. Since you obviously see things that are not in personal evidence, I wouldn’t put too much on non-load bearing subliminal pushes – you may simply be unpleasant to be around. Hearing your take down of Europe is an example and smell works two ways.
Sorry my DNA smells. Is it like dirt? You know, that loamy, moldy smell?
According to you guys, there may be NO place in the world for Jews except that most exceptional region of brilliance, morality, tolerance and techno savvy in the world today. Yes, you guessed it – it’s Israel.
And you wonder why the Jewish Left disowns you.
Excellent, insighful article with good advice. Every sentence is important. This is going to be a tough, tense year for the US and Israel. The far left has legitimized anti-semitism/Israel bashing as rational acceptable mainstream discourse. This administration will continue to divide Jews (not to mention the country) as never before.
I object to calling it an ‘anti-Israel fixation.’
Call it what it “IS”: anti-Semitism. Pure and simple.
But it stems from the core principles of communism. And those same core principles are the very ones our present day “left”, as you call them, have as planks in their platform for the “fundamental transformation” of America.
Saul Alynsky’ rules for radicals, the communist manifesto and a long list of other reading materials considered socially destructive are among the commonly referenced resources by a vast number of our nations so called ‘leaders’.
You can’t afford the luxury of denial when evil is staring you directly in the face. Lest you become a victim, yourself.
Hmmmm, where to begin? I guess I would have to begin by my lot in life, where I am coming from so to speak. Being a child of 3rd generation immigrants, German, Norwegian and other European stock, I would have to talk about my family’s actions in the past. My family was involved in both World Wars. I have a grandfather and great grandfather involved in both World Wars on the side of the Allies. I was raised Catholic and have migrated to a purist form of Christianity. Israel, to me, is another country that attempts to ensure freedom and equality amongst it’s people.
Now for modern day Jewish discussion. For one, I find the reference to RP’s supposed anti semitism to be fleeting in proof and only correlative in evidence. He may be naive, but I do not believe he is anti Semitic. I myself believe in non binding agreements reminiscent of Jeffersonian beliefs. “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” This does not entail what many believe, that we would or should not have agreements of non aggression with our allies. To me, this is exactly as stated, we should not be aggressive towards anyone, if they are not aggressive themselves.
As we have seen, Muslim, or a better descriptor, Islamic nations are inherently aggressive. Their belief system is that anyone not Islamic, is to be conquered, either aggressively or through attrition. This is the position of even “moderate” Muslims. Of course a Christian, Jewish or other religion’s definition of moderation is completely different than the same thing in that relationship.
Have you ever heard in the last 200 years of another religion where if you want to leave it, you are to be killed?
There is a fundamental problem with Islam, it is the fact that once you join, you cannot renounce the religion, because that is the highest form of treason. Even worse than being a heathen (non religious) or one of the lower forms of religions.
As for Israel, they are our ally, what does that mean to a typical politician in today’s terminology? How bout just asking a typical leftist what it means? We all know that Israel NEVER EVER attacked any other country. They were attacked. We all know that Palestine in today’s contextual definition, never existed. Israel has the RIGHT to exist. They have the right to be free and they have the right to liberty.
What else is there to say?
Now, as for anti semitism, I find it prevalent in certain aspects of RP’s followers and throughout the leftists that infect the Democrat party. It is funny how the conservatives and even some libertarians believe that to abandon our allies is the purest form of treason. So why is it that a large majority of Jewish folk here in the US migrate to the Democrat party? I still do not know the answer to that.
I remember 10 years ago walking the streets of Manhattan and seeing swastika graffitti everywhere. No efforts were made to remove it. Do we care enough about anti-semitism in America?
American Jews will do for israel what they did for European Jews in the forties. Just as leftist Jews helped Hitler during his peace with Stalin, they will help the Muslim Brotherhood today. Any black professional knows what his friends think of Jews.O and Jarrett know that Wright and 20 million blacks are proud of the Islamic successes that have had.
I like Jews. Some of my best friends are Jews. Really
My accountant is a Jew. My analyst is a Jew. My ear-nose-throat man is a Jew.
However I would not trust them to do really important thing like install a new short block in my 59 Chevy.
Call me an anti-semite, but that is how I feel.
Dude – this is why you need to come to Israel and check out reality…
The Moroccan bus driver down the street from me is his own mechanic and I’ve seen him rebuild engine blocks on the sidewalk…
My next door neighbor can take a totally junked up Vespa and get it running again by filing down the piston rings scrounged from a lawn mower…
I used to get a lift to work from a guy who was the Chief Mechanic for Land Rover in central Israel…and all of the guys who worked under him were also,,,gasp..jews!
We are also the only country outside the USA to build ballistic missle interceptors, invented the UAV,and it goes on and on and on….
Yeah, I too had a kinda warped perspective about what was a ‘Jewish’ job when I was living in the states, but when I came here (Israel) and started seeing fifty year old guys with a yalmakah driving tow trucks, changing tires, etc, etc.
I saw a rebuilt ’72 BSA Lightning in Tel Aviv last year that had me in tears…(my second ride when I was 19, and the bike that led to my first date with my wife of 29 years)
You don’t have to be an ‘Anti-Semite’ to have inbuilt assumptions about what and who Jews are.
Just saying…
>>>>>>>The above rant is truly bizarre, referencing as it does “racial superiority” that I have nowhere suggested, dragging in some weird reference to “neo-Nazis,” babbling about “hate speech.”
That’s leftist-speak for “I disagree with you on that”.
Because he did in fact drag in the whole Weizmann thing for that very reason, invoking the nonsense ala the Nobel list that it took a smart Jew to save the monkeys of the British Empire squabbling with other monkeys on the Continent.
In that Buzz’a view anti-Semitic themes would appear to be fine as long as they are positive. In my view it is just as bigoted to ask a person to stand on a pedestal for ethnic reasons as it is to ask them to stand in a ditch or behind barbed wire. That is because racism is a language that is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways.
Ms. Rogers is of course exactly right in this article. I would add, however, regarding anti-Jewish bias among (Muslim) Arabs, adducing the influence of the Nazis in the 20th century is key, but is not the only explanation for this phenomenon. Indeed, as I pointed out in an article a few years ago, both Islamic theology and history contain authoritative–for Muslims–texts (many eschatological) specifically condemning the Jews: http://hnn.us/articles/34789.html
well done article – this is always my touchstone on this issue – http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-sharansky-f04.htm