A Jewish Professor, An American President, And A Turkish Prime Minister Go Into A Bar…
He is at it again. Actually, they are at it again.
I am talking about the New York Times and their daily—sometimes twice a day—poisonous rants against Israel. And I mean: Day after day, month after month, and year after year until all those who read the Times as if it were their “Bible” (and it truly is) believe that Israel is to blame, Israel must be punished, Israel may have to go.
This time, it is none other than the infamous Professor Tony Judt who has published a four column (15”x 9”) op-ed piece in which he recommends a really “tough love” policy toward Israel. The piece is filled with bias, double standards, inaccuracies, lack of historical context, false moral equivalencies, false even-handedness, etc. Judt reveals his hand only at the end of the piece when he demands that America cut its ties with Israel; “sever the umbilical cord” is how he puts it.
Does he contradict himself? He sure does—but prick him, will he not bleed? Here, in 2010, Judt disingenuously, finally writes that “Israel is a state like any other, long-established and internationally recognized.” In 2003, Judt wrote that he, personally, was willing to give up his right to return to Israel or rather, that he was willing to turn over his (undesirable) right of Jewish return to the Palestinians whose claim of return was a more righteous one. In 2003, Judt also concluded that “the very idea of a ‘Jewish state’—a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded—is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism.”
Excusez-moi: Aren’t Christians and Muslims Israeli citizens too? Doesn’t Israel protect the religious sites and practices of all religions in a way that does not exist in the Arab and Muslim world? But I quibble. Judt is with Helen Thomas. He believes that Jews should go back to where they came from: Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Drancy, Kiev, etc.
Many will say: Judt himself is Jewish, thus his piece cannot be anti-Semitic.
Oh yes it can. If women can be sexists and we are, we are; we have internalized sexist values just as men have—read my book Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman to understand the phenomenon; if dark-skinned people can be racists and they can be; they, too have internalized preferences either for light-skinned or for dark-skinned people; then surely, Jews, an imperfect “perfect” people can internalize anti-Semitism/Judeophobia.
Just last night in New York City, a Jewish man, Brooklyn-born Adam Shapiro, who is the founder of Free Gaza and the co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement—the very man who, in 2002, stayed with Arafat in Ramallah when he was under seige, spoke in favor of the Turkish “Free Gaza” Flotilla movement; no, he did not factor in the Turkish terrorist mercenaries on board who planned to—and who did—violently and viciously attack the Israeli soldiers. Why would he? Shapiro favors a “violent resistance” to Israel and has written that the demolition of Palestinian homes and the closure of offices servicing Palestinians reminds him of Kristallnacht.
And today, I’ve just read that German Jews (yes, you’ve read that correctly) will be funding a flotilla-like ride to Gaza as well in order to break the Israeli blockade. The German Jews believe that Israel is withholding “candy and children’s food” from Palestinian children.
Finally, this past week, three very different kinds of Israeli Jewish feminists came to see me. Each one came to lobby me for a woman’s rights agenda but they “laid out their wares” with no apparent awareness of the existential danger which Israel now faces. Yes, I am entirely sympathetic to their goals but their blithe, almost cult-like inability or refusal to convey an awareness of a doubled reality, truly unnerved me. When I dared raise this other, perhaps more historically demanding reality, one feminist immediately, softly, gravely, agreed with me. Two others turned on me as a dangerous “right winger.”
The Jews indeed have troubles.
But now back to our other sorrows.
Is the New York Times working for the White House? Possibly, yes. Today, in the same issue that carries Judt’s piece, another article shows President Obama in a grave and thoughtful pose (modeled after The Thinker), sitting with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. Obama has pledged new aid (400 million) for Gaza and the West Bank, and is urging Israel to “loosen its blockade.” One wonders who will administer the aid specifically earmarked for Gaza. Abbas certainly cannot do so.
And by the way, see Pierre Rehov’s new video at YouTube with photos of Gaza…splendid villas, private horseback riding lessons, plentiful produce, laughter at the beach (where women are fully covered from head to toe–even in the sea); above all, see the deliveries of ten tons of food weekly from Israel into Gaza. Why, exactly, is Obama sending taxpayers’ hard-earned money to Gaza?
Has President Obama been on the phone with Judt lately? I ask, because yesterday, quietly, oh so quietly (at least as far as the mainstream American media is concerned), Obama pulled both the money and the American engineers out of Egypt. According to Debka’s military files:
“After eight months of back-breaking work, the American military engineers helping Egypt build a steel anti-smuggling wall along the strategic Philadelphi Route dividing Gaza from Sinai were suddenly recalled–signaling the collapse of Egypt’s blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Washington thus abandoned its half-a-billion dollar investment in the joint Egyptian-Israeli siege project…What Biden is proposing now is to virtually abandon US and Egyptian attempts to block the arms smuggling tunnels altogether – a proposal, Debkafile’s military sources predict, will bring to an end the Israel-Egyptian blockade of Gaza and allow Hamas to resume its unfettered arms imports through those tunnels.”
So much for protecting Israel from Hezbollah and Hamas, and so much for allowing Israel to protect herself.
President Obama is busy on another front as well. He is busy falling all over himself for Turkish Prime Minister’s Erdogan’s “Israel card” play.
Erdogan is ready to go to war with Israel because the IDF killed nine paid Turkish mercenaries in self-defense and in battle? Erdogan calls this “a bloody massacre.” Erdogan—the man who continues to deny the Turkish genocide of Armenians and who only last year defended Sudanese President al-Bashir who has been indicted “by the International Criminal Court as a war criminal for killing half a million Sudanese Christians and non-Arab Muslims.” Steven J. Rosen, in today’s Wall Street Journal, concludes that Erdogan is already planning his re-election campaign; that (indoctrinated) Turkish opinion is strongly against Israel, the West, and America; and that “the flotilla incident demonstrates that igniting this tinderbox of hostility towards Israel.. does not take much of a spark.”
——————————————————————————————————————————————
Please subscribe to my mailing list at http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/list_subscribe.php
With regards to Judt and other Jews who hope to break the blockade– this is nothing new. Their attitude is not Antisemitic, but self-serving. Their hope is that by demonizing the Jewish state, the radical Islamists will leave them alone. Or at least kill them last.
Craven selfishness. That’s all it is.
P.S.
Withholding “candy and children’s food”? Really? They actually believe that pathetic lie? Expect claims of drinking Palestinian blood next. That’s the next “logical” hysteria.
One wonders how much influence Carlos Slim is now having on New York Times editorial policy. Slim was an honored guest at the WH State Dinner for Mexico’s Calderon. Slim is of Lebanese Christian descent.
Bad enough to give Judt THAT voice on the op-ed page, but the NYT is way out beyond left field in how they are covering what is wrong with Turkey. The WSJ is the best antidote.
May the WSJ win it’s battle with the NYT for both the online readers and metro subscribers.
Amalekites are very chameleon-like. Shouldn’t we have known this all along?
the nytimes is such a peculiar rag and so anti-semitic that when i see Israel in a headline,i know immediately not to read the text. for the most part, it is true for readers “comments” as if they have all come out of the same sausage machine.
it is hard to imagine what the jews like judt who write these reality-denying screeds are all about. do they really think you can appease or reason with people who want you dead. it must be, they opine, that jews do something “wrong’. this is classic abuse syndrome featuring their victim mentality. yeccch. that goes for beinart and klein as well as judt.
as for erdogan, a true madman in the style of the midget in iran, spitting on him would be the appropriate response. he loaded a ship with al queda murderers and sent it to israel to kill jews. obama’s inappropriate response was to suggest that turkey be part of the “investigation” of the flotilla.
obama is aching, apparently, to lick the a$$ of hamas knowing full well that monies will be not only stolen by abbas but sucked into hamas to buy weapons.
obama is a sick, sad charlatan. he does not relate to Americans or America or our ideals or our needs. he does relate to every thug and despot. in any case he isn’t fooling anyone. but it is the mark of the charlatan to imagine others as fools.
he and abbas can yell into the abyss with their proclomations.
israel isn’t going anywhere. obama is.
Good grief Phyllis can’t you write on anything else but feminism and Israel?
She has in the past. No doubt she can. Is her current emphasis a problem for you? Why?
Again these are dark days for Beit Yisrael, but we have been through worse, far worse with far more loathesome enemies. Today Beit Yisrael is far stronger and better prepared to defend herself than ever before in our long and illustrious history.
Those perfidious Jews who deny Israel or who side with our enemies are nothing more than mongrels barking in vain as Beit Yisrael goes from strength to strength.
You know, Dr. Chesler, in the U.S. one has to wade through so much B.S. on this subject that it’s impossible to see the forest for the trees. I *try* I really do… not to take sides:
http://syd4.blogspot.com/2010/06/not-taking-sides-in-israeli-gaza-matter.html
But, then… I begin to notice that the same “Progressive” and “Liberal” folks who want me believe their anti- Israel rants… also want me to shut the eff up. Cuz, you know… us women don’t deserve to be heard here in the US either.
So here’s the deal. I have long trusted your assessment of the state of Feminism. I have that to go on at least. So I am gonna have to cast caution to the wind and throw my hat in your ring on this one too.
I hope that you prove to be as good at evaluating the plight of Jews as you are that of women.
Thanks for all you do.
The New York Times is a rag; I would never consider reading it. Now that the administration is going to “reinvent” journalism and invoke the “fairness” doctrine and get control over the internet, we can rest assured that the lies will become truth and 1984 will have arrived just a little bit late. We can take courage in the fact that “good” will win in the end.
It’s not just “bias”, it is Psychological Warfare being waged against the American people and Israel. Who ARE these “journalists” and where did they come from??
Are they merely a product of University Journalism programs that were long ago taken over by Marxists on the hard left? Or is there a hidden hand buying up media outlets and putting in charge those who will do their bidding and carry out their PsyWar goals?
I hope some courageous investigator might be able to trace, person by person, year by year, the progression of the New York Times from a democratic leaning newspaper to Goebbel’s like trumpet for evil.
It would also be important to trace who owns the paper or the media conglomerate behind it. What is their history?
It would be very revealing. In the meantime, it is so utterly important that all Americans understand their daily newspaper and local TV stations are lying to their face in spectacular fashion…deliberately manipulating their view of the world to support a specific, destructive agenda.
Indigo
Go back to reading your children’s books and comics. You obviously don’t have the capacity to analyze anything more substantial. If you had a fraction of Phyllis’ brain you would never remark the way you have. Why are you even bothering to read her enlightened words when you have formed a biased opinion about her writing before even reading it with intelligence? You are obviously as anti-semitic as those she’s writing about. Just you wait Mr. Higgins. If Israel falls, so do you!
It is certainly correct to say that Israel protects the religious sites and practices of all religions. What would happen if Muslims ruled the Temple Mount? Rival groups would blow up al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock and kill the worshippers there, just as they did in Iraq and elsewhere.
Ms. Chesler, I so value your contributions to the support of Israel and the Jews, but I cringe whenever you answer a charge from people like Tony Judt with countervailing facts. He is a an accomplished historian with an excellent mind, so when he lies, it is full of purpose.
The proper response to any attack by Dr. Judt is, “Had you been a slave in Egypt, you would not have been redeemed.” For the uninitiated this is the response given to the “wicked son” in the Hagadah (the document read at the Passover seder). Set his teeth on edge so it is clear to him that it is not just his rejection of his heritage, but our rejection of his position.
Phyllis,
I am appalled with this. I thought Hindus who call for secularism are stupid, I am surprised the trait does not belong to Hindus alone. How come truth is so rare these days, I wonder. Are we really getting to the end of the World, the one per Mayan’s calendar?
Regards,
Satya
Tony Judt – Judas – KAPO. Same thing – anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, pro-genocide.
NY Times. Phyllis substitute the words “South Vietnam” for “Israel and you can see what we’ve been talking about since the 1960′s. And look at South Vietnam today – a fancy gulag and a nationwide graveyard, like neighboring Cambodia and Laos.
Don’t worry about people like Adama Shapiro. His following is a small band of marxists, arabist, anti-semites and jihadists. Nothing new. However, we should treat him as the “Jane Fonda” of American Jews. “Should” I say because there is so much competition for that coveted spot in treasonville.
Israel should declare the ISM as ‘terrorist’ organization and treat its members according.
NYT-run by a bunch of self-hating Jews and “Punch” Sulzberger, an avowed communist sympathizer (he wanted the VC to win in Vietnam).
Those three German-Jews who are going to try and run the blockade. Reminds me of George Soros and his KAPO roll in Hungary. Let’s label them as such. No more “activists”, “peace activists”, “militants”, “humanitarians” BS.
If we do not properly identify our enemies, be they domestic or foreign, how are we going to know who to fight for our survival?
The Israeli govt is going to have to deal with them since our Attorney General Eric Holder prefers terrorists over loyal Americans. It’s in his public record from the Weathermen/May 19th Communist Organization, the Puerto Rican/Cuban trained FALN, and now the New Black Panther Party led by a psychopath from Howard Un. Law School.
Time to take off the kid gloves and put on an iron-mail fist and use it.
I am truly concerned about the uninformed, biased and populistic attitudes of the multitude of so called intellectuals, Jewish or not
Somehow, simplistic solutions to complicated problems are the answer of the day – “force Israel’s hand and peace will reign in the world.”
Does anyone know how many millions of dollars were poured into Gaza from the West – where was it spent???Certainly not in taking care of its habitants who are kept in squalor as a way of making the world feel guilty and keeping the United Nations employed.
Breaking the embargo on Gaza has turned into a catch phrase slogan!!!!
Noone seems to delve a little deeper into the Turkish(plus Iranian) upsurge of recent power and overinvolvement in the flotilla escapade. Turkey was rejected by the European Union for rascist reasons. The Europeans did not want a Muslim invasion on their soil and destroying their way of life. The Turks have now turned their backs on the West, joined the Arabic/Muslim front and are revenging themselves on all that is Western – “first we take Israel, then we take the West” The West cannot abide or contain their own rascist feelings so they ameliorate their guilt and calm themseves down by siding with the perceived noble Muslim cause – “destroy Israel” – no matter how jihadist it may be.
There is a much simpler solution to Gaza – recognize Israel and make peace!!!
The NYT has been on the wrong side of history for a very very very long time. They are disturbingly, eerily consistent in that way.
Our would-be post-American president, Barry “Red Hussein” Sotoero is solidly against America and Israel in all matters concerning the confrontation between the civilized world and the mohammedan block.
And it is not just Israel. Have we seen anything we can respect on Sudan? Iran? Nigeria? India? Thailand? ANYWHERE ?!?!?!
Neither is it only about mohammedan matters. Have we seen any action on behalf of South Korea? The Israelis with every possible right killed 9 blockade runners, and Red Hussein is issuing statements, dispatching the State Dept. and kissing up to the Turks. The NorKs just killed 45 perfectly innocent South Korean sailors in their own waters, sank their ship, and all we hear from DC is crickets.
We were scheduled to supply Japan with advanced fighter jets. Killing that program was one of Red’s first acts.
Admittedly, Red may be more directly hostile toward Israel than toward Korea or Japan or Taiwan or Poland. But he will not be watching out for any of America’s smaller friends — at least not those that are actually friends.
So far as P. Chesler’s scholarly arguments are concerned, she must have the discipline, patience and forbearance of a saint.
We are undeservedly lucky in that way.
It all comes down to Mr. Obama. Recent anti-Israeli sentiment is exacerbated manifold by the Obama administration.
The anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli, American liberal Jews are a pitiful bunch, traitors to their own race and heritage. They are Harakiri-people. Verily the label Kapos apply to them. Funktionshäftling, or the prisoner that represented the others, often ended up being more Nazi than the SS. Funktionshäftling Chomsky, Finkelstein, Judt.
As for the “German Jews” and a new flotilla, no surprise here. If Hitler’s policy would have excluded anti-Semitism, German Jews (Jekke Jews) would have been the greatest SSs (as Soviet Jews were often the greatest executioners for Stalin). Just using the thoughts of one of your group, the great Eric Hoffer, who stated that Jews flocked to all mass movements, like the Obama-Acorn-Garbage movement.
It all comes down to Obama, an African-American that he is not, part Indonesian in upbringing, semi-Muslim in the closet, a hater of America’s exceptionalism.
And of course, the lobotomized whites who voted for him (black were expected, Latinos – except Cuban-Americans – also). The culture of the couch-potato and the TV, of the Reader Digest, the Hippies, and the wishful thinking.
A couple days ago, at Bugojno (Bosnia), a Wahhabi attacked a police station in reaction to attempts to restrict wearing of the Burqa. One policeman was killed and more wounded. This happened in that “western-leaning” Islamic Bosnia where tens of thousand of Muslim were allegedly raped by evil Serbs. This can be googled.