Why Anti-Semitism Persists
In his 1995 book Assimilation and Its Discontents, Israeli political historian and prolific author Barry Rubin speaks of a time when “anti-Semitism became too minimal to inspire fear or defiance.” Indeed, for both the Israeli sabra and the diaspora Jew, particularly in America, “anti-Semitism’s rout and the acquisition of equality … raises the question of what to do next.” Only a little more than a decade has passed since Rubin wrote those lines but the “question of what to do next” has taken on a completely different complexion. For once again anti-Semitism has returned with a vengeance.
I suspect that Rubin’s cheerful temperament may have clouded his view and caused him to forget that anti-Semitism is unlike other forms of irrational hatred and operates under a different set of laws. One might put it this way: because it has happened before, it will happen again, which is not the tautology or unverifiable assumption that it appears to be. We need to recognize the mechanics that operate in this past-future homology.
Anti-Semitic sentiments, outbreaks, pogroms, and holocausts, in virtue of their millennial repeatability, have become entrenched in human consciousness as a “natural” inevitability, as something that must happen again because it has consistently happened before. Anti-Semitism and its consequences, as they act themselves out in the social and historical realms, have gradually come to acquire the character of a deeply harbored expectation, a necessary effect of an immutable cause, as if it were a part of the phenomenal world, the prolonged absence of which dimly registers as a gap in the normal sequence of events. This gap or hiatus must be filled to restore the equilibrium of things, which is why anti-Semitism is felt as somehow legitimate. It is its recession that is intuited as unnatural.
Anti-Semitism is the resentment of animalistic humans that there is a God. Animalistic humans would rather act like animals without restraint and it is only God and morality that keep them in bounds. However, since people cannot kill God, they lash out at His ambassadors on Earth, the Jews.
This is an original and deeply thoughtful discussion, elegantly composed.
My daughter is studying for a degree in International Studies here in Melbourne,Victoria,Australia. She told me today that she met an member of AUSTRALIANS FOR PALESTINE,and that after the session in which this person spoke to her tutorial group,she felt that peace would occur only after Israel recognises palestine.I looked at her and said ,that Israel will only know true peace when there is an admission by the Arab World as whole that israel has a right to exist.
Yes i would like to see peace in the Muddle/Middle East ,but not at the cost of compromising the only democracy-Israel-in the area.but i believe that the Obamamessiah will betray israel. As surely as God is my Judge.
Oh and I’m not Jewish ,just a Christian.
Why is it that Jewish neo-academics (poets?) like Solway fail to see the hard core of the antisemitism that he discerns in the outside world. Even “#3 wayno” has trouble putting his finger on it. The elephant in the room, so fierce and unyielding that everyone looks outside the room, is the rage of the islamic world against these uppity Jews who refuse to submit to islam. Doesn’t anybody examine what drives the muslims? They demand submission from all, and they’re commanded to put the sword to all who won’t submit to the superiority of islam. 99% of the perceived antisemitism would disappear if Israel would open her borders and submit to islam.
Now author DAvid Solway may be a poet, but poets aren’t always know for being clued-in. His last screed tried to blame anitsemitism on Christians. This time he’s trying to blame it on SOMETHING OUT THERE. After a lifetime of serious thought, he still hasn’t perceived that the “something out there” is actually a boiling islamic rage, totally steamed that Solway and his neighbours still refuse to submit to islam. Solway, you still need to give your head a shake. The rabid enraged mob screaming “off with their heads” is neither Christians, nor some mysterious force of nature. You won’t be able to figure out the plot line until you notice the enraged elephant standing right behind you. Your next move could be to see if you can figure if Jews have any friends who are non-Jews. Then try saying their name out loud. These simple steps will bring clarity to your befuddled cause.
Many people need a dark force to explain reality and to focus their emotions. Anti-Americanism is akin to anti-semitism in this regard. Both are totally irrational and therefore cannot be defeated by reason. These pathologies will always be with us, perhaps with a new content in the far distant future.
I too wondered at the authors refusal to name the anti-semites. He’s obviously smart enough to do so. He likes to use a lot of words one would never use in conversation when he writes. Surely he knows that the ‘forces’ of anti-semitism are not just a bad habit of society.
Then there’s the problem of Jews like Rahm Emanuel and Carl Marx and the 80% of American Jews who voted for a community organizer/professor/radical leftist as POTUS. I’ve been a booster of the Jews ever since my Christian conversion 32 years ago. Its getting harder though. Sorta like supporting the pubbie party as some sort of alternative to the socialism of the rat party. I’m in a crisis of faith these days.
“In the final analysis, anti-Semitism will always trump assimilation, as untold numbers of perfectly assimilated, more-German-than-German Jews learned to their cost.”
Anti-Semitism reflects something, something recurring and palpable, yes – and it reflects something indicative of deeper substrates, yes to that as well. But despite the disavowal there is an excess of tautology and repetition in this latter commentary. One may as well be content with repetitious and tautological formulations that worry over recurring criminal activity in human history.
If “assimilation” is to be thrown into question – in such an unclarified and incomprehensible sense – why isn’t assimilation into various other, non-Judaic, modern and late-modern currents thrown into doubt? E.g., atheistic or even the au courant, silly anti-theistic currents of a Dawkins & Co., who are to philosophical depth what Paris Hilton is to social/political comprehensions? Or Marxian and derivative Marxian currents which were no less palpable and even more destructive, in terms of human carnage, than Hitler’s decade-plus term? “Assimilation,” as such, is far too diffuse a term.
Even the “assimilation” that occurred in Germany, prior to and during the inter-war years, was hugely problematic and diverse. Is the “assimilation” as reflected in a Husserl or a Rosenzweig to be compared with the assimilation of those who joined the German Army? And those who did join the German Army during the Weimar period, at least in part due to economic necessity, are they to be compared with those who joined after ’32/33? Again, there are so many facets and diverse motivations, both positive and negative, that to throw out the term “assimilation,” absent clarifications, is virtually or even literally meaningless.
Absent better formulations and clarity a type of mental, moral and psychological paralysis is likely to be effected, is likely to be aided and abetted, and that alone is sufficient reason to seek better articulations.
One unfortunate consequence of the anti-Semitism that drove the Nazis is that we are now less able to detect hidden anti-Semitism. I think the radical Left has learned from the mistake of putting such racism at the forefront of one’s politics. Not only that, but this brand of Liberal Totalitarians have a racially cleansed version of National Socialism, at least for now. I have no confidence that the Obama Administration will stand up for Israel.
What’s wrong with this picture that I’m not attacking Whipsnade’s argument? He’s got a point. Is the author implying that anti-semitism is a force of nature, and therefore part of the fabric of the universe–and hence there is no solution for Jews other than to take the Holocausts and pogroms?
Or in the previous article, tracing the history of anti-semitic thought, back through Europe–and if you do that you can’t avoid the anti-semitism in the Christian world, it happened–then again, is the author implying anti-semitism part of the human DNA, that evil itself is a part of the human DNA? Again, the Jews have no choice but to take it and move on. After all, we Jews can’t go around reading the depths of each person’s soul and biology and act as judge, jury, and executioner–that’s not Jewish.
But this deer-in-the-headlights response isn’t Jewish either. So the author has journeyed into a no-man’s land of understanding, no way out. Does Solway really believe that? Or are we waiting for part III?
#3 Wayno,
The issue of Israel’s claim towards Hamas to acknowledge it’s ‘right to exist’ has been uncritically taken on board without insight,basis under international law and will serve no constructive political purpose in seeking to resolve conflict.
The criteria for statehood are laid out,’Recognizing Israel’ or any other state is a formal legal and diplomatic act by one state with respect to another state.It is inappropriate to talk of a political party or movement extending diplomatic recognition to a state.
‘Recognizing Israel’s Existence’ appears on first impression to involve relatively straightforward acknowledgement of a fact of life.
Yet there is serious practical problems.What Israel ,within what borders is involved?
Israel has never defined it’s own borders.Hamas has stated it would recognise Israel within 1967 borders.
A right to exist for a state is not an esoteric right ,it must materialize within clearly defined territory,the fact that the borders of Israel are not defined goes unnoticed.
So Hamas as a political party is in no position to exercise legal recognition at all. So therefore the demand is made for political reason’s,we must question why it is made without reciprocal demands on Israel.
For example Israel acknowledge the right of return Palestinian refugees in accordance with international law.
This is not an issue of Jewish peoples right to life.
To the Palestinians it is to claim Israel had the right to cause the expulsion of the great majority of them from their homeland between 1947-49 and therefore recognize Israels right to exist is accepting that they were unworthy of basic human rights.
However many people of goodwill and decent values may well be taken in by the surface simplicity of the words,’Israel’s right to exist’ is reasonable and refusing perverse,rather than Palestinians’ deeply felt need to cling to their self respect and dignity.
It’s a disingenuous request,rooted neither in international law nor in any constructive political consideration.
#10–
So that little declaration by the UN in 1948 means nothing? Or the fact that in the entire history of the world territory acquired in war is considered legitimate acquisition–except when the Jews do it? I also suggest that you read some history of the birth of the State of Israel, and you will find a little bit more complexity than you’ve put forth.
And by they way, if we are talking about reality, perhaps you’ve noticed a very high correlation between the PA and Hamas refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist with the unusually large numbers of attempts to kill Jews? De Facto Israel’s right to exist is very much an issue of the Jewish people’s right to life.
Mr. Solway, thanks for the article, let me add one more dimension about the modern Jews as a group, as presented by the great American thinker (and himself a Jew), Eric Hoffer in his 1951 masterpiece “The True Believer”. Quoting the book, p;age 44:
“Thus the modern Jew became the most autonomous of individuals, and inevitably, too, the most frustrated. It is not surprising, therefore, that the mass movements of modern times often found in him a ready convert…”
This would explain the inordinate percentage of Jews surrounding Lenin and his Bolshevik revolution, from Trotsky to Litvinov, and many others who changed their names. The attempts of Hitler and the Nazis to create the phantom of Judeo-Bolshevism were not far fetched although for the wrong reason, as Marx, of the Communist Manifesto, was also a Jew.
This also would explain the readiness of many American Jews to idolize, and help, the Soviets, Mao, Uncle Ho, and now the Islamists, from Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, to Saul Alinsky, to present Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein.
Zionism and Israel came at the right time to embrace and cure the Jews in their darkest hour.
@ 12 MiamaMan:
Please consider yourself very lucky because while you stated the truth you were not banned nor censored even though you brought up the name of Lenin and Bolshevism in conjunction with the disciples of Lazar Kaganovich.
“A right to exist for a state is not an esoteric right ,it must materialize within clearly defined territory,the fact that the borders of Israel are not defined goes unnoticed.”
Every country formed after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire has border disputes with their neighbours, Syria-Turkey, Syria-Lebanon, Iraq-Iran, Syria-Jordan, Egypt-Libya, Libya-Chad, Iran-UAE etc. Does that mean we shouldn’t recognize any of them?
Owen, do you not realize that it was the Arab governments of of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Jordan that forced (ethnically cleansed, in a sense) most of those 750,000 palestinians from their homes? Do you not find it strange that the refugee status of those 750,000 was passed down to their descendants? Can you point out to me any other examples in the world of refugee status being passed on generation to generation? Do you not recall that at the same time in 1948 800,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands? Why can’t the Arab nations assimilate their fellow Arabs (especially in the case of Jordan) the way the Israeli’s assimilated their fellow Jews? Do you not remember that “Palestine” originally included not only Israel and the “occupied” territories, but also all of Jordan? Are you not aware that the palestinians were given their own state in 1922, comprised of 80% of palestine, known as “Transjordan”?
If you look at the 2007 FBI report on Hate Crimes which breaks down hate crimes based on minority group, and then compare those statistics to actual numbers of people in each minority group, you will discover that a Jew is 4 times more likely than a Black, Moslem or a Gay man to be a hate crime victim. A Jew is 200 times more likely to be a hate crime victim than a Lesbian, Hispanic, or Asian. For the purposes of the calculations I assumed that the US is.
80.0%- White
12.8%- Black
1.0%- Amer. Indian
4.4%- Asian
1.2%- Jewish
25.0%- Catholic
50.0%- Protestant
0.6%- Islamic
3.5%- Gay
3.5%- Lesbian
7.0%- Homosexual
93.0%- Heterosexual
15.1%- Hispanic
Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Al-Qaeda, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and other entities still, Iran and Syria notably, have refused to recognize Israel’s most basic existential right, no matter the borders contemplated. Every time Israel has withdrawn, from the Sinai, more recently from Lebanon, from substantial quarters in the West Bank, from Gaza in its entirety, it has always and without any exception resulted in still more highly aggressive assaults upon Israel using military and terrorist tactics/strategies as well as non-military initiatives, such as can be leveraged on diplomatic fronts, via so-called “peace treaties” such as Oslo, via international legal mechanisms and tranzi orgs such as the U.N., and including business and trade fronts and academic fronts.
There’s also the issue of defensible borders from a practical, strategic pov. Middle East Strategic Information has other key information in this regard, for example an illustrated map of the M.E., a simple but informative visual aid concerning the current strategic situation. Or, from the vantage of international law, International Law and Gaza: The Assault on Israel’s Right to Self-Defense is worth a review. Or, the Fundamental Documents page includes two or three dozen of the most basic documents and agreements, from Balfour, to 1948, to Oslo and through to Annapolis in 2007.
Oops, I used the wrong column in my spread sheet.
If you look at the 2007 FBI report on Hate Crimes which breaks down hate crimes based on minority group, and then compare those statistics to actual numbers of people in each minority group, you will discover that a Jew is 4 times more likely than a Black, Moslem or a Gay man to be a hate crime victim. A Jew is 20 times more likely to be a hate crime victim than a Lesbian, Hispanic, or Asian. And 13 times more likely than a Native American.For the purposes of the calculations I assumed that the US is.
80.0%- White
12.8%- Black
1.0%- Amer. Indian
4.4%- Asian
1.2%- Jewish
25.0%- Catholic
50.0%- Protestant
0.6%- Islamic
3.5%- Gay
3.5%- Lesbian
7.0%- Homosexual
93.0%- Heterosexual
15.1%- Hispanic
“Hamas has stated it would recognise Israel within 1967 borders.”
A flat-out lie by Owens. Hamas has never, ever, not once come close to saying it would recognize Israel. They have only said they would accept a temporary truce, while they proceed to carry out the dictates of their charter that calls for the annihilation of Jews. Not Israelis, not Zionists, but Jews.
Gary Rosen,
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=159644
http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/other-documents/mishal-today-20060208.htm
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1143498851330&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Some believe Yasser Arafat did concede the point to buy his ticket out of demonization.His famous 1988 statement in Stockholm he accepted ‘Israel’s right to exist in peace and security.’
It does not address the existential question of the ‘rightness’ of the dispossession and dispersal of the Palestinian people from their homeland to make way for another people coming from abroad.
A Settler State.
Good to see so many giving power and leadership to the U.N.
Support all their resolutions no matter what country?
I know you all hate george,but it could be anyone explaining another side,please hear it out,it explains alot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV_jeGB1B3U
David Solway’s core question seems to be, why is this period no different than any other period in Jewish history? For most Jews, that question is reserved for the Passover Seder. Apparently David missed it.
David needs to haul up his Jockeys and gird his loins. The Muslims are winning in the UN and in Europe what they can’t win on the battlefield in the Middle East. Their noisy demonstrations and terrorist outrages are an expression of their fecklessness and frustration. Their support by the Europeans is not an indication of Muslim vibrancy but of Christian rot.
That European Jews are departing in droves is tragic but it has happened before. The good news is that the Jews leaving Europe will remain Jews. Not so their former Christian Neighbors. We are not far from the day when the Muslim call to prayer will be heard from the papal balcony and formerly Christian crowds will prostrate themselves on their faces to Allah and his illiterate prophet in St. Peter’s Square.
I have a suggestion for David. Put aside your angst and volunteer in the IDF as a non-combatant for a few weeks. Fill sandbags, clean and service equipment and rub shoulders with Israeli soldiers and reservists. I guarantee you will come back physically and mentally stronger with far brighter outlook.
David Levavi,
Your expression of pat, facile, pre-packaged contempt misses the mark, not that you were aiming high in the first place. I’m not Catholic, but sniffing sanctimoniously about an “illiterate prophet in St. Peter’s Square” merely throws your stolid, superficial, sanctimonious contempt into sharp relief.
I have a suggestion. Absolute bare minimum, whether aiming high or low, attempt to articulate a cogent, coherent argument and eschew the temptation to merely sneer and sniff.
David–Thanks for the information that Jews are in fact leaving Europe. I hear of the astounding level of anti-semitism, but never hear of anyone leaving. The signs are all there, and now it seems like it’s time to leave certain countries in South America.
Owen–do you mean legal and sovereign ‘their homeland’ or do you mean the place where they happen to live ‘their homeland’? There is a difference. I’m not sure you know the difference, and rather than me lecture you on the difference, how about you just explain it me, like I’m the one who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?
Michael,
I’m not sure you understood what David meant about St. Peter’s square. He was saying that it’s future as a Catholic and Christian Holy Site is in jeapordy, that it will eventually become a Muslim site. On the other hand, maybe you did get that, and I’m the one who doesn’t understand your meaning.
naftali,
I regret to say we’ll have to disagree. “Illiterate prophet in St. Peters,” “Christian rot,” etc. was expressive of mindless contempt and little more.
It’s one thing to forward an argument upon cogent and coherent grounds, such that it can be understood and then responded to on a similar basis. In doing so one is forwarding something that requires one’s self, as well as the other, to be held accountable. But in forwarding mere contempt (or any essentially mindless or incoherent complaint) it only serves further dissolution and insolvency still. And his complaint is incoherent on several levels, not least of all because present-day Europe can rightly be conceived as post-Christian, at least largely so.
(One of the most elemental things Christians and Jews have in common – theologically, philosophically and in general – is the idea of and the appreciation for a G_d possessed of mind – and the coherence that results from that mind-fulness. That’s a general statement only and is intended as nothing more than that, but it’s critical nonetheless. Hence, and further emphasizing the incoherent quality of David’s complaint, the current occupant of St Peter’s square, in his 2006 Regensburg Address, emphasized precisely that mind-fulness, that logos, for example in the concluding remarks, indicating “It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures.”)
Disagreement and criticisms, even when they may involve some caustic articulations, may be well and good. But if it’s not rendered in a better considered, more coherent fashion, wherein mutual accountability can take form, then it serves little more than dissolution and essentially mind-less expressions of contempt.
Hey Michael,
I hear what you are saying–but it depends on how you interpret the phrase ‘Christian rot’. Now if David meant ‘that lousy Christian Theology’, then you’ve got a real point.
But if he meant that the Christians are not defending their beliefs and like a tree rotting, the Christian civilizing of Europe is weakening to the point of nearing a fall, then he’s making a pretty accurate statement. Recent events raise questions–such as ‘how long will it be before Britain is ruled by Sharia Law?’ Of all places on earth, Britain should not be facing that possibility. Something is wrong in Europe.
At least that’s how I understand his statement.
Anti-semitism has been in existence since Time Immemrial even before one could say it were the Jews who killed Jesus. In Ancient times they were a smart wheeler-dealer type, astute in money matters and unparalleled in evading taxes, with strange habits and a funny way to pay Homage to their Almighty God, even in their looks they were not like others with large noses and thick lips and often apt to be lulled into sin as in those forty days in the desert. No they were never popular even then. But they were supposedly ‘the Chosen People’ of God? so that one may well ask ask if the Lord our God had a sense of humour after all? But time wrought changes and today the Jew might even be a tall handsome young man or a beautiful young woman pending upon which part of the world into which he/she had finally wandered. However stigmas have a way of sticking and however smart and good-looking the Jew may be today he is eternally stuck with being that age-old wheeler-dealer with the big nose and still blamed for the Crucifiction Of Jesus. As for the Arab, he will never forget that Ishmael was the First-born of Abraham and Islam will lash out at the jew whenever he can for after all is not jealousy and envy a powerful but irrational impulse? The Arabs may have a lot to lose from this now seemingly powerful little nation which has grown from nothingness into a stalwart conqueror and he helps stir up the wrath of the world against the Jew by any or all means whenever he can. Therefore in whichever way you look at it, the Jew is an unfortunate being up against it with Antsemitism and its innate and unjustified beginnings rearing its ugly head at every corner. By the same token there is always that chance that some day with the pity of the Lord our God upon His ‘chosen’, soon it may come to pass that the Ahmadinejads and his ilk of this world may yet come to be thwarted by this Unpopular and Abominal Jew…………
In a couple of posts around here before, I had advocated for Israel to attack and destroy the nuclear capabilities of Iran. After a harsh retaliation, then Israel must use nuclear bombs and nuke them.
I know some people will read this and agree, but no one says it. We are so good, you know. Here is the real danger.
But I stand by my statement because I am totally convinced that the time has already passed for negotiations, and by the way the Iranian government only wants to destroy Israel and the Jews, and is not interested in peace at all. They use, in a war of attrition, now Hamas, then Hezbollah. This until they build atomic weapons. The only thing left to Israel is a show of great force. It is a matter of survival. This will finally bring peace and save lives.
The Jihadis only understand the Law of the Jungle, survival of the fittest.
There is something named Karma, in the Bible is defined by the expression “Whatever you sow, you reap”. Amadinejad and the hateful Ayatollahs seem not to understand this cosmic law. They don’t understand that if you constantly spew hate and use violent language against others, calling for destruction and genocide, one day, just one day, Wotan the Berserker may knock at your door. (As it did to Hitler and Nazi Germany).
Many people need a dark force to explain reality and to focus their emotions. Anti-Americanism is akin to anti-semitism in this regard.
While the current camaraderie between Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela is based on “anti-capitalism”.
There is always a group something around which the discomfort or hostility of another group can coalesce. The inculcated hatred (of this that or the other group)is a tool. Everybody needs to be anti-something, for their movement (whatever that movement might be) to have a focus and to have teeth.
(false and contrived as those teeth might be)
Jewish people have served this function more often and more intensely than other groups. New generations don’t come along that automatically and instinctively hate “Jews”, they have to be carefully taught. These days, the learning curve in Hamas dominated Palestine can start as young as 2 or 3 years old.
There is also a jealously factor in this particular kind of continuing, fomented hatred, the success of the Jews in pre-war Germany (and, subsequently, the confiscation of their wealth & property) and the success of tiny, modern Israel existing in an Arab sea still mired in pre-modernity.
Naftali,
I am not sure what you do not understand about the words.’
‘Illegeal settlements on occupied land’.Refugee’s and right to return.
You cannot escape from the concept that Palestine was not empty when Israel was formed in 1948.
The Balfour declaration states that it should not affect the indigenous population.
People were driven from their homes, property confiscated and given to others and citzenship revoked.
That is ‘their home’.Same with the 1967 borders.
Historical homeland.When there is boundry disputes do you get the bible out?
Did God write the bible? Is God an estate agent to divi land?
As an Empire did Britian have the right to give somebody elses homes to settlers?
The concept that Palestinins have no right to return when they lived there for generations and own property,but say someone in Europe who claims their ancestors left the land of Palestine 1700 years ago and are therefore entitled full citizenship based on their religion is odd.
Jews suffered appallingly in ww2. It happened in Europe,under white christians,why should the Palestinians pay for the evil of Hitler?
Owens,
I asked you questions. You still need to explain the concept of sovereignty.
I asked you to clarify your definition of ‘their homeland’. You didn’t do that. You made it more confusing by saying that the Arab natives of British property have rights because they lived there, whereas the Jews, who also lived there, don’t have such rights. If I misunderstood, then you have to clarify that.
I didn’t say anything at all about the Bible. I don’t even know from where you inferred that.
And as a matter of fact, yes Britain did have that right. That’s where the idea of sovereignty comes in.
So until we get the word sovereignty properly defined, I guess we can’t really define ‘illegal settlements’.
You also completely avoided the issue of the wars, and territory acquired during a war, and how that relates to sovereignty.
So basically, this is one big question. Don’t reply as if I made one big statement, if you please.
Owens,
Fascinating. I asked you about sovereignty, you didn’t answer, and perhaps this is my fault.
This article is about the roots and nature of antisemitism and you are turning it into a debate on whether Israel has the right to exist.
Do you have anything to say about the phenomenon of antisemitism? Or perhaps you’d like to say something about whether it’s okay for Jews to be killed in order to settle property disputes?
And by the way, I never made any mention of the Bible.
This article is about the roots and nature of antisemitism and you are turning it into a debate on whether Israel has the right to exist.
9 times out of 10, any subject remotely to do with Israel turns into a debate on whether or not Israel has the right to exist.
Let me answer that definitively, yes, completely, Israel has a right to exist.
I doubt, however, whether Jew haters par excellence, such as Hassan Nasrallah, Mahmoud Ahmadinejhad and the Hamas killers have a right to exist.
Owens,
The indigenous population was driven from their homes due to a war which they started. No war, no refugees.
Britain was given the mandate to form a Jewish state by the League of Nations, which did have the right to assign that to Britain. The creation of Israel was no different than the creation of Lebabnon or Syria or Iraq. Did anyone ask the Iraqis if they wanted to be ruled by a king airlifted in from the Arabian peninsula? Or the Jordanians?
The claim that the “palestinians” are paying for the evil done by the Nazis is spurious. The Mandate for Palestine came into effect 20 years before the Holocaust started. It was only British subterfuge and backstabbing that prevented Israel from being formed before the Second World War started. Their responsibility for the destruction of European Jewry is almost as great as the Nazis.
Zee,
I cannot agree with your statement about British culpability for the Holocaust. The Royal Navy prevented some refugees from getting to Palestine by enforcing the White Paper’s denial of immigration, but very few people were involved in that. Some more might have come, had Israel been sovereign at the time, but for the most part the Nazis would have been unwilling to let the Jews out of their clutches.
As for the Arabs of Mandate Palestine, Transjordean was carved off the eastern three-quarters of the Mandate to make an Arab state, with the agreement of the Zionists. One of the conditions was that there be no Jewish settlement east of the Jordan. The Zionists probably thought they were clearing the way for unrestricted Jewish settlement west of the river. Naturally they were betrayed in this.
The Jews agreed to every partition scheme of what was left of the Mandate, even the Peel Plan of 1937 that would have left them with nothing more than Tel Aviv, Haifa, and their suburbs. The invariable Arab response was “NO,kill the Jews.”
If you start a war intending the destruction of a neighboring state and the genocide of its people, as the Arabs did, and lose, as the Arabs did, you may expect to lose some land as a result. You should be thankful you did not lose more than you did. Anyone in doubt about that shoiuld look at the German experience with Silesia and Prussia after 1945. And we should note that the Arabs fled even from places, like Haifa, where Jews were begging them to stay. The Druze stayed and have done well for themselves in Israel. They are far safer there than in any Sunni-dominated country.
When Israel’s enemies say “Peace in the Middle East” they mean the destruction of Israel and the genocide of its Jewish inhabitants. When they whine for “American evenhandedness” they mean we should help them do this. No, nay, never.
If America incures the hatred of genocidal maniacs because we stood in solidarity with the most persecuted people in history and helped them survive the threats against them, that is a point of honor for us. But as trumper noted in #5 anti-Americanism has now morphed into something very like antisemitism. I think they have become two sides of the same coin. America and the Jews; we shall stand or fall together.
Michael B:
I’ll answer your insults point by point.
“…Your expression of pat, facile, pre-packaged contempt misses the mark, not that you were aiming high in the first place…”
If my opinions are pat and pre-packaged, I challenge you to name the packager or prefabricator of the ideas I’m parroting. Please quote somebody whose statements mirror mine. Facility I admit to readily and take for a compliment.
“…sniffing sanctimoniously about an “illiterate prophet in St. Peter’s Square…”
The words of the Hebrew prophets among whom Mohamed counted himself the latest and greatest among equals are part of the world’s greatest literature. They were brilliant poets while Mohamed was illiterate and innumerate. This is an intellectual not a social criticism. . Literacy and numeracy (symbolic expression) are fundamental to abstract thinking. Mohamed’s was a crude and primitive mind.
In any event, “illiterate” is the mildest adjective I can think of to describe the prophet of the Arabs. Mohamed was an amoral savage–a thief, a betrayer a murderer, a rapist and worse.
There is not a single Mosaic commandment the pirate prophet did not transgress. What is sin to a follower of Moses or Jesus is virtue to a follower of Mohamed. Christians and Jews hold the Golden Rule sacred. To a Muslim, the concept of putting yourself in the other guy’s shoes and seeing things from his point of view, is alien, cowardly and contemptible.
“…’Christian rot,’ etc. was expressive of mindless contempt and little more…because present-day Europe can rightly be conceived as post-Christian…”
One of the more amusing conceits of Christianity is that it is the religion that conquered an empire. In fact, Christianity rotted out ancient Rome from within. The new religion corroded and undermined the hard martial values of the demigod race descended from the the hideous war-god Mars and made it vulnerable to its enemies.
The failure of the Caesars to extirpate the poisonous new faith resulted in the internal weakening of the empire to the point where it could no longer resist barbarian pressure from outside. Toward the end, Caesar could no longer muster his legions in sufficient strength to defend the frontiers. Troops desperately needed on the front were continually distracted by peacekeeping duties to quell rioting in the largely Christian cities. Every time the legions were pulled out of the cities for duty at the front, the Christian bishops, who were little more than urban gangsters, would take the opportunity to lead their followers against upstart competitors vying for their holy seats and the legions would have to be called back.
When news of the disastrous final battle reached the cities—Caesar and the legions annihilated by the Goths and a thousand years of empire brought to a close—the bishops in the cities sent up public prayers of thanks and wild celebration broke out among their followers. After a brief period of uncertainty, the followers of the Prophet swept in to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the Roman Empire. The children of the treasonous bishops and their followers who had beaten and bloodied each other in roiling street battles over minor matters of faith, more often than not masking larger issues of political power and wealth, were prostrate on their faces, worshiping Allah and his prophet Mohamed. As do their descendents to this day.
Today, an extensively evolved Roman Catholic Church finds itself in the ironic and uncomfortable position of having inherited the guardianship of western civilization from the great empire it destroyed. The stern and stoic values of the “Pagan” Romans are now its own . And the barbarians are once again at the gates.
Alas, the church has a challenger. A form of godless Christianity called Socialism. Like the fractious Christianity of the early Church, the new secular faith is rotting out and undermining western civilization. And like the Caesars of old, the Pope has lost the loyalty of his people and can no longer marshal a defense.
…“It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures.”)…
History repeats itself but never exactly. A modern pope may imagine himself a “Roman” Catholic leader of the “New Israel” but a genuine Etruscan or Jew would credit neither presumption. The Helios worshiping Caesars and their legions lived up to their stoic polytheistic beliefs and were courageous to the very end. Not so the Church. Its moral cowardice was evidenced by its deafening silence in the face of Nazi atrocities during the last century. Its cowardice is manifest today in its silence about Muslim atrocities.
The Church has had fifteen centuries for “the dialogue of cultures” with the Muslims. Negotiations with those who make a virtue of treachery are an exercise in self-delusion. I suggest the Pope borrow a page from Constantine and begin scouting new digs. There’s an iconoclastic Imam with a sledgehammer and a bucket of whitewash waiting to move in and redecorate the Vatican.
Naftali: Thank you for thoughtful support.
David Levavi,
Still more misspent passion, absent any truer focus and better tempered sense. (And you are aware, are you not, that A. Hitler and Mussolini both invoked Roman paganism and the virtue of power and will in a manner similar to what you’re suggesting? Or that Nietzsche can be credited with at least a small, supportive role in a culturally similar vein?)
Essentially however, I’m not convinced of your prophetic or pagan/oracular voice, or whatever you imagine it to be. Iow, you seem to be much impressed with your ability to prophesy and declaim, absent any argument in support of your inveighment, and that’s why insulting – yet accurate – descriptions such as “mindless,” “pat” and “facile” were used. (As to your quibble about “prepackaged,” I more simply intended that to resonate with “simplistic” and “pat,” not in the sense you imagined.)
However, an acknowledgement. My criticism was somewhat, if only somewhat, misplaced. Perhaps my attention was momentarily arrested by your sneer concerning “Christian rot,” without so much as a hint of what you’re referring to in any coherent sense, much less a more considered argument in support of that summary condemnation. Nonetheless, I now see that you were referring to an imam, rather than the Pope, in mentioning the “illiterate prophet in St. Peter’s Square.” In addition to the “Christian rot” summation you were also prophetically envisioning an imam calling to prayer from St. Peter’s square, additionally still prophesying great masses of converted Christians, so I missed the totality of your prophetic sense and vision. Such a pastiche of prophesy and invective, I admit to becoming confused.
I won’t respond to the entirety, but I will respond to a final item. To indulge an enormous amount of understatement, you rather miss the focus, emphasis and tone of Benedict’s 2006 Regensburg address. In referring to the excerpt at the very end of that address, “[i]t is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures,” what is being invoked is not some stolid, multi-culti sensibility and invitation. Rather, a certain resonance with that logos, and all the depth and breadth and mystery, properly understood, it suggests, is what is being invoked. Benedict is not suggesting his people get in touch with their people so they can brown bag a multi-culti, feel-good discussion over lunch. Neither here nor elsewhere did you respond in a more substantive sense, beyond the modest correction taken note of.
Passion, better reined in, might be helpful, might lend insight, might lend support to a better founded hope and vision. But your own passion is not only incoherent, it is presumptive and cynically dissolute. I do share some of your “concerns,” but I’m more inclined to appreciate and weigh the considerations of decidedly other social commenters and thinkers.
Owens-
“White Christians” in Nazi Germany? Get out your history book and read it again.
Nazi Germany did it’s best to ban christianity. Weddings were to be in front of a state
official, not in a church. By blaming Chrisitans for something they did not do is to guarantee mistrust and dislike of yourself. Perhaps that explains a lot…
“Anti semitism” is the side effect of Jewish historic migration (back in tribal days when such did not smoothly proceed for _any_) and then the consequent revolutionary movements (very destructive) waged by jews against the host societies.
(Revolutionary demagoguery is an instinct the jews have, selected by the pressure of migrating through host culture hostiles. The jews who are still here are the jews who have an insticnt for protectionist bullsh!t and hypocrisy. I don’t expect most to understand that.)
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The target Jews in `pre war Germany were not assimilated (as you wrongly assert): they were Marxist agitators. The non activist German jews were –though less active– still mostly revolutionary Marxist sympathizers and disproportionally the media, banking and law positions. (The host society elites want those limited and influential priest-class jobs.)
Jews with no political attachments nor professional posts were not targeted by the Third Reich until _late war_ (late ’43 and later) –when inevitable defeat was no longer wished away; most German Jews –but not all!– were then interned. They did NOT all die in internment. AND NONE WERE PUT IN OVENS alive (only diseased corpses).
The (anti semitic) “beast has reawakened” because the dumb –slow– goy horde has caught on to the fact that jews were and are disproportionally responsible for the destructive revolutionary forces of feminism, immigration and the collapse of their beloved (though absurd) jesus cult.
(The fact that the jesus cult is a jewish revolution goes over the dumb goy head.)
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BTW many of the commentators here are batsh!t crazy religious nuts.
Anti Semitism is not the side effect of Islam’s war with Israel. But Israel is the side effect of jewish hypocrisy –as are the stubborn –non secular– Hasidic _etc_ jewish cloisters littered throughout the west (surrounded by their jewish instigated and run welfare-state _motes_).
Now rather than denouncing me –and therefore dismissing me– as an “anti semite”, why don’t you all look in the mirror as your way of attempting to figure out the historic “nature” of this situation/problem that way.
…The “nature” of the knee is it does not reflex out if the hammer-thing doesn’t hit it.
Now if the smart jews –very few here at this site (most appear to be non self aware religious /Israel nuts) say that “even if jews were not ‘trouble maker liberal revolutionaries’, the host culture [goyim] would still xenophobic-ally try to expel them anyway”, I’d say you’re probably right (since ancient tribal migration is the true root of the problem). But we’ll never get a chance to test that, since jews seem unable, historically, to stop their ‘natural’ instinct for destructive liberal revolutions and hypocritical ambition and hegemony.
(Note to chritians, “conservatives” and religious/Israel types: spare me and yourself your responses. Seriously, you dunces.)
Michael B:
…Benedict is not suggesting his people get in touch with their people so they can brown bag a multi-culti, feel-good discussion over lunch…
Great logos, my royal arse, Mike. How would you know what Benedict is suggesting? Got a special line to the Vatican? From where I sit, its just more of the old obscurantist bullshit from the usual source.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Benedict cooks incomprehensible word soup for the Michael Bs of the world in need of intellectual comfort food.