<< 30,000 BELIEVED DEAD ~ MAIN ~ GORE INITIATES CAMPAIGN PROTOCOL >>
LONE NATION REVILED
Dennis Prager argues that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism:
Why? Because anti-Zionism is not simply criticism of Israel, which is as legitimate as criticism of any country. Anti-Zionism means that Israel as a Jewish state has no right to exist. And when a person argues that only one country in the world is unworthy of existence — and that happens to be the one Jewish country in the world — one is engaged in anti-Semitism, whether personally anti-Semitic or not.
He’s got a point. You never hear people saying that, say, Belgium shouldn’t exist. Outside of my anti-Belgium activist collective, anyway.
UPDATE. Nick Cohen:
On the Saturday of the great anti-war demonstration of 2003, I watched one million people march through London, then sat down to write for the Observer. I pointed out that the march organisers represented a merger of far left and far right: Islamic fundamentalists shoulder to shoulder with George Galloway, the Socialist Workers Party and every other creepy admirer of totalitarianism this side of North Korea. Be careful, I said. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq has spewed out predatory armies and corpses for decades. If you’re going to advocate a policy that would keep a fascist dictator in power, you should at least talk to his victims, whose number included socialists, communists and liberals - good people, rather like you.
Next day I looked at my e-mails. There were rather a lot of them. The first was a fan letter from Ann Leslie, the Daily Mail’s chief foreign correspondent, who had seen the barbarism of Ba’athism close up. Her cheery note ended with a warning: “You’re not going to believe the anti-Semitism that is about to hit you.” “Don’t be silly, Ann,” I replied. “There’s no racism on the left.” I worked my way through the rest of the e-mails. I couldn’t believe the anti-Semitism that hit me.
Well, since The Smurfs™ were created by the Belgian cartoonist Peyo, and UNICEF has declared war on The Smurfs™, it’s fair to say that UNICEF is anti-Belgian.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 10 10 at 04:37 AM • permalinkAnti-Zionism is Leftese for Anti-Semitism.
When an Anti-Semite feels that their bigotry needs justification, they label it Anti-Zionism.
Simple as that. It’s been like that for decades. Won’t change now; we just need to be ever-vigilant and reject and disdain any such subterfuge.
Go Israel!Posted by Honkie Hammer on 2005 10 10 at 05:00 AM • permalinkI can’t remember the name of the French writer whose suggested epitaph for Belgium was:
“Enfin!”
(“At last!”)
Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2005 10 10 at 05:16 AM • permalink#1 - Mmmm! Fingers in dykes indeed.
What we (and Nic Cohen) are seeing is the re-emergence of tribalism. Western society has prospered and developed technologically by subscribing to a pluralist, partly collective model, while maintaining a free market approach for the most part.
Those who stand pluralistically together in public places and argue against effective action must want that tribalism and all that goes with it. They will get a rude shock if their wishes are granted.“Don’t be silly, Ann,” I replied. “There’s no racism on the left.”
Oh, God! I think I hurt myself laughing! Please tell me this guy meant to be funny.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 10 10 at 07:26 AM • permalinkWhat gets me by the garters are the number of people who whinge that no-one can criticise Israel without being called an anti-Semite. The whining is incessant. They give it as an example of being “silenced” and not being able to “frankly speak their minds”.
Problem is I’ve never seen this. I cannot recall a single example of someone serious seriously suggesting that any criticism of Israel is of itself anti-Semitism. Even though complaints of this are constant.
So in another place I threw down the challenge. Give me an example of what you complain. Just one will do. (WD Dividing Australia thread Aug 4/9/05 2.52pm)
I renewed the challenge again and again and again. (Danby MUP thread Sept 22/9/05 8.25am; 28/9/05 5.19pm; 30/9/05 12.01pm; 4/10/05 5.56pm)
No luck of course. The best the whole mob (who include ratbag conspiracy theorist/Holocaust denial etc types)could come up with was one bloke who referred me to an article by a French intellectual, in French, who was arguing that modern French anti-Semitism clothes itself in anti-racism.(Danby thread 1/10/05 1.16am)
Naturally the opposite is the truth. You cannot defend Israel against its more rabid critics without sooner or later being denounced as a racist. WD fair drips with examples of that.
Geoff - too true!
Besides which, why should you even have to “defend Israel”? I don’t hear any calls for people to defend Belgium. Alan Dershowitz wrote a book called “the case for Israel”. I never heard of anyone writing “the case for France” (wouldn’t be a long book to write…)The whole of Cohen’s article is good reading. It’s amazing how much he copped simply for having a name like Cohen.
Imagine what might have happened to him if he were one of the Jooooooooooz…
It’s the singular focus on this one tiny country, more than the content, that is the defining factor. There are certainly good points to be made about this or that Israeli policy. No country that’s been in a constant state of siege is going to behave perfectly. But the people who condemn Israel and justify the Palestinians’ violence never seem to get energized about a separate Kurdish state, or justice for the Brazilian Indians, or the crimes of the Chinese state. Only this situation concerns them, obsesses them. Why this one little country? It’s like getting all worked up about Vermont. Maybe Cynthia McKinney’s dad can spell the answer for us.
Here’s a really good couple of grafs from the Cohen piece (you don’t have to agree with his praise for the Left for opposing Fascism because Stalin told them to—until he told them to stop):
If you look at the list of late-20th-century leftist causes I have mentioned, you will see that the left, for all its faults and crimes, was against fascism. It used to know that the powerful used racism to distract the powerless, as they do to this day in Egypt, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, where the deployment of Jew hatred is positively tsarist. Although I know it’s hard to credit, the left also used to know that the opponents of fascism, including the opponents of Saddam, had to be supported.
But the liberal left has been corrupted by defeat and doesn’t know much about anything these days. Marxist-Leninism is so deep in the dustbin of history, it is composting, while social democracy is everywhere on the defensive. Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Christian fundamentalism are beating it in the struggle for working-class and peasant minds. An invigorated capitalism is threatening its European strongholds. There’s an awful realisation that Tony Blair and Bill Clinton may be as good as it gets. The temptation in times of defeat is to believe in everything rather than nothing; to go along with whichever cause sounds radical, even if the radicalism on offer is the radicalism of the far right.
mossad will be on your tail Gruntled.
Speaking of anti semitism, is Steve (SANDMAN) Abbot from In Siberia Tonight on S.B.S.(gasp)-is he Jewish as well as Russian?
Cause if he is then he is allowed to sponsor the “kransky sisters” singing Sunrise Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof.
If he isn’t then it looks and sounds like anti semitism to me.Specially when he lionizes Indira Naidoo and the visiting French Canadian singing and drumming performers.The left likes nice easy targets to blame. Temperature increases by .5% (that’s point five percent), reason is global warming caused by CO2 gasses released by the US. Hurricanes hit the US and floods occur in Europe: Bush. Poverty: global capitalism, Bush.
With regards to Islamist terrorism, the cause is almost always focused on Israel. Without Israel, all Arabs and muslims would live happily and in harmony with the rest of the world.
Want an example? Recall the column by Barbara Amiel in the Telegraph in which she recounts a dinner conversation by a notable French diplomat.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 10 10 at 10:24 AM • permalinkwronwright,
“Why,” she quoted him as saying, “should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?”
Didn’t the eminently wise and noble European diplomats say something similar about the Czechs in 1938?
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 10 10 at 12:07 PM • permalinkWhat is “anti-Zionism” based on? Do they object to a state religion? Then why do they not object to England, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Norway, Scotland, or virtually any Arab state? If they object to the idea that a particular ethnic group has some sort of historical attachment to a piece of land, why on Earth would they support the Palestinians? The only answer left starts with a “J”, ends with an “S” and has “OOOOOOOOOOOOO” in the middle.)
You can count me in the group of people who think that creating the state of Isreal over 50 years ago was a fundamentally flawed idea.
If any country should have been forced to give over a slice of territory to become the new Jewish state it should have been Germany and/or Austria. Taking Palestine and re-populatig it with foreigners because some other foreigners had been very bad to them doesn’t make sense to me.
However, once the agg has been scrambled like this one has you can’t go back and make it like it was before, you have to go on and deal with the current reality i.e. the nation state of Israel in it’s current location. Advocating the end of Israel is advocating for somebody else to finish off the job that Mr Himmler and his pals started 65 years ago.
“Taking Palestine and re-populatig it with foreigners because some other foreigners had been very bad to them doesn’t make sense to me.”
Are you refering to the tens of thousands of Muslim workers who came to the Holy land from countries like Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Bosnia etc in the 19th and 20th century? Then you are right—it doesnt make sense, esp when the majority of todays “palestinians” are descedents of these foreign muslims.
This book by Joan Peters makes a good read. Exposing all the myths and lies about “native Arab Palestinians.” They are about as native in that land as I am in this land of Australia (and I was born in Russia).Unlike the “palestinians” the Jews maintained a continous presense to this land for thousands of years and were in a majority (prior the arrival of the first zionists) to areas already allocated to them.
As for Germany/Austrian prosecution of Jews…the Palestinians (suprise, suprise) had a role in that too and should have to pay the price, just like the Germans.
If any country should have been forced to give over a slice of territory to become the new Jewish state it should have been Germany and/or Austria.
Yeah, they could have lived in Dachau. Plenty of empty buildings. Come on, jpaulg, are you serious?
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 10 10 at 10:07 PM • permalinkIsrael as a nation had not existed since it was extinguished by the Romans nearly 2000 years prior. Plenty of people icluding Sassanid Persians, The Caliphate, Byzantium, The Ottoman Turks, Outremer, The Seljuk Turks and France have claimed the Holy Land at one time or another in the intervening period.
Why should any one of those groups have a higher claim to the Holy Land than any other? Why should the Jews get a state, but not the Gypsies who were persecuted to a similar degree?
The point I was making though was that even though I think the decision to create Israel in 1948 is flawed, advocating against the existence of Israel now is basically arguing that Hamas and friends should be allowed to finish the job that Himmler started.
jpaulg, there is a common fallacy that Israel’s population is comprised of survivors from Europe and their descendants. In fact there has always been a substantial Jewish population especially in Jerusalem. Also about one in five of Israeli citizens are Arab Israelis. The only Arabs in the Middle East who enjoy the full range of human and civil rights. Very important the majority of the Jewish population are refugees from persecution and expulsion from Arab countries (and Iran)and their descendants.
It’s worth bearing that in mind whenever the very real issue of the plight of the Palestinian “refugees” comes up.
“Plenty of people icluding Sassanid Persians, The Caliphate, Byzantium, The Ottoman Turks, Outremer, The Seljuk Turks and France have claimed the Holy Land at one time or another in the intervening period.”
“Why should any one of those groups have a higher claim to the Holy Land than any other?”
All these nations merley conquered this land and annexxed it as part of their vast empire…normally treating it as a provincial backwater of their empire.
The Jews on the other hand didnt.
The Jews pray three times a day. And a constant theme in those prayers is “Israel” and “Jerusalem.” In fact its a very repatative theme. These daily prayers do not include the prayers for rising in the morning or the prayer before going to sleep at night nor the blessing for each time you eat, wash your hands or go to the bathroom. And Jews have been praying like that everyday for thousands of years.
If Persians, Ottoman Turks, Britian, France and even todays Arabs prayed three times a day and even had a “prayer to return to rebuild Jerusalem” after eating a simple meal…then perhaps the question Why should any one of those groups have a higher claim to the Holy Land than any other might be valid.
Its kind of like questioning the Muslim claim to Mecca and Medina. Why cant any other group lay a claim to it?
But in any case, the Palestinians are well on the way to getting a SECOND state in Palestine (first being Jordan)—despite breaking every international agreement.
kidon/geoff,
If there had been a referundum in 1948 in which the inhabitants of what is now Israel had freely and democratically elected to become Israel I’d be a whole bunch happier with the process. You know, democracy, will of the people, free determination and all that.
Kidon, remember that the Caananites have prior claim over the land than the Israelites, who gained that bit of land by military conquest. Outremer and the Caliphate had strong religous claims to the Holy Land.
As a catholic I pray regularly, but I make no claim to have residency and property rights in the former Papal States.
jpaulg, how many genocides have your Catholics suffered ovr the years, and on the other hand, how many pogroms and serial injustices have your Catholics perpetrated against the Jews, just for being Jews?
I don’t know how old you are, but you are pathetically ignorant of history, as well as the huge problem of sorting out the indigenous religious groups that laid claim to the Holy land after WWII. I also fear you are led in your thinking by the sinister lack of clear support for Israel by the new pope - a German!
jpaulg In 1948 there was no referendum as you point out. Instead there was a war raging. Wars are not conducive to democratic processes. Bit hard for the sides to put down the guns in the morning and hand out how-to-vote cards in the afternoon. Tremendous logistical problems. Also there were no referenda to consult the people on the formation of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Libya, Yemen, Kuwait, Sudan, Iran ....In fact precious little in the way of a fair dinkum election in those countries since come to think of it. Except of course in Israel.
However what there was by 1948 was an irrevocable UN Declaration partitioning the land. One side accepted this and began to prepare for its state. The other side did not accept this and went to war to obliterate the state. And its population. And lost.
What more do you want? The Caananites? The Caliphate? Isn’t it messy enough for you as it is?
If there had been a referundum in 1948 in which the inhabitants of what is now Israel had freely and democratically elected to become Israel I’d be a whole bunch happier with the process. You know, democracy, will of the people, free determination and all that.
The international community voted. thats democracy at its very best. the Jews got some land (mostly desert), the Arabs got some land (the best most farmable part) to add to their second state - in addition to Jordan (which was 70% of the original mandate of Palestine). Sounds fair?
I urge to read Joan Peter’s book and her research on “indegnious” Arabs in Palestine - makes for a good bed time story.
Kidon, remember that the Caananites have prior claim over the land than the Israelites, who gained that bit of land by military conquest.
As a catholic I pray regularly, but I make no claim to have residency and property rights in the former Papal States.
As a good catholic who prayers regularly you will know that your very own scriptures say that G-d gave this land to the Jewish people (not to the barbaric Cannanites—whom G-d ordered the Jews to take this land from) ...and that it should be non-negotiable. If you dont believe in that, than your not a catholic who prayers regularly ;)
Also worth noting that there are people who had prior claim to Mecca—before the Muslims raped and pillaged it of its inhabitants. Yet no one seems to be questioning Islam’s claim to that site as excusivley muslim.
Outremer and the Caliphate had strong religous claims to the Holy Land
And what were these claims?
Barrie, no pogroms by us RCs, it was those nasty schismatic eastern orthodox people who committed pogroms, I’ll just conveniently forget Tomas de Torquemada and the Holy Office. Actually I can’t think of a true genocide of the jews in western europe (the Catholic part). The closest I can think of is the expulsion of the jews and moslems from Spain following the reconquista. Could you provide some concrete examples of true attempts at genocide of jews in western europe prior to the nazis.
Geoff the war started because the UN made the irrevocable declaration, and if the UN did the same thing for another 2 groups of people today you’d have another war. And as you have today you’ll have both sides traling through the history books trying to prove that their claim is better than the others. Just look at the amount of trouble there was in East Timor even though they had a properly run referendum with a clear result.
Just for the record, my opion on this while thing:
1948: Flawed process and less than optimal decision.
2005: Israel is an historical fact, the only true democracy in the region and is under attack from Islamic extremists and deserves our support regardless of how it came into being.The war started well before the UN declaration as it happens. But I’m getting bored with this. It’s a bit like arguing over who from Europe should have claimed Australia first—the British, French or Dutch. What’s it matter, who cares, why bother and what’s your point anyway?
Just for the record jpaulg what would you have put in Israel’s place instead if you consider its foundation flawed? Is there any other country in the world you consider has a flawed foundation? Or is it only Israel?
On your other question, the expulsion Of the Jews from Britain in 1290 and 1291 after pogroms and persecution is one example that comes to mind immediately.
Most countries in this world exist because of historical accidents, which kind of is my point, it doesn’t matter how or why countries came into existence, we have to deal with the reality of the countries as they are now.
In a perfect world I would have had a referendum in Palestine and let the people living there work out for themselves what they wanted their country to be. As for flawed foundations pretty well all nations have flaws if you look hard enough and long enough. It can be argued that that even countries like Australia, The USA and Canada which came into being as countries through democratic agreement by their inhabitants are flawed because of the issue of dispossession of native inhabitants, but if you followed that logic the only people who have a right to live anywhere on the planet are those people living in the Rift Valley in Kenya.
jpaulg quote:
Barrie, no pogroms by us RCs, it was those nasty schismatic eastern orthodox people who committed pogroms, I’ll just conveniently forget Tomas de Torquemada and the Holy Office. Actually I can’t think of a true genocide of the jews in western europe (the Catholic part). The closest I can think of is the expulsion of the jews and moslems from Spain following the reconquista. Could you provide some concrete examples of true attempts at genocide of jews in western europe prior to the nazis.Nice ‘distinctions’ jpaulg! Only many little massacres I’m afraid! You’re in denial. Expulsion [ethnic cleansing] is *better* than a pogrom? [I used it generically, which was obvious.] Centuries of stateless powerlessness wasn’t a problem you imply. Poland, Hungary, Germany etc weren’t Catholic?? or guilty of persecuting Jews, hoping that they would fade away through poverty and isolation??? I am a Christian and I grieve for this history. Why can’t you?
I am not trying to be anti-catholic, just to note all the realities you astonishingly ignore, such as ‘give the Jews a bit of Germany’. Your last 2 words -the Nazis- says all we need.
Just read about the rise of antisemitism *again* in France and even Britain [and Germany, but they call it anti-Americanism.]
My ife is German, as it happens.
Sadly, you don’t seem completely ignorant, just pathologically partisan.
It is defensive Christian ‘friends’ like you that make Jews run for safety - to Israel!Prager misses one point. Most folks who want Israel to cease to exist want the same for the US…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 10 11 at 07:57 PM • permalinkI’ve said this before recently in a much more hostile environment (WD Danby MUP thread) so I’m sanguine about saying it here.
If there was ever a state in all of history that has a right to exist that state would have to be Israel.
I could have added something else. Thank God and everything you hold precious for the US. Can you imagine how dark and ugly the history of humankind would have been without her?
Barrie, in my book forced expulsion is not as evil as genocide. At least after the expulsion of jews from Spain the jews were actually welcomed by those making it to Moslem lands, the Sultan of Morocco was mystified as to why Spain was sending him all of their doctors, architects and other professionals.
If you want an example of what the Europeans of that era were capable of if they seriously attempted genocide have a look at the albigensian heresy. Where my church came up with the quote “Kill them all, God wil know his own” (Often misquoted as “Kill them all and let God sort them out”). They slaughtered the entire town of Bezeirs (approx 15,000) to get Albigensians (estimated 200). The Death toll from those crusades is estimated at over 1,000,000 in 20 years and the Albigensians were caught and killed to the last man.
jpaulg, read my comment properly. Catholics expelled Jews, just as Hitler did [using many willing Catholics, incidentally]. *This* is as bad or worse than the pogroms [savage attempts at ethnic cleansing] you so nicely say Catholics avoided!
Your partisan defence of Catholics from Jewish genocide [We did it only once to you!] must nauseate every Jew reading this site.If you can’t admit that Jews *deserve* Israel to live in as their one home, I say you’re an anti-semite. Sorry.
Did you notice Pope Benedict XVI incredibly *defended* his glaring omission of Israel from a list of victims of terrorism!
Sort him out first.Barrie,
If you had relatives in a neighbouring country and the choice facing them was either expulsion or extermination what would you choose for them? Oh, it doesn’t matter, because it’s “as bad or worse”. I’m not saying expulsion is good, but simply stating that extermination is worse than extermination.
As far as I’m concerned the creation of nation states should be an act of free self determination by the inhabitants. I am not and have not said that the Jews don’t deserve a homeland. I have said that the process adopted in 1948 is flawed, and is not what I would have adopted if I were king of the world in 1948.
I’m not sure how you get that I’m being a partisan Catholic when I point out that we Catholics did far worse things to the Albigensian heretics than we ever did to the Jews. All I was trying to say was that if we had tried to commit genocide against the Jews in Christendom I’m sad to say that we would have done a much more thorough job. Another example is the sword and flame/convert or die crusades by the Teutonic Order in Lithuania.
You *still* get my comparison wrong, jpaulg! I wrote “Nice ‘distinctions’ jpaulg! Only many little massacres, I’m afraid! You’re in denial. Expulsion [ethnic cleansing] is *better* than a pogrom? [I used it generically, which was obvious.]”
So I was *never* comparing a genocide with an ethnic cleansing as such [though both occurred again recently in Europe - together]. If Catholics ever expelled Jews [as they did], they performed pogroms in another name.
My other point is that many, many Catholics in Europe in WWII co-operated willingly in the expulsion and also genocide of the Jews, justifying it from their historical prejudices. Many even live in former Jewish houses, but paid no compensation.*Because of this fact alone*, Your nitpicking over the right of the Jews to their own 1948 homeland must stick in the craw of any Jew reading it.
There is only one question today. Will you fight to defend the existence of Israel? If not you are antisemitic in my view, because all Christians owe a blood debt to them for WWII, and long before.
End of my discussion on this site, unless you misrepresent me again..From my first post on this thread:
Advocating the end of Israel is advocating for somebody else to finish off the job that Mr Himmler and his pals started 65 years ago.Barrie, is that clear enough for you? There were also many Catholics who provided shelter to Jews in WWII and many Catholics who ended up in concentration camps, quite a number of them for opposing nazi policies.
As far as I am concerned I owe nobody a blood debt for what my forebears did or did not do. If I owe sombody a blood debt it will be because of what I did or did not do.
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
I’m sure I haven’t said Belgium shouldn’t exist - but maybe the Netherlands after i heard this.