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.
That one seems a little pompous. I need a smaller one. Did you know that you can still get 10,000+ year old mammoth meat in certain restaurants in Alaska? It's getting real expensive but it's still available. It tastes kind of like a combination of whale meat (which is available at any supermarket in Japan) and ruffed-grouse.
Old Smiths. They're the finest pieces of machinery you'll ever lay hands on. Should be 25 years old, at least :).
If it wasn't for oil interests no one would give a rat's a** about what the Arabs think about anything and they would be slaped down hard if they ever got out of line.
First of all, I don't trust the UN to do anything right, other than vaccinate poor people into the Third World, which is infinitely commendable.
But the problem with the UN, when it comes to politics and governance, is that it is a democratic body of about 180 nations, most of which are not democracies, and have little political freedom.
The UN is a democracy of dictatorships. Fatally flawed from the outset.
Second, what about minimizing the damage of the Moslems, the Arabs, and the "Palestinians?"
One of the huge ironies of this whole thread is that it's based on a rather nebulous conspiracy theory that Zionists foment anti-semitism in order to create a pretext for their policies.
Isn't that what the Arab Moslems have done with the "Palestinians?" Oil money goes to terrorists in Gaza, but not to industrial development. Jewish refugees from throughout the Arab world are welcome in Israel, but in the first "Palestinian" state of "Jordan," and the rest of the Arab word, there is no room for "Palestinian" refugees.
The "Palestinians" and the Arabs have never respected any agreement with Israel, or her right to exist (Egypt and Jordan being tenuous exceptions). They use Israeli borders as advance positions from which to launch their next attacks on Israel. When they get beaten back, they suddnely demand that Israel respect the borders they never did. How many mulligans to they deserve, before there is a permanent penalty?
And at the heart of it all is what I think we can all agree is a ferocious, genocidal Arab and "Palestinian" anti-semitism.
That's an area I find too many "anti-zionists" and "America-firsters" to be rather cavalier about. When the effects of their policies would start to work in the favor of the anti-semitic "Palestinians," then those who advocate those policies are once again dancing close to the line of anti-semitism themselves, even if they don't mean to cross it.
So tell us, valued ACME customer, are you one of those who advocate an American attack on Israel?
Couldn't the peace problem also have something to do with the fact that the Arab nations want to kill the Jews and destroy Israel?
Just a teensy bit?
How much oil are we importing from Israel now? How much then?
C'mon, Wiley, this post is silly.
BTW, we didn't blow up Iraq after they bombed one of our ships and killed 35 sailors while we were their ally during the Iran-Iraq War. We're a thick-skinned country.
I believe the majority of the anti-Israel posters are motivated primarily by their anti-Semitism and they would support pygmy cannibals if they were the current enemies of the Jews.
Re: the Liberty and the Pueblo. NSA deliberately cut the ship off from normal command and control without telling the Navy in order to play stupid spook games. Notice that the USN no longer operates that kind of ship--they told the NSA to go have an improper relationship with themselves. That won't be an issue this time around.
Posted on 10/04/2001 05:31:59 PDT by Poohbah
To: Poohbah
Re: the Liberty and the Pueblo. Yeah, tell us about how the NSA deliberately cut the ship off from normal command and control without telling the Navy in order to play stupid spook games. Notice that the USN no longer operates that kind of ship--they told the NSA to go have an improper relationship with themselves.
These are the facts. Why haven't they appeared from some of you in the know types on the rotten Liberty threads that permeated FR blaming Israel for what the NSA did? The NSA never even informed the Commander of the Liberty what they were doing or why...let alone the crew. They boarded in secret and set up shop restricting any crew members from entering their lair. They knew exactly what they were doing, but the innocent crew did not. And the NSA never has come clean, preferring to allow the entire world to blame Israel for an unprovoked attack. They allowed the Pueblo's crew to be imprisoned for their (NSA's) incompetence and then blamed the Captain for *confessing*. Jeez!!!
161 Posted on 10/04/2001 06:05:10 PDT by NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh
[ To: NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh
It's in several of the books--and acknowledged in the various investigations--that when the spooks came aboard, the first thing that happened was the skipper getting told that any signal that came in over the military communications network was to be considered for information only, and that orders could only travel over certain Top Secret channels.
164 Posted on 10/04/2001 08:48:49 PDT by Poohbah
To: SKYDRIFTER
I did mention the Liberty. You just chose to ignore it. Apparently the NSA gets a pass on criminal activity in your world.
165 Posted on 10/04/2001 09:16:02 PDT by Poohbah
Tell that "alternative version" to the parents of the marines killed in that "short circuit".
See my post at #547 about the UN. They're a fraud.
We give as much aid to Egypt as we do to Israel. And more to other Arab nations.
Still more in the form of oil revenue. Which then goes to fund terrorists who kill Israelis.
BTW, prior to the folly of attmepting to make peace with Arafat the butcher, Israeli Palestinians who accepted citizenship had far more political freedom and protection of their civil rights than they have under any of the Universally Dictatorial Arab states.
And more than they do now under Arafat.
Your arguments are getting thin, Wiley.
Regardless of why they went in, who was it that insisted that the Marine guards in Lebanon not have bullets in their guns?
Democrats in Congress.
So, Dr. Dolittle/Alien Boy, which is it? Been talking to the animals or The Mother Ship?
Actually, I'm hoping it's the former. Can you tell me what the difference is between a "mammoth" and a "mastodon"? Saw some cable specials on mammoths and they never once used the word 'mastadon', so I'm not sure how the usage should be applied, or what the similarities/differences are.
...This thread has totally devolved and degenerated into a tribalist pi**ing contest, so I'm just trying to get something out of having wasted so much time in it.
Actually, when you come to think of it, tribal/ethnic/religiosity-based divisions, themselves, probably look pretty silly, from the non-anthropomorphic point of view. That's without even starting to get into all the deranged non-tribal/ethnic/religiosity-based components -- all that pod-people 'group-think' stuff, with the associated cultic exclusivity on who's "fully human" and "who's not". No matter what part of the globe you look at, that all seems like a human constant, transcending other differences.
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