Posted on 12/29/2001 12:08:08 AM PST by H.R. Gross
December 28, 2001
As Israel prepares to expel its Arab helots from Palestine, its "amen corner" worldwide is also on the march, excoriating anyone who looks cross-eyed at Ariel Sharon as an "anti-Semite." The latest front in this campaign is England, where Barbara Amiel, wife of media magnate Conrad Black, went on a rampage in the Telegraph, claiming that, at a recent dinner party, the French ambassador referred to Israel as "that sh*tty little country," and wondered why the world had to be dragged to the edge of World War III on account of it. On the basis of evidence gleaned at ritzy cocktail parties, says Ms. Amiel, the world is experiencing a revival of anti-Semitism, which is now "respectable" again.
Oh, please! Does she really expect us to believe that Osama's infamous videos denouncing the "Jews and Crusaders" are the "in" thing with the hip cognoscenti? Lay off the crack pipe, lady, and get real: anti-Semitism is less respectable than pedophilia. After all, hordes of people aren't buying The Protocols of the Elder of Zion the way they're snatching up those Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs, now are they? Amiel's essay is just one breathtaking inversion of reality after another. Getta load-a this:
"For the past 25 years, I've watched sad-faced Israeli activists trudge around Western capitals with heavy hearts beating under ill-fitting suits. They carry folders of transcripts and videotapes to document the misrepresentations in the press and the moral hypocrisy of the world towards Israel. They want to win the war of ideas on its merits. Their attention to detail in translating the hate literature of the Middle East and the hate-filled speeches of its leaders is commendable."
One can only wonder what "Western capitals" she means: surely not Washington, D.C. Everyone acknowledges that the Israel lobby is among the most powerful in the Imperial City. How else have they managed to get their hands on a grand total of $90 billion-plus in American military and economic aid since Israel's inception?
Aside from US exporters, Israel is the single largest beneficiary of our "foreign aid" program: US tax dollars paid for a booby-trap bomb planted near an Arab elementary school, which blasted a group of Palestinian children – children! – to bits. American tax dollars also pay for Israeli "settlements" inhabited by violent, fanatical fundamentalists intent on provoking war no matter what. This image of sad bedraggled little underdogs making their rounds, desperately fighting an uphill battle against overwhelming odds, is nothing but a bad joke – either that, or it is meant to be ironic.
If the Israeli lobby is so powerless, then why this American largesse? We not only arm Israel, but we also prop up their sh*tty little socialist economy with constant infusions of cash. Whatever those Israeli "activists" are carrying around in their folders, whatever is on those videotapes, it must be some pretty powerful stuff. Given the Fox News revelations about the extent of Israeli spying in the US, I don't even want to hazard a guess as to what's in them.
They want to "win the war of ideas on its merits"? Tell that to Jean Ryan, former managing editor of the Oneida (NY) Daily Dispatch, and city editor Dale Seth (a 15-year veteran of the paper), who were both fired when a delegation of Israel Firsters approached the editor and then the owner demanding the paper retract an allegedly "anti-Semitic" post-9/11 editorial written by Seth. Seth's crime was to recall the terrorist origins of the Jewish state – as if no one had ever heard of the Irgun and the Stern Gang, both of which waged war on the Arab civilian population – and without which the state of Israel would never have come into existence. He also made the true but politically incorrect observation that the whole region is rife with religious fanaticism, and Israel is no exception to the rule:
"The United States, through its close association with Israel since its inception, has now been dragged kicking and screaming right into the middle of that centuries-old Middle Eastern conflict. From that position, it would behoove that party in the middle to consider the hearts of the warring parties. Neither can be simply beat into submission."
A local attorney, Randy Schaal, demanded a meeting with Ryan to protest the editorial: Ryan refused to meet with him, pointing out that that if the staff met with everyone who disagreed with an editorial, they would never get a paper out. She told him to write a letter to the editor, which he did. But Schaal also contacted local politicians, as well as the Anti-Defamation League, and it wasn't long before pressure was brought to bear on the paper's management, which then ordered its editors to come up with a "clarification." This was published alongside Schaal's letter, a letter from Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), and a missive from the mayor of Oneida. Still, Schaal and his fellow Ameners weren't satisfied. They went to the President of the Journal Register Co., and demanded a retraction and an apology: it was unconditional surrender, or nothing.
After a series of meetings with various self-appointed representatives of the Jewish community, the owners of the Daily Dispatch caved and published a groveling mea culpa: "We understand many felt [the editorial] expressed anti-Semitic sentiments," it said. "We will not further offend our readers by attempting in any way to justify what was written; we can only assure readers that The Dispatch is not anti-Semitic and that we acknowledge the editorial should not have been published."
So much for the Israeli lobby winning the war of ideas on the "merits" of their case. Clearly, another strategy is at work here: not debating their opponents but silencing them.
The rest of Amiel's essay is really a kind of paean to the efficacy of brute force. While those poor bedraggled Israeli "activists" may have been fighting an uphill battle, according to Amiel, in the post-9/11 era the tide seems to be turning, and she can hardly keep herself from gloating that now the Arabs are really going to get it:
"Powerful as the truth may be, it needs a nudge from 16,000lb daisy cutter bombs once in a while. The Arab/Muslim world's intransigence comes into sharper focus when we see the Americans liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban in six weeks and a cornered Arafat unable to go to the bathroom without the risk of being blown into the next world."
Here is the kind of Zionist who clearly enjoys the brutality and indignity of the Israeli occupation. Such people now feel free to publicly exhibit and even flaunt their perversity, which seems like something straight out of Kraft-Ebbing. What else can one call Amiel's odd interest in controlling Arafat's bowel movements other than a sh*tty little perversion?
"Nothing succeeds like powerful bombs," exults this war goddess, "as bin Laden explained in his latest video release. 'When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse,' he said." How natural for her to approvingly cite bin Laden on the terroristic imperative: but then that is what tribal warfare is all about, no matter which side one fights on.
Yes, it is force, not reason or negotiation, that is decisive, avers Ms. Amiel, who gleefully predicts that "All those people badmouthing the Jews and Israel will quieten down." Or else be quieted down, involuntarily, like Jean Ryan, Dale Seth, and now perhaps Carl Cameron, of Fox News. "You are looking," Amiel continues, "at the tail end of the train but the engine has already turned a corner and is going in the opposite direction" – and anyone who shows up at one of those ritzy parties she's always attending had better get on board, or else.
No one would think to label denunciations of, say, Robert Mugabe, as the equivalent of anti-black racism: but we are expected to just accept that virtually all criticism of Israel and Ariel Sharon is due to "anti-Semitism." Amiel's blatantly dishonest and self-serving jihad is naturally bound to cause resentment among all thinking people – an emotion that could, easily, turn into genuine anti-Semitism. But that, I believe, is the point: anti-Semitism serves the interests of the most extreme wing of the Zionist movement, and always has.
Founded as it is on the permanence of Jewish victimology, and the idea that anti-Semitism is inevitable, Zionism thrives when Jewish persecution grows. It is a natural tendency of Zionist propaganda to exaggerate hostility to Jews. The founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, was confirmed in his opinion that it was "futile" to combat anti-Semitism when the infamous Dreyfuss case was at the center of a storm of controversy. Today, however, with the rapid decline and marginalization of anti-Semitism everywhere but in the Middle East, the pressing need for a Jewish state requires more justification.
Anti-Semitism in the West, as "hate crime" statistics and other research has shown in recent years, is practically nonexistent. This good news was hailed by Jewish organizations in the US when it was first announced, but the extreme Zionists were no doubt made uneasy. For if anti-Jewish prejudice is distinctly beyond the pale, at least in the civilized world, i.e., the West, then what do we need a Jewish state for? This is a question many Jews, when faced with an appeal to emigrate to Israel, must ask themselves, and, at least up until Ms. Amiel's outburst, the Zionists have had no good answer. Now they appear to have solved the problem by simply redefining "anti-Semitism" to mean any criticism of Israel's expansionist policies and its current radical right-wing government.
Anti-Semitism used to mean legal and cultural proscriptions directed against Jews. In medieval Europe, Jews were forced into ghettos, in Nazi Germany they were branded with the yellow star and exterminated, and, in America and Europe, it used to be that some establishments, both high and low, would not do business with Jews. Certain hotels and men's clubs would not admit them, and anti-Semitism was especially rife in the universities where an unofficial Jewish quota kept their numbers and influence limited. This is real anti-Semitism, and, today, it is not only illegal but socially and politically unacceptable: anyone deemed an anti-Semite in this, the original sense, is in effect a pariah, and rightly so.
So who got the computer, you or antiwar.com?
inhabited by violent, fanatical fundamentalists intent on provoking war no matter what.
Here is the kind of Zionist who clearly enjoys the brutality.....Such people now feel free to publicly exhibit and even flaunt their perversity
The second statement characterized the "settlers" as fundamentalists, and rightly so: they take literally the Old Testament, which supposedly gives Israelis the land of Palestine. As for fanaticism: what else do you call people who burn Christian Bibles and assassinate their own public officials?
The third statement refers to Barbara Amiel as being an example of a certain kind of Zionist who enjoys the brutality of the Occupation. Not all Zionists are so sadistic, I'm sure.
You mistakenly attribute anti-Semitism to anyone who not only challenges Zionism, but also to anyone who questions the actions of this particular Israeli government -- an extreme and completely untenable position that would label the US State Department a neo-Nazi bastion.
Obviously you do, or are pretending not to, given the number of your posts on this thread.
There had to be some reason the "former Soviets" sponsored the Zionist terrorists who catalyzed the carve-out and subsequently shuttled them arms through Czechoslovakia sufficient to keep Israel on its feet in the ring long enough to find a backer in Uncle Sam.
Seems to me that (in conjunction with concerted "consciousness raising" among Islam's cells) Israel's provided a marvelous flashpoint and Organizing Principle against which the miscellany of Arab States could unite. By suckering Uncle Sam in as protector, they engender as a bonus a seething and perpetual anti-US sentiment (despite our making gabillionaires out of the Arabs). And lastly ... assuming that -- like any good godfather who provided a favor or two -- they extracted a certain loyalty, it's possible Israel's been the primary conduit through which the former Soviet intelligence has kept one step ahead of us.
But the biggest bonus of all has to be use of Israel as perpetually bloodied propaganda poster for "anti-Semitism".
Nothing like a sustained campaign to root out "anti-Semitism" to underscore the fact Jews are somehow specially privileged and essentially different from the rest of humanity. The same model's been used with regard to feminism, affirmative action and "Gay Pride".
Treat me special 'cause I'm equal.
If anti-Semitism didn't exist, they'd have to make it up. How else to explain the ability of government (generally via its "corporate governance" arm that is "Human Resources") to condition us to Tolerance, change our speech, imprison our thoughts, etc.
Was polishing up a Powerpoint presentation on "Diversity in the Workplace" for a labor attorney the other day.
"How can you tell you're suitable 'diverse' unless and until you're judging folks primarily by their skin, sex organs, sexual orientation, age and such?"
I'm still waiting for an answer.
It's insidious. But everybody's doing it these days ... even "former Soviets" like Putin who are more like Americans than the Americans anymore.
Exactly why he and his ilk should be encouraged to continue.
Actually, I thought the only comic aspect was watching Justin get hoisted on his own petard.
I mean, yes; he takes a poke at what's-her-name for dissing Arafat through the bathroom imagry/context. But then Justin's the one dredging up Krafft-Ebing when it seems pretty evident that what's-her-name's point was to touch on issues like privacy, safety, influence and authority. (The "bathroom" as territory, the place where one performs a particular action.) That's completely different from the mechanical deconstruction of the contextual situation, which is what Justin does by introducing Krafft-Ebing to the discussion. (Thereby re-defining "bathroom" as an explicit metaphor for the actual, functioning a**hole itself, focusing on the act).
Making it all the worse, Justin; you're the one who seems to take a positively simian delight in throwing around the word "sh*tty", throughout the piece. Setting it in bold type in a heading and then expending a couple of paragraphs describing what it is that makes it such an appropriate adjective with which to characterize the state of Israel. Continual reference to Sharon as a hairy little dwarf and all of your own personal critics as "Israel First-ers" {excuse me, "organized Israel First-ers") then reinforces the perception (or the suspicion) that there may be "tribalist" issues in the Raimondo sub-conscious. Federal buildings throughout the United States were assaulted by an organized cabal of... art students? {I just don't get it... What is it, some kind of Westchester vs. Brooklyn thing? Country club/white-male-traditionalism versus "the street"/diversity/the hobgoblin of multi-culturalism/anybody-not-in-a-blue-blazer?. Nah, probably not...)
It would almost be funny if I didn't think it were so completely counter-productive and marginalized legitimate antiwar/peace issues. Antiwar.com used to be (and often still is, although you can't always tell by the headlines and titles to the links) a consistently excellent source of information and insightful commentary on world issues. As recently as October 29th, Justin; you yourself used the term "Islamo-fascist" in a column, in the sense of 'radical islamist' [a bad thing]. But then a few weeks later you headlined another piece with an attack on 'anti-Islamo-fascists' [a worse thing?], and you've now gone on to this most recent "The-Mossad-is-Omniscient" intellectual expedition into (at least) the nearest suburban precints, adjacent to the heart of darkness.
What a waste. Because some guy named Cameron met or was approached by a nameless spook one day, who claimed that he had "suspicions" concerning Israeli intelligence, related to some sort of possible, partial awareness of un-named terrorist activity, that may not have been shared with the American spook agencies in a timely manner. (The very same American spook agencies, conveniently enough, who all looked like they were asleep at the switch, post 9/11, so they would have absolutely no reason to try and drag someone else in to their mess.)
The cart's clearly in front of the horse, the horse is taking a leisurely nap behind the cart, but you're still in the driver's seat, thumping that same tub over and over again with way more energy and enthusiasm than called for by the known-and-established facts... (Which are "zero, zed, nada, rien".) I just don't see it. It's not Woodward and Bernstein and "Deep Throat" all over again, it's just some hacked-off spook using a reporter to spin a yarn that no one can fully believe (or doubt or confirm) because the evidence behind it can't be revealed or substantiated... I'm not losing any sleep over third-hand, hear-say, conspiracy-fright-mongering. I don't really think many Americans are. And come to think of it, (pardon my schadenfreude) the thought of those most likely to be losing sleep -- the aryan nations guys, the StormFront folks, the 'sleepers' in Al-Qaeda cells -- makes me sleep better.
[But then, if we're going to be raising any issue or judging everything exclusively on the basis of personal origins, history and tribalism, yes, I confess... I guess I'm pre-disposed to being anti- anti-Jewish, based on family memories and the numbers of my ethnic group (Orthodox Serbs) who were rounded up right along with the Jews and Gypsies, in WWII, in Yugoslavia.] Has anyone else started to worry about how pleased Osama bin Lyin' (and all the other true monsters, sociopathic trolls and demons) must feel, watching civilization devolve; anticipating that it might just be re-shaped into a form that better resembles their own perverse take on reality? The more hatred, confusion, chaos and conspiracy, the better they like it.
Global Peace (whatever that is, however many decades, centuries or millenia it takes to approach it) is never going to come from the depths of a bottomless bucket of venom.
Would anyone care to elevate this discourse above name-calling and playground banter?
Jewish holidays are affected by the Land of Israel.
"Zionism" is as old as the Jewish people.
It is the most basic of lies to pretend to be anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic.
I know, you don't hate all Jews, just everything they believe.
But you do hate some Jews for what you perceive are their views.
Molodet advocates a voluntary transfer. They are not volunteering, so there is no transfer. It they were to volunteer, after reasonable compensation, it would solve many problems.
Offer and acceptance. Free enterprise. I was under the impression that a Libertarian would agree with that concept.
Okay, but just how "voluntary" is an action undertaken with a gun pointed at one's head? You make life impossible for the Palestinians: they can't work because they're penned up in ghettos. They are subject to the brutal reality of a military occupation. Then you say: Ok, you are free to go. Just like the Nazis did to the European Jews who wanted to go to Israel. Voluntary -- in a pig's eye!
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