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Jews against zionism (JAZ) picket at Socialist Workers Party Bookshop
Anti-Zionist blog - browsing the media
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Now that's what I call JAZ
Here's the open letter of Jews against Zionism to all true anti-zionists to picket the SWP's Bookmarks bookshop tomorrow night - 17/6/2005 - and demonstrate that anti-semitism and anti-zionism are two very different things, in fact they are opposites.
Dear Comrades,
As many of you know, Jews Against Zionism (JAZ) are organising a picket of Bookmarks this Friday 17th June @ 5.45 p.m at 1 Bloomsbury Street in protest at the decision of a socialist bookshop to stage a talk by Gilad Atzmon.
Mr Atzmon may be a good jazz player, but his political views cannot be described as anything other than deeply racist and anti-Semitic. We are appalled that the SWP leadership have seen fit to persist with this invitation when we and others have pointed out to them that:
Mr Atzmon has distributed Holocaust Denial literature by Paul Eisen (‘The Holocaust Wars’) which clearly supports the view that there was no deliberate extermination of the Jews or anyone else by the Nazis.
His openly stated support for all the trappings of the world Jewish conspiracy theories.
We believe that it is important that those who support the Palestinians and who are opposed to the racism of Zionism and the Israeli State are also seen to be opposing anti-Semitism. Unlike the Zionists we see no contradiction between the two.
We would therefore urge all those who can to attend the picket.
Below are some of the more choice extracts from Gilad Atzmon’s own web site.
Fraternally,
Sue Blackwell, Angela Dale, Mark Elf, Tony Greenstein, Deborah Maccoby, Moshe Machover, Roland Rance, Inbar Tamari
(Bloomsbury Street runs of the side of the British Museum and Great Russell Street – nearest tube Tottenham Court Road).
The Writings of Gilad Atzmon [http://www.gilad.co.uk/]
"we must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously…. They (Zionists) are especially annoyed when they are blamed for the death of Jesus…. … American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the elder of Zion' are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy… I would suggest that perhaps we should face it once and for all: the Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus who, by the way, was himself a Palestinian Jew.’".’’ On Anti-Semitism
‘Now, it looks as if Zionist lobbies control American foreign politics. After so many years of independence, the United States of America is becoming a remote colony of an apparently far greater state, the Jewish state…. Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Verse 2)
"The J’s are the ultimate chameleons, they can be whatever they like as long as it serves as some expedient…. Occasionally it looks as if they are almost there, you can see them running the show, running American political life, running American show business, running the "new middle East", running the Communist revolution but then, as it appears, something always goes wrong." The J word, the J people and the J spot
If only the SWP would listen to our kind of JAZ instead of Gilad Atzmon's.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Now that's what I call JAZ
Here's the open letter of Jews against Zionism to all true anti-zionists to picket the SWP's Bookmarks bookshop tomorrow night - 17/6/2005 - and demonstrate that anti-semitism and anti-zionism are two very different things, in fact they are opposites.
Dear Comrades,
As many of you know, Jews Against Zionism (JAZ) are organising a picket of Bookmarks this Friday 17th June @ 5.45 p.m at 1 Bloomsbury Street in protest at the decision of a socialist bookshop to stage a talk by Gilad Atzmon.
Mr Atzmon may be a good jazz player, but his political views cannot be described as anything other than deeply racist and anti-Semitic. We are appalled that the SWP leadership have seen fit to persist with this invitation when we and others have pointed out to them that:
Mr Atzmon has distributed Holocaust Denial literature by Paul Eisen (‘The Holocaust Wars’) which clearly supports the view that there was no deliberate extermination of the Jews or anyone else by the Nazis.
His openly stated support for all the trappings of the world Jewish conspiracy theories.
We believe that it is important that those who support the Palestinians and who are opposed to the racism of Zionism and the Israeli State are also seen to be opposing anti-Semitism. Unlike the Zionists we see no contradiction between the two.
We would therefore urge all those who can to attend the picket.
Below are some of the more choice extracts from Gilad Atzmon’s own web site.
Fraternally,
Sue Blackwell, Angela Dale, Mark Elf, Tony Greenstein, Deborah Maccoby, Moshe Machover, Roland Rance, Inbar Tamari
(Bloomsbury Street runs of the side of the British Museum and Great Russell Street – nearest tube Tottenham Court Road).
The Writings of Gilad Atzmon [http://www.gilad.co.uk/]
"we must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously…. They (Zionists) are especially annoyed when they are blamed for the death of Jesus…. … American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the elder of Zion' are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy… I would suggest that perhaps we should face it once and for all: the Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus who, by the way, was himself a Palestinian Jew.’".’’ On Anti-Semitism
‘Now, it looks as if Zionist lobbies control American foreign politics. After so many years of independence, the United States of America is becoming a remote colony of an apparently far greater state, the Jewish state…. Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Verse 2)
"The J’s are the ultimate chameleons, they can be whatever they like as long as it serves as some expedient…. Occasionally it looks as if they are almost there, you can see them running the show, running American political life, running American show business, running the "new middle East", running the Communist revolution but then, as it appears, something always goes wrong." The J word, the J people and the J spot
If only the SWP would listen to our kind of JAZ instead of Gilad Atzmon's.
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The fact that so much of the anti-Israel stuff comes from genuine jew-haters (hamas, antisemites like israel shamir, etc.) only serves to prove the ariel sharons of the world correct.
You see, because ONLY AN ANTI-SEMITE would care about millions of an inferior non-European swarthy and darkie people -- vermin to be eventually stamped out in our final solution yet to come -- being oppressed by superior Zionist Jews -- the *Chosen* People -- the Light Unto the World!!
As I said a few years back about the int'l conference on racism in Durbin, South Africa, "What can a people [Africans] who descended from trees teach us Jews about civilization?"
Gilad Alzmon is an antisemite for his insane antisemitic rantings about Jews, judaism, etc., not because he cares about the palestinians.
It's worth pointing out that one of the letter's signatories, Sue Blackwell, was one of the two academics who were the guiding forces in the British AUT's over-before-it-began boycott of two Israeli universities. If folks as stridenly and actively anti-Israel as Sue Blackwell call Atzmon an antisemite -- and if celebrating Atzmon is left to antisemites like nessie -- then that should give you a clue what Atzmon is like.
If you visit Sue's page at http://www.sue.be/pal, you'll see that she puts Atzmon in the same section as Wehrmacht Wendy Campbell, "anti-Zionist" antisemites.
@%<
This is fairly cut and dry.
He's an antisemitic scumbag.
Here is his site: http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/politics.html
About half of his articles spew anti-judaism, anti-jews, and blatantly antisemitic garbage.
He may be good at jazz, but he is a bigot, and about as intelligent as a sack of cow dung.
It is no more anti-Semitic for a Jew to be against Judaism than it is anti-Japanese for a Japanese person to be against Shinto.
>anti-jews
If a Jew cannot criticize Jews, who can?
And even if he was, that does not give him license to spew antisemitic anti-judaism hate shit and rant about jewish conspiracy theories and try to promote hatred and distrust of jews collectively, as he does.
He's an antisemite.
That's why gilad loves israel shamir so much, he's another fake jew who spews antisemitic shit
This does sound bad, but before everyone jumps all over the SWP they should probably realize that the story doesnt even make clear which SWP its talking about (its not San Francisco). I'm guessing this is a story about the UK? Since the invitation was most likley local it would be worth knowing which city this it about, who invited this guy etc...
Analysis, The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, May 18th, 2005
Every day in Palestine, entire villages actively protest against the Apartheid Wall and the Occupation that has stolen their land, demolished their houses and imprisoned them in ghettos of poverty and oppression. They demand that the Wall and the Apartheid infrastructure of Jewish-only bypass roads, military zones and settlements are torn down. Not "modified" or made more “tolerable," but dismantled entirely, a demand that is supported in international law, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and a number of UN resolutions. However, the complicity of the international community in the crimes of the Occupation is impossible to hide.
Against a reality where children participating in demonstrations are shot dead simply for defending their own right to exist, it seems absurd to talk about ‘development’ without first addressing the racist, colonial Occupation that perpetrates such destruction. Yet the prevailing discourse of economic “development” for Palestine chooses not to challenge this reality, but actively embrace it. Far from confronting the Occupation’s existence, it seeks to sustain it and the total Israeli control over Palestinian life.
The guiding document in this respect is the World Bank’s latest report on Palestine: Stagnation or Revival? Israeli Disengagement and Palestinian Economic Prospects. It outlines the mutual interest of global capital and the Zionist occupation, vigorously promoting a vision of “economic development” that legitimizes, relies on and provides financial support for the long-term Apartheid system on which the Zionist project of expulsion is based.
The very framing of World Bank policy is rooted in its explicit support for the parameters set out by Israel’s “disengagement plan” – a warped term that in reality means increased Israeli engagement in its control over Palestine through the finalization of the Apartheid Wall and connected measures of land grab and ghettoization. The Bank describes the "disengagement" as providing Palestinians with a “significant amount of land” and an ideal environment for development. In fact, Gaza will be totally imprisoned, surrounded by a second eight metre high iron wall, with all borders, coastline and airspace controlled by the occupying power. In the West Bank, just four tiny settlements are being disbanded, while simultaneously 46% of the West Bank is annexed through the Apartheid Wall and infrastructure, which is facilitating the expansion of settlements such as Ma’ale Adumim and the Gush Etzion bloc.
Against the ICJ’s instructions to the international community “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by (the Wall's) construction,” the Bank formulates its entire plan around “borders” of the Palestinian prison-state as defined by the illegal Apartheid Wall. It accepts that settlements, military zones and any “areas in which Israel has a vested interest” will remain under Israeli domination. The Wall annexes the Palestinian capital of Jerusalem to Israel, and so the Bank follows suit and removes Jerusalem from its plans.
While Palestinians are imprisoned, facing continued denial of their rights and aspirations, the Bank portrays a golden economic opportunity of a cheap, controlled labour force. The Bank’s blueprint for a new export-based economy, subservient to the strategic needs of Israel and global capital - with Israeli/foreign investment creaming off the profits - merges with the Occupation’s destruction of Palestinian farmland and local markets. Indeed, the Bank's reports hardly refer to agriculture at all, traditionally the core sector of the Palestinian economy. Instead, imposing Israeli-run industrial zones, military checkpoints and Jewish-only road systems onto the West Bank are policies that reflect the Bank’s overall strategy for a Do-It-Yourself Apartheid Guide for the 21st century.
As with any other “Third World” population that the World Bank subjugates into the global economy, the role assigned to the Palestinian people is simple: to cheaply produce goods for export to wealthier countries, strengthening economic dependency on global capitalist systems. The Bank insists that Palestinians must not only be willing to accept brutal military occupation, dispossession and expulsion, but must also sustain their oppressor's economy through primary goods and industrial output. Furthermore, walled-in Palestinians are marked as a captive audience, forced into a system of dependency upon the Occupation for even the most basic needs. Israel has drained Palestine of her natural resources, stealing around 80% of Palestinian natural water outputs on an annual basis. Now, in Gaza, the Bank states Palestinians who have been robbed of their water for decades should enter into trade agreements with Israel whereby they can buy back – “at Israeli commercial rates” – the same water stolen by the Occupation.
The convergence between Zionist actions and World Bank economics is clear, with international investment transforming the destruction and dispossession caused by the Israeli colonization policies into the Bank’s new showcase project: a series of massive Israeli industrial estates built on annexed Palestinian land. The so-called Tulkarem Peace Park, for example, is to be built on farmland stolen from the village of Irtah; land that sustained 50 families for generations and formed an integral part of community and family life. Now their only source of employment will be as an exploited worker on an Israeli industrial estate surrounded by walls, checkpoints and prison gates.
The World Bank ignores the inherent illegality of such estates and instead celebrates that they will employ cheap labour "with a minimum of red tape," i.e. the absence of trade unions, health regulations and other worker's rights. Israel’s most toxic and environmentally destructive forms of industry will be transferred to the West Bank, where Palestinians work for around a quarter of the wages in Israel (though even this is still too high in the opinion of the Bank's reports). They may try and dress these sweatshops up as liberation and independence, but they represent nothing more than a devastating system of racial capital not seen since the days of Apartheid South Africa.
Such plans demand that goods and limited numbers of Palestinians are "allowed" to move within their own land, between the isolated ghettos carved out by the Wall and the Apartheid network of Israeli-only roads. High-tech military gates and checkpoints are proposed, through which Palestinians can be herded and controlled. What the Bank terms "alternative transportation systems," including walled roads and tunnels that can be opened and closed at the whim of Israel, will provide a transfer system for the imprisoned Palestinian population, enabling movement between ghettos without access to the land around them.
In order to circumvent international law and whitewash their crimes, the World Bank and Israel have created another euphemism behind which to hide their own interests: “for the benefit of Palestinians.” The Bank justifies its collusion with the Zionist project by claiming that financing the same Occupation checkpoints which have imprisoned Palestinians and meted out daily humiliation and violence for years, in fact serve the needs of Palestinians. The US has already provided Israel with $50 million to construct these prison gates; the French government has followed suit offering $120 million to Israel, “for the benefit of the Palestinian families in Gaza,” so that the Occupation can modernize checkpoints. Included among the "modern" systems utilized by the Occupation are naked spy machines which take photographs penetrating through clothes. As well as being demeaning and degrading, many experts believe the radiation involved will cause serious long-term health problems. That governments are claiming to help Palestinians by giving money to the regime at the very root of Palestinian suffering is not only preposterous but shows their denial of any Palestinian right to self-determination.
Such support is making the World Bank an increasingly powerful player in Palestine. Outgoing President James Wolfensohn has been named as international coordinator of the “disengagement process” and has already stated that his work will be based upon World Bank policy; a policy which does not consider the Apartheid Wall, Israeli occupation and colonization, or Israel's innumerous breaches of international law to be of concern. Nor is it just the World Bank. The acceptance of Israeli crimes is influencing NGOs at all levels, in projects that seek merely to adapt to the Wall and the Occupation rather than work for its removal, which must be the first and foremost priority. Any genuine form of development can only come when the Wall and settlements are dismantled, the Occupation ended and a truly independent and sovereign Palestinian state is established. One wonders what kind of dream world the World Bank and the Zionists are living in if they believe that Palestinians will simply sit back and accept this annihilation of their past, present and future.
In the reality that is slowly being shaped on the ground, the role assigned to the Palestinian Authority is that of prison guard, preventing the Palestinian people from defending their lands and rights in the interest of creating "an attractive environment for investors." Acting in the name of the Palestinian people means that it is necessary for the Palestinian Authority and civil society to stand up against these projects - not by “modifying” or “only partially backing” them but by completely refusing and opposing them.
Palestinians are not looking for economic models of subservience, or ways in which to make the Wall and the Occupation more “bearable.” Palestinians want genuine liberation. That this is ignored by the World Bank is not accidental. It reflects the Bank’s conscious choice to support the needs and vision of the Occupation. That vision is the expulsion and ghettoization of the Palestinian people and in this crime the World Bank is a more than willing accomplice.
The partnership between Israel and the World Bank highlights the extent to which international support sustains the Occupation. Without the $5 billion of annual US aid, the World Bank investment and the contributions of countless governments, corporations and organizations, the Zionist project is simply not sustainable. Individuals and civil society the world over have the responsibility of building a movement to pressure and isolate Apartheid Israel while supporting the Palestinian struggle for justice and liberation.
Gehrig is getting desperate. He can't refute the undeniably true substance of what I say, so he has taken to calling me names, over and over and over. That's a sure sign of desperation.
He's also lying through his teeth. I have *never* said, "Hate every Jew in America." I have never said, "Hate Jews." Were this not the case, he would cite URLs from SF-IMC, sfbg.com, or my website at Transbay, where you can be sure it was actually me who said it, and not the Zionist propaganda mill impersonating me yet again. But he does not, because there *is* no such URL.
What I do say, is that the *only *righteous course of action is to hate every racist, not just the Zionists and not just in America. Of the Zionists in America, only a few million are Jews. Scores of millions are at least nominal Christians. Most are even actually sincere, devout Christians who honestly believe that their support of Israel is in accordance with scripture and is pleasing to God. Like the Israelis, they're pawns of the handful of Zionists who have real power, almost none of whom are Jews. Those Zionists with real power worship, not God, but Mammon. Israel is their military base. Israeli soldiers are their cannon fodder. Israeli civilians are their human shields.
To choose whom to hate and whom not to hate, on the basis of their ethnicity, is racist by definition. To hate all racists except the ones who happen to be Jewish is racist. To hate all racists except Zionists (of whatever ethnicity or religion) is not anti-racist at all. It is as racist as Zionism itself.
Zionism is racism for precisely the reason, and in precisely the same way, that Nazism is racism. A racist is a racist is a racist. Which race is irrelevant. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is lying.
Gilad is obviously a jew-hating freak. This much is obvious simply by reading his stupid editorials.
Israel-hating leftists here and in real life who see the garbage and the hate he produces, if they were true anti-racists, would reject him.
Instead, they accept him.
Israel-hating leftists seem ready and willing to ignore all antisemitism as long as the people behind it demonize Israel.
The Left is proving that a huge portion of the anti-israel stuff is really just antisemitic stuff disguised as "valid" political views.
And the idiotic rantings above that zionism (jews needing a homeland after being thrown around the world for 2500 years in a row) is the same as nazism (supremecist lunatics trying to develop a master race while waging war of takeover over the entire continent, while gathering up those they don't like and extermating them by the millions) is insane and just goes to show that the loudest anti-israel scum, one by one, always turn out to be antisemites.
I think israel is run by friggin assholes (like most countries), but I side with them LONG before I side iwth the FAKE CLOSET NAZI LEFTISTS that seem to run most of the world's peace movements
The other post above with the link to peace in Palestine is to an idiot named Mary Rizzo, who defends Gilad the nutjob. Alexander Cockburn unfortunately posted her nonsense on his counterpunch sight. Sad to the left playing footsy with such anti-seemites
The topic is antisemitism from gilad alzmon and how many pro-palestinian anti-israel "peace activists" are not actually interested in peace and only interested in spreading hate of jews in general AND israel in particular.
And palestinian actions towards israel basically adds up to tens of thousands of terrorist attacks/attempts over the last few decades. That's pretty nice, right?
Of course they resist. Wouldn't you? Can you tell us with a straight face that if you were among the many, many victims of Zionism, that you would not resist?
If the SWP is embracing scum like Galloway, then their embracing scum like Atzmon should come as no surprise.
By your reasoning the slaves should have never been freed in this country, and school children in Iraq should all be executed. How do you sleep at night? Are you a fascist rapist?
Why don't you put down your fascist books and read "A people's history of America" by Howard Zinn. You might learn something.
You are nothing but a fascist racist imperialist.
No sure where you get that from. The main people I see screamuing about anti-Semitism in the anti-war movement are Freepers and other mainly nonJewish right-wingers who were probably indirectly told to do this by Rove in order to get the Republicans a slightly larger percentage of the Jewish vote.
I'm Jewish and so are about half the antiwar activists in the Bay Area I know. Suddenly we have Protest Warriors and others who normally would be telling us we are going to hell for not accepting Jesus, lecturing us on how the peace movement is antiSemitic because of isolated cases of anti-war activists who were possibly antiSemitic in other countries? Have I seen crazy people ocassionally say things that are antiSemitic at protests with 100,000+ people... sure (there is also a guy who yells about UFOs but Ive never heard any accusations that all peace activists are UFO conspiracy theorists because of that one crazy person). I used to live a a solidly Republican pro-war area and we had to deal with right-wing neonazis firebombing the local synagogue. I couple of crazies with conspiracy theories doesnt make me very afraid (especially in a pretty solidly Jewish area like the Bay Area). A President using Jesus to get into office and the right-wing tendency to equate being Jewish with supporting Sharon makes me afraid. Local communities that think the US is a Christain country and that anyone who opposes war and doesnt go to Church is a traitor makes me afraid.
As for the English SWP and Galloway, the posts above are pretty mistaken. Galloway used to be in the Labor party and the SWP supported Respect but Galloway wasnt in the SWP as far as I know (if he had been he would have been in the Scottish Socialist Party since thats who the SWP supports in Scotland).
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway
The SWP has a rather interesting history but have been major leaders in antiNeoNazi activism in Britain (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_%28UK%29#The_ANL ) While its convenient to take an out of context article about one person speaking at one SWP bookstore to tar and feather all "peace activists" as being antiSemitic, the SWP has many Jewish members and does a lot to fight against antiSemitism and neoNazis.
As expected, almost every indymedia response, when faced with someone like gilad who posts anti-judaism and anti-jew articles on his crappy website, is either in support of him, or in defiance of antisemitic charges even when the antisemitism is obvious and out in the open.
Indymedia and the left is now a real haven for jew-hating scumbags.
The ultra-left is now as hateful of jews as the ultra-right, unfortunately.
I guess it's true, normal, good people are somewhere in teh middle.
James Black responds: Yet since you're an indymedia poster and a leftist, I'm sure you will follow that statement with some sort of distraction/disclaimer.
Someone above said: unfortunately almost every time anyone brings it up as a problem the aim is not one of reducing antiSemitism but making some political point on an almost unrelated topic.
James Black responds: Yup, there it is. Instead of just outright denoucning antisemitism, the indymedia leftist just changes the subject to somehow blame the people pointing out the antisemitism.
Someone above said: As you can see from the discussion above someone like James Black doesnt really want to work to reduce antiSemitism and is happy that he can find cases of antiSemitism by "peace activists" since this allows antiSemitism to be used as a tool to promote a right-wing agenda.
James Black responds: You are an idiot. I'm not trying to promote any agenda other than to point out bigots and exclude them from peace movements. But I am barely able to find anyone to agree with me on this here.
In an intelligent world, the responses would just be "Yes, gilad is obviously an antisemite or a bigot" and he'd be separated from peace movements, but in the world of the pro-palestinian anti-israel crap, gilad gets embraced, and there's just as much MOCKING of antisemitism as there is condemning of it.
So why don't you pack up your hate culture and take a hike!
(And in response to this, some antisemitic israel-hater will probably say something like "dragons don't even exist, look at the zionists, making up fantasycreatures" or some shit.)
WRRRONNNG.
Maybe most Jews in the U.S. are (to varying degrees, and many only because they think, or were told, that they're *supposed* to be Zionist because they're Jewish -- like someone who is religiously Catholic because their parents and surrounding society *told* them to be, not because they reached some intellectually independent logical analytical decision to become Catholic) . Almost all Jews in Israel are, indeed, racist Zionists -- even the Israeli so-called "peace" movement Jews (they're just 'liberal' racist Zionists). Although, there are some anti-Zionists (some religious and some notable academics/intellectuals, like Illan Pappe) even in Israel.
Many deeply moral Jews, including some Holocaust survivors and underground anti-Nazi resistance fighters, are ANTI-ZIONISTS (especially in the highly multicultural San Francisco Bay Area) -- but still, overall, a minority of Jews.
And many Jews, like most white-Americans, don't particularly care one way or another about Zionism (although some of these Jews are actually somewhat quietly embarrassed by the whole highly segregated and exclusionary racist Zionism thing) -- and have no desire whatsoever to go live in some moral and security HELLHOLE like Israel. (As one Jew told me, "Why do we need to go colonize Palestine when we've pretty much colonized New York State, not to mention almost the rest of the nearby NE coast?") They, like "the good Germans" of the Nazi era, just turn their heads away. So, when they want to know how so many Nazi-era Germans could turn their heads to what was happening to "a despised minority", all they have to do is to look at themselves with regard to the Palestinians. --Except that the Palestinians were actually turned into a minority in their own land.
BUT WHAT JEWS ARE DOING TO OTHERS"
[IN PALESTINE].
OR AS EINSTEIN PUT IT, "IT WOULD BE MY GREATEST SADNESS TO SEE JEWS DO TO (PALESTINIAN) ARABS, WHAT NAZIS DID TO JEWS."
(Of course, NONE of this would have the slightest moral impact on Indybay's latest self-imported Zionist Jew, James Black. --But not Black like me! Haha! What did you guys do David Gerhig?: finally find a replacement for Sefarad? Haha!)
Can't fool you!
Saying "this is a problem...but" and dismissing antiSemitism would be troubling if the case in question were a local one where we could do something. Accusations of antiSemitism usually end up being seen as opportunistic and not really about antiSemitism when they are brought up like this. If I were to find an example of a Brazilian Jewish group that had an openly racist speaker at some event would you feel comfortible "apologizing"? Of course not, you arent responsible for the actions of all Jews and neither am I. Secondly, if I presented you with a news article poiting out the racism you would probably want to know more before condemning something from clearly biased facts. For that same reason you end up with qualified statements rather than apologies for the actions of one SWP chapter in the UK.
Anti-Semitism in the US isnt a big problem. Growing up Jewish in a pretty solidly Christian area I would say the two places I saw problems was with how Christians dealt with me not celebrating their hollidays (people atcually get offended you wont give them Christmas gifts) and occasional attacks by neoNazis/the KKK. Most of the KKK attacks where I grew up were not against Jewish groups and its hard to really call neoNazis a major problem since I see them in the same light as seriel killers (dangerous but rare). The expectation by American Christians that everyone else is Christian and the increasing role of religion in politics is definitely something to worry about but since its directed against all nonChristians its hard to call the problem antiSemitism even though Republican statements about the US hvainga Christian identity is antiSemitic, antiMuslim, antiAthiest etc...
In W Europe antiSemitism MAY be more of a problem but they way its dealt with makes it hard to confront. Much talk about "the problem of antiSemitism in France" is code for "the problem of Muslims in France" and has a racist feel to it. I'm not saying antiSemitism doesnt exist among some French muslims, but to talk about an oppressed minority as a problem because of their oppression of another oppressed minority has to be done in a careful fashion (since the motives are often really xenophobia and racism and not a desire to reduce antiSemitism).
Talk of the danger of anti-Semitism by the "Left" is pretty much just political opportunism that is probably intended to increase rather than decrease antiSemitism, especially when you have US groups comming down hard on European groups for statements about Israel. Considering the growing hatred for the US around the world, heavy handed tactics by US groups trying to silence criticism of Israel (even when it goes over the line and sounss slightly antiSemitic) is going to be counterproductive. French Jeiwsh leaders have called for American Jewish groups to stop demonizing France since it has made thigs worse and needs to be dealt with by French groups trying to fight antiSemitism for rather obvious reasons (considerng the level of antiAmericanism I guess the only good comparison I can think of is the negative effect on Muslism one would see if Al Qaeda made statements condemning US arrests of Muslims).
Anti-semitism in E Europe is a real problem, but with almost no Jewish population it seems more like a mental disease than a danger in many countries (although when my parents visted a synagogue in Poland near where my great-grandparents used to live there had to be armed guards around the synagogue even though it was more historical than used). Nothing the ADL or other groups fighting antiSemitism seems to have an impact on E Europe since for some reason its rarely a focus (for political reasons I guess its easier to attack France or antiwar activists than focus on areas where antiSemitism is much scarier) Its hard to know what would help to reduce antiSemitism in E Europe since its not at all related to Israel or the other factors one sees in other parts of the world and revolves around conspiracy theories that could easilly make attempts to reduce antiSemitism through an organized educational campaign backfire.
Anti-Semitism in the Middle East is probably easier to deal with than E Europe. One does see the same conspiracy theories but its much more recent with the Israel-Palestinian conflict acting as the major driving force. Resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict is probably the first step to dealing with antiSemitism in the Middle East and if that conflict is resolved its likley antiSemitism be reduced to the level one sees in the US pretty quickly. Should really bad forms of antiSemitism like the POZ be confronted in the Middle East? Sure, but even more so than in E Europe it needs to be done carefully. If the type of tactics one sees on this site by those claiming to be fighting antiSemitism are used it will make things much worse; people care enough about the Palestinian plight that confronting the worst forms of antiSemitism while praising Israel is bound to encourage the worst forms of antiSemitism (by making opposition to them become equated in people's minds with support for the oppression of Palestinians). Dealing with antiSemitism based off what may work for some reason seems like compromise to some of the people who post to this site but I guess it depends on ones motives (is it "fighting the good fight", trying to reduce antiSemitism in ways that will actually work or using a pretend fight against antiSemitism as a tool to promote some other agenda).
If a local political organizer I agreed with on most issues started spouting antiSemitic rhetoric I would denounce it. When sane leftists start sounding antiSemitic in their arguments on sites like this will denounce it (in the nonsane cases whats the point). I the UK SWP took a stand that was openly antiSemitic I would denoucne it. But Im not going to apologize for some bookstore in the UK for having a not very well known speaker who may have written antiSemitic things in the past. I wont apologize partly because its possibly an out of context attack on a UK group for reasons unrelated to antiSemitism. But I also wont apoligize for the same reaosn I wont apologize for Sharon (I am antiWar but that doesnt make me responsible for the actions of everyone who is antiwar and I am Jewish but that doesnt make me responsible for the actions of everyone who is Jewish).
Why has the leftist peace activist world been hijacked by antisemites who exaggerate what israel does wrong and promote dishonest propaganda about it almost daily, while minimalizing much worse stuff done by pretty much everyone else? How come when Israel breathes funny, everyone accuses it of doing something bad? And if something crappy does happen, tens of thousands of fake "peace activists" around the world scream about it, exaggerate it, and try to make movies and websites about it? And when bad things are done to Israel, why do so many on The Left just blame those things on Israel, or say those things didn't even happen? And when ACTUAL really bad things happen elsewhere in the world, why do so many leftist peace activists say "Who cares, if we can't blame Israel for it, we're not interested?"
Antisemitism is enjoying a renaissance. In Britain, attacks on Jewish people or property have increased by 260% over a two-year period; in France, synagogues have been firebombed. The antisemitic upsurge is closely linked to events in the Middle East and opposition to the policies of Israel and the USA and in the main does not come from the traditional right. It has nothing to do with legitimate criticism of Israel's policies and must be distinguished from this. Sometimes the antisemitism masquerades as "anti-Zionism" and other times it is naked Jew-baiting. Anti-racists and anti-imperialists have to root it out argues Steve Silver
"Anti-Zionism", antisemitism and Holocaust denial
Shortly after the murderous terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in the USA leaflets circulated outside some London mosques purporting to identify who was behind the attacks. According to the British-based Islamic fundamentalist leafleters, the attacks were carried out by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. The proof of this was in the supposed fact that hundreds of Jews stayed away from work that day, after they had been tipped off that something untoward was going to happen.
The claim is so absurd that it doesn't warrant a response. It is mentioned here because it is part of a barrage of antisemitic conspiracy theory literature that has been circulating in Britain via Islamic fundamentalist and other sources. In some ways this is unsurprising: after all the Middle East is the main source for the printing of "classic" antisemitic conspiracy works such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford's The International Jew. In Britain some of these staple fascist texts find their way into Islamic bookshops, where they are often openly displayed and sold. With old antisemitic conspiracy theory material so widely available, it is no wonder that there are those who have absorbed this world view and apply it to modern-day events.
A pamphlet produced by the Islamic Party of Britain shortly after 11 September 2001 claimed that what it described as the "New World Order, One World, or Globalisation" was in fact a Zionist plot developed by Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion. Apparently, Ben Gurion possessed prophetic powers. The pamphlet says that in 1962 he:
"Spelt out his vision of the world in the late eighties with the cold war being a thing of the past, a democratisation of the Soviet Union, the predominance of Social Democratic governments in Western and Eastern Europe, and a World Alliance with an international police force at its disposal. All armies, he said would be abolished, and there would be no more wars; Jerusalem would be the seat of the supreme court of mankind to settle all controversies among the federated continents: The Zionist dream of world domination ..."
Some of the worst examples of antisemitism have occurred on campus. At Manchester University in 2002 a leaflet put out in the name of the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) before a debate on boycotting Israeli goods was nakedly antisemitic. The leaflet supposedly quoted statements made in 1789 by Benjamin Franklin, who was one of the signatories of the US Declaration of Independence. The leaflet is titled "Prophecy of Benjamin Franklin in regard of the Jewish race", and among other things says:
"For more than 1700 years they [the Jews] have lamented their sorrowful fate, namely, that they have been driven out of their motherland; but, gentleman, if the world should give them back today Palestine and their property, they would immediately find reasons for not returning there. Why? Because they are Vampires - they cannot live among themselves ..."
If the quotation had been genuine, it would be bad enough to see it reprinted. In fact it is a hoary antisemitic forgery written by the US Nazi sympathiser William Dudley Pelley in Liberation in 1934. In 1942 Pelley was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment for sedition for his pro-Nazi activities.
One of the most active of the Islamic fundamentalist groups distributing antisemitic literature is al-Muhajiroun, which claims it is "The Voice, The Eyes, and the Ears of the Muslims". Its leaflet advertising an anti-Israel demonstration organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in May 2002 was headed, "Israel the cancer that must be removed". Among several bullet points it stated, "The Defence of the cancer is the lie of the Holocaust". The real measure of al-Muhajiroun's support, or rather lack of it, for the Palestinian cause is that in the same leaflet it described the PLO and Yasser Arafat as "the agent of the cancer".
While Holocaust denial material is commonplace in the Muslim world, it is something that is rare on the left, though not unheard of. A leaflet issued by the Trotskyite Socialist Voice in the northwest of England (Salford) in 2002, for example, advertised an internet link for information "on the history of Zionism". The link is to a Holocaust denial site run by Bradley Smith of the US based Institute for Historical Review (IHR), an organisation which has been exposed many times in Searchlight and which has links to nazi groups across the world. It would be charitable in the extreme to say that there may be an innocent explanation for this amazing fact, for the top of the page of the advertised link even states that it is a Holocaust denial site!
Nazi-Zionists: topsy-turvy world
Much more commonplace on the left than Holocaust denial is the comparison of Israel with Nazi Germany. Quite how offensive this is to most Jewish people seems lost on those who do it. Even if we were to put aside the offensive nature of the comparison, it has to be said that such a comparison is rarely used to describe other regimes, even those that have actually committed genocide. This version of "anti-Zionism" tends to portray Zionism as a Jewish version of Nazism. In this almost surreal scenario, the victims of Nazism have become the new "nazis". It shouldn't really need pointing out that whatever one thinks of Israel's policies and actions, and the human cost of the conflict, there is still massive legal opposition to those policies from Arab and Jew alike inside Israel - hardly something that was allowed in Nazi Germany. All manner of progressive forces are represented in the Knesset (parliament) from socialist-Zionist to communist and Muslim parties. Of course at the moment Israel is in the hands of the right wing and consequently is pursuing right-wing policies. This does not make it Nazi, or even fascist, though. Crucially, however appalled one might be by Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, it is not systematically exterminating them.
If it isn't bad enough to find organisations and individuals that compare Israel to Nazi Germany, it is not uncommon to find those that go further and argue that Israel is actually worse than Nazi Germany. For example, at the Palestine solidarity demonstration in London on 18 May 2002, Leila Khaled, a leading figure in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), claimed that Zionism had "exceeded Nazism".
Another "Nazi-Zionist" theme is the claim that some Zionists collaborated with the Nazis. However, many were brave resisters and fighters against fascism who were martyred in that struggle. Among their number is the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the socialist-Zionist Mordechai Anielewicz. Also there is the Hungarian born Hannah Senesh who moved to Palestine just before the Second World War and fought in an elite British parachute corps against the Nazis. Captured by fascists behind enemy lines in her native Hungary, she was brutally tortured and executed.
Zionism, imperialism and the birth of Israel
Zionism is neither a conspiracy nor the invention of imperialism, nor inherently racist. It came into existence as a response to antisemitism and such things as the pogroms, persecutions and ritual murder libels in Europe. Dr Theodor Herzl, the best known of the early Zionists, became a political Zionist as a result of the infamous antisemitic frame-up of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in France in 1894. However, the single most important factor that made Zionism popular among Jewish people was the Holocaust. Even those who did not see their own future, or even the future of the Jewish people, bound up in Palestine recognised that there must be a solution to the Jewish refugee problem created by the destruction of Europe's Jews. It was clear that the solution was not going to be found in Europe or the countries that closed their borders to large-scale Jewish immigration.
The Zionist movement is a nationalist movement, and carries with that all that other nationalist movements do. It harbours in its ranks reactionaries who would do all in their power to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Yet it also harbours a progressive left wing which wants nothing but peace in the Middle East. In Israel itself there exists a massive peace movement, opposed to the actions of the government and military, and which supports the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
It is commonplace on the left to read that Israel was an imperialist creation, promised by Lord Balfour to the Zionists in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. In fact it would take another 31 years before Israel was created. And that came about not from some British declaration but after six million Jews perished in the Holocaust and tens of thousands became stateless refugees, often living in displaced persons' camps in what was formerly Nazi-occupied Europe. Britain's true attitude to Jewish settlement in Palestine could be seen in the fact that it did its utmost to prevent Jews arriving in the country, even sending ships full of Holocaust survivors back to Germany, the source of their torment.
It seems that today's anti-imperialists have either forgotten or don't realise that the vast majority of them would have supported the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 as a blow against imperialism. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War the Jewish national movement in Palestine was engaged in an underground war against the British Army, which occupied Mandate Palestine at the time. Pressure from within Palestine and outside forced the British out of the region.
Communism and Zionism have a long history of conflict with each other, which goes back to well before a state was proclaimed in the name of either ideology. Yet the Soviet Union supported the creation of the state of Israel, not because it had suddenly become Zionist, but because of the practical realities of the situation and, most importantly, because of the destruction of European Jewry and the subsequent refugee problem. At the United Nations in 1947 the Soviet representatives and others recounted how the Jews had suffered during the Second World War. Speaking on behalf of the Soviet Union, Andrei Gromyko said:
"The aspirations of an important part of the Jewish people are bound up with the question of Palestine and the future structure of that country ... the aspiration of the Jews for the creation of a state of their own ... it would be unjust not to take this into account and to deny the right of the Jewish people to the realisation of such an aspiration."
Gromyko went on to argue that there was a legitimate Jewish claim in the region: "if only because, after all, the Jewish people has been closely linked with Palestine for a considerable period of history". Echoing Lenin's description of how the Jews fared under Tsarism, Gromyko added, "that as a result of the war which was unleashed by Hitlerite Germany, the Jews, as a people, have suffered more than any other people".
The State of Israel was formed as a result of a 1947 United Nations partition plan which was intended to create an Israeli state alongside a newly independent Palestinian state. Around the world the left celebrated Israel's birth. The invasion of Arab armies who believed that they could strangle the fledgling Jewish state, and the subsequent war, put paid to the creation of a Palestinian state at that time. Regardless of what has happened since then, it remains a fact that Israel was born in this way.
"Anti-Zionist" antecedents: Stalinist and Arab nationalist anti-Semitism
It would be absurd to argue that all opponents of Zionism, all anti-Zionists, are antisemitic. It would be equally absurd to tar all opponents of Israel's policies and actions as antisemitic. However, much of what passes as anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiment has nothing to do with legitimate debate with a nationalist ideology, or opposition to the actions of the Israeli government or military, but more to do with traditional antisemitic conspiracy theory.
The idea that a cabal of Jewish people controls the world through political skulduggery has been a staple of antisemites since they propagandised against the French Revolution after 1789. However, it was in pre-revolutionary Russia at the turn of the twentieth century that the most infamous antisemitic Tsarist forgery, The Protocols of The Elders of Zion, was produced. It was used by counter-revolutionaries as a propaganda weapon against the Bolsheviks. The Protocols still circulates today and many other antisemitic tracts are based upon it.
The Protocols was a standard German Nazi text. One might have thought that with the defeat of Nazi Germany, the idea of Jewish world conspiracy would be buried, especially in a country that itself suffered so much under fascism and helped give birth to the Jewish state. However, the Soviet honeymoon with Israel was a short-lived affair. In the Soviet Union and among reactionary Arab nationalists hostility towards Jews evolved into "anti-Zionism" as the main vehicle for the "Jewish conspiracy".
In spite of the fact that under Lenin's leadership antisemitism was made a criminal offence, it was perpetuated in the Soviet Union in the Stalin era. At the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1956, Nikita Krushchev, the Soviet leader, revealed a long list of antisemitic crimes committed during the period of Stalin's rule, including: the purging of Jewish party leaders in other socialist countries; the general shutdown of Jewish cultural institutions in the Soviet Union after 1948; the murder in August 1952 of leading Soviet Jewish writers and intellectuals; and most infamously the so-called "Doctors' Plot" of 1953, in which Stalin accused a group of mainly Jewish physicians of plotting to murder him on behalf of "Zionism" and "western imperialism".
The antisemitism of the Stalin era was subsequently recognised as such, and condemned in the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, its legacy endured, though not on a systematic basis, until 1967. One well publicised aberration occurred in 1963 when the Soviet academic Trofim Kichko published a work that was crudely antisemitic, entitled Judaism without Embellishment. It contained antisemitic illustrations and the text claimed that Judaism, Jewish bankers, Zionism, Israel and Western imperialism were engaged in an international conspiracy. Amid worldwide protest the publication was withdrawn.
What changed the publication of antisemitic propaganda post-Stalin in the Soviet Union from an aberration to a larger-scale phenomenon was the Six Day War of June 1967, when Israel defeated Egypt. Within days of the Israeli victory the Soviet media branded Israel's Moshe Dayan a "pupil of Hitler" and Zionism as racism. Along with the most reactionary of Arab nationalists, they pushed this position on the international stage at the United Nations and elsewhere. In this new climate Kichko was rehabilitated and published further works such as Judaism and Zionism (Kiev 1968). As the Soviet Union departed from anything that could be remotely described as a Leninist analysis of the situation in the Middle East, many other Soviet writers who churned out material of a similar nature joined Kichko. It is echoes of these ideas that are current among some on the British left, even among those who would be horrified to be remotely associated with anything to do with "Stalinist" or nationalist antisemitism. It can only be assumed that those who claim that Israel is Nazi and that Zionism is racism have no knowledge of the ideas' antecedents.
Destroying Israel
During the Six Day War there was much talk of destroying Israel from reactionary Arab nationalists. Cuba's Fidel Castro was so shocked by the nature of Egypt's anti-Israel propaganda at the time that he spoke out against it. In an interview that was published in the New Statesman on 22 September 1967, he told the journalist K S Karol that he believed Egyptian phrasemongering showed a lack of revolutionary principles. "True revolutionaries never threaten a whole country with extermination," he said. "We have spoken out clearly against Israel's policy, but we don't deny her right to exist."
However, there are some on the left today who would call themselves revolutionaries who believe that Israel should be destroyed. Hardly surprising, when they think that Israel is no different from Nazi Germany. Those who put forward this position should ask themselves what should happen to the Jewish people who live in Israel today if the country ceased to exist. And anti-racists should ask them to which other people, apart from the Jewish people, would they deny the right of nationhood?
No anti-imperialism without anti-racism
The penchant for US (and British) intervention in the affairs of sovereign states abroad is something that should be condemned and opposed. Those countries that do their utmost to defend their independence are fighting against imperialism. However, merely raising anti-imperialist slogans does not make the nationalist movements of those countries, or their leaders, necessarily progressive. As with Zionism, these nationalist movements - the Palestinians included - contain both progressive and reactionary camps.
Just as it is necessary for the Israeli people to combat their own national chauvinists, annexationists and would-be colonialists, so it is important for others in the Middle East to combat their reactionaries. To say and do nothing against reactionaries in the anti-imperialist camp, because this could be seen to damage the fight against imperialism, is a serious error. History has taught us where that kind of politics leads. In Indonesia, hundreds of thousands of communists and others on the left were massacred while "anti-imperialist" slogans were raised. In Iraq, communists and other progressives were tortured while genocide was committed against the Kurds. In Iran the "anti-imperialist" Islamic fundamentalists butchered communists who had supported the national revolution.
The idea of a world Jewish conspiracy, so popular with the Tsarist propagandists in their anti-Bolshevik propaganda at the turn of the last century, and which formed a central part of Nazi ideology during the 1930s and 1940s, is unfortunately alive and well in Britain today. It is primarily the preserve of Islamic fundamentalists, but to their shame virtually the entire left has remained silent on the issue, and some have actually recycled this nonsense. It seems that people's outrage at such things as Israel's actions in Jenin in April 2002 triggers an emotive response bordering on hysteria. The reflex action is often antisemitic and has nothing to do with socialism. It is as if some believe that a little antisemitism is justifiable when confronted with Israel's policies.
The German Social Democrat August Bebel once described populist antisemitism as the "socialism of fools". Antisemitism, like other forms of racial hatred, does not always come from the fascist right. Just as the left and labour movement accepts that it is perfectly capable of harbouring racist practices against black people, so it should recognise this is the case with antisemitism too. Those who should know better often cross the line between legitimate anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
Because imperialism is based, among other things, on racism, genuine anti-imperialism has to be anti-racist to its marrow. An anti-imperialism that is soft on antisemitism is not an anti-imperialism at all, but merely a prop for national chauvinism and racial hatred.
2.) If “they do it, too” were a valid excuse, Hitler would be off the hook for killing those six million Jews, because Stalin killed six million Ukrainians.
First off, many of those who do it are Jewish and many who complain are not. Secondly its not at all restricted to the Left. Settlers in Israel have compared Sharon to a Nazi for wanting to get rid of settlements. Bush Sr compared Saddam to Hitler during the first Gulf War and Time Magazine's pcituer fof him on their cover was modified to give him a Hitler mustache. Nazi/Hitler comparions are all over the place but people only get offended when its useful.
This whole attempt to try to equate leftism with antiSemitism is extremely offensive especially for many us who are Jewish. My great-grandparents escaped antiSemitism in Poland and were hard left Jewish Communists. Suddenly right-wingers are pretending they have some sort of moral highground to condemn even Hollocaust survivors as being self hating Jews for not following the Bush/Rove party line?
Note the difference.
When you call 100% of American Jews racist, nessie-nym responds, "Why is this crap on Indymedia?"
When you call 99.5% of American Jews racist, you're nessie.
And he wonders why he has zero cred on the antisemitism issue.
What's the difference between David Duke and nessie? When it comes to Jewish Americans, only half a percent.
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When you call a majority of American Jews (who are left of center) antiSemitic your James Black. This use of antiSemitism to promote a right-wing agenda is pretty damn offensive.
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Notice that he does not cite an URL. That's because I never said such a thing. What I did say was that all racists should be hated, no matter what their ethnic group. That's quite a different thing. To choose whom to hate and whom to not hate, on the basis of their ethnicity and not their actions, is racist. Like gehrig.
Notice that when the Zionists can't defend Israel's indefensible racist aggression, they try to divert your attention onto something else, anything else. When that doesn't work, they try to drown out criticism by screaming, "ANTI-SEMITISM !!!" over and over.
It's a trick. Don't fall for it. Even if I was an anti-Semite, which I am not, it still wouldn't excuse Israel's racist existence. Zionism is a racist ideology. It is nothing more or less than Nazism with a Jewish face. It's most basic principle is that within a geographic area that is defined by the success of Zionist military aggression, Jews have more rights than non Jews. Sound familiar? It ought to.
Nazism's most basic principle: within a geographic area defined by the success of Nazi military aggression, Aryans have more rights than non Aryans.
Since this is the undeniable truth of both Nazism and Zionism, and it it totally and completely indefensible on moral grounds. when you call them on it, the Zionists try to distract you by screaming, "ANTI-SEMITISM !!!" over and over.
Watch, they're going to do it again, probably within the hour.
Look at
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy/browse_frm/thread/607bf838c254c564/842b4cb3e29f55c0?
there is a point where taking offense just makes you look
stupid for taking something seriously. I notice you
dont bother responding to most JA posts....
James Black seems sane and is using antiSemitism as a weapon against most Jews (who find right-wing politics offensive). Nessie and JA say some pretty crazy things but despite the proliferation of the whole Angie, Boswell, Pointer crowd I dont find any real concern in Nessie's views spreading. The Rove inspired idea of splitting center-left Jews off from the Left via the scare tactics of organizations like Campus Watch is actually working and is more of a legitimate concern. You may respond with a demand to address antiSemitism on the Left but Ive never actually seen it (and doubt Nessie sees himself as part of the "Left") and if people really extrapolate from crazies there isnt a real way to address the concerns (I could apologize for JA but that would suggest I am responsible for him)
I''ll denounce Nessie for saying inappropriate things when you apologize for Jeff Dahmer; I want to hear a straight denunciation and apology not "I disagree with what he did but had nothing to do with it despite living in the MidWest" since the use of "but" is a form of excusing the action.... (that is close to the line or argument used above where Black tried to demonize the left for the use of "but" in statements critical of one SWP bookstore in Britain )
Nessie sez, "hate racists," and then uses a definition of "racism" that classifies 99.5% of American Jews as racists.
Nessie -- embarrassed when the implications of his stance are pointed out to him -- then claims that, because he's never used exactly the words, "you should hate 99.5% of American Jews," that you should suspend the fundamental rules of logic and accept his specious claim that his call for hate doesn't include 99.5% of American Jews _among_ those he wants you to hate.
Nessie must think you're dumber than a box of dog chow if he's offering the "I didn't say it _exactly_ that way and therefore I didn't say it at all" dodge.
What's the difference between David Duke and nessie? David Duke wants you to hate a mere half a percent more American Jews than nessie does.
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3,624 Palestinians and 1,052 Israelis have been killed since September 29, 2000.
For complete Details:
CLICK HERE > http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/deaths.html
The "left" turned against Zionism a long time ago. At least the extreme left did, over 38 years ago (67' War). Some would argue that the organized left was anti-Zionist far longer than that. Regardless, after close to 40 years of anti-Israel propaganda--at times merging with anti-Semitism--Israel is still here.
Please don't think so highly of yourself, Nessie. You, and the people who think like you, are an extremely small and marginalized group in the the U.S. If anything, the acidic anti-Zionist rhetoric of the extreme left has encouraged left-leaning Jews like myself to leave the far left for good. Most stick with the Democrats and increasing numbers (though still small) are voting Republican. Among the non-Jewish population in the U.S., most liberals continue to support Israel as do most conservatives. I understand that Communists and Nazis do not, but as I wrote above, you are a tiny, tiny minority (even smaller than the dreaded Jews...excuse me, Zionists). Plus, you tend not to vote and limit your political actions to media spectacles and ineffective revolutionary posturing. So to think that you are somehow going to impact US-Israel relations is just plain silly.
The reason we post to this website is because we are disgusted with the anti-Semitism that passes as anti-Zionism. We know people like you are not going to listen, Nessie. But there are many lurkers here and if we show them instances of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism they may realize the extent of this form of discrimination on the far left and they will be able to see, with their own eyes, the lengths people like you go to deny that anti-Semitism exists in your "movement." If we can open one persons eyes and mind, its worth it.
(1.) That's not true. We're a minority, but not a tiny one. And we're growing, in part thanks to the internet. Now we can bypass the corporate media and reach people directly. It's working. That scares the Zionists, which is why they are trying so hard to counteract us with their campaign of lies and forgeries. It's backfiring. The more lies they tell, and the more they forge our names, the more they reveal their true nature to the world. The world is repulsed, as well it should be. Lies and forgery are repulsive. They are the tactics of ruthless and immoral people. Honest folks need only tell the truth. But the truth is not the Zionists' friend. There is no honest defense for ethnic cleansing.
(2.) So what? Being in the minority (so far) doesn't make us wrong.
See:
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/pop.htm
(3.) The US is six percent of humanity. In the rest of the world, Zionists are widely despised, as well they should be. They are outnumbered, surrounded and ultimately doomed. We can only hope that they don't take too many innocents down with them when they finally fall.
>The reason we post to this website is because we are disgusted with the anti-Semitism that passes as anti-Zionism.
The reason Racists post to this website is the editors let them. It's shameful, but it's true, at least on *this* site. People who don't wish to wade through racist filth to read the news can always opt to read SF-IMC, where the editors have the common human decency not inflict filth upon their readers.
>You say that Israel is an inherently racist enterprise, and therefore to support Israel's right to exist is to be a racist.
Yup. That's exactly what I say. I'm not the only one, either. There are literally billions of people who feel the same way about this as I do.
>Since 99.5% of American Jews support Israel's right to exist, then -- no matter how you squirm and scream and chew the draperies -- the conclusion must be that you consider 99.5% of American Jews racist.
All Zionists are racists. Some Zionists are Jews, but most are not. Not being a racist myself, I don't distinguish between Jewish racists and non Jewish racists. A racist is a racist is a racist. Period. End of story, No amendments.
No, Jews are not a special case. No, Jews do not get a free ride.A racist is a racist is a racist. Which race they happen to favor or disfavor, is irrelevant. A Jewish racist is a racist for the same reason a non Jewish racist is a racist.
Only racists distinguish between Jewish racists and non Jewish racists. Gehrig distinguishes between Jewish racists and non Jewish racists. Ergo, gehrig is a racist. The editors of this site permit him to publish racist propaganda here. Ergo, they too are racists. For shame, Indybay. For shame.
You demonstrate that below.
to fff: "But I would have to say, that your side, which tries to portray any criticism of Israeli policies or Zionism as anit-semitism, as particlularly nauseating."
I have said exactly the opposite more times than I can count. Criticism of Israel or Israeli policy isn't automatically antisemitism. But -- as nessie demonstrates -- sometimes it is, sometimes it really is, and we have the right to point it out when it happens. And that's when someone will always reply: "Oh, you guys are always screaming 'antisemitism.'"
to fff: "yet you hone in on any examples you can find and (poorly) attempt to generalize and attribute that to all of us."
Where do you see him doing that? He's saying "there is antisemitism in the left," and you're hearing "the left is antisemitic." Two different things.
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We have a problem with the anti-Zionist left and right b/c you are anti-Semites. All one needs to do is vist your websites or read your crummy papers. We have a problem with "anti-Zionists" repeating age-old anti-Jewish canards about Jews controlling the "media", banks, foreign policy, etc. We have a problem with leftists who refuse to address anti-Semitism in their own ranks. I know this is difficult for you to grasp, but most Jews can see it quite clearly. That's why we are leaving the left. At least the extreme left...
How is it "working"? Both parties in this country continue to support Israel as does the vast majority of the voting population. You--the U.S. based Nazis and Communists--may have a presence on the Internet. But, as you know, this does not mean anything in terms of political strength. In fact, the congelation of the extreme left and extreme right in this country speaks more to their weakness as political elements, than their strength.
The U.S continues to provide substantial aid to Israel as do Jews in the diaspora, both through organized groups and as individuals. This is not changing anytime soon, Nessie.
As you can see, nessie's answer to the question, "should we hate 99.5% of American Jews?" is essentially, "Yes, now let me explain why."
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Why doesn't Gehrig take aim at anti-semites who venerate Israel? Could it be that anti-semitism, per se, isn't his real concern?
Uh, gee, maybe because they don't post here, while antisemites who are also anti-Israel do all the time?
Thanks for asking.
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ANd does aaron condemn antisemitism, or gilad the antisemite in particular as this topic is about?
Of course not.
He just joins in and attacks gherig.
One by one, the leftist anti-israel loons here on indymedia prove that they are not against antisemitism or antisemites.
Is support for this racist (or at least biased agianst nonJews in Israel) or is opposition to this antiSemitic (since its no different than how ethnicity is tied to state in most other states)?
Al Jazeera has a rather interesting take on this question that details how much of the conflict is really over the definition of what "Jewish State" means (With most Israelis supporting something that most Palestinians support and most Palestinians opposing something most Israelis would oppose)
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/06/1748010.php
In terms of the back and forth debate on this site about Zionism, its likely to just be a normal flamewar that leads nowhere except more anger by each side if there isnt some agreement on terms.
Is Zionism like Hindutva (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva ) and thus something that is racist in the same sense that the RSS (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh ) is racist ? (how come one doesnt have conspiracy theories about the choice of RSS as the name for newfeeds :P )
Or is Zionism more tied to ethnic pride as one sees in St Patricks Day Parades and other such festivals.
Or is Zionism more rooted in European Romatic Nationalism ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_nationalism ) that while responsible for wars and even genocide was somewhat rooted in Rousseau ideas of a social contract and self givernment.
Zionism in the late 1800s may have indirectly aimed to take away land from Palestinians (although thats not clear) but even in that respect has many similarities to the ideology of Garvey and the Back To Africa Movement. Zionism in terms of the fight against the British looks very similar to late 19th century European nationalism and 20th century antiColonialism (which was strongly rooted in 19th century European ideas of nationalism). But now that Israel exists what exactly does Zionism mean?
One can assume it to mean expansionism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Emunim
the turning of Israel into a Jewish state (as one sees in Shas and United Torah Judaism):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Torah_Judaism
or it could mean Israeli nationalism in a way where one would
still call pride in a binational Palestinian-Israeli state Zionism
Their not so secret goal is to cloud the issue as much as possible and make it appear that the left is anti-semitic. It's obvious that Gehring and Black just want to frame all critics of Israel as anti-semites.
The problem comes when you look at the whole business as a zero-sum game, and say that if you're pro-Palestinian, you must be anti-Zionist, or vice-versa. I think most people understand that the choice in the Israel-Palestinian conflict isn't "win" or "lose," but "win-win" or "lose-lose."
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To James Black, all I have to say is I don't take my cues on who to denounce--or when and where to do so--from specious fools like you.
I can't speak for Black, but I've made it clear any number of times, and not just in this thread, that I do not believe all critics of Israel are antisemites. However, I do believe that some of them quite obviously are, and they deserve to be called out.
Want the details? Here's a long essay I did on this more than two years ago:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/10810
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http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Zion%2C_Illinois
Are citizens of Zion Illinois Zionists?
In a literal sense, Zion (the New Jerusalem) (http://scriptures.lds.org/a_of_f/1/10#10) is a city that Latter-day Saints believe will be built (http://scriptures.lds.org/dc/57/1-3#1) in Jackson County, Missouri, and a common reference to both North and South America as the "Promised Land".
http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Zion
Zion, or Sion, is an archaic term that originally referred to a section of Jerusalem, which, by Biblical definition, is the City of David. After the death of King David, the term Zion came to refer to the hill in Jerusalem which was the site of Solomon's temple. Later, Zion came to refer to temple and the temple grounds themselves. Beyond that, Zion is used to symbolize Jerusalem and the Promised Land of God to come, in which God dwells among his chosen people.
The modern hill south of the Armenian Quarter of the Old City now called Zion is the result of a misnomer dating from the Middle Ages when pilgrims mistook the relatively large, flat summit for the original site of the City of David.
http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Zion
James Black responds: In other words, you are another israel-hating leftist scumbag who has to be BEGGED to condemn antisemitism and obvious antisemites, becuase you certainly aren't about to do it on your own.
If you were really against antisemites, you would condemn it REGARDLESS of who says to or says not to. You would do it on your own, and you would have a spine and always do it.
But as we know, the "anti-zionist" crowd who claims to be anti-racist is FLOODED with jew-hating scumbags who PRETEND to be peace activists but aren't.
That's why, in today's left, antisemitism is barely ever condemned. It's usually either IGNORED, MOCKED, or just somehow twisted into some anti-israel garbage.
So aaron, do you not like me? Fine. But that should not affect your PRINCIPLES, if you actually have any.
So are you against antisemitic scum? Like gilad? And others who pretend to want justice but really just want to single israel and/or jews out under a blanket of PC?
Getting today's leftists to condemn bigotry against jews AND/OR EXAGGERATED, dishonest criticism of israel, is like pulling teeth.
2 Wherefore, this is the land of promise, and the place• for the city of Zion.
http://scriptures.lds.org/dc/57/1-3#1
Anyone sane and anti-racist here other than me and gherig?
Everyone else either refuses to condemn antisemitism without any disclaimers, or rants like a loon, or both.
its partly because of people like you crying Wolf. Bush and Buchanan are dangerous antiSemites, the crazy people standing on the street corner yelling about UFOs and microchips in their brains may harass you for change but are pretty harmless
Asked who his heroes are, he is quoted as saying, "I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it."
He is also quoted as saying he wished he could have an experience, "like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium. And have all those people scream at you and just being total agreement whatever you say."
...
Schwarzenegger said he didn't recall making the remarks...
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/recall_election/100303_nw_davis_recall_arnold.html
---
Note he has never denied making the remark just said he doesnt recall...
World Net Daily News carries biweekly columns by Pat Buchanan:
http://www.wnd.com/news/archives.asp?AUTHOR_ID=185
IN a 1977 column, Buchanan wrote,
"Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a political organizer of the first rank, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him ... Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan
"In the Reagan White House, Buchanan pushed for Reagan to visit a German military cemetery at Bitburg, over the objections of some Jewish groups."
"In a 1990 New York Post column defending Demjanjuk, Buchanan claimed that the diesel engine used to kill victims at Treblinka could "not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody." When asked for his source, Buchanan cited an article about children surviving the fumes of idling diesel engines while trapped in a tunnel. However, there was ample oxygen in the tunnel, and the primary cause of death in diesel-powered chambers was asphyxiation on carbon monoxide rather than carbon monoxide poisoning. It is estimated that gas chambers powered by diesel engines were used to suffocate between 1.5 and 2.5 million people at the Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibór, and Chelmno death camps."
Speaking of Buchanan, will you also openly denounce without qualifications all the shows that have had Buchanan on it
(such as CrossFire and "The McLaughlin Group")
http://imdb.com/title/tt0140732/
and make a denouncation without qaulification of the 1992 Republican National Convention for allowing a Holocaust denier to give the keynote address?
Ive never heard a Rightie denouce the New York Post and Rupert Murdoch. You just watch your Fox News and put money in the pockets of violent Hollocaust denying antiSemities. Fucking Hitler lovers.
An ad hominem is not a rebuttal.
>As you can see, nessie's answer to the question, "should we hate 99.5% of American Jews?" is essentially, "Yes, now let me explain why."
As you can see, gehrig's answer to my challenge to hate all racists is, "All except Jews."
>"Zionism is X," or "Zionists believe Y." It's about as useful as saying, "people from Cleveland are X" or "people from Cleveland believe Y."
This is kindergarten logic. Zionists choose to be Zionist of their own free will, by adopting the set of ideological principles that define Zionism. People from Cleveland have nothing in common except their location. Most of them were born there. To compare Zionists to Clevelanders is like comparing Mormons to Swiss. It's not apples and oranges, it's vegetables and minerals. If gehrig really expects you to fall for it, he must take you for complete idiots.
>EXAGGERATED, dishonest criticism of israel
There is no need to exaggerate. The truth is bad enough. It's a racist, oppressor, expansionist state that differs from the Third Reich only in size and the number of people it's killed so far. But give it time. It took the Third Reich twelve years to kill thirty million people. Israel could kill ten times that many in the blink of an eye, at the push of a button. Even Hitler didn't have that kind of power. By America's own standards, Israel is a rogue state. It must be disarmed. If it wasn't America's stooge, it would be.
>Nessie go home!!!
I am home. I live here. I've lived here thirty years. I can see San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland from my window. I can walk to our office. I belong here. This is my home.
What I want to know is why gehrig doesn't go home. He's not even from here. He lives a half a continent away. Why is even posting on a Bay Area website? The Bay Area isn't his home or his concern. Why is he here? Is he getting paid to do this? Or is he just, like all Zionists, obsessed with barging in where he wasn't invited, telling lies and making demands? It's a pretty good guess. After all, barging in where they weren't invited, telling lies and making demands is the Zionist way of life. It's the heart, core and essence of what Zionism is all about.
What else I want to know is why he lives in Urbana-Champaign and not Israel. If Israel is so frikkin great, why doesn't he live there? Is he a hypocrite, or what?
What exactly are those? And if you include things like "Jeiwsh State" or "support for Israel" can you define what you eman by "Jewish State" and "support". Remember that the original Zionist movemnt wasnt 100% focused on a state being in Israel and many Labor Zionists who went to Palestine wanted a secular Socialist state that would have been majority Arab.
• Like their spiritual mentors before them, Zionists believe in obtaining "lebensraum" at the expense of their neighbors. "Blut und Boden" is the core of their belief system. They learned their lessons well. They even have their very own "Drang nach Osten."
• Zionists believe that they, and only they, speak for all Jews. Any Jew who disagrees with them is a "self hating" race traitor.
• Zionists believe that being Jewish gives them rights than non Jews do not have.
• Zionists believe that Jews have a right to rule Palestine, solely because they are Jews.
• Zionists believe it permissible, even necessary, to force their would view on others by any means necessary, including lies, theft, murder, torture and spam.
• Zionists believe in barging in where they were not invited, taking whatever they want, killing all who resist and ordering everybody else around.
• Zionists believe that we should feel sorry for them because somebody once did to their ancestors what they themselves are now doing to others.
• Zionists believe that anti-Semitism is racist, but pro-Semitism is not.
• Zionists believe, as do all racists, that political power, land tenure and civil rights should be parceled out according to who your mother was, though they are, like their spiritual, mentors the Nazis before them, willing to make exceptions for converts whenever they are short of labor and/or cannon fodder.
• Just as the Nazis bent their own rules so a Jew could be a general in the Luftwaffe, so too the Zionists are willing to declare even Native-Peruvians to be officially Jewish, if only they will make aliyah, believe, obey and fight.
• While they are flexible about their definition of Jews, Zionists are uniform in their definition of non Jews. To Zionists, a non Jew is always second class, if even that. As Rabbi Perin said in his eulogy at the funeral terrorist, mass murderer Baruch Goldstein, "A million Arabs are not worth one Jewish fingernail.
That is the essence of Zionist ideology. If I have neglected anything, please feel free to point it out.
Until the 30s or 40s Zionists were a very small movement who would never have said they spoke for all Jews.
"Any Jew who disagrees with them is a "self hating" race traitor"
I doubt this was an accusation between ZIonist an nonZionist Jews in the 10s and 20s when there was quite a bit of debate in the Jewish community about Zionism. Som British Jewish antiZionists opposed Zionism since they thought it jepordized their status in British society, the main counterargument by the ZIonist movement was that Zionism was about protecting E European Jews who were facing pogroms (before the 1920s Palestine was seen as a better location than others because of lack of antiSemitism in the local Arab population).
"Zionists believe that being Jewish gives them rights than non Jews do not have."
Labor Zionists defintley didnt believe this.
"Zionists believe that Jews have a right to rule Palestine, solely because they are Jews."
That wasnt the Labor Zionist argument either.
"Zionists believe in barging in where they were not invited, taking whatever they want, killing all who resist and ordering everybody else around"
so you are essentially saying:
"Zionists believe that we should feel sorry for them because somebody once did to their ancestors what they themselves are now doing to others"
After WWII this was an argument by some supporters if Israel but not necessarilly before then.
"Zionists believe that anti-Semitism is racist, but pro-Semitism is not"
Not quite sure what you mean. I think philoSemitism can be can be antiSemitism just as the sexualization of African Americans can be racism.
"Zionists believe, as do all racists, that political power, land tenure and civil rights should be parceled out according to who your mother was"
Israel's legal system doesnt say this. Its immigration policy does but Labor Zionists in the 20s would definitely have found a society that is biased against Arabs offensive.
"like their spiritual, mentors the Nazis before them"
Instead of trying to nit pick your weird historical references, it should be pointed out that Zionism as a political movement really only existed for s decade after WWII at which point it has become a rather meaningless term since Israel now exists and thus a movement based off its creation cant really exist in the same form anymore.
"Zionists are willing to declare even Native-Peruvians to be officially Jewish...Zionists are uniform in their definition of non Jews. To Zionists, a non Jew is always second class,"
Aside from immigration policy and the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza can you give an example of this in the Israeli legal system?
--
You are essentailly defining Zionists to be people who are racist against nonJews ad thus by your definition Zionism is racism. You then come up with attributes of specific people you dislike and put those as principle that you declare to define Zionism. By your definition a racist who hates Palestiians and support Israel but doesnt hate Christians isnt a ZIonist. By your definition someone who doesnt "barging in where they were not invited" isnt a Zionist. By your definition Christian Zionists cant exist due to your use of "them in " being Jewish gives them rights than non Jews do not have"
Wikipedia defines Zionism mainly as the ZIonist movement preIsrael
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
It also defines Labor Zionism as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Zionism
Religious Zionism as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Zionism
Christian Zionism as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism
Revisionist Zionism as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_Zionism
but even if you look through all the defiitions you
get the sense of movements and history but not
an actual ideology.
I'm a democrat, not a "rightie."
And your post doesn't even make sense. Do you actually have a brain? Everyone hates hitler, what does that have to do with any of this?
THe Left is flooded with antisemites and insane people who aren't just rooting for justice for palestinians, they're rooting for hamas and islamic jihad and everyone else who wants israel destroyed altogether
I am Jewish. Reform Judaism and I the first to admit there are forms of anti-Zionism that are not anti-Jewish. But the minute he found out I was Jewish he started throughing out Zionist Fascist this and Zionist Fascist that.
Too often the left is more black and white than the right. It would frighten some of these people to know that Nazism is a socialist based political mindset. It would also bother them to know that Fascism and Communism have a common philosophical base. Hegel, being that philosopher whose works were incorporated into both systems. Which is why there is a nationalistic militarism in both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, vis-a-vis both have soldiers goose-stepping through there streets.
Basically people are too fast to by into prejudice.
You have jew-hating ultra-conservatives on the far right, and jew-hating ultra-commies on the far left.
Normal, safe, intelligent people are usually somewhere in the middle.
It's disappointing to learn. I mean, I'm a life long democrat/liberal. But there really are an incredible amount of people on this planet with major "jew hangups" and they come in all shapes and sizes. Pretty sad to learn. Best not to focus on too much each day and only focus on it when it matters and when you're really doing something about it.
The real problem is what the average everyday person feels, not what fringe nutjobs on the far left or right do.
The problem is, most of the people involved with these movements don't want peace with israel. They just want to promote hatred, which makes peace harder to come by.
LIke the WMREA people (washingon report on blah blah). They still have the USS Liberty on their front page, and they spend part of each day harping on it, every day. They want everyone to think about it all the time. THey know it was a rare, freak, exceptional event, yet they want to keep it fresh in people's minds.
It's one thing to talk about israel getting too much money or other stuff that's possibly quite valid, but to just take the negatives about israel, exaggerat them, and organize them in a crazy campaign that's obvoiusly just designed to promote nonsense and exaggerated hate is another story
Ok I've ranted enough
Message boards thatdont require login end up falling into flamewars where little substance gets discussed. A few loud voices (trolls) that usually dont make much sense dominate discussions on both sides of any issue and make both sides look bad.
If you think this discussion is worse or better than anyplace else, has anything to do with it being antiwar, left-wing, Anarchist or anything like that, go to Yahoo News and click on any story:
The top story right (at least the one with a pic at the top of my MyYahoo page) now happens to be
"Israel revives militants assassination policy"
go to the bottom of it and click on discuss ( http://news.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?action=m&board=37138445&tid=nmmideastdc&sid=37138445&mid=1 ).
What do you see:
255052 Re: NAZI GERMANY 1939 = NAZI ISRAEL 2005 happy_ruthy 06/22/05 09:31 am
255051 Arabs Just Don't Get It mr_tasty_phlegm 06/22/05 09:30 am
255050 Re: Israel moves to another Planet jakepi21 06/22/05 09:30 am
255049 Re: Unleash Israel accidental_lawsui... 1 06/22/05 09:29 am
255048 God Loves Black Muslims! blackstormfront 06/22/05 09:29 am
255047 Re: ISLAM IS A TERROR RELIGION absolutelymaybeno... 06/22/05 09:29 am
255046 Will someone kill Sharon please..... grosas10 06/22/05 09:29 am
255045 Arabs are falling behind daily zionismisfinewith... 1 06/22/05 09:28 am
255044 Re: Israel moves to another Planet howard_deans_craz... 06/22/05 09:28 am
255043 Re: Israeli racists johannes_eckhart 06/22/05 09:28 am
255042 Re: Solve the world's problems... crusty_old_man_56 06/22/05 09:28 am
255041 Re: Israeli racists cgjbvjxfgb 2 06/22/05 09:28 am
255040 I love it when Israel cuts loose...... alphawar01 06/22/05 09:28 am
255039 Re: Unleash Israel csurant 06/22/05 09:28 am
255038 JEW=MURDER, INC. christian_crusade... 06/22/05 09:28 am
255037 I don't GET it............... fiddlesticks9 06/22/05 09:28 am
255036 Re: all small time heebs started singing ghg8686 06/22/05 09:28 am
255035 Israeli racists idf_jdf 2 06/22/05 09:27 am
255034 NAZI GERMANY 1939 = NAZI ISRAEL 2005 yugunter 06/22/05 09:27 am
255033 Re: ISLAM IS A TERROR RELIGION absolutelymaybeno... 06/22/05 09:27 am
255032 Israel moves to another Planet etailyon 1 06/22/05 09:27 am
255031 Arabs cannot look at themselves zionismisfinewith... 2 06/22/05 09:27 am
255030 Re: The main cause of terror in the worl bassman613 1 06/22/05 09:26 am
255029 unintended consequences of religion mixed55416 06/22/05 09:26 am
255028 so much kike filth on this board! ctpaha_cobetob 06/22/05 09:26 am
255027 Re: Unleash Israel
just taking a sample of what one sees:
absolutelymaybenot (57/Las Vegas, NV) writes:
"every single muslim in the world, i.e., true, practicing muslim, not the kind that 'whores' in vegas, then goes to mosque on sunday, *all* of them, cheer the death of every single infidel. it is at the very heart of who they are.
you know nothing about them, please stop acting like an academic on ME affairs"
Im guessing thats a smear against Muslims rather than a real post by a Muslim
One also gets:
JEW=MURDER, INC. posted by christian_crusader2001
references to Palestinians as "savages"...
And all of the posts in that list above were posted in the last 5 minutes alone.
Does one see this only because Israel is special and there is a lot of antiSemitism and antiMuslim bigotry, lets look all the discussion going on:
http://news.messages.yahoo.com/index.html
discussion of weather in Alabama is really just porn spam:
http://news.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?action=l&ft=1&board=153002028&sid=153002028&tid=alabaster&title=Alabaster
"Teen set to fight battery charge after vomiting on teacher"
has comments in the last few hours that have subjects like
"KICK THE KID'S GONADS 3 TIMES A DAY"
"I ejaculated on my Spanish teacher"
and
"STUDENT'S NAME WAS RALPH"
A discussion of the Falklands includes things like
"JUST WHEN I WAS HAVING SO MUCH FUN, OFF THE LAD SKIPS WITH HIS TAIL BETWEEN HIS LEGS AND HIS MONGREL DOG FLAT EARS OF FEAR."
and many other posts with little or no substance
http://news.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=NEWS&action=l&board=37138459&tid=afpargentinabritain&sid=37138459&ft=1
People say things online they would never say in person and in many cases things they dont really believe but are saying to get a response by offending people for fun. Flamewars exist because somehow each side will get offended and out of anger post provocative things and somehow assume that while their own posts are hyperbolic and contain hate speech intended to provoke a response the other side really believes what they are posting. the hate speech, racism and antiSemitism you see on that yahoo thread is real but at the same time its hard to know how real it is (is it people being insensitive and trying to get back at others making insensitive arguments or is some of the stuff actual beliefs)
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Antisemitism is not one single phenomenon that has operated throughout history even if Jews have often experienced it or interpreted it as such. There is a complex picture of different forms and times and contexts of anti-Jewish campaigns, interspersed with periods when Jews were left alone, periods in which they were able to win emancipation and periods in which they played central parts in the societies in which they lived.
There is no single unifying process, ideology, method, politics or explanation that links all of the following: the destruction of the temple & the siege of Masada; Christian claims that Jews killed God; libels that Jews drink blood; the Spanish Inquisition; the reaction to Jewish emancipation in France around the Dreyfus Affair; the struggle against Jewish legal emancipation in Germany; the state- inspired Pogroms across Russia and Eastern Europe – and the Tsarist ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ that peddled the story of secret international Jewish conspiracy; the Nazi genocide; the hostility to Jews in Arab states in the 1950s and 60s; the seduction of some Arab leaders by European antisemitic ideas; the hostility to any idea of Jewish settlement in Palestine; the current antisemitism of some currents of political Islam.
Yet just to list this disparate and discrete, yet not entirely unconnected set of events is also to begin to explain why there is a Jewish tendency to understand antisemitism as a given; an ahistorical constant throughout history.
But Jewish history is much more than a narrative of a single, unchanging antisemitism that manifests itself at all times, even if in slightly differing forms.
And each era of antisemitsm – each kind of antisemitism – is separate and separated – relies on different stories, on different politics, on different histories, on different kinds of antisemitic movements – for different reasons.
This is one reason why I don’t much like the idea of ‘new’ and ‘old’ antisemitism. There have been many different antisemitisms and so no single ‘old’ antisemitism with which to compare or contrast current antisemitisms.
But having said this there does seem to be something going on at the moment – and something that seems new – although it keys into and builds with some of the old bricks that are made available by previous anti-Jewish movements.
In the 1920s and 30s there were many Jews in the Labour movement in the UK. When the left fought against Nazism abroad and Blackshirts at home – there were many Jews, Jewish organisations and Jewish communities involved. The left was used to Jews. Much of the British left understood the old rubbish – and could sniff it out.
After the Holocaust, the taboo against antisemitism was strong and widely recognised. Most on the left supported efforts to found the state of Israel in 1948.
Contemporary anti-Zionists have an essentially idealist view of history. By this I mean that they think that the current reality in Israel/Palestine can be read off, unproblematically, from the ideas of Zionists like Hertzl. They think that it is ideology that creates reality. They represent the history of Zionism as a single racialised movement of Jewish supremacism and they argue that current policies of Israel can be explained by reference to that ideological movement.
What this story misses out, of course, is the Holocaust. There was much debate in the first half of the century within Jewish communities about Zionism. The anti-Zionists then, argued that Jews in Europe should assert their right to be part of European civilization, they should struggle alongside others in the Labour Movement and that they should fight antisemitism that way.
An old joke from this time: what is the definition of a Zionist? A Zionist is one Jew who gives money to a second Jew so that a third Jew could go and live in Palestine.
The thing that changed a fringe ideology of Jewish nationalism from a rather reactionary utopian project into an actually existing state was the Holocaust. The Holocaust altered the material reality of European Jewish existence and of Jewish aspirations to statehood. The Holocaust is not an excuse for anything - but it is the reason that Israel exists - and that the state exists in a different way and with a different history from other states. The Nakba happened 3 years after Auschwitz - this is not an excuse for anything - but we have to understand what happened. Jews were faced, 3 years after Auschwitz, with Arab armies mobilised on the rhetoric of driving them out.
Isaac Deutscher wrote the following in 1954:
"Israelis who have known me as an anti-Zionist of long standing are curious to hear what I think about Zionism. I have, of course, long since abandoned my anti-Zionism, which was based on a confidence in the European labour movement, or, more broadly, in European society and civilization, which that society and civilization have not justified. If, instead of arguing against Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s I had urged European Jews to go to Palestine, I might have helped to save some of the lives that were later extinguished in Hitler’s gas chambers.
…Even now, however, I am not a Zionist; and I have repeatedly said so in public and in private.
…From a burning or sinking ship people jump no matter where – on to a lifeboat, a raft, or a float. The jumping is for them an ‘historic necessity’; and the raft is in a sense the basis of their whole existence. But does it follow that the jumping should be made into a programme, or that one should take a raft-State as the basis of a political orientation?
…To my mind it is just another Jewish tragedy that the world has driven the Jew to seek safety in a nation-state in the middle of this century when the nation-state is falling into decay."
The mainstream Trotskyist left opposed Zionism in the 40s on the basis that it was utopian and could only lead to failure – their critique was that it would entrap Jews, not that the effects of its success would entrap or colonise others.
The Stalinists, at first, supported the state of Israel – perhaps thinking that it could be of use to them in the new Cold War. Czechoslovakia supplied arms to the Jews in 1948.
But there is also a tradition of antisemitism on the left, that goes back before this period, the ‘socialism of fools’ as August Bebel called it. Marx mocked the antisemitic Bruno Bauer who argued against Jewish emancipation in 19th century Germany. The Stalinists in the 1930s organised around antisemitic campaigns, and again in the 1950’s with the ‘doctors trials’.
Since the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, left antisemitism has routinely disguised itself in the clothes of anti-Zionism. Poland purged its universities of ‘Zionists’ in 1968. In the 1970s and 80s the Soviet Union imprisoned Jews who wanted to live in Israel in its Gulag.
Anti-Zionists attacked the rights of Jewish students to organize Jewish societies in the UK from the 1980s onwards.
Also in the 80s, Jim Allen wrote a play that put some of the blame for the Holocaust onto ‘Zionism’ and that represented Zionism and Nazism as being ideologically related belief systems.
There is a commonsense notion present amongst some of the left today of Jews as ‘oppressors’; Jews are Nazi-Zionists, Jews are rich Capitalists, Jews are the shady neo-cons pulling the strings of American imperialism. The left has to radically re-educate itself so that it can recognise antisemitism when it sees it.
So there is now a dangerous situation - one where the taboos against left antisemitism are fading away – or at least where antisemitism takes shapes that do not jar against these taboos.
There have been few real successes for the left since World War II – except perhaps the welfare state – perhaps civil rights – perhaps combating the worst of sexist and racist ideology - perhaps the winning of de-colonisation.
Welfare states have looked precarious since the 1980s. Many on the contemporary left are willing to say that victories such as civil rights, such as womens rights, such as decolonisation are worthless in a world where racism, sexism and imperialism endure.
Some currents on the left have picked up the politics of desperation, the politics of tokenism, the politics of ultra-radicalism. When people experience everything as a defeat and always expect defeat, they no longer need to be self-conscious about what they say. They think nobody will ever listen anyway; no worldly event will ever be influenced. And in this way a desperate politics turns in on itself, and all that matters is the correctness or the radicalism of what it tells itself.
The boycott was an example of the politics of desperation. Ilan Pappe articulated this explicitly in his Haaretz interview, saying that he was now giving up on the Israeli left and the peace movement. In desperation, Pappe looked around the world for a magic force that could replace a peace movement, and his eye fell upon us – British academics. His own colleagues, he says, are forever lost to the struggle against racism and the occupation – our colleagues in the UK are his new international vanguard. Of course the Israeli left has good reason to feel desperate – but the politics of desperation cannot help anybody. Pappe said that he understands himself now to be part of the international left not the Israeli left.
And into the picture of seemingly endless and desperate defeat for the left floats the idea, the image, the spectre, of ‘the Jews’ - not the Jews as an ethnic group, you understand, but ‘the Zionists’.
Jews are not seen as capitalists any more – but Israel is the imperialist state par excellence – is at the heart of imperialism – is supported by imperialism – represents imperialism.
The protocols are not much peddled nowadays – on the left at least – but a version of Zionist power, well-funded shady unseen power, string-pulling power – dominance of markets, of culture, of education, of ideas re-emerges.
The blood libels are no longer peddled – of Jews as Christ killers. But now there are stories of Zionists with blood on their hands, sinful Zionists, racist Zionists. And Zionism as racism wasn’t enough; it became Zionism as apartheid; and before we knew it, this had been inflated to Zionism as Nazism. And what are the worst things imaginable? Godkillers and Nazis.
And Jews are not doing well, politically, in combating these kinds of antisemitism. There are two responses that are proving to be useless in understanding and addressing antisemitism.
One is the ever more shrill hypocrisy of the Israeli and Jewish right. The settlers and their mentor Ariel Sharon alongside their British and American cheerleaders respond to antisemitism as follows: 1) antisemitism is timeless, natural and inevitable – so move to Israel 2) there is no particular problem of anti-Zionist antisemitism because all criticism of Israel is simply motivated by the old hatred.
And with ever more shrill hypocrisy, the anti-Zionists scream the inverse of the Israeli and Jewish right: there is no antisemitism; antisemitism is the fault of the Zionists; antisemitism is an instrumental discourse that is employed by the Zionists; claims of antisemitism are nothing but a cover for Israeli racism. Sharon says there is antisemitism; we say the war-criminal, the racist, is wrong – there is no antisemitism.
The other response that is proving less and less tenable as a reaction to antisemitism is to close one’s eyes and ears, pretend its not there, claim that Jews are being over-sensitive, touchy, paranoid.
Adam Keller avoids these over-blown responses and analyses the problem carefully. While it is legitimate to treat supporters of Sharon as supporters of Sharon, and supporters of the settlers as supporters of the settlers, it is absolutely not legitimate, he says, to treat all Jews or all Zionists as though they were such supporters. It is not legitimate, says Adam, to demand that Jews must declare their non-allegiance to Israel. Those who make glib comparisons between Israel and Nazis, whether they are anti-Zionists or Israeli settlers, are ‘stupid and wrong’. People speaking in a UK context about Jewish or Zionist millionaires and their shady conspiracies to subvert political decisions to their own ends can be accused of fomenting a prejudice, says Adam.
Not legitimate; stupid; wrong; fomenting prejudice; Adam criticises such foolishnesses but he refuses to call them antisemitic.
Adam’s argument is that I have been wrong to characterise various anti-Zionist positions, political outlooks, statements and policies as antisemitic. The reason that this is wrong is because we need a high level of proof to show that the anti-Zionists are motivated by a hatred of Jews – and I have failed to prove that they are motivated by antisemitism.
My argument, however, is significantly different. I do not know what goes on inside people’s heads. I have said, for example, that Sue Blackwell has a case to answer – I have argued that her politics are effectively antisemitic. I have not said anything about her motivation. I don’t know Sue Blackwell, but I have no reason to believe that she is a conscious Jew-hater. What we have said is that the politics of anti-Zionism, as manifested in the campaign to boycott Israeli academia, is effectively antisemitic.
To illustrate the difference from a well known UK example: after the racist murder of a young black man, Stephen Lawrence, the police treated his friend and his family with suspicion, they failed to treat them with respect or with sympathy and they failed to carry out the murder enquiry efficiently or effectively. The judicial enquiry that eventually followed, after a long campaign, found that the Metropolitan Police in London has a problem of institutional racism. That means that the practice of the Metropolitan police is effectively racist; it means that their failure to respond professionally to Stephen Lawrence’s murder was explainable by racism. It does not mean that every police officer in London is motivated by racism; it does not mean that the particular police officers involved were motivated by racism. It means that the Police force, as an institution has failed to recognise racist policies and practices; it has failed to address them; it has failed to educate its officers to understand racism sufficiently well so as to avoid the institution being effectively racist.
The Police Federation, the representative body of police officers reacted to this with outrage. How dare they say that we are racists! They have no proof that we are racists! We are not racists! The Police Federation failed to understand – refused to understand – the difference between racist motivation and racist policies.
Adam Keller says:
‘I don’t like the position which is singling Israel out as “the only illegitimate state”. But I don’t accept that in itself it is a proof of antisemitism. Some of those who propound it might be indeed antisemites, but much more clear proof is needed.’
But I am not claiming that people who single out Israel as ‘the only illegitimate state’ are antisemites, that they are motivated, by a racist hostility to Jews; what I am claiming, very clearly, is that the act of singling out Israel as the only illegitimate state – in the absense of any coherent reason for doing this – is in itself antisemitic, irrespective of the motivation or opinions of those who make that claim.
It is the politics of most of the anti-Zionists that is antisemitic – not their subjective or psychological motivations.
But one thing further does follow from this. Just as men and women who work as police officers in an institutionally racist force are not unlikely to become racists themselves, so anti-Zionists who peddle effectively antisemitic policies, ideas and world-views are likely to become, or to influence others to become, or license others to become, antisemites.
And there is another thing too. If you peddle antisemitic politics, you are likely to find that ‘the Jews’ appear to rise up against you, with one voice. You are also likely to find that they don’t like you much. You are likely to get the idea that they all seem to agree with each other – the ones from here, the ones from there, the ones with this politics, the ones with that politics. You might find that they spend some of their money in opposing you. You might find that they make every effort to get a sympathetic hearing from the media. You might find that Jews from other countries come to their aid. And you might find that your antisemitic politics will be defeated by your trade union colleagues. And how are you going to explain that?
David Hirsh
Lecturer
Sociology
Goldsmiths College, University of London
If it wasnt for the constant yelling about antiSemitism over the past two years (that doesnt seem to have much basis in real fact) Judaism in the US would be in more danger than it is now. Just 5-10 years ago the biggest worries were ones of assimilation and intermarriage lading to a smaller and smaller Jeiwsh community. Ever sense the Israel-Palestinian conflict started to be front page news (really after 9/11) fear mongering has more effectively united the Jeiwsh community in the US than at any point in the recent past.
What evidence do you have to support this assertion?
Yes, there are divisions within Israeli society but there are divisions within American society as well.
Not nearly as large as the gulf between the ultra-orthodox who refuse to serve in the Army, or allow planes to fly over cemeterys and the mainsteram secular culture that is inwardly quite progressive (in terms of gay rights, women's rights....)
Of course the gulf between the religious right and the left in the US is comparible but having ultranationalists at odds with ultrareligious fanatics and having both groups with political power seems much more likely to lead to open conflct. The Palestinian conflict has created a common enemy for nationalists and the religious-right in Israel allowing much more stability than you would have were it not for some common bond like this to unite people.
Yet, instead, it's just turned into yet another topic how israel is evil, antisemitism is imaginary, and zionist jews are the world's biggest evil.
You wonder why ariel sharon is still popular? Because the people on the opposite side DO support or ignore antisemitism, exactly like sharon says.
The orthodox are serving in their own military units and (some of) the ultra-orthodox seem willing to serve as well. A January 14, 2004 article in Maariv stated:
"Ratified by the Israeli army, the plan would involve one and half years of military service for the ultra-orthodox, as opposed to three years for secularists. The ultra-orthodox were promised that they will serve in at least 10-member groups in every unit in which they serve, in order to enable them to maintain prayer and other rituals associated with their lifestyle. Ultra-orthodox soldiers are to serve in domestic units and they will be allowed to return home every evening. They will be fed only kosher food, approved by the ultra-orthodox military court. At the end of their shortened term of service, they will receive all rights granted to discharged soldiers, which will allow them to enter the labor market with no restrictions."
There are three ultra-orthodox units that I am aware of:
Eternal Yehuda unit
Lavi Brigade
Nahal Hareidi
As far as the divisions b/t secularists and the ultra-religious in this country, I think they are very real. Some of these ultra-religious people/organizations advocate political violence and have proven their willingness to kill people they disagree with (such as doctors who perform abortions).
Gilad Atzmon is not a "a bigoted jew-hating freak." He's the very epitome of righteousness. Let every anti-Semite look at this man and see how wrong they are about Jews. No, every Jew is not a terrorist murderer like Begin, Shamir and Sharon. Jews are as varied as any other People. At one of the spectrum we find the praisers of evil, like gehrig et al. At the other end are examples of righteousness like Gilad Atzmon. Every Jew should be as righteous as Gilad. So should every Gentile.
What is it that separates Gilad from gehrig? Gilad does not separate Jew from Gentile. To Gilad, we are all human beings, and that's how we should we should behave not as Jews or Gentiles, but as humans.
Not gehrig. In his world you are Jew or Gentile. If you are a Gentile, you are either with "the Jews," as he defines them, or you are an enemy. His world, like the world of every racist, is divided along racial lines. He differs from Hitler only in which race he favors.
These men are as different as night and day. Tell that to the next anti-Semite who says, "All Jews are alike." No, they aren't. Gilad and gehrig have proved that forever.
As for the person a few posts up, it is absurd to suggest that antisemites should be shown Gilad. Gilad AGREES with the antisemites about Jews being shitty. How does that have anything to do with this topic?
Gilad is a bigot against jews.
His articless, which can be read on his own site, are antisemitic.
You are either in favor of antisemites, or against them. I am against them.
As for their country's existence, well, that's what the Rhodesians said, and where is Rhodesia today?
See:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/06/1748755_comment.php#1748849
"The J’s are the ultimate chameleons, they can be whatever they like as long as it serves as some expedient. As soon as you criticise their expansionist militant national beliefs (Zionism) you hurt them as a race (Semites), they would insist that anti Zionism is in practice a form of anti Semitism. When you condemn their racist tendencies, they are transformed immediately into an innocent cultural identity (merely chicken soup consumers). When you criticise their exclusive cultural leanings, they then become a race again (it isn’t me it’s all down to my mother, she is Jewish, I am just a consequence of her racial belonging). But it goes further, when you scrutinise their racist and supremacist religious law (Talmud) they remind you that most of them are in fact secular (true by the way), but then, when you question their secular philosophy, they would immediately confess that, in fact, there is no such philosophy. You may push your luck and ask them what stands at the core of their ethnic belonging. A readymade answer would be given instantly: ‘it is Hitler rather than Moses who made us into J’s’. Hitler never asked for our religious beliefs, he killed us just for being J’s.’ When you remind them that Hitler is no longer with us, they would assure you that a new one is just about to be born. Basically you can never win. But neither can they."
http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/jspot.html
The more you anti-israel people protect antisemites like gilad, the more you prove ariel sharon correct.
I wouldn't say that, but I would say that it makes people like Ariel Sharon _think_ they're correct. That's why people like nessie and his "here's why you should hate 99.5% of American Jews" nonsense are Ariel Sharon's greatest allies in the US.
@%<
That seems pretty antiSemitic will you condemn the person who wrote it without qualification?
This fool would have you believe that it is just as anti-Semitic to compliment Jews as it is to condemn them. It's a Catch 22. Maybe he wants us to ignore Jews altogether. The trouble with that is, the last time the world ignored Jews, it cost six million of them their lives. Is that what he wants? I don't think so. I think he wants us to believe that anyone, even a Jew, who criticizes Zionism is an anti-Semite. Sorry, but that simply isn't the case.
here is another one that out of context sounds pretty antiSemitic
"Look at Jewish history. Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast beaters. "
or
"Even if you are Catholic, if you live in New York you're Jewish. If you live in Butte Montana, you are going to be goyish even if you are Jewish. "
or how about these lyrics (any theater to have a show ploaying such awful antiSemitic lyrics would have to be shut down.... right?)
Germany was having trouble
What a sad, sad story
Needed a new leader to restore
Its former glory
Where, oh, where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me
LEAD TENOR STORMTROOPER:
And now it's...
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay!
We're marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Rhineland's a fine land once more!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Watch out, Europe
We're going on tour!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany...
CHORUS:
Look, it's springtime
LEAD TENOR STORMTROOPER:
Winter for Poland and France
CHORUS AND STORMTROOPER:
Springtime for Hitler and Germany!
CHORUS:
Springtime! Springtime!
Springtime! Springtime!
Springtime! Springtime!
Springtime! Springtime!
STORMTROOPER:
Come on, Germans
Go into your dance!
STORMTROOPER "ROLF":
I was born in Dusseldorf und that is why they call me Rolf.
STORMTROOPER "MEL":
Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party!
Whoever wrote such a horrible awful proNazi song must be the world's worst antiSemite...right?
I can find actual articles online by Gilad that I disagree with but can only find the antiSemitic stuff on sites attacking him. Context would seem unimportant for something speaking about politics but as you can see from the quotes above, things that offend few people when said in one context (like the songs in Mel Brook's Producers) can come across in another context as something that one could never understand being said in any context.
You could try to dig and perhaps convince me and others that Gilad is a self-hating Jew, but why would you care? Hes hardly the leader of anything, mainly plays music and is on the other side of the globe from me. Maybe the British SWP shouldnt have had him as a speaker at an event.... what does that have to do with anything? Since he wasnt quoted as having said anything antiSemitic at the event its hard to hold that against the SWP (especially when none of the antiSemitic stuff appears anywhere I can find on sites that dont have political issues with Gilad's views and its not like he goes around being openly antiSemitic... all the SWP knew was that he was a Jewish Israeli Jaz Musician who strongly opposes the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza).
He doesn't appear to consider himself jewish, as he doesn't practice judaism and does not identify with jews, BUT THAT DOES NOT MATTER.
THE POINT is, he is a bigot and he spreads the same anti-jew stuff that david duke and OPEN jew-haters spread.... yet because he "supports" the palestinians, he is being embraced by leftists all over the the place. Leftists who claim to be anti-racist and pro-peace, yet they side with anti-jew bigots who don't want peace with israel, but the destruction of israel.
I am on the left as far as politics is concerned, especially with israel, but I get quickly pushed to the right when others on the left turn out to be jew-hating bigots who are LYING when they claim to be anti-racist peace activists.
The far Left, in general, has decided to embrace jew-haters, islamic terrorists, and bigoted, bad people.
That's why the anti-israel views that come from the far left now has the SAME POINTS, SAME RATIONALE, SAME DISHONEST, EXAGGERATED BULLSHIT that you find on white supremecist and neo-nazi sites.
If you are a true peace activist, this should concern you.
But as we knwo, here on indymedia, many scumbags don't want peace between israelis and palestinians. They want palestinians to take over israel and for israel to be eliminated.
to
" The far Left, in general, has decided to embrace jew-haters"
worldwide" and denunciations of most antiar activists everywhere in the world as "jew-hating bigots"
Maybe you sound more ridicuolous than you actually mean to. Do you have reason to believe this guy said something really bad at this British bookstore or are you just this angry and worried because he might have?
The danger is real the time is now and we need all the help we can get to stop the growing menace that was made so clear to us on June 17th.
Can you ever listen to another jazz performer without thinking of that horrible Friday night?
Ariel Sharon is a Jewish serial mass murderer, responsible for the deaths of about 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese.
As a person who, like both of them, was raised Jewish, which of them should I most energetically disassociate myself from?
Any advice, Gehrig, et al.?
Gilad Alzmon cheers on the jew-killing terrorists.
Hell, no, you don't. You're so busy attacking people, be it Gilad Atzmon or a poster with an opposing view, that the moment anyone doesn't behave as you want him/them to do, you're like a gang of vultures swooping in for the kill.
The current smear campaign against Gilad Atzmon is but another example of hatred gone amuck. However, it's apparent that the vemon spewed here towards Gilad is based on more than just hatred. It's motivated by fear, a fear that open minded, intelligent, and independent thinking people around the world will listen to what he is saying and realize the truth of it. Happily people around the world ARE listening to him, and that has you, his detractors, running scared.
I suggest you keep on running because the grip you once held over open and vibrant discourse is unravelling faster than even you realize. You are not even a bit player any more because truth, as it does in all cases sooner or later, has emerged, a truth which points happily to the downfall of zionism, and we have today the best opportunity to squash its hateful propaganda once and for all time.
Throwing out the usual zionist stock-in-trade accusations - racism, anti semite, and, gasp, holocaust denier - has silenced far too many for far too long. These words have long been used to vilify, crucify, and destroy not only careers but the lives of decent human beings, themselves. Zionists have been getting away with this crap forever. It's time we took a stand.
Gilad Atzmon is taking a stand. Israel Shamir is taking a stand. Paul Eisen is taking a stand. All three are currently being smeared by fading zionists. I would suggest that even if you were successful in destroying the reputations of these three gifted individuals, you would not have any satisfaction because three more would immediately rise up to take their place. And so on and so on into eternity.
If Gilad were to simply play his music and mind his own business, from your perspective that is, he'd never be questioned or mentioned. Blessedly - BLEASEDLY - Gilad does more than give us award winning music. He gives us insightful analysis on today's issues, in particular, with respect to the brutal Israeli occupation in the Palestinian Tereritories, but he is much more than that. He is the voice of truth, and it would be wise if people were to listen. Only the fearful, their minds closed tight, refuse to do that.
Incidentally who the hell cares if Gilad is jewish or not? Why is this an issue amongst the little minds out there? He is an award winning jazz musician who writes keenly analytical, courageous, and thought provoking essays. He also has an endearing sense of humour, but most important of all he belongs to no one. His mind is his own.
Slandering him is beneath contempt. Slandering him is also a waste of time because decent honest people know better, and decent honest people will always know better.
Picketing Bookmarks, a London Marxist bookshop, when Gilad was speaking therein, is SO zionist, SO narrow-minded and SO a total waste of time. Hehehe. That pathetic attempt to censor free speech came to naught, eh?
For the benefit of those who do genuinely care, I am attaching below the URL to the presentation Gilad gave at Bookmarks. In a riviting essay he reintroduced his audience to the genius of Austrian philosopher, Otto Weininger, whose one and only book,"Sex and Character", in 1903 had a monstrous influence on the world's foremost writers and thinkers throughout the first half of the 20th century. (Note: I say "reintroduced" because Weininger, himself a jew, is, we're told, a "racist, anti-semite and jew hater", and his thought provoking input has been virtually banished from recent philosophical discourse. No need to wonder why.)
Gilad, in his presentation, does a critique on the theories put forth by Weininger both from a universal and a personal perspective, and he comes to the realization that his own work is "drawing its power from a process of self reflection".
In his concluding remarks, he states:
>>>"Rather than looking at the world, I am basically looking into myself. I come out with music, literature and ideas. Whether my work is of any quality is down to you to decide. Whether I manage to say something about the world, days will"
He didn't ignore the presence of picketers outside the book shop either. To them he had this to say:
>>>>"Some of you will read my books and I am pretty sure that you can make up your minds. But when it comes to those who were picketing out there earlier on, it is categorically clear, they are not going to make up their minds, they are not willing to be amongst others, or if to be more precise, they are not even willing to look into themselves. While we were sitting here in a book shop, they were engaged in burning books. This is the real meaning of the Jewish ghetto walls, whether it is the apartheid wall in Palestine or just a small separation wall here outside Bookmarks, London. Zionism is all about segregation, it is there to separate the Jews from the rest of humanity".
see:
Sex and Politics
A talk in Bookmarks, London’s Marxist bookshop, 17.6.05
http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/sexpolitics.html
Who?
I had never heard of him before visiting this website. I suspect most people outside of your ultra-left, Israel hating world have never heard of him either.
We're not scared, we're effective. We stopped the AUT boycott and will continue to get involved politically whenever and wherever anti-Zionism rears its ugly head.
And Angie, I'm not running anywhere nor are any other progressive Jewish Zionists. We are here to let people know that the extreme left has anti-Semities in their ranks, just as the extreme right does. I know people at Indymedia hate to hear it, but its true. And its obvious to most Jews who self-identify as Jews whether they live in Europe, the US, or anywhere else on the planet.
http://www.liberoblog.com
European Union Committee on Xenophobia and Racism
WORKING DEFINITION OF ANTISEMITISM
The purpose of this document is to provide a practical guide for identifying incidents, collecting data, and supporting the implementation and enforcement of legislation dealing with antisemitism.
Working definition: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
In addition, such manifestations could also target the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.
Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:
• Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
• Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
• Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
• Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
• Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
• Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:
• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
• Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
• Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
• Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.
Antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law (for example, denial of the Holocaust or distribution of antisemitic materials in some countries).
Criminal acts are antisemitic when the targets of attacks, whether they are people or property—such as buildings, schools, places of worship and cemeteries—are selected because they are, or are perceived to be, Jewish or linked to Jews.
Antisemitic discrimination is the denial to Jews of opportunities or services available to others and is illegal in many countries.
I'm fairly certain you--like most on the far left--would not consider an African American who was concerned about racism as "rabidly obsessed"...
And if you are interested in left-wing anti-Semitism, read the Jewish press. It is a hot topic right now and magazines/newspapers across the political perspective are reporting about it. It's hardly limited to the conservative right as most at this website would have you believe.
Of course not, but would you ever see someone pointing to racism at a small bookstore in England as proof that some group in California is racist?
If someone in California made such a show of support for him, piling on every imaginable excuse to minimize his bigotry, I think we probably would.
@%<
Its time to take note of the anti-Islamic diatribes and Islamophobia spewing out of people like Daniel Pipes, the Wurmsers, Alan Dershowitz (I don’t hear William Kunstler making such remarks), and many more. Look what Pipes did to the innocent Arabs in Lodi, even the armchair Zionists at the Chronicle condemned it. Look what he and others of his ilk tried to do to Joseph Masad at Columbia. The fact that 13,000 innocent Arab Americans and immigrants have been tortured, detained, deported, disappeared or murdered so far with the concerted help of many leaders in the American Jewish community is a more damning thing than what happened to the Japanese in America during WWII. 13,000 is just the beginning, the neocons have 3.5 years left minimum.
We all have a serious bone to pick with Jewish Americans too. American Jews’ support for Zionism is becoming much more out there than ever before. This is a good thing; let’s get them out in the open and out of hiding behind spurious accusations of “anti-Semitism.”
If indeed, as many American Jews state, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, and we accept as fact the crimes of Zionism and Israel both on a moral basis and a legal basis, then we can conclude that, indeed, anti-Semitism is a moral obligation.
But let's compare this, for example, to the claim that Germans generally were complicit in the crimes of the German government in WWII. This did not mean that every last German was guilty. It did mean that most Germans were. Their guilt did not consist of throwing people into concentration camps. It consisted in support for the people who planned such acts, or for denying the horror unfolding, for failing to speak out and resist, for passive consent.
The fanciful notion that there is any real danger of any kind of active resistance by American Jews or Jews in Israel can never be an excuse. Virtually no Jew in America or even Israel is in any kind of danger from speaking out. But here, speaking out is the only sort of resistance required. If the overwhelming majority of Jews in America do not, and in the vast majority of cases Jews do not, and in the vast majority of cases, this is because they support Israel.
Now maybe the whole notion of collective responsibility should be discarded but at present, the case for Jewish complicity seems much stronger than the case for German complicity. So if it is not racist or unreasonable to say that the Germans were complicit in crimes against humanity, then it is neither racist nor unreasonable to say the same of American Jews.
And should the notion of collective responsibility be discarded, it would still be reasonable to say that many, perhaps most, Jews support a state that commits war crimes regularly and systematically, whether actively or by passive denial because that's just true.
So if saying these things is anti-Semitic, then it can be more than reasonable to be anti-Semitic.
Do you mean Nessie? I doubt anyone else here has ever heard of the guy.
If the problem is with Nessie why make a huge deal about it on a site he clearly hates.
Aside from these posts I have never ever seen any mention of this guy (show of support or articles attacking him)If your problem is really restricted to Nessie's interview with him why not debate with him via email or something so everyone else doesnt have to be stuck in the middle of this back and forth name calling.
I mean if the real issue here is Nessie's inetreview why such statements as
" The far Left, in general, has decided to embrace jew-haters, islamic terrorists, and bigoted, bad people.
That's why the anti-israel views that come from the far left now has the SAME POINTS, SAME RATIONALE, SAME DISHONEST, EXAGGERATED BULLSHIT that you find on white supremecist and neo-nazi sites."
Does everything Nessie say reflect on all of the Bay Area ( we are all guilty just because we live near him) or is the motivation for an attack on antiwar activists and the left a cause rather than an effect of this fuss over some guy in England speaking at a bookstore?
The quotes from Gilad sound pretty bad, I tried reading the stuff on his site and its hard to tell whats serious and whats not (the writing isnt that straight forward) so I cant reall tell what to make of it.
http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/jspot.html
seems like it is the worst of the stuff up there?
About half of it is maybe acceptable if he considers himself Jewish and its aimed at a Jewish audience (in the sense that if you changed J to Black he would sound like Chris Rock) but there is some stuff that seems unacceptable in anything that is not parody (but there is a sarcastic tone to the whole thing that makes it hard to know what is serious and what isnt)
It is hard to see Gilad in the same light as David Irving, Pat Buchanan, or others who more openly say things that are antiSemitic.
Unlike Buchanan, Gilad isnt a well known figure on TV and frequently in many newspapers, so I really would be much less worried about him playing music or speaking to a few dozen people in England about something unrelated to the possibly antiSemitic stuff in some of his writings compared to the more serious danger of having people like Buchanan willing to openly write antiSemitic stuff in publications reaching millions.
I guess a difference would be that the SWP wouldngt allow Buchanan to speak at one of its bookstore but since I heve never even meet anyone in the British SWP I dont exactly understand how that relates to antiWar actvists in the Bay Area. I have a feeling that if Gilad were to speak about jazz at an official UC Berjkeley lecture there would be protests against antiSemitism on the Left but if Buchanan spoke there would be no protests. The difference would only seem to be the nonAntiSemitic beliefs of both speakers and I have a feeling that the agenda behind attacks on Gilad have little if anything to do with antiSemitism (at least those bringing it up as a topic here; people having a problem with him in a context where he may have power that would be different)
in a blatant incitement to racial hatred published in
the Sunday Express of 4 January, described Arabs as
"suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors",
and implicitly suggested that the British thought that
all 200 million of them were "loathsome" and
"threatening" "terrorists" and "asylum-seekers". He
also denied that Muslims had contributed anything to
civilisation (algebra, optics, the pointed arch and
Arabic numerals did not feature in his column) and
went on to reveal his expertise in the field by
writing that Iran is an Arab country.
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/6443/Islamophobia/ip_uk.html
He seems like a comparible case of an Islamophobe to Gilads possible antiSemitism. Gilad has far fewer people who listen to him but still....
Robert Kilroy-Silk is obviously a Muslim-hating freak. This much is obvious simply by reading his stupid editorials.
Muslim-hating Israel supporters here and in real life who see the garbage and the hate he produces, if they were true anti-racists, would reject him.
Instead, they accept him.
Muslim-hating Israel supporters seem ready and willing to ignore all hatred against Arabs as long as the people behind it demonize Muslims.
Supporters of Israel are proving that a huge portion of the anti-Muslim stuff is really just racism disguised as "valid" political views.
And the idiotic rantings above that Islam is the same as nazism (supremecist lunatics trying to develop a master race while waging war of takeover over the entire continent, while gathering up those they don't like and extermating them by the millions) is insane and just goes to show that the loudest anti-Muslim scum, one by one, always turn out to be racists.
I think Muslim fundamentalist leaders are friggin assholes (like most religious leaders) but I side with them LONG before I side iwth the FAKE CLOSET NAZI ISRAEL SUPPORTRS that seem to run most of the world's protests in favor of the war in Iraq.
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ok that sounds crazy but its just what I assume James Black would conclude from Silk in his actual words (but with antiSemite changed to antiMuslim). The conspiracy that one cant be anAntiwar protester without being tarrnished with antiSemitism is as offensive of a view as one claiming that all proWar people really support the war because of Israel. Opposition or support of US wars has little to do with Israel (while more proWar peopel are likely to support Israel's crackdown on Palestinians and the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, more antiwar people are Jewish)
--
Like Zionists worked with the anti-Semite Lord Balfour of the famed Balfour Declaration fame. (A Jew in the British cabinet/parliament *OPPOSED* the Balfour Declaration not only because it was unfair to the Palestinian Arabs, but because he recognized it's true anti-Semitic goal.) He and they also had a common interest: to send Jews about as far away as he could get them, and palm Jews off onto some relatively defenseless non-Europeans.
Edwin Samuel Montagu ( http://www.montaguemillennium.com/familyresearch/h_1911_samuel.htm ) was the second Jewish person ever to have served in a Britih cabinet. He spoke against Zionism saying that it endangered people in positions like his since the idea that Judaism was a nationalism implied that British Jews were somehow less British. The counterargument against him by British Jewish Zionists wasnt that he was wrong but that the main reason for Zionism was that for many Jews in E Europe this wasnt a choice. While Montagu's argument was essentially that Zionism would increase antiSemitism by making Jews appear to be less loyal to the states where they lived. His argument sounds reasonable on the surface but was mainly put forth by very rich highly assimilated Jews at the time who had a choice to just treat Judaism as a religion. In a modern context his argument makes more sense then at the time, but even then I doubt there were any/many Zionists openly demanding that all Jews should move to Palestine (the main message at the time was that it ws a safe refuge not a place Jews had to go). His line of argument would make sense against antiSemitic statements by Sharon demanding Jews leave France (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3904943.stm ) but at the time was mainly the upper class Jewsih argument against Zionism and different from more working class arguments (one more comon train of thought less agrued that practiced was that the United States was an existing safe haven and many of the early Zionists were a little crazy in a mellinialist cult sort of way).
Anyways here is the actual text of what Montagu wrote:
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Edwin Montagu and Zionism 1917
Memorandum of Edwin Montagu on the Anti-Semitism of the Present (British) Government - Submitted to the British Cabinet, August, 1917
I have chosen the above title for this memorandum, not in any hostile sense, not by any means as quarrelling with an anti-Semitic view which may be held by my colleagues, not with a desire to deny that anti-Semitism can be held by rational men, not even with a view to suggesting that the Government is deliberately anti-Semitic; but I wish to place on record my view that the policy of His Majesty's Government is anti-Semitic in result will prove a rallying ground for Anti-Semites in every country in the world.
This view is prompted by the receipt yesterday of a correspondence between Lord Rothschild and Mr. Balfour.
Lord Rothschild's letter is dated the 18th July and Mr. Balfour's answer is to be dated August 1917. I fear that my protest comes too late, and it may well be that the Government were practically committed when Lord Rothschild wrote and before I became a member of the Government, for there has obviously been some correspondence or conversation before this letter. But I do feel that as the one Jewish Minister in the Government I may be allowed by my colleagues an opportunity of expressing views which may be peculiar to myself, but which I hold very strongly and which I must ask permission to express when opportunity affords.
I believe most firmly that this war has been a death-blow to Internationalism, and that it has proved an opportunity for a renewal of the slackening sense of Nationality, for it is has not only been tacitly agreed by most statesmen in most countries that the redistribution of territory resulting from the war should be more or less on national grounds, but we have learned to realise that our country stands for principles, for aims, for civilisation which no other country stands for in the same degree, and that in the future, whatever may have been the case in the past, we must live and fight in peace and in war for those aims and aspirations, and so equip and regulate our lives and industries as to be ready whenever and if ever we are challenged. To take one instance, the science of Political Economy, which in its purity knows no Nationalism, will hereafter be tempered and viewed in the light of this national need of defence and security.The war has indeed justified patriotism as the prime motive of political thought.
It is in this atmosphere that the Government proposes to endorse the formation of a new nation with a new home in Palestine. This nation will presumably be formed of Jewish Russians, Jewish Englishmen, Jewish Roumanians, Jewish Bulgarians, and Jewish citizens of all nations - survivors or relations of those who have fought or laid down their lives for the different countries which I have mentioned, at a time when the three years that they have lived through have united their outlook and thought more closely than ever with the countries of which they are citizens.
Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom. If a Jewish Englishman sets his eyes on the Mount of Olives and longs for the day when he will shake British soil from his shoes and go back to agricultural pursuits in Palestine, he has always seemed to me to have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship and to have admitted that he is unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain, or to be treated as an Englishman. I have always understood that those who indulged in this creed were largely animated by the restrictions upon and refusal of liberty to Jews in Russia. But at the very time when these Jews have been acknowledged as Jewish Russians and given all liberties, it seems to be inconceivable that Zionism should be officially recognised by the British Government, and that Mr. Balfour should be authorized to say that Palestine was to be reconstituted as the "national home of the Jewish people". I do not know what this involves, but I assume that it means that Mahommedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine. Perhaps also citizenship must be granted only as a result of a religious test.
I lay down with emphasis four principles:
1. I assert that there is not a Jewish nation. The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have no sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or less degree the same religion. It is no more true to say that a Jewish Englishman and a Jewish Moor are of the same nation than it is to say that a Christian Englishman and a Christian Frenchman are of the same nation: of the same race, perhaps, traced back through the centuries - through centuries of the history of a peculiarly adaptable race. The Prime Minister and M. Briand are, I suppose, related through the ages, one as a Welshman and the other as a Breton, but they certainly do not belong to the same nation.
2. When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country, drawn from all quarters of the globe, speaking every language on the face of the earth, and incapable of communicating with one another except by means of an interpreter. I have always understood that this was the consequence of the building of the Tower of Babel, if ever it was built, and I certainly do not dissent from the view, commonly held, as I have always understood, by the Jews before Zionism was invented, that to bring the Jews back to form a nation in the country from which they were dispersed would require Divine leadership. I have never heard it suggested, even by their most fervent admirers, that either Mr. Balfour or Lord Rothschild would prove to be the Messiah.
I claim that the lives that British Jews have led, that the aims that they have had before them, that the part that they have played in our public life and our public institutions, have entitled them to be regarded, not as British Jews, but as Jewish Britons. I would willingly disfranchise every Zionist. I would be almost tempted to proscribe the Zionist organisation as illegal and against the national interest. But I would ask of a British Government sufficient tolerance to refuse a conclusion which makes aliens and foreigners by implication, if not at once by law, of all their Jewish fellow-citizens.
3. I deny that Palestine is to-day associated with the Jews or properly to be regarded as a fit place for them to live in. The Ten Commandments were delivered to the Jews on Sinai. It is quite true that Palestine plays a large part in Jewish history, but so it does in modern Mahommendan history, and, after the time of the Jews, surely it plays a larger part than any other country in Christian history. The Temple may have been in Palestine, but so was the Sermon on the Mount and the Crucifixion. I would not deny to Jews in Palestine equal rights to colonisation with those who profess other religions, but a religious test of citizenship seems to me to be the only admitted by those who take a bigoted and narrow view of one particular epoch of the history of Palestine, and claim for the Jews a position to which they are not entitled.
If my memory serves me right, there are three times as many Jews in the world as could possible get into Palestine if you drove out all the population that remains there now. So that only one-third will get back at the most, and what will happen to the remainder?
4. I can easily understand the editors of the Morning Post and of the New Witness being Zionists, and I am not in the least surprised that the non-Jews of England may welcome this policy. I have always recognised the unpopularity, much greater than some people think, of my community. We have obtained a far greater share of this country's goods and opportunities than we are numerically entitled to. We reach on the whole maturity earlier, and therefore with people of our own age we compete unfairly. Many of us have been exclusive in our friendships and intolerant in our attitude, and I can easily understand that many a non-Jew in England wants to get rid of us. But just as there is no community of thought and mode of life among Christian Englishmen, so there is not among Jewish Englishmen. More and more we are educated in public schools and at the Universities, and take our part in the politics, in the Army, in the Civil Service, of our country. And I am glad to think that the prejudices against inter-marriage are breaking down. But when the Jew has a national home, surely it follows that the impetus to deprive us of the rights of British citizenship must be enormously increased. Palestine will become the world's Ghetto. Why should the Russian give the Jew equal rights? His national home is Palestine. Why does Lord Rothschild attach so much importance to the difference between British and foreign Jews? All Jews will be foreign Jews, inhabitants of the great country of Palestine.
I do not know how the fortunate third will be chosen, but the Jew will have the choice, whatever country he belongs to, whatever country he loves, whatever country he regards himself as an integral part of, between going to live with people who are foreigners to him, but to whom his Christian fellow-countrymen have told him he shall belong, and of remaining as an unwelcome guest in the country that he thought he belonged to.
I am not surprised that the Government should take this step after the formation of a Jewish Regiment, and I am waiting to learn that my brother, who has been wounded in the Naval Division, or my nephew, who is in the Grenadier Guards, will be forced by public opinion or by Army regulations to become an officer in a regiment which will mainly be composed of people who will not understand the only language which he speaks - English. I can well understand that when it was decided, and quite rightly, to force foreign Jews in this country to serve in the Army, it was difficult to put them in British regiments because of the language difficulty, but that was because they were foreigners, and not because they were Jews, and a Foreign Legion would seem to me to have been the right thing to establish. A Jewish Legion makes the position of Jews in other regiments more difficult and forces a nationality upon people who have nothing in common.
I feel that the Government are asked to be the instrument for carrying out the wishes of a Zionist organisation largely run, as my information goes, at any rate in the past, by men of enemy descent or birth, and by this means have dealt a severe blow to the liberties, position and opportunities of service of their Jewish fellow-countrymen.
I would say to Lord Rothschild that the Government will be prepared to do everything in their power to obtain for Jews in Palestine complete liberty of settlement and life on an equality with the inhabitants of that country who profess other religious beliefs. I would ask that the Government should go no further.
E.S.M.
23 August 1917
Source: Great Britain, Public Record Office, Cab. 24/24, Aug. 23, 1917. Lord Edwin Samuel Montagu (1879-1924), Anglo-Jewish statesman, was British Minister of Munitions, 1916, and Secretary of State for India, 1917-22.
http://www.manfamily.org/Edwin%20Montagu%20and%20Zionism%201917.htm
Gilad's arguments aganst Zionism are different. He may not be antiSemitic but his hostility towards most Jews and most Israelis is similar to that of Abdul Hadi Palazzi's hostility towards Muslims and Arabs. To a Muslim audience Abdul Hadi Palazzi may seem like someone trying to moderate fundamentalist tendencies but he gets away with saying things that are openly biggoted (and associating with racists like Daniel Pipes) by hiding behind the fact that he used to be a fundamentalist. Gilad is similar. If someone not from a Jewish background had written what he wrote the British SWP wouldn't have thought twice about banning him from speaking at all of its boookstores. It shouldnt make a difference since the effect of a Palazzi or a Atzmon is to play to stereotypes and whip up hatred. But, it does make a difference in terms of motive. Palazzi may just be trying to make money off the new trend in antiMuslim hatred around the world but its likely that he and Atzmon are essentially just rebelling against their own communities in a way that in other contexts wouldnt be thought of as a bigotry; bad childhood experiences often lead to this sort of invective against one's the community where one grew up. Gilad does go beyond a level one can see as acceptable (as does Palazzi) but its not that different from someone forced to attend a strict Catholic school having a hostile reaction to Catholicism later in life. hat doesnt excuse Atzmon or Palazzi (or people like David Horrowitz who rebelled later in life due to a traumatic experience) but it does make them a little more understandable. Certain strains of antiSemitism comming out of a rebellion against a repressive familly, local community, military or the like is to be expected in Israel and if it were not for the existane of nonJews it wouldnt be seen as any different from other forms of misanthropy growing out of alienation, plus for all the obsession of supporters of Israel with antiSemitism abroad Israel itself is one of the few places you regularly hear jokes about the Hollocaust and other such things that would be taboo outside of an all Jewish community (a comparible phenomena to acceptable jokes about Afican Americans within the Aferican American community)
AntiZionism is not antiSemitism although the major strains of Jewish antiZionism in the 10s and 20s no longer exist (now one has NK and religious cults that are "antiZionst" but opposition to an existing state where people cant go back anywhere is different than opposition to the future formation of a state)
Depending on ones definition of ZIonism, perhaps groups fighting to end to occupation are nonantiSemitic antiZionists (so one still has a sizable community of nonantiSemtic secular Jewish antiZionists) but debates about Zionism are invariably confused by different definitions of a word that has no fundamental meaning.
If antiZionism mean opposition to setlers and Israeli expansionism, most Israelis would be antiZionists (but of course most would take offesne at thnis arguing the word has more significance than its definition)
If Zionism means supporting the right of Jews to stay in what is now Israel without being expelled, even the most rabid sounding self proclaimed antiZionists would probably have to call themselves Zionists (but they never would since the word for some reason has more significance to them than the definition of the word)
Zionism and antiZionism are words best left to historical discussions of movements before 1948. The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the right of return, the status of Jerusalem, tactics of Palestinians resisting Occupation, tactics by Israel to protect its civilians, the future of Israel proper as a binational state (since the Jewish population will eventually be a minority even with a 2 state solution due to demograohic trends), Israeli laws that are seen to favor Jews over nonJews... these are things that can be debated. Zionism vs antiZionism arguments always end up in the mud because of the strong emotion people have come to associate with the word Zionism (which contraty to what both sides say cant have a fundamental definition any more than any other word can since English at least defined words based off usage and allows multiple definitions)
Imperialist in general, and Brits in particular, never do anything for subject people's out of pure altruism. Their altruism is window dressing for their imperial ambitions. In Palestine, it almost backfired when extreme rightwing Zionist terrorist groups like the Irgun turned on them. But then the Brits pulled their occupation troops out, and setup a puppet government. In less than a decade, Israeli troops were fighting in Egypt along side Brits in the Suez war.
His primary motivation was probably a desire to cause unrest in the Ottoman Empire (there was a very large Jewish community in Baghdad that was probably as much of a focus as the Jews in Palestine). Some of the attempt to undermine the Ottomans was through existing antiOttoman agents working through Zionist groups. People like Aaron Aaronson essentially acted as a spies for Britian. While Aaron Aaronson was a Zionist, he was not very trusted by the broader Zionist movement in Palestine because they saw him an endangering their cause. They had plenty of reason to be worried since suspicion of Armenians as being agents for Russia was used as a spark that started the Armenian Hollocaust.
If you look through British documents from the time, the motivation for the Balfour Declaration went well beyond using Jews in Palestine to undermione the Ottomans since many of the British officials in the Middle East had antiSemitic conspiracy theories that held that the Ottoman Empire was run by Jews and Masons through the Young Turks (and thus by throwing Jews a bone the power structures in Constantinpole would collapse). There were numerous antiSemitic British officials with such beliefs and you even see it in Churchill's writings. During WWI you see an amazing amount of antiSemitic conspiracy theories by British officials including beliefs that both German and the Bolsheviks were part of sone secret Jewish/Mason master plan. I dont think Balfour himself held views quite this crazy but you have to take this stuff into account to understand why the Balfour Declaration was approved.
Any talke of the Balfour Declaration should also take into account the fact that the British promised a lot of things to a lot of people at thsi exact same time (with many promises that contradicted other promises). The main group that the British encouraged to rise up (and thus endangered by assocation with the Ottoman's military enemy) were Arab groups in the Hijaz. The entire Arab revolt was a complete failure even though Lawrence sold it to the public as a great victory. The reason the Husayns were put in power in Jordan and Iraq was mainly to try to make it look like the earlier plans in the Hejaz werent as foolhardy as they really were (neithe Faisal ibn Husayn nor Abdullah bin Husayn had any real support from anyone except Britain at the time)
As an ideology in the late 1800s Zionism may have been flawed but it was flawed in the same way as the Back to Africa movement was flawed (an idea that no chance of equality as a minority meant that one must return to a mythical homeland where others happened to already be living). The events surrounding how Israel was founded (attacks on Muslims and other Arabs that caused them to flee) turned Zionists like Einstein off from the way the Zionist goal was headed when it came close to being a possibility.But just as the USSR doesnt prove the Communism will always rsult in totalitarianism the violence surrounding the founding of Israel didnt mean that the original ZIonist goals had to end up with a result where there was division betwen Jews and Palestinians. Einstein was a Zionist would disagreed with Begin's death squads. There were Zionists who did horrible things, Zionists who disagreed with those horrible thing, a few Zionists who may have cooperated with the Nazis but many who helped fight them... It was a pretty diverse movement that one cant accuse of being one exact thing and its not clear what people mean when they talk of "Zionists" outside of a political movement that no longer exists.
It's clear to me--they are talking about J-E-W-S...
Im very suspect of people who call themselves Zionists or antiZionists since the word lost a lot of meaning after Israel was created and thus these labels can mean a lot of different things. But when you hear US leftists yelling about Zionists, they sometimes mean people like Pat Robertson. While talk of "Zionism is evil" is problematic when the term is undefined, the undefined definition definitely doesnt mean "jew" since even the antiSemitic sounding antiZionists recognize Jewish groups like NK as not Zionists and Evangelical supporters of Israel's role in the 2nd comming as Zionists. I like to see much of the Zionist conspiracy theories in the same light as UFO conspiracy theories; the conspiring group doesnt actually exist (there may be secret air strips used to test new airforce planes and there may be conservative Jewish groups that lobby Congress to support Israel, but AIPAC resembles a Zionist Conspiracy in about the same way as Stealth bombers didnt prove UFO conspiracies correct)
It's stupid.
It doesn't matter what balfour wanted or didn't want.
It's year 2005 now. Israel eists. It's a state that israeli jews plan on keeping as a jewish homeland for a very, very long time.
Work from there.
If you care about peace,figure out how both sides can achieve peace.
I personally don't believe that hamas, islamic jihad and varous other fundy pali groups want a permanent peace with israel. They are setill dreaming of getting rid of it altogether.
Various nuts on the far right and far left agree with hamas, it seems.
As for this topic, this particular topic is about the fact that gilad alzmon, regarldess of what he CLAIMS his background is, is a bigoted, dishonest, freaked-out, antisemitic loon who goes out of his way to try to pretend to only care about politics and peace on earth. But he, israel shamir, and various others, are obviously just bigots.
And bigots have no place in peace movments.
FAQ, PENGON, October 4th, 2003
Frequently Asked Questions about the Apartheid Wall
1) How long is the Wall?
In total the Wall will run over 650 km (400 miles) inside the West Bank.
2) Where is the Wall being built?
The Wall is being built deep within the West Bank as it zigzags throughout 10 out of the 11 West Bank districts. The Wall, on this path, de facto annexes nearly 50% of the West Bank and completely destroys all continuity of life in the region.
The Wall begins at the northern most point in the West Bank and runs through the western districts of the West Bank to the north of Jerusalem; the Wall is not being built on or near the 1967 Green Line and at points reaches 16 km (some 10 miles) deep right into the heart of the West Bank in order to annex major Israeli Jewish-only settlements (more details in Question 9). After cutting through neighborhoods and villages in East Jerusalem, the Wall picks up by Bethlehem and continues south to Hebron. In eastern West Bank, a second wall begins again in the northern West Bank and, running somewhat parallel to the first wall de facto annexes the Jordan Valley, extends south to Jerusalem where it connects with the first Wall, and thereafter stretches through the southern West Bank.
More detailed information is provided in the section Maps.
3) What does the Wall look like?
The Wall takes on a variety of forms; around Qalqiliya the Wall is pure concrete eight meters (25 feet) high and fortified with armed watchtowers and in other areas it may be part concrete/part fence or a series of razor wire and/or electric fencing all of which includes a 70-100 meter (approximately 230-330 feet) “buffer zone” with trenches, roads, razor wire, cameras, and trace paths for footprints. In Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the Wall is made up of a combination of these edifices.
Regardless of the Wall’s structural differences, the implications are the same for Palestinians-- the inability to travel for employment, medical care, and education atop of the theft of land and resources by and for Israel (more details in Question 6).
Refer to the Photos section for downloadable images of the Wall and communities.
4) How much of the Wall has been completed and when is it scheduled to be completed?
The Israeli government began building the Wall in June 2002 in the northern West Bank districts of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Qalqiliya; at the end of July 2003, Israel announced the “completion” of this section, the so-called “first phase”, which stretches some 145 km (90 miles). However, the Israeli government continues to raze land, destroy shops, homes, and infrastructure in these areas as well as pave way for the “buffer zone”. Simultaneously, destruction for and building of the Wall has been taking place in northern Jerusalem by Qalandiya and Kafr Aqab, in the neighborhood Abu Dis in eastern Jerusalem, and around Bethlehem, Beit Sahur, and Beit Jala. The latest announcements of the Israeli government predict the completion of the Wall by 2005.
The Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign Fact Sheet: The Wall’s “First Phase” provides more details for the “completed” sections of the Wall.
5) Is the Wall temporary?
At the cost of 12 million NIS or 2.8 million USD per km, the Wall is not a “temporary” measure but the continuation of Israel’s theft of Palestinian land and iron grip of Palestinian resources. The Wall, through its path which is marked by land annexation and destruction, is clearly a “tool” for the Israeli government in maximizing the confiscation of Palestinian land for future settlement expansion. In one case, in the village Nazlat ‘Isa, located between the Wall and the Green Line, the Wall brought the complete destruction of the entire village market including over 200 shops and five homes (with 16 additional homes having been given demolition orders), completely destroying the livelihood for all residents. The devastating reality which the Wall imposes is meant to ensure that Palestinians will be forcibly expelled from areas Israel looks to annex and “demographically contained” in other areas by creating permanent “facts on the ground” for the continued colonization of Palestine.
6) How is the Wall affecting Palestinian communities?
The Wall is devastating every aspect of Palestinian life—already tens of communities have experienced the loss of land, water, and resources which provide their sustenance as well as the destruction of community and personal property. Palestinian villages and towns near the Wall have become isolated ghettos where movement in and out is limited, if not impossible, thus severing travel for work, health, education, and visits to friends and family. For instance, in the 18 communities surrounded into an enclave in the Tulkarem district the inability to travel due to the Wall and Israeli military “closures” has brought the unemployment rate up from 18% in 2000 to an estimated 78% in the spring of 2003. In Qalqiliya, where the Wall hermitically seals the city with one Israeli military controlled checkpoint, nearly 10% of the 42,000 residents have been forced to leave their homes due to the city’s imprisonment, closure of the market, and inability to find work.
The Wall is intended to deny any prospects for survival in communities, and therefore is not only the negation of Palestinian national aspirations and right to self-determination, but also a tool in the creeping “transfer” of the population and the realization of the Zionist/Israeli expansionist plans as addressed in Question 13.
Community Voices offers personal testimonies and community case studies from those affected by the Wall. Additionally, The Wall in Palestine: Facts, Testimonies, Analysis, and Call to Action details the Wall’s implications on life in Palestine and coming impacts.
7) Are there gates where Palestinians can cross over the Wall and access their lands?
The notion of “access” gates where the Israeli military will “permit” Palestinians to travel to their land demonstrates the Wall’s institutionalization and follows the Israeli “permit” system which began during the 1993 Oslo Process whereby the Israeli government has been consolidating absolute control over every aspect of life in Palestine through dictating all aspects of movement.
The Israeli government’s rhetoric of “gates” and movement has amounted to the complete denial of the basic right to freedom of movement for Palestinians. The reality of “access” gates on the ground is the severe humiliation of Palestinians by the Israeli military and private “security” guards including beatings, being “denied” passage or being told that the land is “not theirs” and that they are “entering Israel”. Furthermore, in most cases the Israeli military only “allows” residents (who have Israeli approved permits and paperwork) to cross for a limited number of times per day and between highly restrictive hours. Additionally, communities are not told in advance when the gates will be opened and thus endure grueling waits, often for the military not to arrive or to arrive and deny access.
8) What is the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign demanding?
The Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign is calling for:
1) the immediate cessation of the building of the Wall,
2) the dismantling of all parts of the Wall and its related zones already built,
3) the return of lands confiscated for the path of the Wall, and
4) the compensation of damages and lost income due to the destruction of land and property (this compensation is in addition to, not instead of, restitution of land).
For more information read About the Campaign.
9) How is the Wall related to the Israeli settlement policy?
The Wall is the continuation of the Zionist/Israeli expansionist agenda of stealing Palestinian land and forcibly expelling residents—the Wall’s path equates to the de facto annexation of nearly 50% of the West Bank and almost all of the Israeli settlements.
Around Jerusalem the Wall is completing the Zionist/Israeli project of “Greater Jerusalem”, formally endorsed by the Knesset in 1997, which aims at “judaizing” and annexing East Jerusalem into a Jewish metropolitan area. As explained in Question 2, the Wall closes Jerusalem off to the north and south of the West Bank, but remains “open” to the east for the still expanding settlement Ma’ale Adumim. Upon the Wall’s completion, this will amount to the confiscation of 90% of the land in the Jerusalem district.
The path of the Wall has been openly dictated by intentions to include settlements within the Israeli government and society. In March 2003, the Yesha Council of settlers worked with the Israeli government to extend the Wall’s path further into the West Bank south of Qalqiliya in order to bring the settlements of Ariel, Immanuel, and Qedumim into the Israeli “controlled area”. One week later, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon announced the building of the Wall in the Jordan Valley in order to “separate” the string of settlements in this region from the rest of the West Bank. Thus, the Wall will de facto annex 98% of the settler population.
10) Would it be acceptable if the Wall was built on the 1967 Green Line?
It is entirely unacceptable to build the Wall on the 1967 Green Line—there is a fundamental injustice in caging in an entire population. While the 1967 Green Line is advocated by the UN and many others to be the “international border” between Israel and the West Bank, the fact is that, following the 1948 war and the Zionist proclamation of the State of Israel, communities were forcibly and artificially divided into east/west by this “border”. However, the residents continue to share social services, markets, and familiar ties. To advocate that the Wall could be built on the 1967 Green Line is to legitimize the forcible separation of these communities.
11) What is the Wall’s status under international law?
The Wall, as well as the Occupation itself, comprises a wide range of violations to international law. A major violation of the Apartheid Wall is the unilateral demarcation of a new border in the West Bank that amounts to effective annexation of occupied land (United Nations Charter, art. 2.4).
Furthermore, destruction for and building of the Wall has amounted to numerous more violations of the IV Geneva Convention (IV GC) including the destruction of land and/or property (art. 53) and collective punishment (art. 33).
The Wall also breaches the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, 1966) and the International Covenant on Economical, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966), both of which Israel has signed. The rights violated include: freedom of movement (ICCPR, art. 12), property (ICCPR, art. 1,), health (ICESCR, art.12 and IV GC, art. 32), education (ICESCR, art.13, and IV GC, art. 50), work (ICESCR, art. 6), and food (ICESCR, art. 11).
Under Article 1 of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1979) the Wall constitutes a “Crime against Humanity”. It divides populations on the basis of race and ethnicity and discrimination against residents in the West Bank to benefit illegal Israeli settlers and thus complies with the definition of “apartheid”.
These are only a few of the articles in international conventions and declarations which the Wall infringes upon. The chapter The Wall Under International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law in The Wall in Palestine: Facts, Testimonies, Analysis, and Call to Action provides more analysis and examples of the Wall under international law.
12) What is the relationship between the Wall and the “Road Map”?
Though some perceive the Wall to contradict the “Road Map”, in fact they are perfectly complementary and share aims that correlate with the Israeli government’s agenda. In the autumn of 2002 Israeli Prime Minister Sharon advocated a “Palestinian State” with borders that “overlap with territories A and B [which Israel determined during the Oslo process], except for essential security zones”. This would leave some 50% of the West Bank for part of a “Palestinian State” that is being created by the Wall through the formation of Palestinian ghettos.
Although Israel has flagrantly violated international law since 1948, the Wall “relieves” the government of the mounting “burden” (such as international pressure, economic resources) of maintaining the Occupation— Israeli logic reasons that the Wall enables control over strategic land and resources with the least expense of resources to “deal with” the Palestinian population as they will be “demographically contained” into areas which are currently deemed of less interest. In this context, the “Road Map” and the Wall are synonymous as they call for a “final settlement” which will be in the interest of the Israeli state.
The US-pushed “Road Map” calls for “Permanent Status Agreements” in 2005 in regard to boarders, Jerusalem, settlements, and refugees. The Wall, which is also set to be finished in 2005, enables the Israel government to unilaterally define the limits of such “agreements” by:
• Creating a de facto “border” between the West Bank and Israel,
• Completing the Israeli/Zionist project of “Greater Jerusalem” (as discussed in Question 9) to entirely annex the capital of historic Palestine,
• Annexing nearly all of the settlements in the West Bank into the “Israeli controlled” area “outside” the Wall,
• Forcibly expelling residents near the Wall from their land and home, thus becoming refugees, some for the second or third time, and continuing the racist Zionist slogan/policy of “a land without people”.
13) Why does the Israeli government and the Israeli public support the building of the Wall?
The Israeli government favors the Apartheid Wall because it furthers its agenda, policies, and actions of expelling the indigenous Palestinians for the colonization of land and “resettlement” of Jewish communities in “Greater Israel”. This is a clear goal of the Israeli government with the Wall, as the Wall carves away massive amounts of land in the West Bank, creating the largest single annexation of land since the 1967 Occupation; when completed, the Wall will leave less than 12% of historic Palestine for the indigenous population. Through building the Wall the Israeli government is pressing on with the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their land; the Wall attacks all aspects of Palestinian life—the loss of land and water, demolition of markets and homes, restriction to movement, education and medical care—thus making subsistence and survival difficult if not impossible and maximizing for Israel the sought after results summarized best in the Zionist adage of “more land, fewer people”. The Wall “demographically contains” those Palestinians which “remain” into ghettos in the West Bank (as also in the Gaza Strip), which serves and propagates Israel’s façade of “security” for colonization of Palestinian land.
The majority of the Israeli public has supported the Wall, following the pretext of “security”. The idea of unilateral separation appeals greatly to those in their society who do not want to admit or take responsibility for their government’s racist actions. In a poll conducted in June 2002 by Ma’ariv found that 69% of the Israeli public supported the Wall, at a time when the majority of the settlers still opposed it. The Israeli settlers in the West Bank have since begun to be in favor of the Wall, as it became evident that the majority of their settlements would be included in the “Israeli side” of the Wall.
More information is given in Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign Fact Sheet: The Apartheid Wall.
14) What is the US position on the Wall?
The US Administration has particular interest in supporting Israel and its expansionist agenda-- US support for the Wall does not veer from this fundamental position. US support for the Israeli state is rooted in the US military industry and the “use” of Israel as an “ally” in strategic regional interests in the Middle East. Funding Israel militarily serves the US military industry/economy as Israel spends the majority of aid on weapons, including fighter jets, tanks, and bulldozers, from US manufacturers which are then used against the entire Palestinian population. US support for Israel also ensures it as a military stronghold in the Middle East which furthers US interests of territorial control, oil resources, and more over the last two years in the US proclaimed “war on terrorism”. To achieve its colonial agenda, US interest lies in backing Israel’s plans rather than take a position “against” the Wall.
In July 2003, US Administration officials, including G. Bush and Collin Powell, paid feeble rhetoric to calling the Wall a “problem” or noting that it would impede the “peace process”. There was rumor that, as part of US law which prohibits aid to countries which engage in violations to international law, the US Administration might withhold a dollar of US loans for every dollar spent on the Wall. However, this has amounted to no action and the façade quickly faded after Israeli Prime Minister asserted that the “Wall would continue to be built” despite any “pressure”. In September 2003 US Congress approved the $9 billion in loans with no mention of the Wall; the US position thus remains unabated in supporting Israel’s racist Wall project along with the entire Occupation.
15. What is the position of Europe on the Wall?
The European Union has repeatedly issued statements ranging from “deep concerns about” the Wall to “calls for” the halting of the confiscation of Palestinian land and the construction of the Wall. However, the words are hollow in front of the continuous support the EU gives Israel, even if this implies breaching its own laws.
Surprising as it may seem, Europe - occupying rank number one for Israel's imports and rank number two for its exports - has as much economic muscle in the region as the United States.
If it were not for support from the US and EU, Israel would not be able to bear the enormous expenses of the Wall as well as the Occupation. The EU countries have continued to export weapons to Israel even during the last three years, have been unwilling to reinstall an embargo on arms exports to Israel that was in affect until 1994, as it continues to grant Israel privileged access to the European market through the European-Israeli Association Agreement that began in 2000. Though this treaty is explicitly conditioned to respect human rights by all partners and excludes settlement products from preferential treatment as they are not produced on what is considered Israeli territory, Israel refuses to make any distinction between the products possible, falsifying certificates and not responding to the EU’s requests on this issue.
The European Union accepts these violations of its own laws for the sake of “good relations” with Israel. Every euro to the Israeli occupation economy is a euro in support of Israel’s agenda and policies of theft, dispossession and expulsion of the Palestinian people, now embodied in a dramatic way by Israel’s Apartheid Wall.
No matter how bad antiSemitism gets by some small group that happens to also oppose the Iraq war, thats not justification for tarring the entire antiWar movement as being antiSemitic. One should never blame all peace-activists for the actions of a few people who happen to be oppose the war in Iraq. Just because one is a peace actvist doesnt mean one has to speak out against antiSemitism in ever region of the globe or be considered responsible for the actions of others. If some anti-war actvists act badly or say antiSemitic things all people have a responsibiolity to speak out but to single out peace-activists and demand of them a denunciation of (for example) and Israeli Jewish Jaz musician who spoke at a small antiwar bookstore in Engliand just because they are peaqce-activists is a form of guilt by association.
Do Israel' actions (for example the justice of the wall) excuse statements by Giland that are antiSemitic? No
Do Gilad's statements or the SWP allowing him to speak without syaing anything antiSemitic, justify claiming that most peace activists are antiSemitic? No
Avoiding Distortions of History
by Shalom Lappin
via ENGAGE
Jon Pike has responded convincingly to Adam Keller's refusal take seriously the charge of discrimination that we have been raising against the boycott proposal. However, throughout the extended discussion with David Hirsh, Keller's assumptions concerning Israeli history have gone essentially unchallenged. Keller summarizes his understanding of this history by saying
'In my view, Israel belongs to the family of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - i.e. countries which were founded by immigrants from Europe who were mainly interested in the land and essentially regarded the people who lived on the land as an inconvenience to be gotten rid of in one way or another.'
In short, Keller buys into the currently fashionable story that Israel is a standard instance of European colonialism ruthlessly dispossessing an indigenous population. The only relevant difference that Keller sees between Israel and the other cases he cites is one of age. Israel is committing ethnic cleansing now and did so in the more recent past than other more venerable products of colonialism.
This is, in fact, a thoroughgoing distortion of the facts, and there is no reason to accept it as the basis for discussion. It is certainly the case that Israel's occupation and settlement of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is a colonial enterprise that should be resisted and reversed. However, projecting this enterprise back in time to characterize the development of the Yishuv and the creation of Israel as nothing more than the antecedent of the current occupation is a gross misrepresentation of the relevant events. To see this, it is important to consider the following obvious points of disanalogy between the creation of Israel and European settler states.
1. Settler states were created by colonial powers to serve economic and political interests. The Jews who immigrated to Palestine from Europe and the Middle East did not come as agents of a colonial mother country, but as refugees from host societies that rejected them. They were, for the most part, not seeking wealth or political power but escape from violent racism and, in the case of Europe, genocide. Israel is, then, better described as a refugee state than a settler state. This is not to deny that its creation resulted in the dispossession of large numbers of Palestinians, nor is it to underestimate the extent of Palestinian suffering that this process caused. However, recalling the reason for the movement of Jews to Palestine in the twentieth century requires that one recognize the radical difference between immigration for purposes of conquest on behalf of an imperial interest and immigration as flight from persecution.
2. Colonial settlers generally come to a country with which they have no previous connection. Contrary to Keller's assertion, Jews have a long historical association with Israel/Palestine that extends from ancient times to the present. Significant Jewish communities existed in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Acre for most of the Middle Ages and modern era. These centres were replenished by ongoing small scale Jewish immigration over centuries. The Jewish residents of these cities fought with their Arab neighbours against the Crusaders. The Muslim rulers of Palestine recognized the Jewish connection with Israel and invited Jews from the diaspora to re-establish the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem after the Muslim conquest of Palestine from the Byzantines, and after Salahadin's liberation of Jerusalem (the Crusaders had evicted the Jewish residents of the city along with the Muslims and Eastern Orthodox Christians). Most Jews looked upon Israel as a cultural/religious focus and a homeland throughout the centuries of their diaspora. As a result the Zionist Organization rejected Britain's offer of Uganda as an alternative territory at the beginning of the twentieth century. This connection does not, in itself, provide title to the land, but it certainly establishes a substantial historical relationship that is entirely absent in the case of settler states. Ultimately, it casts doubt on the claim that Jewish immigrants to Palestine were foreign in the way that settlers of European colonial states are.
3. As Keller notes, settler states were invariably created through the deliberate dispossession of native populations that were treated as devoid of rights. There were certainly elements of the Zionist movement who regarded the Arab residents of Palestine in this light. They were not the mainstream in the formative period of the Yishuv and the creation of the State. One can accuse the leaders of the Yishuv of naïveté and insensitivity in their dealings with the Palestinians. One can criticize them for not handling certain conflicts with Arabs in a wise or reasonable way. There is no basis for portraying them as Jewish conquistadors who came with the intention of sweeping the country clean of its native population. The Zionist left proposed a variety of models for a binational state. The mainstream of the Yishuv opted for partition, first accepting the Peel Commission's recommendation in 1937 for a Jewish state in 20% of western Palestine, and then endorsing the 1947 UN partition plan that assigned Israel 55% of the land. All of these proposals were rejected by the Palestinian and broader Arab leaderships. Are there any instances of a colonial settler state offering binational solutions or repeatedly accepting international partition plans in order to arrive at an accommodation with the indigenous population? The 1948 war which produced the Palestinian refugee problem was the result of a military assault on the Yishuv by Palestinian forces and Arab armies (with active British assistance). The objective of this attack was the destruction of Israel and the deportation (or worse) of the bulk of its Jewish population. How many settler states were required to fight wars of survival if this kind?
4. Finally, it is worth pointing out that while the Yishuv was initially populated largely by Jews from Europe, Israel absorbed the bulk of Middle Eastern Jewry in the first twelve years of its existence. Well over half of its Jewish population comes from Arab and Muslim countries. Israel is frequently portrayed as a country of European immigrants set up to assuage European guilt over the Holocaust, and built on the dispossession of the Palestinians who had to pay the cost of this guilt. In fact, the majority of its Jewish population is descended from refugees fleeing persecution in Arab countries. The official propaganda line of the anti-Zionist left holds that Middle Eastern Jews were forced to leave their homes by Zionist coercian and manipulation. A more sophisticated version of this view is that the Jews had lived in idyllic harmony and equality in their Arab host countries until the advent of Zionism produced an understandable anti-Israel backlash in these countries. Neither story is historically accurate. While the Arab world did not engage in the organized mass murder of Jews that characterized Europe during numerous periods of its history, Jews occupied a narrowly circumscribed and deeply subordinate role in Arab society througout most of its history. With the rise of Arab nationalism at the beginning of the twentieth century their place in this society became increasingly tenuous and exposed. For those of you who still buy into the old 'leftwing' apologia for the ejection of Middle Eastern Jewry from their host countries, it might be instructive to look at Albert Memmi's (1975) piece 'Who is an Arab Jew?'. Memmi is a Tunisian Jew who participated in the Tunisian revolution and wrote one of its principal texts, The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957). He was forced to immigrate to France shortly after the revolution, and he provides a distinctly sobering and revealing description of Jewish life in an Arab country. The fact that so many of the refugees that Israel absorbed come from the Arab world does not justify the dispossesion of the Palestinians, but it renders the facile image of the country as a European settler state particularly unpersuasive.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been chronically obscured by two competing and mutually exclusive mythologies. The traditional Zionist myth describes Palestine as desolate and largely empty of inhabitants in the late nineteenth century. Successive waves of Jewish pioneers created prosperity and attracted Arab immigrants from neighbouring counries. When the 1948 war broke out, the Arab residents left voluntarily under the influence of Arab propaganda. This story is clearly false, and fortunately it has been largely debunked by Israeli historians. It no longer has much credibility in Israel, where Benny Morris's book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem is taught in high schools.
According to the Palestinian myth, European Zionists colluded with Britain and other colonialst powers for the express purpose of setting up a beach head of western imperialism that would evict the Palestinians from their land and serve as a base for European and American interests to dominate the Arab world.
Unfortunately, not only does this myth continue to hold sway amongst most Palestinians, it is now widely accepted throughout the Islamic world, and it is fast becoming orthodoxy in the midst of what passes for liberal opinion in Europe. This chronicle is no less mythic than the traditional Zionist story, but its uncritical acceptance by increasing numbers of people is proving toxic to Jewish life in the diaspora.
A rational and just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute will only be possible when these myths are set aside, and the conflict is normalized. This involves acceptance of the basic legitimacy of both sides to the conflict and recognition of the fact that each party has threatened the survival of the other in pursuit of what it takes to be its most elementary interests. Accommodating each other's minimal needs demands more than an improvised pragmatism concerning the political and territorial concessions needed for a settlement. It requires making room for each other in historical as well as political terms.
If we were to believe the Zionists hoary canard the modern Israel merely a continuation of ancient Israel, then Israel has been ethnic cleansing for a very long time. Ethnic cleansing is how ancient Israel was founded. For details, read the Book of Joshua.
See also:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/03/1726565_comment.php#1726714
The Israelites acquired Israel the same way Americans acquired America. They stole it from the people who lived them and killed any who resisted, while driving the rest away, or onto the worst land available, and raping and enslaving the ones who didn’t run fast enough.
No wonder Americans like Israelis. They’re birds of a feather.
The right wingers posting here may call themselves Zionists but for the most part preWWI Zionists (including those who founded Israel) didnt believe in a fundamental "right" to the land based off religious reasons.
"Zionism is racism" is a great slogan (although shouldnt it be "Zionism is a form of racism") that is easy to accept if you look at people who post things about how the West Bank isnt occupied or no Arabs were forced to leave in 1948 by Jewish militas. PreWWII Zionism was not religious overall and didnt claim to be reclaiming land taken away 2000 years ago (the West Bank is closer to an area that would have been ancient Israel than is most of Israel proper) . Even current settlements and much of the right-wing in Israel is merely reacting unproductively to immediate issues rather than basing their actions off a belief in a "right to the land" for religious and historical reasons. Just as you dont think about the justice or injustice of your right to live in the Bay Area (which was stolen from the Spanish and before that the Native Americans) most Israelis dont base their right to live in Israel off some abstract ideology or historical mumbo jumbo. Zionism is about as relevent to modern Israelis as Manifest Destiny is to those living in the US West. The people who post saying Arabs and Palestinians have no rights are racists but that doesnt mean Zionism is racism (as a movement some Zionists were racist but the movement ended over 50 years ago in 1948 and has little meaning now). It's likely the horrible right-wing people running Israel today do not even have as racist or crazy views as some of the supporters of Israel who post to this site.
IRONICALLY, IT WAS THE EARLY ZIONISTS WHO SAID THAT JEWS WERE A RACE APART FROM ANY PARTICULAR COUNTRY, AND THAT THE JEWS WERE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT HUMAN BEINGS AND, AS SUCH, AN UNASSIMILABLE PART OF ANY COUNTRY. IF A NON-JEW SAID THAT, IT WOULD BE RIGHTLY CONSIDERED RABIDLY AND PATHOLOGICALLY ANTI-SEMITIC, AS IT WAS/IS EVEN FOR A JEW TO SAY THAT!
MOST BLACK AMERICANS NEVER WANTED TO GO BACK TO AFRICA: WE FELT (SIMILAR TO WHAT MONTAGU SAID -- AND THANKS FOR POSTING HIS TEXT) THAT (ASIDE FROM THE ISSUE OF NATIVE AMERICANS, BUT WE WERE BROUGHT HERE IN CHAINS) WE HAVE A *RIGHT* TO BE HERE IN AMERICA; WE HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THIS COUNTRY AND HAVE FOUGHT FOR IT IN EVERY WAY.
However you can always expect simpleminded moronic Zionists like "James Black" (I THOUGHT HE SAID THAT HE WAS LEAVING OUTTA HERE!?) to comeback in with their wind-up manicanized Zionoid cant:
"It's year 2005 now. [This is from a racial ideology where Zionists wants to go back *2,000* years -- actually some *3,000* years if you include "God's promise" to "the Jews".] Israel eists. It's a state that israeli jews plan on keeping as a jewish homeland for a very, very long time. Work from there." And then Black (not Black like me, haha!) A *ZIONISTS* complains about "*bigots* in the *peace* movement! EVEN HITLER, YELLING FROM HIS GRAVE, IS TELLING BLACK, "I THOUGHT *I* HAD CHUTZPAH -- GET OWWWTTA HERE!..."
Anyway, I've isolated some salient sentences of yours for further thought:
"Zionism vs antiZionism arguments always end up in the mud because of the strong emotion people have come to associate with the word Zionism (which contraty to what both sides say can't have a fundamental definition any more than any other word can since English at least defined words based off usage and allows multiple definitions)..."
Actually, in one sense, it's true -- it doesn't matter how Zionist Jews try to split hairs over what Zionism is, and it really doesn't matter today how many previous forms of Zionism there was (except, as an historical reference, to point out that there were forms that didn't call for "a (racially/ideologically/exclusionary/semitheocratic) Jewish state" in Palestine. Zionism is Jewish colonialist nationalism in Palestine. There were two fundamental flaws in this particular nationalism:
1) CONTRARY TO WHAT THE NATIONALIST ZIONIST SAID ("A LAND WITHOUT A PEOPLE"), THERE WERE *ALREADY* INDEED INDIGENOUS PEOPLE LIVING IN PALESTINE AND THEY HAD A RIGHT TO LIVE THERE WITHOUT BEING DISPOSSESSED AND DISPLACED (ETHNICALLY CLEANSED).
THAT MORALLY *ENDS* THE ZIONIST ARGUMENT RIGHT THERE!!
2) NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENTS TAKE PLACE ON ONE'S *OWN* SOIL -- NOT IN SOMEONE ELSE'S TRUE HOMELAND AND NOT IN SOME ANCIENT REVIVAL "HOMELAND" TRYING TO REVERSE 2,000 YEARS OF MIGRATION. (What if we all tried *that* one and made claims on an ancient land!? That's why Malcolm X pointed out that Zionism has no legal or intelligent basis in history.)
IT'S AN INTERESTING PARALLEL: OTHER "FACISTS", LIKE MUSSOLINI AND HITLER, ALSO TRIED 'TO RIGHT A GRIEVOUS WRONG', AND TO REVIVE AND RECAPTURE SOME "GLORIOUS ANCIENT KINGDOM" BASED ON BLOOD.
FOR THE FASCISTS IT WAS SOME ANCIENT ROMAN EMPIRE.
FOR THE NAZIS IT WAS SOME ANCIENT TEUTONIC EMPIRE.
FOR THE ZIONISTS IT WAS SOME ANCIENT HEBREW EMPIRE.
AND, OF COURSE, SOME JEWS (LIKE MENACHIM BEGIN) WERE INDEED ARCHETYPAL FASCISTS.
"As an ideology in the late 1800s Zionism may have been flawed but it was flawed in the same way as the Back to Africa movement was flawed (an idea that no chance of equality as a minority meant that one must return to a mythical homeland where others happened to already be living)."
WELL, THE BIGGEST MORAL FLAW IS THAT **NO** AMOUNT OF SUFFERING ENTITLES ONE PEOPLE TO DISPOSSESS, TAKE OR BE GIVEN THE LAND OF A 3RD PARTY PEOPLE!
In particular, if Europeans wanted to atone for European sins against European Jews, then reparations should have been made -- guess where? -- in *Europe*!
AND, THE VERY SMALL % OF *INDIGENOUS* JEWS IN PALESTINE -- OR ANY OTHER MIDDLE EASTERN JEWS -- **NEVER** CALLED FOR "A JEWISH STATE" IN PALESTINE. POLITICAL/NATIONALIST ZIONISM WAS A *EUROPEAN* INVENTION.
BESIDES THAT, THE *VAST* MAJORITY OF THE JEWS IN THE ARAB WORLD LIVED IN *IRAQ* AND *MOROCCO*!!
"The events surrounding how Israel was founded (attacks on Muslims and other Arabs that caused them to flee) turned Zionists like Einstein off from the way the Zionist goal was headed when it came close to being a possibility."
In fact, there is the Einstein quote (which, like Gandhi's quote about how Eurpoean Jews were treating Palestinian Arabs and his quote about political Zionism being "a crime against humanity", really bugs the hell out of the Zionists):
"It would be my greatest sadness to see Jews do to [Palestinian] Arabs *much* of what Nazis did to Jews."
"But just as the USSR doesnt prove the Communism will always rsult in totalitarianism the violence surrounding the founding of Israel didnt mean that the original ZIonist goals had to end up with a result where there was division betwen Jews and Palestinians. Einstein was a Zionist would disagreed with Begin's death squads."
Of course, Einstein would have *BEGAN* with political Zionism's inherent *RACISM*. Einstein (a true socialist) was an internationalist and a multiculturalist -- and certainly an anti-racist! True socialists aren't supposed to believe in a class-based soiety (which a Zionist state would inherently be, 'racially') or artificial moral divisions of people into nationalities -- in Europe often created by various royalty drawing lines on a map and by royalty's warring relatives who used the poor and the working class as their (royalty's) pawns and cannonfodder. by In fact, Einstein was a good friend of Paul Robeson and Einstein used his voice, stature and pen to help Robeson fight against Jim Crow racism in the U.S. -- especially in the Black anti-lynching movement prevalent at the time. Einstein was quite political, but that part of his character has been purposely hidden by the American media and educational system.
There were Zionists who did horrible things, Zionists who disagreed with those horrible thing, a few Zionists who may have cooperated with the Nazis but many who helped fight them... It was a pretty diverse movement that one can't accuse of being one exact thing and its not clear what people mean when they talk of "Zionists" outside of a political movement that no longer exists. While talk of "Zionism is evil" is problematic when the term is undefined"
Again (and in different words) THE ZIONISM THAT IS THE *PROBLEM* TODAY IS THE ONE THAT IS IN *PRACTICE*, CONTINUALLY DISPOSSESSING, OPPRESSING, GHETTOIZING (ironically), MASSACRING AND KILLING PALESTINIANS. The rest (talk of other forms) is diversion.
"I like to see much of the Zionist conspiracy theories... (later ref to AIPAC)"
Well, there sometimes *were* Zionist conspiracies, just as there were often other colonialist/imperialist conspiracies (like the 1956 Suez War, where the Israel Zionist government conpired with with Britain and France to take the Suez Canal -- nixed, in no uncertain terms, by Eisenhower). Otherwise, organizations and governments, like the segments of the Jewish Zionist lobby'state, often collude or have a collaboration of interests and goals with others (especially the imperialists powers).
"During WWI you see an amazing amount of antiSemitic conspiracy theories by British officials including beliefs that both German and the Bolsheviks were part of sone secret Jewish/Mason master plan. I dont think Balfour himself held views quite this crazy...'
But, Menachim Begin was crazy. (Einstein and Hannah Arendt, in effect said so in their 1948 open letter to the New York times, calling Begin a racist fascist!) Begin even accused the British (who were busy fighting *Hitler* at the time) of trying to exterminate the Jews!
"The entire Arab revolt..."
The Arab revolt was not Arab: it was a British miliary guerrilla operation with, almost literally, a handful of Arabs.
"No matter how bad Israel acts thats not justfication for antiSemitismOne should never blame all Jews for the actions of a few people who happen to be Jewish."
Yet it is indeed Zionists and Israel who claim to speak for *ALL* Jews! It's the only country in the world that claims to be something like "the state of all Jews in the entire world", as opposed to the state of all its resident citizens. I consider it JEWISH ANTI-JEWISH ANTI-SEMITISM (as opposed to Jewish anti-Palestinien anti-Semitism) to claim and associate Israel's political conspiring, land and property dispossessing -- THE VERY THING ANTI-SEMITICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH JEWS IN OLD EUROPE -- and semi-genocial oppression as representing ALL Jews.
"Just because one is Jewish doesnt mean one has to speak out against Israel or be condiered respondible for Israel's actions."
IF *NOT* JEWS THEN *WHO* FOREMOST!?
IF JEWS DON'T SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE BRUTAL RACIST OPPRESSION PRACTICED SINCE AND BEFORE ZIONISTS FOUNDED ISRAE, THEN JEWS SHOULD HAVE NO COMPLAINT ABOUT "THE GOOD GERMANS" WHO ALSO TURNED THEIR HEADS THE OTHER WAY AND DIDN'T SPEAK UP AGAINST NAZI (THE ORIGINAL ONES)OPPRESSION OF THE JEWS.
"If Israel acts badly all peopel have a responsibiolity to speak out but to single out Jews and demand of them a denunciation of Israel because they are Jewish is antiSemitism."
YET THERE ARE TYPICALLY THE VERY SAME JEWS WHO DEMAND THAT ALL ARABS/MUSLIMS DENOUNCE ARAB/MUSLIM "TERRORISM"!
AND CLOSER TO HOME, THESE ARE TYPICALLY THE VERY SAME JEWS WHO DEMAND THAT AFRICAN AMERICANS DENOUNCE SOME FIGURE IN THE NATION OF ISLAM (LIKE THEN KHALLID MOHAMMAD) THAT THE VAST MAJORITY OF BLACKS HAD NEVER HEARD OF.
ZIONISM IS SO *HYPOCRITICAL* -- ON SO MANY LEVELS -- THAT IT REEKS!
AS UN GENERAL SECRETARY KOFI ANON ONCE SAID, "ISRAEL CANNOT CONTINUE TO USE THE HOLOCAUST AS AN EXCUSE FOR THE OPPRESSION OF OTHERS."
AND SPEAKING OF NAZI-LIKE HYPOCRISY, WE HAVE "Z" DOING WHAT ALL EUROPEAN RACIST COLONIALISTS HAVE DONE (with his article, "Occupation and Settlement: The Myth and Reality", taken from 'The Jewish Mein Kampf', the book "From Time Immemorial", by Joan Peters, or other such apologists for a Jewish racist state, like "Avoiding Distortions of History"):
1) TRY TO DENY THE CULTURE OF A COLONIZED/DISPOSSESSED PEOPLE
2) TRY TO SEPARATE -- IN EVERY WAY (CULTURALLY OR LITERALLY) -- AN *INDIGENOUS* PEOPLE FROM THE LAND.
3) TRY TO SAY ULTIMATELY THAT THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE DON'T EVEN EXIST (as in Golda Meir's infamous line of rhetorical genocide and ethnic cleansing: there is no such thing as a Palestinian).
AS FOR THE PROMISCUOUSLY FLUNG, OR "CRYING WOLF", CHARGES AND SLURS OF "ANTI-SEMITIC" BY ZIONIST JEWS...,
1) RECOGNIZE THAT IT'S JUST AN UNDERHANDED SLIMEY POLITICAL TACTIC TO JUSTIFY JEWISH ZIONISTS' AND ISRAEL'S OPPRESSION OF OTHERS.
Lately more people are scoffing at this underhande political tactic -- and just yesterday I heard a leading Zionist on American tv even choke at literally calling his debater an "anti-Semite", so that's major progress, although he still insinuated it! People are so *tired* of that scoundrelous tactic that even some leading arch-Zionist Jews are now choking on promiscuously calling others "anti-Semitic"!
2) JUST *IGNORE* IT AS SUCH -- LIKE *I* DO!
The U.S. might have been able to threaten other countries and twist arms in the UN, but it doesn't twist *my* arm -- and neither does the U.S. corporate media, which has always (at the given time) been in service to European white-supremacist imperialism/colonialism, Christian or now Jewish.
To borrow from Malcolm X, THAT STICK DON'T HURT ME!
Finally, everyone should read Tim Wise's article (google it): "Reflections on Zionism from a Dissident Jew".
I SIT IN MY BASEMENT AND ROCK BACK AND FORTH, AND FOAM COMES OUT OF MY MOUTH
ZIONISTS CAN FLY
ZIONISTS RUN EVERYTHING AND OWN EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE
MY DOG IS SECRETLY A ZIONIST. I SHAKE HIM FOR ANSWERS BUT HE WAS TAUGHT TO KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT. DAMN MOSSAD SECRET AGENT HOUSEPETS.
ZIONISTS CAN TELEPORT
ZIONISTS STARTED EVER WAR AGAINST THEM, ESPECIALLY THE ONES THAT WERE STARTED AGAINST THEM
WHEN ISRAEL GETS ATTACKED, IT'S ISRAEL'S FAULT
WHEN ISRAEL ATTACKS, IT'S ISRAEL'S FAULT
NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, IT'S ISRAEL'S FAULT, OR THE FAULT OF "THE ZIONISTS"
JERRY SEINFELD IS A SPACE ALIEN WHO CAME FROM THE ZIONIST MOTHERSHIP
ZIONISTs OWN AND RUN EVERYTHING BUT THEY ARE NOT SMART, NO SIR, THEY ARE REALLY DUMB.
I LIKE TO ACCUSE ZIONISTs OF MANY THINGS, AND THEN ACCUSE THEM OF WHINING WHEN THEY RESPOND TO MY ATTACK
YOU ARE SECRETLY ZIONIST
EVERYONE IS ZIONIST
I LIKE TO ACCUSE ZIONISTs OF BEING CHEAP. THEN I ACCUSE ZIONISTs OF BEING RICH AND FLAUNTING THEIR WEALTH. YOU'D THINK THOSE STATEMENTS CONFLICT EACH OTHER, BUT I GUESS NOT.
TEHRE ARE NO ZIONISTs
HELP ME, THE VOICES IN MY HEAD FRIGHTEN ME
HOW COME ZIONISTs WHO GET MASTERS DEGREES AND PHDS GET BETTER JOBS THAN ME, I SPENT MY CHILDHOOD BLOWING UP RODENTS, DROPPED OUT OF SCHOOL AND CANNOT SPELL MY OWN NAME, WHY AM I NOT A CEO
OHHH MY HEAD HOW IT HURTS
ZIONISTs ARE AFRAID OF FRUIT
WHEN MULTIPLE ARAB COUNTRIES TEAMED UP TO REPEATEDLY ATTACK ISRAEL, WHOSE FAULT WAS IT? 1) THOSE ARAB COUNTRIES, 2) THE ZIONISTS.... CHOICE "2" OF COURSE!
WHERE IS MY MEDICATION
" For the record, Art. 5 of the ICRD defines "racism or racial discrimination" as follows:
Any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or
ethnic origin, which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment
or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political,
economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.
"
But hen they define Zionism by listing actions of various leaders of the early Zionist movement and then of the state of Israel, but there is never an actual definition of Zionism in the same way racism is defined.
Looking at the actions of early leaders one could pretty easilly use to same logic to say "Catholicism is antiSemitism" or looking at modern Catholic teachings one could say" Catholoicism is Mysogyny" or "Catholicism is homophobia". Unlike Catholicism there isnt a Zionist hierachy where one can say this is what the offical Zionist position is on something, but I think people would feel troubled to word something as "Catholicism is racism" if they lived in a place like N Ireland where Catholics are an oppressed minority. If you feel like a basic tenent of Catholicism is antiSemitic then you could say that "Catholicism is AntiSemitic".
Restricting a view of Zionism to the only commonality of the early movement I think you would have to say "Zionism is the belief that it would be good to have a place in the world some Jews could go that is safe from antiSemitism". It would be an ideology similar to that of Mormon movement to Utah, the Back to Africa movement of the 1800s, or many small communes where people move to issolate themselves from problems in the world (if you want to think of an oppressed community creating a haven you can think of San Francisco acting as this role for the gay community). Many of the objections to Zionism by early antiZionists were tied to viewing issolating one's self and running away from problems as a bad things. Before the 30s most Jews were probably in the antiZIonist camp but the Hollocaust create an overwhelming belief that jews needed somewhere to go to escape massacre. The religious belief that God gave Jews Israel and nobody else shoudl live in it is clearly racist but thats not what drove early ZIonism, mass migration during WWII, or migration from Middle Eastern countries after Israel was founded. There were cases of ethnic cleansing in the late 40s but since the nonJewsih population is still sizable and the Israeli Supereme Court has ruled tiem and time again that Israeli citizens have equal rights under the law you cant really call Israel a "Jewish State" in the sense that its denounced as a racist aspect of Zionism.
The strangest part about debates on Zionism is the obsession with the word by both sides. If I were yo say I believe Zionists are people who like to wear socks on their hands I bet I could get antiZionists to declare that anyone who wears socks on their hands is a raicst and I could get defends of Zionism to declare that peopel opposed to wearing socks on their hands are antiSemites. Since the word is used to mean many different things and even the Zionist movement itself was divided (with a division in the very very early days being among peopel wanting to settle on Jeiwsh communes in Uganda or Argentina rather than Palestine) the insistance that the word has a fixed meaning and its either absolutely evil or something that can never be condemned is nonsense. I personally think that the use of "Zionism" by the left plays into the hands of the right because outside of people used to raguing about Israel the only reference people will have heard of Zionism is "The Protocols Of the Elders Of Zion" and by sounding obsessed about Zionism, and talking about Zionists trying to control the US, one sounds antiSemitic by that association. Sometimes the truth may sounds bad when the wrong words are used; "Zionists are trying to take over all the world's media" sounds really bad, "supporters of Israel are trying to take over the world's media" sounds bad, but saying "News Corp and Clearchannel are trying to take over the US airwaves and both support Israal more than the Palestinains" I dont think anyone would have a problem with that.
(A) <<"if anti-Zionism=anti-Semitism">>
This statement is an hypothetical about an identity. Nowhere here does it say that “anti-Zionism=anti-Semitism.” People should not object to sentence fragments as if they were statements of fact.
(B) <<“by don't believe it Thursday, Jun. 23, 2005 at 8:29 PM”>>
Hypotheticals are not to be believed or disbelieved. You are missing the point of the entire exercise. And by the way, the noted absolute is repeated occasionally on IndyBay as if it were true. I have never objected to it, even though it is totally absurd.
(C) © <<“But it isn't. Some anti-Semites are anti-Zionists, but that a different thing. Anti-Semitism itself is not anti-Semitic. Other anti-Semites are pro-Zionist because they want Jews to go to Israel and out of Europe and America. The Zionists and the Nazis actually worked hand in glove to get Jews to move from Germany to Israel. It was in their common interest.”>>
Whether it is or it isn’t is a matter requiring much more discussion than (C).
This type of stuff is always problematic since it treats Zionists as if they were a movement with one leader and a united set of followers. Do you really mean "a few peopel who called themselves Zionists worked with the Nazis", "a few peopel loosely associated with groups in Israel that eventually were insturmental in the creation of the state were Nazis", "leaders of groups calling themselves Zionist worked with the Nazis", "official represntatives of groups calling themselves ZIonist worked iwth the Nazis" ....
(those all mean different things and none would apply guilt to all "Zionists", all people who called themselves "ZIonists"....)
Saying "The Zionists worked with the Nazis" isnt as bad as people waho claim "The Arabs worked with the Nazis" (since that would be equivalent to saying "The Jews worked with the Nazis") but it does play into the game of applying guilt to whole groups based off individual actions.
I don't get why so many fucking scumbags in the far left INTENTIONALLY spew DISHONEST, MISLEADING garbage about "zionists" and Israel.
Who did? Your Zionists worked with Nazi thing seems to jump all over the place from pointing to Jewish leaders who tried in various ways to get Jews out of Germany so they wouldnt get killed to anyone fighting enemies of the Nazis (which would include about half the precursors to antiColonial movements in British colonies). To say fighting against colonialism at the same time that the colonizer is fighting a worse enemny is cooperating with the enemy is exactly what Bush and right-wingers say about antiWar protests in the US. Opposing the war in Iraq has nothing to do with Al Qaeda and opposing British occupation in Palestine had nothing to do with a war in Europe.
You can cirticize what the Jewish militias in Palestine were doing to the British by the morality of their own actions (some of the forms of violence used would now be described as terrorism) but dont play the guilt by assocation game that the right-wing uses to equate fighting for justice with supporting groups attacking the US.
by history buff Saturday, Jun. 25, 2005 at 10:48 AM
"They *bombed* Hitlers enemies. That is inexcusable behavior in time of war, no matter what their excuse. They should have been lined up and shot." <<
Actually, some of the ZIONISTS, like the Irgun terrorist organization, EVEN OFFERED TO FIGHT ON THE SIDE OF *HITLER* (you know, the guy who was invading all of Europe) in exchange for whatever. Any -- ironically -- OVERTLY RACIST group/movement that would plot to take land from an indigenous people, and drive off between three-quarter and one MILLION innocent people -- just initially -- in the process, nominally IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 20TH CENTURY -- WHO WOULD TURN AND DO TO OTHERS (as Einstein said) *MUCH* OF WHAT WAS DONE TO THEM -- *HAS* to be pretty slimey and morally squiggly -- AND ACTUALLY MORALLY REPREHENSIBLE -- to say the least. And many of those Zionists -- like Begin or Jabotinsky -- were so right-wing that they were politically FASCIST themselves.
As for Zionists trying to "save the Jews", it was often historically noted that when it came to a choice between "saving the Jews" or getting Israel, the Zionists alwasy chose the latter. Wasn't it Ben Gurion who said that if he could save half the Jewish children of Germany or get Israel, he would chose the latter!!? Tell me that that's not colllld -- and psychopathic madness!
Not only that, Zionist even bombed other Jews -- or rather Jewish neighborhoods in Arab countries -- to try to scare them into going to Israel. (Of course, in a practice that would become standard practice with Zionist leaders in Israel, they tried to make it look like Arabs did it. Makes you think again about 9-11, doesn't it: "Arab terrorists" or Arab patsies?) Those other Jews apparently faced so much "anti-Semitism" in Arab countries that they (the Jews) had to be *BOMBED* out by Israeli Zionists!
To say that the Zionists were trying to "save the Jews", would be like saying that the ADL exists to "fight racism" or that the KKK was trying to "save the white race".
And what's "um" nonsense about opposing colonialism and fighting *British* occupation in Palestine -- OH THOSE ZIONISTS KNOW *NO* SHAME -- and his squiggly and euphemistic talk about Zionists using "forms of violence" that "would now be described as terrorism"!: WHAT THE HELL DOES HE THINK THAT THE *ZIONISTS* THEMSELVES WERE DOING!? THEY WERE *COLONIZING*, *OPPRESSING*, AND *OCCUPYING*.
This is what Americans have spent untold billions of dollars on in hard money, soft money, and indirect money, endanger Americans and our country, and even cost us many of our own lives fighting in the Middle East for Israel: so previously oppressed (Zionist) Jews can go take over someone else's land and oppress others in turn.
AND WHAT WERE/ARE THE PALESTINIANS TRYING TO DO?: *RESIST*.
AND WHAT DID -- AND DO -- ZIONISTS CALL THAT RESISTANCE TO BEING INVADED, OCCUPIED, AND TAKEN OVER BY PEOPLE WHO LIVED THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY ON ANOTHER CONTINENT?: "ANTI-SEMITISM"!
SO, THE PALESTINIANS HAD A RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE (and every int'l and human rights law and principle says that an invaded people who have not attacked or chosen to attack any other country have a right to armed self-defense) AND -- especially even by "um's" reasoning -- THE PALESTINIANS HAD, AND HAVE, A RIGHT TO KILL EVERY INVADING *ZIONIST* COLONIAL RACIST MUTHAFUCKA THAT THEY COULD -- BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
AND SO DO THE IRAQIS.
GUESS WHO'S SIDE *I'M* ON IN BOTH CASES?
They have resorted to nonstop terrorism and attacks ever since, and have never stopped.
So, resolution and peace with them is impossible.
If they want to keep up the idiotic battle forever, tehy'll live shitty lives forever.
Tens of millions of people got booted around a bit in the mid 1900's. All of them have resttled or moved on with their lives one way or another, except for the morons outside of israel who want to keep up a pointless battle forever.
So be it.
Of all the people who lost homes or land in the last century, how come palestinians are the only ones that every single minute since that time have chosen to be terrorists?
Palestiniasn could have formed a state in 1948 to 1967. They didn't.
Palestiniasn could have stopped attacking sometime between 1967 and 2005. They haven't.
They're just violent maniacs who can't be dealt with.
"They" being the palestinian powers that be and the religious and political leaders and main organizations, that is. Not each and every random person there.
Individuals left their homes decades ago assuming they were just going somewhere to sit out the fighting but were never allowed to return to their houses. Since neighboring countries didnt welcome the Palestinians (in cases like Lebanon it was more racism than hatred for Israel) many ended up in refugee camps with the desire to return to real houses a desire to get out of rather inhumane living conditions and something passed down through familly history. Many other people have faced situations where they were kicked off their land in this same fashion but the nonstate refugee status of Palestinian makes it a problem that wont just resoilve itself on its own by time passing.
"They have resorted to nonstop terrorism and attacks ever since, and have never stopped."
Most Palestinians have never engaged in any sort of violence. To say "they" is racist since it blame a whole people for the acts of individuals, groups and leaders. If you just look at the W Bank and Gaza there was no real widespread uprising until the mid to late 80s. The PLO fought from Jordan, then Lebanon and was then scattered all over the place until Arafat was allowed to return to the West Bank.
While one does ocassionally have widespread support for violence against Israel among Palestinians (although recent polls show that right now most support a truce) the desire for violence grows out of the same type of reactionary anger that one sees when Israel supports raids after suicide bombings or the US started bombing random places after 9/11.
Of course no matter what public opinion is there will always be violence at some level so if what you mean by "have never stopped" is the literal meaning of that phrase you place hopes for a two state solution in the same place S Africans were when whites demanded a halt to all crime by Blacks for apatheid to end (this wasngt the official government line but you actually heard this from ordinary white S Africans in the 80s when you talked to them).
I -- AN AFRICAN AMERICAN WHO COME FROM A PEOPLE THAT HAVE ALSO BEEN OPPRESSED BY RACIST EUROPEAN CHRISTIANS FOR CENTURIES TOO -- SUPPORT THE PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE -- OR THE IRAQIS -- DOING TO *YOU* WHAT **I'D** DO TO *YOU* ZIONISTS IF YOU INVADED *MY* HOME -- AND I ALSO WOULDN'T LET YOU USE THE *PATHETIC* IMMORAL HYPOCRITICAL EXCUSE THAT YOU WERE ONCE OPPRESSED TOO.
ZIONIST MORALITY: "OH THE PALESTINIANS *HAD* A CHANCE TO LET US ZIONIST JEWS TAKE OVER HALF THEIR LAND AND MAKE 'PEACE', BUT THEY DIDN'T ACCEPT IT!"
GEE! YA THINK...!!? TRY THAT ARGUMENT IN ANY COUNTRY THAT COULD HAVE JUST SHOT OR RUN OFF ALL YOU INVADERS IN THE FIRST PLACE!
YOU THINK THAT WITH THAT GIANT GHETTO WALL -- ONE THAT WOULD HAVE MADE *HITLER* BLUSH -- YOU ZIONISTS ARE IN THE CLEAR AND CAN NOW REALLY DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO! ... KEEP THINKING THAT WAY.
THE PROBLEM WITH NON-EUROPEAN INDIGENOUS PEOPLE INITIALLY WELCOMING WHITE EUROPEANS IS THAT THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE DIDN'T REALIZE JUST HOW MORALLY LOW WHITE EUROPEANS COULD BE -- UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE!
THAT'S WHY PACIFIC RIM ASIANS -- AND AFRICAN AMERICAN RAPPERS -- JUST HAVE TWO WORDS TO NAME RACIST WHITES: "THE DEVIL".
(Many of the Armenians fled to Palestine during the Armenian holocaust and they were welcomed, but they didn't go try to dispossess the Palestinians, drive them off, and take over the place.)
YOU'RE JUST A BUNCH OF RRRACIST ZIONIST APARTHEID REDNECK CRACKER JIM CROW JEWS!!!
(And it's been morally, analytically, and intellectually demonstrated many times here in indybay -- which is why you Zionists have to resort to hacking/deleting particularly, articulately effective posts.)
NOW RUN BACK TO YOUR "LIGHT UNTO THE WORLD", YOUR "LAND OF MILK AND HONEY". IT LOOKS MORE LIKE THE LAND OF BULLETS AND BOMBS!: THE TERRORDOME! THE PALESTINIANS ARE JUST SHARING A BIT OF THE TERROR WITH YOU.
AND AS THE RAPPER PARIS SAYS, "AND WATCH THE DEVIL GET SERVED."
The ancient religious ancestors of the European Jews got booted out of Palestine over 2,000 years ago by the ancient Romans.
They didn't just "move on with THEIR lives."
"The irgun bombed hitler's enemies" is a deceptive statement designed to make people think the irgun were on the same side as hitler.
What do you guys think of people who have to lie and deceive to try to make their points, like nessie and antizionist scum do?
The irgun were trying to get jews free to enter israel, and britain was preventing it, so the irgun took action against britain.
The irgun did not "bomb hitler's enemies" to protect hitler or some idiotic shit.
Hey nessie, how does it feel to be so DEVOID OF REALITY that you have to play WORDGAMES to try to trick people into going along with your point?
You, nessie/JA/wendy are FUCKING ANTISEMITES, that's why you INTENTIONALLY LIE and DECEIVE to try to spread hatred of anything connected to israel in any way.
We should probably stop responding to it and feeding the nazi-trolls.
Anyway:
Is there a link between the way Israel's case is presented and anti-semitism? Israel's advocates protest that behind criticisms of Israel there sometimes lurks a more sinister agenda, dangerously bordering on anti-semitism. Critics vehemently disagree. In their view, public attacks on Israel are neither misplaced nor the source of anti-Jewish sentiment: Israel's behaviour is reprehensible and so are those Jews who defend it.
Jewish defenders of Israel are then depicted by their critics as seeking an excuse to justify Israel, projecting Jewish paranoia and displaying a "typical" Jewish trait of "sticking together", even in defending the morally indefensible. Israel's advocates deserve the hostility they get, the argument goes; it is they who should engage in soul-searching.
There is no doubt that recent anti-semitism is linked to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And it is equally without doubt that Israeli policies sometimes deserve criticism. There is nothing wrong, or even remotely anti-semitic, in disapproving of Israeli policies. Nevertheless, this debate - with its insistence that there is a distinction between anti-semitism and anti-Zionism - misses the crucial point of contention. Israel's advocates do not want to gag critics by brandishing the bogeyman of anti-semitism: rather, they are concerned about the form the criticism takes.
If Israel's critics are truly opposed to anti-semitism, they should not repeat traditional anti-semitic themes under the anti-Israel banner. When such themes - the Jewish conspiracy to rule the world, linking Jews with money and media, the hooked-nose stingy Jew, the blood libel, disparaging use of Jewish symbols, or traditional Christian anti-Jewish imagery - are used to describe Israel's actions, concern should be voiced. Labour MP Tam Dalyell decried the influence of "a Jewish cabal" on British foreign policy-making; an Italian cartoonist last year depicted the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as an attempt to kill Jesus "again". Is it necessary to evoke the Jewish conspiracy or depict Israelis as Christ-killers to denounce Israeli policies?
The fact that accusations of anti-semitism are dismissed as paranoia, even when anti-semitic imagery is at work, is a subterfuge. Israel deserves to be judged by the same standards adopted for others, not by the standards of utopia. Singling out Israel for an impossibly high standard not applied to any other country begs the question: why such different treatment?
Despite piqued disclaimers, some of Israel's critics use anti-semitic stereotypes. In fact, their disclaimers frequently offer a mask of respectability to otherwise socially unacceptable anti-semitism. Many equate Israel to Nazism, claiming that "yesterday's victims are today's perpetrators": last year, Louis de Bernières wrote in the Independent that "Israel has been adopting tactics which are reminiscent of the Nazis". This equation between victims and murderers denies the Holocaust. Worse still, it provides its retroactive justification: if Jews turned out to be so evil, perhaps they deserved what they got. Others speak of Zionist conspiracies to dominate the media, manipulate American foreign policy, rule the world and oppress the Arabs. By describing Israel as the root of all evil, they provide the linguistic mandate and the moral justification to destroy it. And by using anti-semitic instruments to achieve this goal, they give away their true anti-semitic face.
There is of course the open question of whether this applies to anti-Zionism. It is one thing to object to the consequences of Zionism, to suggest that the historical cost of its realisation was too high, or to claim that Jews are better off as a scattered, stateless minority. This is a serious argument, based on interests, moral claims, and an interpretation of history. But this is not anti-Zionism. To oppose Zionism in its essence and to refuse to accept its political offspring, Israel, as a legitimate entity, entails more. Zionism comprises a belief that Jews are a nation, and as such are entitled to self-determination as all other nations are.
It could be suggested that nationalism is a pernicious force. In which case one should oppose Palestinian nationalism as well. It could even be argued that though both claims are true and noble, it would have been better to pursue Jewish national rights elsewhere. But negating Zionism, by claiming that Zionism equals racism, goes further and denies the Jews the right to identify, understand and imagine themselves - and consequently behave as - a nation. Anti-Zionists deny Jews a right that they all too readily bestow on others, first of all Palestinians.
Were you outraged when Golda Meir claimed there were no Palestinians? You should be equally outraged at the insinuation that Jews are not a nation. Those who denounce Zionism sometimes explain Israel's policies as a product of its Jewish essence. In their view, not only should Israel act differently, it should cease being a Jewish state. Anti-Zionists are prepared to treat Jews equally and fight anti-semitic prejudice only if Jews give up their distinctiveness as a nation: Jews as a nation deserve no sympathy and no rights, Jews as individuals are worthy of both. Supporters of this view love Jews, but not when Jews assert their national rights. Jews condemning Israel and rejecting Zionism earn their praise. Denouncing Israel becomes a passport to full integration. Noam Chomsky and his imitators are the new heroes, their Jewish pride and identity expressed solely through their shame for Israel's existence. Zionist Jews earn no respect, sympathy or protection. It is their expression of Jewish identity through identification with Israel that is under attack.
The argument that it is Israel's behaviour, and Jewish support for it, that invite prejudice sounds hollow at best and sinister at worst. That argument means that sympathy for Jews is conditional on the political views they espouse. This is hardly an expression of tolerance. It singles Jews out. It is anti-semitism.
Zionism reversed Jewish historical passivity to persecution and asserted the Jewish right to self-determination and independent survival. This is why anti-Zionists see it as a perversion of Jewish humanism. Zionism entails the difficulty of dealing with sometimes impossible moral dilemmas, which traditional Jewish passivity in the wake of historical persecution had never faced. By negating Zionism, the anti-semite is arguing that the Jew must always be the victim, for victims do no wrong and deserve our sympathy and support.
Israel errs like all other nations: it is normal. What anti-Zionists find so obscene is that Israel is neither martyr nor saint. Their outrage refuses legitimacy to a people's national liberation movement. Israel's stubborn refusal to comply with the invitation to commit national suicide and thereby regain a supposedly lost moral ground draws condemnation. Jews now have the right to self-determination, and that is what the anti-semite dislikes so much.
· Emanuele Ottolenghi is the Leone Ginzburg Fellow in Israel Studies at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and the Middle East Centre at St Antony's College, Oxford
He's not a "peace activist," folks.
He's a warmonger.
He wants israel destroyed.
He wants palestinians to take over that entire region, and he knows full well that if that happened, israel would cease to exist, and millions of israeli jews would probably have to flee, or they'd get killed.
That's what he wants.
He's Joseph anderson, bay area "peace activist" who wants the destruction of israel and the genocide of the israeli jews. He wants what nessie wnats, what wendy campbell wants, what hamas wants, what islamic jihad wants, what david duke wants, what white supremecists want and what neo-nazis want. And what antisemites want. And what a handful of moronic idiots who happen (or _claim_ to be jewish want.
Leftist peace movements, in the bay area and all around the world, have been infiltrated by a large amount of antisemites who are OBSESSED with demonizing EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of israel. They are on a mission. They are insane. They somehow think the world will improve if everyone hates israel even more than many already do.
That's why they lie and make deceptive statements like "zionists and nazis were on the same side" and stuff like that.
The EXAGGERATED, DISHONEST "anti-zionist" bullshit that now dominates The Left is IDENTICAL to the stuff found on david duke's website, white supremecist sites, neo-nazi sites, etc. - only they make sure to avoid saying "The jews" or "all jews" - but htat little fake-PC move is the only difference.
Tell the children the truth. Arabs were Nazis then, and they're Nazis now.
Besides, most Zionists are not even Jewish, let alone Israeli. They're Christians, or at least that's what they call themselves. And as for "the" Arabs, most of them aren't Palestinian, and the Palestinians themselves are a mixed bunch as well. They aren't even all Arabs.
This unseemly tendency to judge who categorize of people by the actions of a few is more than merely illogical. It's evil. It is racist by definition, and as such does not belong on Indymedia. It's appearance here is appalling and inexcusable. Why is this racist malarkey being provided with Indymedia bandwidth? It is no different that providing the KKK a soap box to say that. "Blacks are this" or "Jews are that." It is no different, not even a little bit. What are the editors thinking?
OK, some Arabs were Nazis during WWII and some Arabs are still Nazis today...feel better?
It explains alot, because those arabs that were and are Nazis, are in positions of power...it doesn't matter that some arabs weren't Nazis.
Who?
Jordan was definitely proBritish during WWII.
Saudi Arabia was both proBritishand proAmerican (and may have been source of oil for the Allies during WWII although Chevron only discovered oil there in 38)
Syria is ruled by an Alawite so you cant call it ruled by Arabs. The Baath Socialist Party didnt come into existance until 1963 and Michel Aflaq may have been marginally proNazi (although he was also proSoviet and didnt work with the Nazis as far as I can tell) but the original Baath party whose major aim was pan-Arab nationalism looks nothing lke Syria with Hafiz al-Asad looking like a run of the mill dictator on the lines of a Pinochet or Suharto (and its worh noting that the major massacres and human rights abuses carried out by Hafiz al-Asad were against Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood). Bashar Al-Asad really cant be accused of comming from a movement that had tied with the Nazis since he came to power as one would in a monarchy and his educational and ideological upbringing was probably most influenced by his time studying in London (although his politics wasnt clear at the time since he was studying ophthalmology) .
Lebanon is rulled by a proSyrian now but there were some strong Maronite ties to the Nazis (although I dont think you can accuse the Lebanese opposition that has just gained power with having any ideological roots linked to the Phalange)
Egypt is rulled by the US (at least thats what most Egyptians will tell you). Muhammad Hosni Said Mubarak's background is in the military but I guess you could claim his politics is a legacy of Sadat and Nasser (although Mubarak's proUS proCapitalist bent seems like an ideological break from Nasser's proUSSR and ste SOcialism stances). Sadat was " imprisoned by the British for his efforts to obtain help from the Axis Powers in expelling occupying British forces" although since the goal was antiColonialism (like the Zionists fighting the Birtish at the time) you cant really link that to beig proNazi. I dont know of any Nasser Nazi ties.
In terms of othe "Arab countries" I dont know of any with rulers one can link to the Nazis...
AND...
I WILL POST THE ONES YOU DELETED AGAIN DURING THE DAY.
HA-HA-HA!!
JA
I wouldnt call JA, Nessie, Wendy and maybe some guy who posts as Joe a large number. I doubt many of those people even go to protests and I wouldnt take discussion on a discussion board type website as representative or anything.
So you would include Lou Hill in that category? (he did organize people to not fight) What about African Americans who stopped fighting in protests over racism?
What made WWII special where no opposition to the US and Britian should have been allowed during that war? Are there any other wars where you would find opposition to Imperialism and Capitalism bad while the war was going on?
Translation:
Syrian Arabs were and are Nazis. And then of course, there was Uncle Hajj.
You would think there's some kind of stigma attached to being allied with the Third Reich...LOL!!!
I just happened to be up working on an article and thougt I'd check out what the ZioNazis were up to now.
IT DOESN'T MATTER A *SHIT*, MORALLY, *WHERE* THOSE OTHER JEWS CAME FROM -- WHETHER FROM *EUROPE*, WHERE ZIONISM WAS CREATED AND SOUGHT THE COLLUSION OF THE WESTERN IMPERIALIST POWERS, OR FROM OTHER PLACES IN THE ARAB WORLD!
THE VAST MAJORITY OF ISRAELI JEWS ARE NOT INDIGENOUS TO ***PALESTINE*** !!! -- WHICH WAS, NOMINALLY, AN ***ARAB*** COUNTRY!!!
-- AND THEREFORE THOSE JEWS *TOO* HAD/HAVE NO RIGHT TO GO TAKE LAND FROM ***PALESTINIANS*** AN IMPOSE A FOREIGN STATE ON THE ***PALESTINIANS*** !!!
AND CERTAINLY THE MANY JEWS FROM THE SUBURBS OF AMERICA (INCLUDING PEOPLE LIKE GOLDA MEIR) DIDN'T/DON'T HAVE THAT MORAL RIGHT!
JEWS IN ARAB COUNTRIES -- AND CERTAINLY NOT THE VERY SMALL % OF JEWS INDIGENOUS TO PALESTINE ITSELF -- **NEVER** CALLED FOR A ZIONIST STATE IN PALESTINE!!
-- AND ACTUALLY RACIST EUROPEAN JEWS HISTORICALLY TREATED NON-EUROPEAN JEWS RATHER BADLY, INCLUDING THE VERY SMALL % OF JEWS INDIGENOUS TO PALESTINE ITSELF!!
(EUROPEAN JEWS TENDED TO PUT NON-EUROPEAN JEWS ON THE 'FRONTIER' -- AS A BUFFER BETWEEN THEM AND THE ARABS -- AND OFTEN RELEGATED THEM TO SHIT JOBS.)
THE LARGEST POPULATIONS OF JEWS IN ARAB COUNTRIES LIVED IN *IRAQ* AND *MOROCCO*!!
AND THE **ZIONISTS** HAD TO SCARE THEM OUT WITH BOMBS IN THOSE COUNTRIES JEWISH NEIGHBORHOODS, WHILE TRYING MAKE IT LOOK LIKE THOSE WERE ARAB BOMBS!!
(ISRAEL HAS HAD A DOCUMENTED HISTORICAL PATTERN OF DOING THIS.
ALMOST MAKES YOU WONDER ABOUT 9-11, HUH? -- AND THOSE MOSSAD AGENTS, POSING AS NEW YORK CITY MOVING COMPANY PEOPLE, CAUGHT CHEERING THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TWIN TOWERS.)
BESIDES ISRAEL **WANTED** THOSE JEWS FROM ARAB COUNTRIES EXPELLED (AND PROBABLY COLLUDED WITH OR INCENTIVIZED THOSE ARAB HEADS OF STATE TO DO SO).
BUT, IF ACCORDING TO ISRAELI MYTHOLOGY, ALL THOSE ARABS WERE MERELY EXPELLED AS RETALIATION FOR HOW THE ZIONIST WERE DISPOSSESSING AND ETHNICALLY CLEANSING THE PALESTINIANS...,
THEN THE IMMORAL ZIONIST STATE OF ISRAEL **CAUSED** THAT, DID IT!?
(YOU ZIONISTS HAVE TO DECIDE WHICH WAY YOU'RE GOING TO PLAY YOUR PROPAGANDA:
YOU CAN'T BE LIKE THE KID WHO MURDERS HIS MOTHER AND THEN BEGS FOR MERCY FROM THE COURT BECAUSE HE IS NOW AN ORPHAN!!)
NOW, I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHAT YOU MORALLY LOW-LIFE AND HYPOCRITICAL ZIONISTS THINK, BUT I WANTED TO ***EASILY*** DISPELL YOUR LITTLE ETHNIC RUSE FOR OTHERS TO SEE.
SLIMEY ZIONISTS.
Nostalgic admiration of Nazis has remained strong in Syria. Sami al-Joundi, a founder of the Syrian Ba'ath movement, writes: "We were racists. We admired the Nazis. We were immersed in reading Nazi literature and books that were the source of the Nazi spirit...We were the first who thought of a translation of Mein Kampf. Anyone who lived in Damascus at that time was witness to the Arab inclination toward Nazism."
http://home.att.net/~m.standridge/fweexter.htm
Ba'ath was founded in Syria in the mid40's by VichyNazi agents with connections with Charles Bedaux and, through him, with the Windsors and Standard Oil. Ba'ath's original platform, which hasn't changed much since, is antiMarxist, adopting a vague notion of socialism and virulent antiSemitism. (Bennis and Moushabeck 30). Many Nazi agents were in formerly Vichy Syria until 1945 (Higham 177-88). Syria was also the base for the Nazi agent Bedaux, who had strong ties to the Windsors (Bush's relatives) to 1943. He was arrested in April of 1943 (Higham 177-88).
In Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, New York: Random House, 1990, 85-7) Judith Miller, a professional reporter for the New York Times, and Laurie Milroie, a Harvard Mid-East expert, describe the pre-and post-World War II history of Ba'ath and its founders and give a more detailed history of the beginnings of the Ba'ath Party in the Middle East:
"The February 1964 coup against Qassim marked the arrival of a new and ruthless player in Iraqi politics--the Baath Party of Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr and, later, Saddam Hussein. The Baath (Arabic for 'renaissance') began as a political movement in Syria in the 1930s. It soon cmae to be dominated by two Damascus high school teachers, Michel Aflaq and Salah Bitar, who had studied together at the Sorbonne between 1928 and 1932....
"As a student in Paris, Aflaq was attracted to the fascist ideas then fashionable in Europe. He was 'full of enthusiasm for Hitler' and other German fascists, according to the Syrian-born historian Bassam Tibi. Aflaq saw in Nazi Germany a model for his ideas of a synthesis between nationalism and socialism. At the time of the 1941 coup of the pro-German Rashid Ali, he and Bitar formed a "Society to Help Iraq," the nucleus of what later became that country's Baath party, according to the Princeton historian Bernard Lewis. Aflaq's view of Arab nationalism was quite romantic and far more radical than that of the Arabs as a race, as expressed in the Baathist slogan, 'One Arab nation with an eternal mission.'...
http://www.safeplace.net/members/mer/MER_a043.htm
Bernard Lewis article
This gives some background and weaves it into a description of Ba'ath philosophy and the history of the time.
Note: these are from various viewpoints, but all seem to point to a certain political philosophy.
Certainly one cannot accuse the Ba'ath Party, either in Syria or in Iraq, of great tolerance for the individual or for minorites, nor of democratic tendencies.
What does that even mean? I can claim all people with blue eyes are Nazis but that doesnt make it so. Arabs are an ethnic group so by demonizing all members of an ethnic group in Syria (not based of individual actions but membership in that ethnic group) you sound much more like a Nazi than any of the leaders of Syria.
Syria is a dictatorship with almost monarchist tendencies and a fairly oppressive state apperatus. The main opposition groups to the Syrian government have been Muslim fundamnetalists and Syria's totalitarianism isnt based around membership ina a given religion or ethnic group. You would have an easier time comparing Central American dictators backed by the US (who singled out Native American groups) as being Nazi like.
Nazi comparisons are pretty stupid to begin with since its never clear which aspect of the Nazi Party is bieng referred to. The Nazi Party supported corporatism (large private companies with the state acting in a supportive managerial role and many Republicans seem to want), massive consurction of infrastructure, use of slave labor, descriminations against religious and ethnic minorities, miklitary expansionism, cult of personality worshiping of a leader, military pagentry.... any indiidual one of these can be used by people accusing others of being Nazis; Israel can be seen as Nazi-like since the state is based arond a single ethnic/religious group whose history is idealized, the US can be seen as Nazi-like becuase of invasions of places like Iraq and Afghansitan, groups like the boyscouts can be seen as nazilike since they train youth to wear uniforms and look clean-cut, Scientologists can be accused of being Nazilike sicne the Nazis strated off as a small cult (that was argued in front of a German court a few years ago), N Korea can be seen as Nazi-like since its totalitarian and repressive, Reagan could be seen as Nazi-like since he built up a small cult of personality type thing among Republican youth, .....
Its all pretty meaniningless; the Nazis are seen as the greatest evil in history because of the Hollocaust and an attempt to take over much of the world if you restricted Nazi-like to any group doing both of those things you wont come up with many things that are or were Nazi-like.
It remains strong in Eastern Eiuopean countries like Lithuania too. Both Croatia and Lithuania have built statues recently honoring leaders who fought with the Nazis. But, you cant call all or most of those countries proNazi, since the statues were mainly built out of hatred for former Soviet Rule and while antiSemitic groups in E Europe are large you cant generalize from that to claim that all Slavs or all E Orthodox Christians are evil Nazis (since that would be racist).
Not all, but many...The Naizs used locals to do their dirty work. the fact that the Nazisw are honored in these lands shows how deeplyu the love of their anti-semitic cause was (and still is)
You actually see statues of Heny Ford around the US, the Ford Foundation gives money to many causes and most US school children are taught that he was a hero who helped revolutionize manufacturing.
You actually see statues of Heny Ford around the US, the Ford Foundation gives money to many causes and most US school children are taught that he was a hero who helped revolutionize manufacturin"
LOL!!! The Ford Foundation financed many of the NGOs at the Durbin Hatefest. Once this was exposed, the Ford Found. apologized for financing anti-semitic ventures and promised to scrutinze the recipients of their funding. What they then did was thrid party financing, which again was exposed for what it truly is.
Nazis then and Nazis now.
yeah, if you look at their site they look like StormFront
http://www.fordfound.org/program/program_main.cfm
They gave $10 million to PBS last year probably to support Bert and his fascist agenda. Everyone who has ever watched Sesame Street is guilty of supporting a Nazi organization. Every "Tickle me Elmo" doll sold was effectively a brick that will be used in the construction of new concentration camps.
"Henry Ford spent years bestowing gushing praise on Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, although this praise abated as the United States entered WWII. There is also some evidence that Henry Ford gave Adolf Hitler direct financial backing when Hitler was first starting out in politics. This can in part be traced to statements from Kurt Ludecke, Germany's representative to the U.S. in the 1920s, and Winifred Wagner, daughter-in-law of Richard Wagner, who said they requested funds from Ford to aid the National Socialist movement in Germany."
Ford's indirect financial backing of the Nazis was also undeniable, as Ford Motor Company was active in Germany's military buildup prior to World War II. In 1938, for instance, it opened an assembly plant in Berlin, the purpose of which was to supply trucks to the Wehrmacht. In July of that year, Ford was awarded (and accepted) the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle (Großkreuz des Deutschen Adlerordens). Ford was the first American and the fourth person given this award, at the time Nazi Germany's highest honorary award given to foreigners. The decoration was given "in recognition of [Ford's] pioneering in making motor cars available for the masses." The award was accompanied by a personal congratulatory message from Adolf Hitler. [Detroit News, July 31, 1938.]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford
So Ford was definitely an evil person and anything he or his money supported or supports must be tainted....
"In 1997, for example, the Ford Motor Company sponsored the first screening of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List," commercial-free, on national network television."
http://www.adl.org/special_reports/ij/print.asp
And thus Schindler's List must be some sort of Nazi propagnda film in disguise.... right
http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/schindler.html
Note that the film was sponsered by the Ford Motor Company (which had the more direct Nazi ties) and not The Ford Foundation wich "no longer has any association with the Ford Motor Company, nor with the family or descendants of Henry Ford."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Foundation
If you want to smear to ford foundation because of its roots its better to look at the fact that
"McGeorge "Mac" Bundy (March 30, 1919 - September 16, 1996) was Special Assistant for National Security Affairs to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson from 1961-1966, and then headed the Ford Foundation from 1966-1979. He was one of Kennedy's "wise men," a noted political scientist and academic at Harvard University. He moved into public life in 1960 becoming national security advisor. He played a crucial role in all of the major foreign policy and defence decisions of the Kennedy and part of the Johnson administration. These included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and, most controversially, the Vietnam War.
The truth is of course that Schindler's list and most groups that receive small grants from the Ford Foundation are not tainted with Nazi or CIA ties. Guilt by association is a useful tool when you want to smear people for things other than their own actions.
It gets even more complicated in that Islam is a religion that subsumes many cultures and Arabs are a minority in Islam.
If “they do it, too” were a valid excuse, Hitler would be off the hook for killing those six million Jews, because Stalin killed six million Ukrainians.
Zionists were trying to save jews and establish israel, and any taking any zionist leaders did with nazis was in an attempt to figure out how to save jews and establish israel, not to actually HELP the nazis in any way.
This topic is about the fact that gilad alzmon, a bigoted nutjob who is obsessed with demonizing judaism, jews and israel (yes, all three) gets invited to give talks by progressive leftists who CLAIM to be "peace activists" ...
Review of Congressional Investigation against Ford Foundation
As a result of a concerted research effort by several bodies, including NGO Monitor, Congressmen Jerrold Nadler and Rick Santorum, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, have launched a campaign to investigate the Ford Foundation's funding of anti-Semitic and highly political anti-Israel NGOs. A major pillar of the enquiry will be the legality of tax-exempt funding of these extremist groups.
After meeting with Nadler, Ford president, Susan Berresford acknowledged that she did not have a clear picture of all grantees' activities and stated that she was "disgusted" at the antisemitic atmosphere of the 2001 United Nations conference on racism in Durban, South Africa.
Ford's donation money was instrumental in funding NGOs responsible for the hate-filled anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist literature used at the NGO Forum that eclipsed the World Conference against Racism held in Durban in 2001. Some of the main protagonists include Adalah ($200,000), Al-Mezan ($100,000), and PNGO.
NGO Monitor first drew public attention to Ford's problematic activities in the Middle East in an article published 15 July 2003, http://ngo-monitor.org/editions/v1n10/v1n10-1.htm. The article drew particular attention to the discrepancy between the mission statements of many of these NGOs promoting 'human rights' and their highly partisan agendas. The Ford Foundation, initially dismissed the accusations and failed to respond to several written request to NGO Monitor for comment. The American Jewish Congress took up the issue on October 21 with a request to study the legality of tax-exempt organizations funding extremist groups.
Susan Berresford, however, issued a letter just one day after seventeen house representatives signed a letter calling for Ford to "cease funding of subversive groups." In a letter to Nadler appearing at the moment on the Ford site, http://www.fordfound.org/newsroom/docs/svb_letter.pdf Berresford comments,
the Foundation has not and would never knowingly support racial, religious, ethnic or other forms of bigotry. Nor have we or would we knowingly fund any group that advocates violence or denies the legitimacy of Israel's existence.
Berresford has stated that Ford has now undertaken a specific series of new measures to ensure that its funds no longer go to "groups that promote or condone bigotry or violence, or that challenge the very existence of legitimate, sovereign states like Israel." It also promised new efforts to address "the alarming rise of antisemitism around the world" through "significant regional and global program actions." According to an article in Forward newspaper by Ori Nir, Senate Critic Undeterred by Ford Apology Rick Santorum will push for further scrutiny of the organization's funding of extremist anti-Israel groups. This followed a meeting between Nadler http://www.house.gov/nadler/FordFound_110303.htm and Ford president Susan Berresford who issued a formal letter in response.
This is the first time that the Ford Foundation has admitted that it was a main funder of several groups who preparted anti-Semitic literature and anti-Israel statements beyond the scope of their mission statement for the World Conference against Racism in Durban of 2001. The process is being covered in the JTA newspaper (Click here for more details) whose articles have been instrumental in publicizing this issue.
That's because the Arabs invaded OCCUPIED and COLONIZED everything from India to Europe. Murder rape and forced conversion was the rule rather than the exception.
By Thomas
fpn [at] vcu.edu
http://www.studentorg.vcu.edu/fpn
Why is it that anyone who opposes the state of Israel�s occupation and brutalization of the Palestinians is branded an anti-Semite? Israel is no different from any other state, be it Muslim, Christian, or secular. Our objections to Israel are not based upon the makeup of its citizenry, but upon its actions as a state. If we would, as many of us do, oppose the Chinese government for its oppression of Tibet, would we be branded as racists, or anti-Asians? No, we would not. People know that those objections are political and humanitarian, not racially based. So what makes Israel different? Zionist organizations have made it their goal to try to convince the world, Jews and non-Jews alike that Zionism is Judaism. Thus attacking Zionism is the same as attacking Judaism. This is simply not true, and most real Jews understand this. There are countless Jewish groups that are anti-Zionist, anti-occupation, and pro-peace all over the world. There are even some ultra orthodox groups that state that Zionism is the complete opposite of Judaism. They say that Jewish teachings proclaim that Jews cannot return to the lands of Palestine until the end of time, thus making Zionist Israel antithetical to Jewish teachings. Even though many Jews understand the difference between Zionism and Judaism, the Zionists have been able to convince many non-Jews that there is no difference.
The Zionists are on the defensive all over the world. The last resort of the supporters of the state of Israel who, since the horrors of their involvement in the Lebanese civil war, and their continued brutalization of the Palestinian peoples in the occupied territories, is to blindly flail about with accusations of �rampant anti-Semitism� among Palestinian activists. The Zionists refuse to separate criticism of Israel from criticism of Jews. The President of Harvard recently stated that Harvard�s University divestment campaign was �anti-Semitic in its result, if not in its intent� let us analyze that statement for a second. He acknowledges that the campaign is not anti-Semitic in its intent, yet because it urges Universities to stop investing in the state of Israel; it is anti-Semitic in its result. Therefore, he is trying to say that any actions that are opposed to the state of Israel are anti-Semitic. This statement is the epitome of ignorance, especially from someone who claims to be the leader of a place of Higher Education. He cannot seem to separate Israel from Judaism, thinking that Israel is Judaism and Judaism is Israel. This is ridiculous to many of us who know countless Pro-Palestinian Jews and Jews who oppose the state of Israel. Israel is a country, it has a largely Jewish population, as America has a largely Christian population, and as India has a large Hindu population. Yet I am sure the Harvard President can separate the criticism of American foreign policy from criticism of Christianity, and I am sure he can separate the criticism of India role in Kashmir from criticism of the Hindu religion. Yet he cannot separate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism. There is a problem in the world with anti-Semitism, do not get me wrong. The far right, Nazis, and fascists perpetuate anti-Semitism wherever they go. Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell to bigoted anti-Semite Christians who live in this very country. Yet they are not the focus of anti-Semitic accusations. Instead, the Zionists focus their wild accusations on the Pro-Palestinian movement, a move that just makes the accusations of anti-Semitism laughable, and discredit the movement against anti-Semitism. Pat Robertson, the anti-Semite, got an honorary award from the Chicago chapter of the Zionist Organization of America. Why? Because in his anti-Semitic mind, Israel is a good idea, because he hopes all the Jews will leave America and go there, so America will be purely Christian. Yet the Zionists give him an award, and call us, those who have fought all our lives for justice for all people including Jews, anti-Semites. It is purely laughable.
Jewish organizations that oppose Zionism need to make their voices hear. They need to show the world that you can be a Jew and not be a Zionist, you can be a Jew and fight the occupation, and you can be a Jew and want a Palestinian state. Pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist does not mean anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic. I am Pro-Tibetan, I am not racist against Asians, I am pro-Chechen, I do not discriminate against people of Russian ethnicity, I am pro-Northern Irish independence, I do not hate Catholics or Protestants, I am Pro-Cypriot Unification, I do not persecute Turks, and I am Pro-Palestinian, and I am defiantly NOT anti-Semitic.
You go out on the web looking for something and your bound to find it but it doesnt prove a thing. You have found Nessie and JA and seem to enjoy yelling at them but its not clear why since few are listening (as far as I can tell this is only linked off the latest comments page on a not very widely read website) do you want to yell at JA and Nessie until they confirm in your head that antiSemitism exists on the left (even though they dont reprent anyone elses views)... just curious about your motive.
nessie/ja type of lunatics dominate almost every website on indymedia.
But disgusting people like them, as well as dishonest bigots like gilad alzmon, seem to dominate the left in general. AT least where it matters (san fran, other cities, around europe, etc.)
I mean, look at the article posted a few posts up. I pointed out that this topic is about an antisemitic scumgag who gets invited to speak about the palestinians. And some idiot responded with a "why is all criticism called antisemitic" garbage article.
Everyone knows that not all criticism of israel is "antisemitic." No shit.
And NO, not all criticism of israel is CALLED antisemitic, either. It seems like only the antisemites actually claim that.
But as for this particular topic, gilad alzmon is a bigot and an antisemite, because of what he says about jews and judaism, and because of the DISHONEST lies he twists about israel.
But tons of people on the left seem to do this, these days...
Do you realize that most of the "anti-zionist" arguments that come from "peace activists" are IDENTICAL to the arguments found on david duke's official website, white supremecist sites, etc.?
Because, it FEELS to me like there are now just as many dishones bigots on the radical left as there are on the radical right.
An israel-hater just spewed this garbage: "Don't you see. Zionism is not racism, it's just the we are the chosen people and better than everyone else. It about survival of the superior people."
ANTISEMITES spew that type of shit (the "jews think they are the chosen ones, israel is about superiority/supremecisy" garbage).
It's literally impossible to even have a normal conversation on indymedia without antisemitic scumbags dominating every discussion
I will keepn arguing and aggressively pursue this fruitless effort to highlight what I think is '"anti-semitism" on the left until my dying day.
Israel exists. It's 2005. Accept it.
There is no excuse for helping Nazis. Likewise, there is no excuse for helping the Jewish version of Nazis, the Zionists. Editors please take note. If you help these racist aggressors in any way, even by merely providing them bandwidth, there's blood on your hands.
>The person who posts as "typical zionist ploy" honestly appears to be genuinely insane.
An ad hominem is not a rebuttal.
In terms of posts across Indymedia sites you can probably count the total number of people you are referring to on one hand (they get banned from one site and then go to another). Most have no real involvement with any local activists movements and are as reflective of "the left" as the comments on yahoo news items are reflective of yahoo's views. Go to right-wing sites and you will see the same type of stuff asd on left wing sites (but with a lot more "kill all arabs", "nuke mecca" racist rhetoric). Go to slashdot and you will find people yelling about tech stuff in a way that is not too dissimilar; the web breads flamewars where oneupmanship draws out people with strong views and a willingness to say hateful things when angry.
Datamining can play tricks on your mind, but with the internet everyone does it. If I think the WTC was brought by UFOs and start looking Im sure I could find a site and a community that believes that. Once I find the links on their site I would probably find them all over the place and conclude its a wordlwide movement but 5 opeople posting from 5 countries isnt exactly a worldwide movement,l its just the type of thing that wasnt possible before the web was around. If your goal is to prove there are crazy people out there it doesnt take uch work to do it but what the web doesnt let you do is see how representative those people are of anything beyond their comments.
nessie: "An ad hominem is not a rebuttal."
But in this case, it's a truth. Nessie sees nothing antisemitic about spreading the vilest hatred against the vast, vast majority of American Jews, as long as he does it for the right reasons. And he will cling to his little excuse -- his excuse being that 99.5% of American Jews really _are_ evil and _should_ be hated -- tighter than Linus ever clutched his security blanket.
@%<
Fails To Amaze
By Kurt Nimmo
Another Day In The Empire
4-28-5
Thank Odin for email. If not for this wonder of technology, I would have no idea what the "other side" thinks of my blog and articles. For instance, consider the following email, received after my article "Blackjack with Iran" appeared two weeks ago on the Counterpunch site. This email languished in my inbox for days-buried, as usual, by an avalanche of email and uninvited spam-and I only read this morning:
**I take issue with the entirety of your ill-informed article (Blackjack with Iran). Your opinions are clearly based on your contempt for Israelis and self-loathing disdain for Americans. What happened in your sad childhood? Were you were bullied in school? Did the Jewish girl turn you down for the prom? Did you envy Epstein's house?
As usual, it is all about the Israelis and any criticism of Israel stems from anti-Semitism, probably as a result of mistreatment at the hands of Jews or a burning envy of them from early childhood on. Of course, this is simply emotional nonsense, quite aside from the issues I addressed in the article. I find it interesting, however, that criticism of U.S. foreign policy is deemed "self-loathing disdain for Americans," a sort of new take on the archetypal of the self-hating Jew, that is to say any Jew who doesn't like what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians.
**Your paranoid article is crammed with more lies than even the Mullahs can muster. The Iranians themselves will not deny the existence of their own Manhattan project--they don't blame the whole outrage on doctored Israeli photos as you do. How silly.
Of course, in order to lie, one has to know the facts and distort them, as Bush did with the "intelligence" on Saddam's hallucinated weapons of mass destruction that crossed his desk. I merely speculated that the Israelis had contrived photos purporting to show the evil mullahs at work on nukes. I do not know this for a fact.
However, as history demonstrates, the Israelis are masters at contriving not only fake "intelligence" (consider Israel's part in "developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capability," as admitted by retired Brigadier General Shlomo Brom), but also contrived situations, for instance the now well-known Lavon Affair, a bungled terrorist event directed against targets in Egypt-most notably, the United States Information Services Libraries in Cairo-and blamed on Arabs. Remarkably, this botched attack was recently "celebrated" in Israel and three of the surviving Egyptian Jews who carried out the bomb attacks in Cairo and Alexandria in the 1954 "received letters of thanks from Israeli President Moshe Katsav who also handed similar letters to the families of the six other culprits," according to Magda El-Ghitany of the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram.
Unfortunately, there is nothing "silly" about this brazen attempt to honor terrorists, but then Israel has a nasty habit of honoring its terrorists. According to Clovis Maksoud, the former Arab League ambassador to the United Nations, "the Israeli government supports museums that honor assassins and terrorists-including one located on a street named for a terrorist (Avraham Stern)," as Jason Vest writes for the Village Voice. So beloved is the mass murdering Stern, Israel issued a stamp with his likeness. It is odd Israel would do this because, as Wikipedia notes, "Stern attempted to make an agreement with the German Nazi authorities, offering to 'actively take part in the war on Germany's side' in return for 'the establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich'. Another attempt to contact the Germans was made in late 1941, but there is no record of a German response in either case." Of course, it makes perfect sense that Stern would be a hero in Israel since he was an adherent of the Revisionist Zionist movement founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the spiritual godfather of the Likudites.
**You state that Israel will not unilaterally attack Iran due to the population imbalance? Pacifists like you should really not dabble in military matters. The Israeli Air Force alone could destroy much of Iran, with or without nukes. Population is as irrelevant as it was when Israel was attacked by the Egyptians and Syrians or when Israel attacked the Osirak reactor project in Iraq (which you no doubt denounce as an invasion of Iraqi sovereignty). I am sure you would have also denounced the invasion of Normandy and the bombing of Dresden because that's the kind of fool that you are.
Serious medication is required for this person, who shall remain anonymous (unlike many unethical scallywags on the right, I never post names or email addresses of the people who send hate email my way). It would seem, for this person, nuking Iran is not only doable, it is hunky dory, an actual foreign policy initiative. As for comparing this possibility to the invasion Normandy, again I believe this poor hateful and deluded soul needs a spot of medication, possibly thorazine. As for Dresden yeah, well, I have on numerous occasions denounced the firebombing of Dresden, an egregious war crime resulting in the murder of 140,000 innocent civilians.
**Finally, your assertion that the Israelis are "pathologically racist" to think that someone would want to attack them is laughable. Do you remember 1948? How about 1973? The Gulf War?
Here's what I "remember" about 1948: the Zionists expelled 80 percent of the indigenous population (750,000 Palestinians), in other words they ethnically cleansed three quarters of a million people. "Chief among the Zionist leadership's regrets in the aftermath of the 1948 war was its failure to conquer the whole of Palestine," writes Norman G. Finkelstein, a professor of political theory at DePaul University in Chicago. "Come 1967, Israel exploited the 'revolutionary times' of the June war to finish the job. The landmark Fourth Geneva Convention, ratified in 1949, for the first time 'unequivocally prohibited deportation' of civilians under occupation (Articles 49, 147). Accordingly Israel moved after the June war to impose the second of its two options mentioned above-apartheid."
It should be noted that by May 1948 Zionist forces had already invaded and occupied large parts of the land which had been allocated to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan, well before the "war" of 1948. "The evidence that the Zionist colonizers started the 1948 war comes from Zionist sources. The History of the Palmach (a Zionist pre-state militia), which was released in portions in the 1950s (and in full in 1972), details the efforts made to attack the Palestinians and secure more territory than was allotted to the Jewish state by the UN partition plan (Kibbutz Menchad Archive, Palmach Archive, Efal, Israel)," writes Ahmad Nimer. "Israeli historians have also refuted the claim that the Arabs started the 1948 war. Benny Morris uncovered a June 30, 1948, report from the Israeli Defense Force Intelligence Branch which shows that it was Zionist policy to attack to expel the Palestinians." In fact, the so-called Arab invasion was a defensive attempt to hold on to the areas allotted by the Partition Plan for the Palestinian state.
As for the 1973 "war," this was a response on the part of Egypt and Syria after Washington and Tel Aviv ignored overtures by the two Arab states to negotiate the return of land stolen by Israel in earlier "wars." As early as 1956, Israel had planned to grab the Sinai. As for the Golan Heights (actually the Syrian Heights), Israel engaged in continual border provocations (violating a July 20, 1949 agreement between the Zionist state and Syria) right up to the eve of the 1967 "war." In the wake of this "war," neighboring Arabs were angered by the fact Israel routinely expelled Egyptians, Syrians, and Palestinians while installing Jewish settlers in their thousands. By 1973 nearly 100 settlements had been established and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been displaced, expelled, imprisoned or deported. On 6 October 1973 the Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights in an attempt to liberate their territory occupied by Israel. The Secretary-General of the Arab League explained the Arab action thus: "In a final analysis, Arab action is justifiable, moral and valid under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. There is no aggression, no attempt to acquire new territories. But to restore and liberate all the occupied territories is a duty for all able self-respecting peoples" (Sunday Times, 14 October 1973).
As for the so-called "Gulf War," consider the following explanation by Mark Zepezauer, from his book, The CIA's Greatest Hits:
The Gulf War further destabilized the region and made Kuwait more dependent on us. US oil companies can now exert more control over oil prices (and thus boost their profits). The US military got an excuse to build more bases in the region (which Saudi Arabia, for one, didn't want) and the war also helped justify the "need" to continue exorbitant levels of military spending. Finally, it sent a message to Third World leaders about what they could expect if they dared to step out of line.
**Your simple, isolationist views went out with Pearl Harbour (which I am sure you attribute to anti-Japanese propagandists) and 9-11 (which the Republicans manufactured).
Actually, if documents held formerly in bomb-proof vaults (a naval storage vault in Crane, Indiana) over the last 60 years are any indication (these documents were, under FOIA directive, eventually moved to the National Archives in Washington, D.C, in 1994), the United States had broken the Japanese code early on and knew an invasion of Pearl Harbor was imminent. Of course, this is hardly news, simply one example of a long record of government deception. Howard Zinn writes: "If more people knew something about the history of government deception, of the lies that were told getting us into the Mexican War, the lies that were told getting us into the Spanish-American War, the lies that were told getting us into the war in the Philippines, the lies that were told getting us into World War I, the lies that were told again and again in Vietnam, the lies on the eve of the Gulf War, they would have questions about what they are hearing from the government and the media to justify [Bush II's] war."
As for nine eleven fact of the matter is we have no idea who "manufactured" it (and I agree, it was manufactured), although we have a good idea who benefited (as in cui bono)-and it sure the hell wasn't those alleged Saudi hijackers (seven who are still alive), Osama bin Laden, or the Taliban (or the Afghan people, who were bombed mercilessly). Considering nobody in Washington is serious about an impartial investigation of nine eleven, chances are we will never know who "manufactured" the attacks. As I have written elsewhere, though, I consider it an absurdity the attacks were hatched and launched by cave-dwelling Muslims in Afghanistan.
**You will never amount to anything, because you write out of hate as opposed to fact and reason. Stick to photography, ass-fucker.
Nice finale, wouldn't you say? But then, of course, this is exactly the sort of response I expect from right-wingers and rabid apologists for Zionism, especially the new crop, many of them former Maoists (like Horowitz) and assorted disillusioned commies and political malcontents. I almost pine for the days of polite and more or less benign John Birchers, guys like Pat Buchanan who are loony right-wingers without all the overt hatred, venom and expletives (this is the second reference to buggery I've read in a 24 hour period from a maniacal right-winger). I guess, though, this email is innocuous enough, considering a few months ago a guy wanted to take a baseball bat to my head. Others simply want to send me to Iran to be tortured by mullahs (or thrown to the myhtical Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi), one guy even offered to buy a one-way ticket to some dismal third world country. It appears the worst are unrepentant Zionists, such as Steve Plaut, who excel at viciousness, as does the anti-Muslim nark Debbie Schlussel, who takes special pride in dissing the dead.
So which one of is a racist? You tell me.
Simple. You are, nessie. You're the one with the freak-ass excuse for proudly spreading hatred against, not just a sliver of the American Jewish population, but nearly every American Jew -- 199 out of 200 -- and also with the exceedingly lame pretext for calling _me_ a racist because I point out your hysterical bigotry.
Q: What do you call someone who thinks you should hate 199 out of 200 American Jews?
A: Nessie.
Hope this helps, but know you, it won't.
@%<
IT IS TO LAUGH!!
NOW THAT'S **CHHHHUUUUTZPAH**...!!!
Stick a fork in nessie; he's done.
@%<
But that's only to be expected fro gehrig. He's a Zionist. That Jews are a special case, is the essence of Zionism.
But what about the rest of you out there? Who among you believes we should overlook racism when the racist is a Jew? Why? How is this not racist itself?
... just before I've sent gerhig running off with his tail between his legs!
And mixing metaphors ("glub, glub, glub, ...etc.). The sign of a very bad and uncreative writer.
Other than that, it's the standard practice of Indymedia Zionists to CHANGE THE SUBJECT(!!) when they're intellectually or morally cornered!
Yo gerhig!: where's ya boyyy -- non-Critical Thinkifier!?
(By the way, according to gerhig, and the other Indybay Zionists, *Jews* can't be racist.)
Atzmon has strange and disgusting views -
Well done James Black for making a stand!
June 28, 2005
How did the far Left manage to slip into bed with the Jew-hating Right?
David Aaronovitch
WHEN I WAS YOUNG, smug centrists used to tell me that the extremes of Right and Left would, extended far enough, meet somewhere round the back. And I never quite believed it. But here’s a story that seems to suggest that it really can happen. Indulge me . . .
First a recapitulation. The Respect Party of George Galloway famously turned in the best performance by a far-Left party since the Communists won two seats in 1945. Respect itself is mostly — though not entirely — a front for the semi-Trotskyist organisation called the Socialist Workers’ Party, or SWP. SWP members made up just under half of Respect’s candidates, SWP activists form the party’s main cadre and it is the SWP that drives the strategy, tactics and political platform of Respect.
When I was at college, the local SWP used to drive around in minibuses looking for members of the far Right to beat up. In those days the party had an uncompromising attitude towards those it decided were “racists and fascists”, throwing politicians such as Sir Keith Joseph into an adjacent sub-category and trying to get them banned from making speeches.
Next week the SWP begins the annual festival at which members, supporters and friends are spoken at and sung to on topics revolutionary and progressive. Marxism 2005 features grizzled Trots from the 1970s, Tony Benn, George Galloway, a poet or two and, for the third year running, billed at No 13 on the speaker’s list, a chap called Gilad Atzmon.
And that’s where the trouble starts. Atzmon is a well-known jazz-musician, an Israeli-born Jew and — as the SWP has previously described him — also a deliverer of “fearless tirades against Zionism”. But the tirades have got him into trouble with more than just the Jewish community. A Palestinian musician told me a couple of years ago that she would no longer work with Atzmon because, in her opinion, he was “an anti-Semite”. He had, somewhere, crossed the line.
In 2003, for instance, Atzmon, who makes many speeches and runs a very substantial website, said this about the idea of a global Jewish plot: “We must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously.”
Why? Because “American Jewry makes any debate on whether the Protocols of the Elders of Zionitic forgery are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy. So far they are doing pretty well for themselves at least.”
So, he’s a silly boy advancing slightly dangerous arguments (or “fearless tirades”). And we might take no notice. It’s just that Atzmon does get about a bit — gigs, meetings, university debates, and yet one of his heroes is an author and activist, Israel Shamir.
According to Atzmon, “Shamir is a very civil and peaceful man and probably is the sharpest critical voice of ‘Jewish power’ and Zionist ideology.”
I first came across Shamir after I’d made a programme for Channel 4 on anti-Semitism in Islamic countries. In it I’d pointed out how the “blood libel”, the slanderous accusation that Jews killed gentiles for the blood, had travelled from medieval Europe to the Middle East. But was it slander? Shamir, who claims to be a Russian Jew from Jaffa, wrote a long article in response arguing that the Jews probably were guilty of kidnapping Christian children and drinking their blood. I was more than amazed.
Shamir both buys the world plot and has some very strange allies. “For as long,” he wrote, “as Richard Perle sits in the Pentagon, Elie Wiesel brandishes his Nobel Prize, Mort Zuckerman owns the USA Today, Gusinsky bosses over Russian TV, Soros commands multi-billions of funds and Dershowitz teaches at Harvard, we need the voices of (David) Duke, (Justin) Raimondo, (Pat) Buchanan, (Horst) Mahler, (Nick) Griffin and of other anti-bourgeois nationalists.” For those who don’t know, Mahler is ex-Baader Meinhof turned neo-Nazi, David Duke is a former leader of Ku Klux Klan and Nick Griffin is our very own Welshpool Duce.
And despite warnings about his true identity as a Swedish fascist, Shamir sits on the 16-person board of advisers of the international pro-Palestinian campaign organisation, Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR), named after a Palestinian village destroyed and ethnically cleansed in 1948 by the Zionist terror groups, Irgun and the Stern gang. DYR organises events that many of the great and good of the pro-Palestinian movement attend.
As it happens the Jewish UK Director of DYR, Paul Eisen, is a fan of Shamir’s, describing him as a man “who has no trouble whatsoever in calling a Jew a Jew . . .”
And Eisen is of Atzmon and Shamir’s mind concerning Jewish power. Last year he expressed the view that Jewish influence in America was “not over its muscle and sinew but over its blood and its brain . . . Lists abound (though you have to go to some pretty unpopular websites to find them) of Jews, prominent in financial and cultural life.”
It seems to have been on one of these “unpopular websites” that Eisen made a fatal connection. He discovered the site of one Ernst Zundel.
“Zundel,” wrote Eisen, “is a gentle, good-humoured man . . . Zundel understands people and . . . he understands history.” Zundel, a German-born Canadian, is not just a modern saint, but also the distributor of the booklet, Did Six Million Really Die? And a co-publisher of the rather heroically titled, The Hitler We Loved and Why.
In an article published last December Eisen explained what he’d learnt from kindly Ernst. “No one is able to show us, at Auschwitz or anywhere else,” argued Eisen, “even one of these chemical slaughterhouses. No one is capable of describing to us their exact appearance or workings. Neither a trace nor a hint of their existence is to be found . . . Nor would it be the first time that Jews have accepted and propagated stories, true, false or a mixture of both, of their suffering.”
It was Eisen on the Holocaust that sent the balloon up for Atzmon at Marxism 2005. Because Atzmon firstly circulated Eisen’s Holocaust-denying article, then told critics defiantly that, “my take on the subject is slightly different than Paul’s one”. “For me,” Atzmon continued, cretinously, “the Holocaust like any other historical narrative is a dynamic process of realisation and interpretation.”
Not a few left-wing Jews who style themselves “anti-Zionist” have been horrified by the Atzmon-Eisen-Shamir business. And a couple of weeks ago they began to exert pressure on the SWP to disinvite the over-fearless tirader. But the SWP — it of “smash racism” — has refused. The party issued a statement. It was, it admitted, a bit worried about Atzmon, because: “We think that some of the formulations on his website might encourage his readers to feel that he is blurring the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.” But, it nevertheless concluded: “We do not believe that Gilad should be ‘banned’ from performing or speaking. ‘No Platform’ is a principle that the Left has always reserved for fascists and organised racists.”
There are a couple of questions left begging there. Are the readers, in the SWP’s usually magisterial and definite opinion, right to “feel” that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is being blurred, or not? And is Atzmon being exempted from banishment because he is merely a disorganised racist?
Or is it that an influential section of the far Left has, in this instance and on this issue, completely and disgracefully lost its political and moral compass?
----
@%<
William Blake.
For decades, Israel has tried to seal shut the coffin it long ago prepared for the Palestinians by hammering away at the nails of political, economic, and military violence. This method has never sufficed. Too crude, too callous, and too obvious, it fails utterly in snuffing out the flame of Palestinian defiance and succeeds only in setting off the spark of international indignation. Therefore, Israel's apologists have seized upon a new asset of intellectual violence: the "new anti-Semitism" canard. This is the cheap and shoddy hearse the Palestinian native is to be tossed into and rushed to his grave while we Americans remain silent.
Who among us, after all, wishes to be branded with the dreaded label of "anti-Semite"? Even when equipped with the understanding that this accusation is simply an ugly smear, few activists and thinkers are prepared to counter it very effectively, often resorting to protestations that they are not, in fact, anti-Semites. It is possible, however, to address this accusation in a way that throws the spotlight on the racist mindset of Israel's supporters and exposes them as hopelessly self-absorbed.
The first step in this task is to understand who is hurling the accusations of anti-Semitism at pro-Palestinian activists. We are already familiar with the general picture: the accusers are well-connected players invariably ensconced in powerful political cliques, elite think tanks, right-wing publications, and other multi-million dollar institutions - in a word, the usual "allies" of victims of racism everywhere. But beyond this it would do us well to understand that the accusers are, above all else, magicians.
Any magician worth his name can imbue the ordinary with magical powers. The champion of Israel waves his wand and performs this feat on the pro-Palestinian activist from the outset. For the activist - a young student, a college professor, or any other concerned citizen - loses his humble status as a more or less ordinary person as soon as he opens his mouth in defense of the uprooted and expropriated Palestinian. He is catapulted into some kind of world-historic force, conspiring, in the words of Israel's sycophants, to "destroy Israel", to "viciously attack and demonize" it, and perhaps even to "wipe out the Jews." It is not clear just how the activist is rendered into a great power capable of confronting, never mind "destroying", a state with the world's 4th largest military and two hundred nuclear warheads paid for by the activist's tax dollars, no less. Such a truly awesome transformation can only be explained by magic.
This trick brings us to yet another attribute of the magician: the ability to make things vanish. For just as the activist is made into an all-powerful force, the Palestinian is made to disappear. Frightening rhetoric which posits the evil activist as "out to get" Israel completely tosses aside the actually-existing reality of Israel's ongoing campaign to exterminate Palestinians as a national and political entity. This second magical feat fulfills on the ideological level what one-time Israeli PM Golda Meir declared on the political level: "The Palestinians do not exist."
The dual process of deception (1) elevating the activist to the level of omnipotence on the one hand, and (2) denigrating the Palestinian to the level of non-existence on the other - is neither arbitrary nor accidental. Rather, it is a revealing comment on the mindset of Zionists. If we look closely, we can see that it furnishes us ample proof of the very traits they desperately try to deny: self-absorption, stemming from (1), and racism, stemming from (2).
The self-absorption aspect of the Zionist mindset appears almost axiomatic. After all, how is it possible to twist and distort attempts to defend Palestinians suffering under a brutal colonial military occupation - one that includes murder, torture, abuse, bulldozing, checkpoints, and land theft - as an "attack on Israel" or as "anti-Semitic"? According to this specious logic, attempts to defend blacks from lynching by the Ku Klux Klan amounts to "attacking whites" and is "anti-white." Is lynching blacks made acceptable by the "whiteness" of their attackers? Would it not be equally abhorrent whether 5% of whites supported it or 95% supported it? Only people who view themselves as part of a master race believe that the morality of an action is determined by the racial makeup of the group conducting it.
Furthermore, no pro-Palestinian activist cares about Israel one way or the other in the abstract. Zionists flatter themselves in thinking otherwise. Israel only figures into the situation to the precise extent that Palestinians are being gunned down, encircled, and impoverished by Israel. It takes a truly enormous amount of self-involvement on the part of Israel's apologists not to notice this outstanding fact.
But it is necessary to probe deeper. What is really behind this enormous amount of self-involvement? How is it possible to gloss over the massively disproportionate suffering inflicted upon the Palestinians, as Zionists do when they leap into hysterics about "anti-Semitic" activists?
At the root of such self-absorption is the dismissal of Palestinians as non-entities, a dismissal epitomized by the Zionist "magic" in which Palestinians are, as I said earlier, "denigrated to the level of non-existence." This dismissal is itself rooted in the psychology which always accompanies and props up colonialism the very same colonialism the Zionists vociferously claim they are not guilty of. For in order to systematically brutalize a people, to uproot them, steal from them, torture them, and eliminate them, it is first necessary to dehumanize them to render them as non-humans as much as possible, so that one can more easily rationalize murdering and destroying them. Positing human beings as hideous beasts eases a troubled conscience.
And this is precisely what the Israelis have done. One can quote former Israeli PM Menachim Begin, who in 1982 described Palestinians as "beasts walking on two legs." Or one can quote Ehud Barak, another former Israeli PM who in 2000 said, "The Palestinians are like crocodiles." There is also former Chief of Staff of the IDF Rafael Eitan, who said in 1983, "We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Or to take a more recent IDF Chief of Staff, there is Moshe Ya'alon, who described Palestinians as a "cancer" requiring either "amputation" or "chemotherapy" in 2002. And then there is also Rabbi Yaacov Peerin, who, speaking at a ceremony held in the "honor" of Baruch Goldstein, considered a hero among Israeli settlers for mowing down Muslim civilians at a mosque, said, "One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail."
Now everything else falls into place. The Israelis and their allies could not possibly fathom why any person of conscience would care about Palestinians - since they have no conscience themselves. Having adopted a vitriolic and racist attitude toward the Palestinians as a direct result of their brutalization of them, they rob themselves of the ability to think clearly. According to their poisoned thought process, who could possibly care about "two-legged beasts" or "crocodiles"? No one, obviously. Therefore, the only "real" motive left for pro-Palestinian activists must be some kind of innate hatred for Israel.
In their hysterical attempts to brand pro-Palestinians as anti-Semites, then, Zionists reveal themselves as ultra-Semites: they view themselves as racially superior to their victims, and harbor deeply racist attitudes toward them. Moreover, they claim their victims aren't really victims at all precisely because they consider them to be wild animals (or worse) compared to themselves. And because of this moral blindness, support for their victims is automatically and instantaneously construed as an attack on them, when it is in fact only an "attack" on their racism - also known among normal people as a defense of the oppressed. This utter inability to distinguish an "attack" on Zionist racism between an attack on the ethnic group and nation Zionism claims to represent indicates just how deeply Zionists are entwined with their racism.
When confronted with the accusation of anti-Semitism, we should no longer assume a weak defensive posture or accede to this canard . Rather, we should call a spade a spade and insist on our opposition to all forms of racial supremacy, including ultra-Semitism. An ideological weapon, it is arrayed alongside the Israeli tank and bulldozer and surpasses both in its destructiveness. Our task, then, is to seriously confront it and sharply expose it for what it is: merely one more example in an endless string of examples of Zionist racism.
M. Junaid Alam is co-editor of the leftist youth journal Left Hook (http://www.lefthook.org), and a student at Northeastern University. He can be reached at alam [at] lefthook.org.
Comments
Ms
Written by Marcia on 2005-05-05 18:44:52
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Assalaamualaikum
Dear Sir/Madam,
Tenacious sister from Italy
Compliments for the profound article. Now that is what I call JOURNALISM.
I wrote to Jack Straw`s office complaining at the defening silence and lukewarm protests at Israeli terrorism, it is not terrorism when US/UK says so, and it is not Israeli activity as the UN Kofi Annan likes to call it, it is TERRORISM.
His reply was Israel has the right to defend.
Defend what? I have never had an answer to this.
EU is the biggest trading partner of Israel, before the new adhesion. The EU commissioner Chris Pattern in a reply to my letter asking for sanctions against Israel during the Israeli extermination in Jenin said "it will not work".
What the hell happened to the EU trade regulation where they ask countries to adhere to their Democracy regulation?
Why is it that genocide sanctions, which really starves the weak and innocent are always applied to the Arab, African & Asian countries but never to Israel?
come again?!
Written by off with its head on 2005-05-04 18:19:28
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Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines "anti-Semitism" as "opposition to Zionism: sympathy with opponents of the state of Israel".
Come again? If you or I suggest----that the Palestinians are getting a raw deal under Israeli occupation, then we are "anti-Semitic". It is only fair, of course, to quote the pitiful response of the Webster's official publicist, Mr Arthur Bicknell, who was asked to account for this grotesque definition.
"Our job," he responded, "is to accurately reflect English as it is actually being used. We don't make judgement calls; we're not political."