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STRANGE SYMBIOSIS – ISRAEL & ANTI-SEMITISM
Antiwar.com ^ | December 28, 2001 | Justin Raimondo

Posted on 12/29/2001 12:08:08 AM PST by H.R. Gross

Behind the Headlines
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com

December 28, 2001

STRANGE SYMBIOSIS – ISRAEL & ANTI-SEMITISM
That 'sh*tty little country' is dangerous – to its allies, and to Jews everywhere

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.

OSAMA ON MTV?

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."

FOLLOW THE MONEY

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?

A STRANGE IRONY

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.

I SHOULD BE SO POWERLESS

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.

THE ONEIDA PURGE

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."

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER

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.

GROVELING TOWARD BETHLEHEM

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.

ODE TO BRUTE FORCE

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."

PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS

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?

THE TERRORISTIC IMPERATIVE

"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.

CHOO-CHOO

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.

AMIEL'S JIHAD

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.

100 YEARS AFTER DREYFUSS

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.

WHY A JEWISH STATE?

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.

THE OLD ANTI-SEMITISM

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.

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To: dubyaismypresident
Calling you an idiot would be a personal attack. But then only if I don't sincerely believe it.
701 posted on 12/29/2001 9:37:37 AM PST by madrussian
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To: Pay now bill Clinton
Joe Lieberman is a *Jew of Convenience*. He was excommunicated, a VERY rare thing, by the Brooklyn Beth Din for being a false Jew. He has NOT been welcomed back.
702 posted on 12/29/2001 9:40:14 AM PST by NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh
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To: madrussian
Calling you an idiot would be a personal attack. But then only if I don't sincerely believe it.

I was referring to your attacks on two other freepers, but go ahead and keep piling it on. It is easier than debating issues.

703 posted on 12/29/2001 9:40:15 AM PST by NeoCaveman
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To: dubyaismypresident
If you see personal attacks in my post, where I called the two posters their well-deserved names, and no issues, then you'd qualify.
704 posted on 12/29/2001 9:42:19 AM PST by madrussian
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To: madrussian
If you see personal attacks in my post, where I called the two posters their well-deserved names, and no issues, then you'd qualify.

Well if you don't think name-calling is beneath you, then I shall agree that it is not beneath you to do so.

705 posted on 12/29/2001 9:45:53 AM PST by NeoCaveman
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To: Justin Raimondo
With reagard to Anti-Semitism accusing in the FR threads, I have posted my view on it Here
706 posted on 12/29/2001 9:47:15 AM PST by College Repub
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To: NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh
Joe Lieberman is a *Jew of Convenience*. He was excommunicated, a VERY rare thing, by the Brooklyn Beth Din for being a false Jew. He has NOT been welcomed back.

How much religious Lieberman is, is between you guys. From my perspective, I could care less. How's he different from you, when intricasies of your religion aren't concerned?

707 posted on 12/29/2001 9:53:17 AM PST by madrussian
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To: madrussian
Like the Soviet Union propped up with its oil dollars. Americans have no idea how shitty that little country really is.

Oh I think they do. The Russian hookers, all that Stoli running in the streets. The Russian Mafia. Drunken, ex-KGB knuckle-draggers. Americans know all right.

No wonder we won the Cold War against The Evil Empire.

708 posted on 12/29/2001 9:57:59 AM PST by veronica
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To: dubyaismypresident
If you think there is more than a handful of posters, seriously engaged in discussions on FR, and who haven't engaged in what you would define as name-calling, you are mistaken.
709 posted on 12/29/2001 9:58:49 AM PST by madrussian
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To: veronica
I guess the little shitty country is next.
710 posted on 12/29/2001 10:00:54 AM PST by madrussian
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To: madrussian
The everybody does it defense, classic.

Next, could you define is for me

711 posted on 12/29/2001 10:01:14 AM PST by NeoCaveman
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To: CommiesOut
The Village Voice? What next from you Commie? Posts from Mother Jones? The Socialist Party website?
712 posted on 12/29/2001 10:01:50 AM PST by veronica
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To: dubyaismypresident
Everybody does it, literally. And it's not a defense. Calling a spade a spade is essential to have any meaningful conversation. Arguing about the definition of "is" is what YOU do.

But enough of that, can you find a more interesting topic?

713 posted on 12/29/2001 10:08:32 AM PST by madrussian
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To: veronica
Yadda, yadda, veronia.
714 posted on 12/29/2001 10:12:06 AM PST by CommiesOut
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To: madrussian
Arguing about the definition of "is" is what YOU do.

You don't even get the reference, do you. It means that your defense was Clintonesque.

Geez it was one of Clinton's only 2 memorable quotes. I bet you even like Clinton, after all he help get rid of a good prime minister and replaced him with an appeaser like Barak. Unfortuanlely, Arafat would not take the deal of a life time, becuase he wants a nice neat Jew-free Mideast. Sad to say he isn't the only one.

715 posted on 12/29/2001 10:14:47 AM PST by NeoCaveman
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To: tex-oma, CommiesOut
LOL. That'll get the tourists flocking in....

There are plenty of people going to Israel - including Time's Person of the Year - Rudy G.

Meanwhile NOBODY is going to Egypt - the USA is bailing them out. Waaaaaaa.

716 posted on 12/29/2001 10:14:48 AM PST by veronica
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To: CommiesOut
Yadda, yadda.

Good for you. Your retorts are getting better every day...snicker.

717 posted on 12/29/2001 10:16:06 AM PST by veronica
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To: Justin Raimondo
> Defending Kahane, eh?

It would be a teeny bit difficult for Rabbi Kahane to defend himself, now wouldn't it? I mean considering he was murdered by the selfsame Muslims you love to defend. Considering that his son and his entire family, which included children, were murdered by Muslims with no chance to defend THEMSELVES either, SOMEONE will give them voice, and I am proud to do so under ANY circumstances or twisted renounciations you care to proffer.
Number 1. Kahane was RIGHT. No matter what you say or how you say it, if his voice had been listened to, most of what is happening now would not be happening. He did not advocate the murders of Arabs OR Muslims. He advocated deportation of those who desired the complete destruction of Israel, much as you hear from you so-called America Firsters right here on good old Free Republic are now screeching for the deportation of Muslims who refuse to denounce the war perpetrated on OUR soil by the SAME people who seek America's destruction as well.
Number 2. Arafat led his *people* into death and despair while sitting on a treasure trove of BILLIONS of dollars, NONE of which was used for the purposes for which it was given. But those people whom HE robbed, blame Israel for their plight.
And NUMBER 3. YOU are not worthy to type, much less speak, Rabbi Kahane's name since you did not know him and your only misinformation about him comes from the Blame the Jews for Everything sites and publications you immerse your sorry self in.
Rabbi Kahane is not here to speak for himself, but if he was, he would call YOU an abomination. Since he can't say it. I will. You and you happy horsemen of the Atrocolypse are an abomination and there comes a day of judgement. I am ever so grateful not to be carrying the weight of your sins, and shame on you for adding them to your Messiah's shoulders.

Dear World

by Rabbi Meir Kahane

The following essay was written in 1988, only a couple of years before the murder of Rabbi Kahane by an Arab terrorist, Egyptian-born El Sayyid Nosair, who not only was convicted of the murder but also of conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Dear World,

It appears that you are hard to please. I understand that you are upset over us, here in Israel. Indeed, it appears that you are quite upset, even angry and outraged? Indeed, every few years you seem to become upset over us. Today, it is the brutal repression of the Palestinians; yesterday, it was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War campaign. It appears that Jews who triumph and who, therefore, live, upset you most extraordinarily. Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we, the Jewish people - upset you. We upset a German people who elected a Hitler and we upset an Austrian people who cheered his entry into Vienna and we upset a whole slew of Slavic nations - Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians, Romanians. And we go back a long, long way in the history of world upset. We upset the Cossacks of Chmielnicki who massacred tens of thousands of us in 1648-49; we upset the Crusaders who, on their way to liberate the Holy Land, were so upset at Jews that they slaughtered untold numbers of us. We upset, for centuries, a Roman Catholic Church that did its best to define our relationship through Inquisitions. And we upset the arch-enemy of the Church, Martin Luther, who, in his call to burn the synagogues and the Jews within them, showed an admirable Christian ecumenical spirit.

It is because we became so upset over upsetting you, dear world, that we decided to leave you - in a manner of speaking - and establish a Jewish State. The reasoning was that living in close contact with you, as resident-strangers in the various countries that comprise you, we upset you, irritate you, disturb you. What better notion, then, than to leave you and thus love you - and have you love us? And so we decided to come home - to the same homeland from which we were driven out 1,900 years earlier by a Roman world that, apparently, we also upset.

Alas, dear world, it appears that you are hard to please. Having left you and your Pogroms and Inquisitions and Crusades and Holocausts, having taken our leave of the general world to live alone in our own little state - we continue to upset you.

You are upset that we repress the poor Palestinians. You are deeply angered over the fact that we do not give up the lands of 1967, which are clearly the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Moscow is upset and Washington is upset. The Arabs are upset and the gentle Egyptian moderates are upset. Well, dear world, consider the reaction of a normal Jew from Israel. In 1920, 1921 and 1929, there were no territories of 1967 to impede peace between Jews and Arabs. Indeed, there was no Jewish State to upset anybody. Nevertheless, the same oppressed and repressed Palestinians slaughtered hundreds of Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Safed and Hebron. Indeed, 67 Jews were slaughtered one day in Hebron - in 1929.

Dear World, why did the Arabs - the Palestinians - massacre 67 Jews in one day in 1929? Could it have been their anger over Israeli aggression in 1967? And why were 510 Jewish men, women and children slaughtered in Arab riots in 1936-39? Was it because of Arab upset over 1967? And when you, World, proposed a U.N. Partition Plan in 1947 that would have created a Palestinian State alongside a tiny Israel and the Arabs cried and went to war and killed 6,000 Jews - was that upset stomach caused by the aggression of 1967? And, by the way, dear world, why did we not hear your cry of upset then?

The poor Palestinians who today kill Jews with explosives and firebombs and stones are part of the same people who - when they had all the territories they now demand be given them for their state - attempted to drive the Jewish State into the sea. The same twisted faces, the same hate, the same cry of "idbah-al-yahud" - "Slaughter the Jews!" that we hear and see today, were seen and heard then. The same people, the same dream - destroy Israel. What they failed to do yesterday, they dream of today - but we should not "repress" them.

Dear World, you stood by the Holocaust and you stood by in 1948 as seven states launched a war that the Arab League proudly compared to the Mongol massacres. You stood by in 1967 as Nasser, wildly cheered by wild mobs in every Arab capital in the world, vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. And you would stand by tomorrow if Israel were facing extinction. And since we know that the Arabs-Palestinians daily dream of that extinction, we will do everything possible to remain alive in our own land. If that bothers you, dear world, well - think of how many times in the past you bothered us. In any event, dear world, if you are bothered by us, here is one Jew in Israel who could not care less.

Kahane Chai!
MOST SINCERELY
NIX

718 posted on 12/29/2001 10:17:07 AM PST by NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh
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To: veronica
That's because we (espeicaly american leaders) don't like going to a country whose citizens hate the USA
719 posted on 12/29/2001 10:17:12 AM PST by College Repub
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To: veronica
"Meanwhile NOBODY is going to Egypt"

Yoohoo!

720 posted on 12/29/2001 10:19:03 AM PST by CommiesOut
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