"I think this is an inadvertent misstatement."
Also, just for laughs, what adjective(s) would you use for the comments at #568 and #574 on this thread?
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.
I thought for sure you were in the hollow mountain with all the bikini clad beauties, which is Mossad HQ, from where we will soon launch the new laser.......unless 007 stops us.
That is the essence of dennisw's position. The logical problem with the policy is that it exculpates Israel and Zionists for just about any aggresively racist act.
There are those of us who see this "dance of the straw men" as destructive to both extremes. I originally began my oblique interest in the topic of Zionism out of the need to understand better my Jewish friends (all are borderline communists) and to try to understand what appears to be such terribly self-destructive behavior that organizes so much of the world into hating them.
I note with some interest in wooly-mammoth's extensive (and informative, thank you) postings of the nature of the ancient scism within Judaic scholarship. Is this global "manifest destiny," centered upon a couple acres of rock in Jerusalem, an artifact of the Babylonian Pharisees or is it some other faction? I am reminded of the extensive discussion in Deuteronomy of "the place I shall appoint."
Unlike Askel therefore (correct me if I am wrong), I do see this consolidation of Jewish financial and political power and its focus upon the Temple as part of God's plan (George Soros, UN Theosophy, and all), not that all the actors plan it to be so, or would wilfully act according to His Law for that matter, but that it is in fact happening despite the best efforts of protagonists and antagonists alike. Still, I see no point in resignation to "Thy will be done on earth," and letting these clown do whatever they want, though that appears to be very popular among many Christians here at FR. Instead, I see the continuing remand to perform my part in the play according to His Commandments, come what may. I do see a real need here to understand better the origins, distinctions, and strategies among Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewry. I have a translation of the Kaballa, but I haven't read it yet. Thank you for injecting some civility into this ugly morass. I have avoided this thread for obvious reasons.
Actually, I'm pretty Irish, babe. And pretty Polish. Actually I'm just pretty pretty. That answers ALL your questions.
Well, it looks like this, one of the longest threads I've ever seen on FreeRepublic, proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the theme of my article (remember the article that does with this thread?) is, unfortunately, all too correct. The aim of the Israel Firsters is to create anti-Semitism, to create resentment, to flaunt their arrogance and their brazen disloyalty to their own country. A news source they would normally credit, Fox News, is disdained as "anti-Semitic" because Carl Cameron exposed the dark underside of Israeli spy operations in the US; racist garbage against Arab-Americans is shamelessly posted, with the added irony that it resembles nothing so much as the worst anti-Semitic propaganda; I have been called every dirty filthy name in the book, by people whom I have never even met, and yet these same verbose folks cannot even muster a coherent argument. Vicious, foul-mouthed, evil-minded rhetoric is bandied about, and the elementary rules of civility completely abandoned. It's amazing, really, how *dumb* the whole thing is, how futile and how contrary to the interests of Israel as a nation to have its American defenders act like such fools.
Yes, I think this is an inadvertent misstatement. I think what was meant were policies that in the mind of the advocate worked in favor of Palestinians while at the same time would most probably end in the death or expulsion of Jews from the region. Indeed, one could argue that the current policies of Arafat and the Palestinians work against both them and Israel. One could argue that the Palestinians are indulging in self destructive behavior. One could argue that the Palestinians accepting a Barak type deal would achieve the opposite effect.
In any event, the point is that if one advocates policies that have as a reasonable end result the destruction of Israel, out of desire or indifference, while that might not be anti-semitism per se, it certainly represents the practical functional equivalent. It is also in my mind, beyond ethnicity, immoral and unethical, and perhaps that is the ultimate issue: not so much one of anti-semitism but of immorality. I would have the same views if any other people on this planet were similarly at risk.
You apparently talking about Israel and yourself, because my friends in Russia doing quite well.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/598526/posts
"Everything in this country is rotten, and most of my friends are trying to leave," said Lefkowitz, who works part-time in a Jerusalem cafe.
"There is no peace and there is no work. If we are not fighting with the Arabs, we are fighting with each other. Unemployment and prices keep going up. And no one seems to give us any sense that things will get better."
You may understand Russian, and leave in one of the Jewish ghettos, so "tvoej gavnistoi strane prihodit pizdetz".
Are you blonde?
No, he's in Brighton Beach collecting empty cans.
"I think this is an inadvertent misstatement."
Also, just for laughs, what adjective(s) would you use for the comments at #568 and #574 on this thread?
I've always said: you want proof of anything, ask a part time cafe worker.
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