I have never felt more proud or more alone (pro-Israel demonstrator gets spat on......BY ANTI NAZIS)

In 2002, 60 years after the Holocaust, a Jewish girl cannot go out to an anti-neo-Nazi rally and hold up the Israeli flag.

The past two years have been a perplexing time to be a young "liberal" Jew in America. As an Israeli American, I have often been required to defend Israel from her liberal detractors. An epidemic is crossing our nation's campuses, as confused college kids are lumping together the American civil rights movement with the anti-apartheid movement with the Palestinian independence movement.

Encouraged by groups like the Nation of Islam, black pride slogans have been appropriated for Palestinian protests and the language of Malcolm X has been subverted to serve the adherents of Yasser Arafat.

This has been particularly disturbing to me, as I have been extensively involved with attempts to heal the breach between the Jewish and African American communities.

During these troubling times, I remain proud of my Jewish heritage. During a mission trip to Israel with the International Hillel Organization, I learned that there are no absolutes in politics just as there are no absolutes in life. My sense of Israeli and Jewish identity was rekindled as I began to realize, together with my Jewish brethren in our homeland, that no matter how I or anyone else feels about the current actions of the Israeli government, the Israeli nation has the right to exist in its current form, as a homeland for Jews. I rediscovered that as an Israeli American, I could always hold my head up high. And I do.

Today I sojourned to the U.S. Capitol to join the counter-rally against a neo-Nazi demonstration. As I watched the neo-Nazis approach the south Capitol lawn, my ears were pelted with offensive slogans and vile rhetoric.

How can I describe my feelings as I watched them pass, with their swastikas, Aryan banners, anti-Israel posters and crossed out stars of David?

To these Nazi sympathizers, who applaud the victimization of minorities, of Jews, who extol the brutal slaughter of 12 million people including whole branches of my family tree, to them I wanted to sing out, "I AM A JEW! I AM AN ISRAELI AMERICAN! NOW IT IS YOU THAT ARE IN THE MINORITY. WE ARE STRONG AND WE ARE HERE FOREVER!"

Unfurling a blue and white Israeli flag, I walked briskly and purposefully toward the gathering of anti-Nazi protesters. Watching 300 neo-Nazis with their strident rhetoric, I felt small, isolated and helpless.

As I walked toward my compatriots, my fellow protesters, I felt more empowered with each step. These were people who believed as I did, rational tolerant people whose personal morality impelled them to stand together and denunciate hatred and intolerance. They would stand with me, protest with me, and perhaps attempt to educate -- with me.

As I walked deeper and deeper through the crowd of protesters, waving the Israeli flag high and proud above my head, I began to feel less and less welcome. I marched on, waving the flag even higher so each and every neo-Nazi could see the flag of the Jewish people.

Suddenly I realized that the cries and jeers at the sight of the flag, originated not from the neo-Nazis, but from the anti-Nazi protesters.

I continued through the crowd and tried hard to ignore the glares. Inevitably, I was confronted. Abusive, although not unfamiliar words assaulted me at first: "Israel is fascist!" "Zionism is racism!" An old woman with a sweet face screamed at me, "You are a Nazi!" she cried. What had started out as a protest against racism quickly turned into a forum of hatred and fanaticism. I and the flag I held were their targets.

What could I do? Would I turn around? Could I let them disrespect this symbol of my people, and retreat in fear? I held my flag even higher. And I attempted, among the threats, the jostling and chaotic vehemence, to reason.

"I am not the enemy! The enemy is right across the street. Please, let's share this common ground and fight together!"

Despite my intense rage, I stayed true to my nonviolent beliefs and fought her and the crowd that had begun to form around me, with my words.

The crowd of anti-Nazi protesters did not have the same nonviolent ideology. I was spat upon. I was physically and verbally threatened. Grown men accosted me and tried to rip the Israeli flag out of my hands. Several were very close to actually assaulting me. Police intervened and blocked the anti-Nazi protesters from approaching me. These were supposed to be the good guys, and yet the hatred they exuded was just as potent as that of the Nazis themselves.

When a police officer told me that I should leave for my own safety, I staunchly refused. With every shout, hiss, slur and threat, the Israeli flag stood higher in my hands. Blocking out all the defamatory statements about Israel, I stood at the forefront of the protesters and held up that flag as much for them to see as for the neo-Nazis.

Eventually, I was made to relinquish the flag to its owner, who wanted to leave.

I didn't want to go and give them the satisfaction of my defeat, but I have never been so disgusted with humanity, and wanted to be as far away from these "champions of humanitarianism" as possible.

I wanted to show them the hypocrisy of fighting fascism by tearing down a flag and telling someone she does not have the right to be there because of her heritage. I wanted to give them glasses that would correct the myopic vision with which they saw as complex a situation as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one so clear cut and categorically absolute.

But all I could do was ask them, "Why are you doing this?" "Why are you doing this?" With all of the research I've done on the conflict, for all my convictions, all I could say was "Why are you doing this?"

I must admit that I, like many young Jews and Zionists my age, feel betrayed by American liberals. With regards to the Middle East, there seems to be no appreciation of the moral ambiguity, the political nuances, the multiple layers of media spin. Faced with such a complex situation, young people too often ask others to chew it, swallow it and digest it for them, and then tell them in absolute terms which side is most appropriate to their general belief structure.

Are you in favor of affirmative action? Are you for civil liberties and women's rights? Why, then, you must be pro-Palestinian! Anti-Globalization? Humanitarian? Pro- Palestinian! Ever voted Democratic/ Libertarian/Socialist or even abstained from voting for a Republican? Then Palestine is the side for you!

Strongly held political views in no way justify acting in such a callous and hateful way toward a fellow human being. With their blind hatred of Israel, these anti-Nazi protesters treated me as roughly as the neo-Nazis on the other side of the partition would have, had they but had the opportunity.

Today, I held my head -- and the Israeli flag -- up high; not in Israel, but in what I had previously considered to be a safe environment. For what better place to applaud the existence of a state for Jews than at a Neo-Nazi counter-rally on Capitol Hill?

I was sadly mistaken. As I went out to face the neo-Nazi demonstration, I found myself hated, both by the neo-Nazis and by those who were there to protest against them. I found myself alone in the middle. And for the first time in my life as an American, I truly understood the crushing impact of anti-Semitism.

In a very palpable way, I was an outsider, hated by everyone. With rabid anti-Semites on one side and anti-Israel fomenters on the other, surrounded by bystanders willing to do nothing as I suffered horrid abuse, I wept É and as Jews must do in this post-Holocaust world, I stood my ground. Truth.

A District resident, Sarah Kopelovich, 21, is a senior at George Washington University.

Sarah Kopelovich says: " Suddenly I realized that the cries and jeers at the sight of the flag, originated not from the neo-Nazis, but from the anti-Nazi protesters. "

And: " The crowd of anti-Nazi protesters did not have the same nonviolent ideology. I was spat upon. I was physically and verbally threatened. "

Oh how painful it can be when we first awake from the phony leftist utopian dream and have to confront reality in broad daylight. You've taken your first shaky step back to reality, Sarah, but judging from the rest of your article, you've still got a VERY long way to go.

Sarah says: " During a mission trip to Israel with the International Hillel Organization, I learned that there are no absolutes in politics just as there are no absolutes in life. "

That's your next step, Sarah. It won't be easy. Pray that you don't learn it after Israel has already been trampled under the jack boot of Palestinian hatred and terrorism.

Youth is truly wasted on the young.

Regards,

Boot Hill

I wouldn't call Gottfried self hating. Neither would I call Dan Stein such.

What I would call an anti-semitic Jew would be, for example, a Jewish anti-zionist. I'm fairly convinced that antizionism equals antisemitism.

Does the same hold true for Townhall.com which links to Sam Francis? The anti-semetism by association routine doesn't hold water.

I don't think, really, an odd link is much of an indicator. But if you look at a site where most of the links are to sites that have racism as an overwhelming theme, you have a pretty good idea.

Name one non-self-hating Jewish site that isn't?

Actually, most of those seem not to be overly concerned with race. More like concerned with a cultural identity and religious identity. Which makes perfect sense when you consider that Jews come in all kinds of colours and shapes :).

I wrote:
"I wouldn't call Gottfried self hating. Neither would I call Dan Stein such."

Cachelot responded.
What I would call an anti-semitic Jew would be, for example, a Jewish anti-zionist. I'm fairly convinced that antizionism equals antisemitism.

There are religious Jews who believe that any state before the comming of the Messiah is illegitimate. They are hardly self-hating.
Those Jews who reject the idea of a Jewish state are self-hating.

"Does the same hold true for Townhall.com which links to Sam Francis? The anti-semetism by association routine doesn't hold water."

I don't think, really, an odd link is much of an indicator. But if you look at a site where most of the links are to sites that have racism as an overwhelming theme, you have a pretty good idea.

1. Francis is a columnist linked to by Townhall.com as is another even more viscious anti-Semite and Holocaust Revisionist, Joe Sobran.
2. How is VDare.com racist? Because it cares about the ethnic make-up and Heritage of America?

"Name one non-self-hating Jewish site that isn't?"

Actually, most of those seem not to be overly concerned with race. More like concerned with a cultural identity and religious identity. Which makes perfect sense when you consider that Jews come in all kinds of colours and shapes :).
Jews think of themselves as a race. Whether we call ourselves a Jew (from the tribe of Judah or the nation of Judea) or Israelite (a descendant of Jacob {racial progenator} and a nation).
Read the Bible. Jews/B'nei Yisrael are a nation defined by blood and belief and thus a people.
Cultrual Identity and Religious identity are characteristics of the race.

At any rate, how can you support the right of Jews to have a country with a defined racial or religious/cultural core and not Americans?

Those Jews who reject the idea of a Jewish state are self-hating.

That was what I said, no?

2. How is VDare.com racist? Because it cares about the ethnic make-up and Heritage of America?

You're not paying attention. I said that if VDARE places a rabid racist in a position of prominence (which he has if half the articles linked on the front page are his, for example), they are leaning in that direction and places themselves as an excellent tool for people who are, undeniably, racists. But the main thing is that they are then definitely not "mainstream".

Jews think of themselves as a race.

Some / many / most / Jews may do so. So what? That doesn't make it a fact :).

Cultrual Identity and Religious identity are characteristics of the race.

So a black Jew, a white Jew and an Indian Jew are of the same race? Not, I'm afraid.

At any rate, how can you support the right of Jews to have a country with a defined racial or religious/cultural core and not Americans?

I wrote:
"Those Jews who reject the idea of a Jewish state are self-hating."

Cachelot responded:
That was what I said, no?
You called all anti-Zionist Jews self hating.
I don't consider the sects who believe that without the Messia there should be no Israel to be self hating. They are followinbg a tradition.
I do believe that the institutionalised teachings forced upon them by the Roman court Rabbis after the Bar Kochba revolt.

"2. How is VDare.com racist? Because it cares about the ethnic make-up and Heritage of America?"

"Jews think of themselves as a race."
Some / many / most / Jews may do so. So what? That doesn't make it a fact :).

1. Most sociologists will tell you that race is a social construct. (I don't buy this). If so, then Jews, who consider themsevles a race and are considered a race, are a race.
2. Jews from all over the world really do share a lot more genetic code than most think.
http://www.aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Jewish_Genes.asp
It seems to me that Jews are a race.

"At any rate, how can you support the right of Jews to have a country with a defined racial or religious/cultural core and not Americans?"

Bah. America always were mixed nuts, at least once the nuts started getting in. And if you'd want to reserve America for a "racial core", it would be the American Indians, wouldn't it? And as I said, Jews are not a race - a certain POV doesn't make that true. So America may be a cultural unit to a large degree, and Israel too. None of them are racial units, nor should you really want them to be.

American Indians are anything but the ethnic core. This was not thier country. They were subjects of the various Indian Nations. They were not citizens. We took their land.
The central core is the white, mostly British, populace at the founding, who make up 1/3 of Americans. They set up the polity and are what everyone else is supposed to assimilate to.

If you think Israel doesn't have a racial core, let in 3 million Arabs (who you think Sephardim and Mizrahim resemble) and see what happens.)

Race doesn't define culture, but heritage does to a large degree. Importing people of different heritages is destroying our cultural unity.

"Israel would deny most of them citizenship simply because they aren't Jewish."

Although Jews receive automatic rights to citizenship non-Jews 18 years of age or older may acquire Israeli nationality by naturalization subject to a number of requirements, such as:

they must have resided in Israel for three years out of the five years preceding the day of submission of the application.

they are entitled to reside in Israel permanently and have settled or intend to settle in Israel;

they have renounced their prior nationality, or have proved that they will cease to be foreign nationals upon becoming Israeli citizens. The Minister of the Interior may exempt an applicant from some of these requirements..

See here.

Seems no more stringent than most countries including the USA.

I don't consider the sects who believe that without the Messia there should be no Israel to be self hating

So, let's experiment a little. If such a sect should side with Arafat and declare that yes, Israel should cease to exist and the Jews should accept whatever he wished to visit upon them, they would be "non-self-hating"? (I prefer the term antisemites, actually - it carries the correct associations, which is no doubt why the neonazis are quite keen to get rid of it).

They are not mainstreme. The American people want immigration reform and the media will not allow its discussion.

Sorry. I meant mainstream in the sense of representing most Americans. Sam Francis is certainly not mainstream in that sense, and he seems to make up a great part of that site, and so the site is not representative for the views of most Americans. I can go on explaining this to the micro level, of course. It'll take time.

1. Most sociologists will tell you that race is a social construct. (I don't buy this). If so, then Jews, who consider themsevles a race and are considered a race, are a race.

So the argument is bogus, and you admit it's bogus. Yet you still lean on it.

2. Jews from all over the world really do share a lot more genetic code than most think.

So many Jews share some genetic code. And that has what to do with race? Genetic code will tell you a few things about bloodlines - family type of stuff. A genetic marker doesn't necessarily signify a racial characteristic. Another bogus argument.

Now consider this: if I were to convert to Judaism, I would be a Jew. That single fact alone renders your whole "racial platform" null and void. There are things that are sort of special about the Jews as a people, but race doesn't enter into it.

A piece of advice for you: if you absolutely must debate racial questions, it behooves you to get a grip on what race is.

American Indians are anything but the ethnic core. This was not thier country. They were subjects of the various Indian Nations. They were not citizens. We took their land.

This is senseless and ridiculous.

The central core is the white, mostly British, populace at the founding, who make up 1/3 of Americans. They set up the polity and are what everyone else is supposed to assimilate to.

And so is this.

If you think Israel doesn't have a racial core, let in 3 million Arabs (who you think Sephardim and Mizrahim resemble)

Where, exactly, did I mention Sephardim and Mizrahim? Seems you are running a parallel argument somewhere else, with someone else. Are you? And what exactly is that supposed to mean anyway? There are Arabs in Israel. Not to mention Black Jews and Asian Jews ;).

Quoting from the link:

Israel's Nationality Law relates to persons born in Israel or resident therein, as well as to those wishing to settle in the country, regardless of race, religion, creed, sex or political belief. Citizenship may be acquired by: Birth,The Law of Return Residence, Naturalization, Acquisition of Nationality by Birth is granted to:

Thanks for the information, which confirms what I previously stated. There is much misinformation regarding Israel and it being a "Jewish" state. Yes, it was founded on the basis of establishing a homeland for all Jews who wish to come there, but it also welcomes others, as long as they abid by the laws. To bad the USA does not have the same standard regarding immigration

I honestly don't know who LarryLied is or was, but I did appreciate the post that observed that the author of this piece was hoisted on her own petard.

I know that it is considered anti-Semitic to point out that American Jews are finding themselves in a bit of a pickle. On the one hand, they tend to fervently promote the idea that humans should all be fungible creatures with no ties to each other by blood or by soil—anything else is racist and diabolical. And yet, as Jews they reserve the right to refer to themselves as a people apart, with a distinct identity and a homeland that they defend on the basis of ethnicity. This is obviously contradictory, which is why the author finds herself being attacked by her friends on the left. Anyone could have seen this coming, and while I feel for her, I am not surprised that she experienced what she experienced.

So which Arab countries permit the free immigration of Jews, or Palestinians for that matter? Which Arab countries permit Christians to openly practice their religion? In the late 1940's and early 1950's Syria, Iraq, Iran, Jordan and Egypt strip nearly 750,000 Jews of their possessions and forced them out. Most went to Israel as no other counrty was willing to accept them. From 1948 to 1967 Egypt controlled Gaza and Jordan controlled the West Bank. Egypt never offered the Palistinians citizenship and the Jordanians did so on a limited basis.To this day Palestinians are not permitted citizenship in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. Yet, there are 1,000,000 Israeli-Arabs with full citizenship. Learn the facts before you take a foolish position>

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