No, typical.
Wear a "Kick Me" sign on your rear long enough and some low life is going to take you up on it
Speaking from experience as low life now? How this for Jews to wear?
Better than this?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted on 04/30/2002 1:16:50 PM PDT by Pokey78
I used to listen with scorn when I heard my parents' generation say that a Jew must always – metaphorically – be prepared to pack a suitcase and run. However settled we might be, however safe we might think we are, we can never be fully, one hundred per cent certain that we are secure. "They can turn on us overnight."
I understood their paranoia. They had lived through the Holocaust, and some of them had seen things at first hand which I have only ever seen on film. But, I knew, things are different now. I had never come across anything but the most prosaic examples of anti-Semitism, or ever felt for a second as if I was merely being tolerated – and that that toleration could stop. Sure, I get anti-Semitic e-mails after any article I write, but it goes with the territory. Black journalists receive the same sort of rubbish and know, as I do, not to be disturbed by the BNP-style ranting morons. I simply delete and ignore their messages.
I could not imagine anything more fanciful than the idea that my countrymen might turn on me. I am the third generation of my family to be born here and as British as anyone. Israel is an idea, and a country, which I support; but it is a foreign country with whose citizens I have nothing more in common than a shared religion.
I now know different.
I wasn't shocked when I heard about Sunday's desecration of the synagogue in Finsbury Park. I was depressed, I was frightened, I was angered; but I wasn't shocked. Over the past year or so, I have come to realise that my parents' contemporaries are right. The pattern of thousands of years of Jewish history does not change in one generation. However settled we might think we are, our lives can change in an instant. No group was more assimilated than the German Jews at the beginning of the last century. By what arrogance did I assume that mine would be the first generation in Jewish history which could escape threat?
Don't get me wrong. I am not for a second suggesting that I will have to pack my bags and leave. Britain remains one of the most tolerant places on earth, and I can barely imagine the circumstances in which I might be forced out of my own country. But I have started to hear things which I never thought possible in this of all countries, not from skinheads but from the mouths of people who I would never have thought capable of such things.
I first realised what I had been denying to myself – that anti-Semitism is now acceptable again in polite society – at a dinner party. There were six of us. I had known three of them for nearly two decades; decent, liberal sorts, who had, as students, signed up with me to all the right causes: protesting outside South Africa House, boycotting Barclays and demanding "no platform for racists and fascists". I would have sworn in court that they had not a bone of racism or anti-Semitism in their bodies.
We started talking about boycotts; specifically, Greenpeace's campaign against Esso. Could it work? Catherine (I've changed the names) said it would if people stuck to their principles. That's what she was doing: she was boycotting anything Israeli.
I winced. Yes, of course I know that disagreeing with Israeli policy does not always equate to being anti-Israel, or even anti-Semitic (although I have yet to hear anyone call for sanctions against Saudi Arabia for funding the suicide bombers and calling for more "martyrs"). But I had a sense that she meant something more than she was saying, so I tried, calmly, to draw her out. It became clear that she meant she was really boycotting anything Jewish.
What did that mean: Jewish-owned companies, or Jewish-run companies? And how do you define the ones you are boycotting: "What about Dixons?" I asked her. "What on earth are you talking about?" she replied. "What's Dixons got to do with it?" I told her that Sir Stanley Kalms, the Dixons chairman, is prominent in the Jewish community. She'd never thought about Dixons before but yes, she said, she would now start to boycott Dixons.
"Don't get at her," demanded David. "She's only saying out loud what we all think: the Jews need to be taught that, terrible as the Holocaust was, you can't rely on that excuse for ever – and certainly not to justify what you are doing to the Palestinians."
As it happens, I believe that Israel should withdraw from the occupied territories. But this wasn't a conversation about the rights and wrongs of Israeli policy; this was about me and my fellow Jews, who stick together, are different from everyone else, and need to be taught a lesson. "Why do you say 'the Jews'?" I asked. "You mean the Israelis." Catherine stepped in: "Israelis, Jews, you're the same thing. See – you're defending them now aren't you? Why are you doing that? Because you're Jewish."
Whatever I know about my loyalty to this country, others have a different view. They think of me as Jew first, and then Brit. Whatever I do, whatever I contribute, I will always be an outsider. Maybe I am simply more conscious of it today than before that conversation, but I see now, for the first time in my 37 years, what my parents' generation meant.
I have no desire whatsoever to live in Israel. But knowing that it's there, as a refuge, now means a lot more to me than I ever imagined it could.
"Why do you say 'the Jews'?" I asked. "You mean the Israelis." Catherine stepped in: "Israelis, Jews, you're the same thing. See – you're defending them now aren't you? Why are you doing that? Because you're Jewish."
The circular logic of the idiot liberal.
Looks like this Jew, at least, is beginning to open his eyes to their true colors.
Often a self-fulfilling prophecy unfortunately. Same type of thing which is being taught by liberals to Black Americans.
I invite Mr. Pollard to join us in the USA. I believe he may be a liberal on most issues, but hopefully he will change.
But is it the Brits or is it Mr. Pollard?
Stephen doesn't get it yet. He's starting to see, as many other Jews are now, but has yet to catch the scent of the totalitarian sympathies and inclinations bubbling just below the surface of left-wing politics.
That said, Mr. Pollard is hardly "as British as anyone" if he's only the third generation born in England. The English are something of a mix of Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes and Normans, but most of the British have dozens of generations in the British Isles. The English at home have hardly ever been accused of accepting non-Englishmen into their society. He shouldn't be the least surprised it's coming out.
-anxiously awaiting your reply
Stephen doesn't get it yet. He's starting to see, as many other Jews are now, but has yet to catch the scent of the totalitarian sympathies and inclinations bubbling just below the surface of left-wing politics.
Good point. The jew-baiters have shifted in the West to the left. Much to do IMO with the Soviet-created or guided "third worldist" construct which these types still work within, though the Russians have dropped it. The "zionist" and "West" as the enemy - indeed, much of the same language is used, and a motive is upkeep of the leftie identity. Typical of the discourse is the "privileging" of facts that allegedly support the construct, omission of others. For example, the question "why" Arafat increased the bombings lately is never asked. Although a legitimate question, it is not considered because nothing Israel changed could explain it - therefore it is omitted.
A lot has to do with 9/11 too. There were earlier anti-semitic and anti-American scares in Western Europe - I think Rushdie talked about this. It is a reaction to the threat to post-Cold war Leftie worldview and to multiculturalism, very uncomfortable to the "chattering classes." Instead of considering new events, there was retreat into old constructs. The idea of America as a genuine and blameless victim was very disturbing, as is the idea of local civil/ethnic war.
New facts can't be incorporated into a set of beliefs without threatening beliefs about prior events (Nicaragua! blah, blah). But for the leftie "identity" is paramount to perspicuity and understanding, though a prime marker of the identity is their self-complimenting posture that they have "greater" understanding of how the world works. At its core, their international politics are about how they feel, not what is.
Plus, the "victims" are Jews. What else is new? There is a leftie/arab project to delegitimize any jewish state. The panicky acceptance of any Pali propaganda. The "Sharonizing" of anything Israel does. All part of the program. The author is in a tizzy because he's near the revelation that people who protest their their non-racism are inherently racist and prejudiced. Just that Jews are a better target with the "West" they are coming to accept.
Plus Arabs are a much bigger market...
Forgive me for concluding that there is something black in his soul, but I cannot honestly come to any other conclusion.
What's wrong with that? To be a "Jew" means to belong to an ethnicity (or a religion), to be a Brit - to be a HM subject.
I am proud to be a Jew, and a New Zealand citizen. And there're plenty of New Zealenders who're Maori, Irish, Dutch etc. - same as with the Brits. So what?
Amen. This is also why Israel will never disarm and, in fact, maintains a large arsenal of nukes and the capability of delivering them to those who would see it disappear. It is the national equivalent of carrying around a .45, and letting everyone know it - nobody will F with you.
-anxiously awaiting your reply
A word of advice: don't waste your time with Larry. And don't bother him with unimportant things, like facts.
No, typical.
Wear a "Kick Me" sign on your rear long enough and some low life is going to take you up on it
Speaking from experience as low life now? How this for Jews to wear?
Better than this?
Inquiring minds want to know.
There are people who look the other way and pretend that they do not see when the Jew is killed? You? You would elbow away others to put the bullet in a Jew's head.
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