Posted on 09/10/2002 3:41:31 PM PDT by zapiks44
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.
Or so I thought.
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.
I have never felt more proud or more alone in my entire life.
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.
I thought to myself, what's wrong with these people? Isn't Israel our ally in the Middle East? Isn't Israel the only democratically representative government in the Middle East? Only one of the negative replies that contained any kind of reasoning was on from a client who appeared to suffer from a liberal PC education. In her statement she spoke about how she thought it was innapropriate for me to have used my access to my clients to promote a Pro-Israeli message.
To make the story short, I came to realize that these people are cowards and don't want to take a stand for what deep down we know is the right cause. There are absolutes, there is right and wrong. What America stands for is worth defending and fighting for, and no, we can't all just get along. (Sorry Rodney).
So the argument is bogus, and you admit it's bogus. Yet you still lean on it.
Race is either made up or genetic. I showed evidence that Jews as a race works under both definitions.
"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.
If consistancy of genetic markers across many subgroups of people who claim to belong to one race doesn't make them a race, what would?
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.
And once you or your children start married "real" Jews, they your grand children would be blood members of the race.
If 100% purity is your standar, no race exists.
A piece of advice for you: if you absolutely must debate racial questions, it behooves you to get a grip on what race is.
What then is race?
"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.
It is fact.
1. Indians were not citizens at our founding. The were seperate nations. Read the Constituion.
2. The Indians did not invite us. WE invaded their land, constituted a new nation, and took over. This is nothing new in human history.
" 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.
I see SO MANY BLakcs, Russians, Italians, Chinese, and Indians when reading a list of founders of this country or looking at early voting rolls.
"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 ;).
1. If Jews are not a seperate race, tehn they belong to the race of people where they are from. Ashkenzim are White, Sephardim and Misrahim are Arabs. I'm pointing out a flaw.
2. Aren't Jews from Arabia and Persia "Asian"?
3. The Falashas are your best case. I would note that they do not look like Ethiopians. They have many Semetic and European characteristics. Facial structure is different, hair color is more diverse...
Ummmm, Sarah, stop whining, realize who your real friends are and become a Republican.
Pass that advice on to your other Liberal Jewish friends.
So what you're saying is that if someone had a devout reason, they could support the holocoust and still not be antisemitic. That is the bottom line of your POV, you know.
And once you or your children start married "real" Jews, they your grand children would be blood members of the race.
Sorry, your argument falls flat again. Now, I'm male, so my children would be Jewish if I married a Jewish woman. But if I'd been a woman, and converted, my children would be just as Jewish if I didn't. At least I think that's the case, but since I'm not completely sure of "procedure" here I'm pinging some who probably know.
If 100% purity is your standard, no race exists.
Actually, that is very much closer to the truth than you probably think. And even if you look at "pure" examples, the genetic differences that make up "race" are very, very small and very insignificant. Making them an issue in politics is exceedingly stupid.
The Arab League makes use of a cognitive technique of propaganda called "turnspeak", where you attack someone and then turn it around 180 degrees and claim they attacked you. Because the truth is the exact opposite of the information being disseminated it is psychologically difficult to counter and leads to confusion.
Turnspeak leads to psychological confusion and a feeling of being "burned-out" or "overwhelmed" with too much information, effectively creating a blanket of "white noise" which makes clarity difficult to achieve.
Joan Peters, former White House consultant on the Middle East writes:
The term was first used by journalists to describe German propaganda after it invaded Czechoslovakia in March of 1939. To win sympathy for their invasion, the Germans practiced what has become known as "turnspeak". They turned the blame back on the Czechs for trying to precipitate an all-out war in the region. In other words, the Czechs in their attempt to hang onto their land were ready to plunge all of Europe into war.The Arab claim that Jews are "Nazis" is not without motive. They are trying to obscure their own close connection with the Nazis. During World War II leading Muslims including Haj Amin al-Husseini worked for the Nazis in Germany and called for a intifada against Britain. Haji Amin al-Husseini was the grand mufti of Jerusalem, as well as Yasser Arafat's close relative and mentorHow did the rest of Europe respond to this lie? They believed it. World leaders decided that something had to be done to preserve peace at any cost.
Author William Shirer, who was a reporter in Europe at the time, distilled the truth simply when he wrote, "Thus the plight of the German minority in Czechoslovakia was merely a pretext...for cooking up a stew in a land he [Hitler] coveted, undermining it, confusing and misleading its friends and concealing his real purpose...to destroy the Czechoslovak state and grab its territories..."
The Arabs, especially Iraq, sided with Germany during W.W.II. In May 1941, Haj Amin al-Husseini issued a fatwa - "summons to a holy war against Britain". The Mufti's widely heralded proclamation against Britain was declared in Iraq, and was instrumental in his 1941 pro-Nazi intifada in Iraqi. The Mufti also requested Arab-Americans not to support FDR.
Yasser Arafat's actual name is Abd al-Rahman abd al-Rauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. He shortened it to obscure his kinship with the notorious Nazi and Mufti of Jerusalem.
Saddam Hussein was raised in the house of his uncle Khayrallah Tulfah, who was a leader in the Mufti's pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in May 1941. Both Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein were greatly influenced by the Mufti during their time in Cairo during the 1950s.
See also History of Fedayeen, PLO, Fatah, PFLP, PFLP-GC, DFLP, etc Militant Palestinian Groups and Yasser Arafat worthy successor to Haj Muhammad Amin al Husseini
| What "turnspeak" says: (from Arab and Western media)
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Yet the counterpart is probably closer to the truth:
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1."From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters, 1984
2.The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini was later the notorious Nazi who mixed Nazi propaganda and Islam. He was wanted for war crimes in Bosnia by Yugoslavia. His mix of militant propagandizing Islam was an inspiration for both Yasser Arafat and Saddam Husein: He was also a close relative of Yasser Arafat and grandfather of the current Temple Mount Mufti. "Arafat's actual name was Abd al-Rahman abd al-Bauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. He shortened it to obscure his kinship with the notorious Nazi and ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini." Howard M. Sachar, A HISTORY OF ISRAEL (New York: Knopf, 1976). The Bet Agron International Center in Jerusalem interviewed Arafat's brother and sister, who described the Mufti as a cousin (family member) with tremendous influence on young Yassir after the Mufti returned from Berlin to Cairo. Yasser Arafat himself keeps his exact lineage and birthplace secret. Saddam Hussein was raised in the house of his uncle Khayrallah Tulfah, who was a leader in the Mufti's pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in May 1941.
I especially like the easy side by side reference.
Who's Astonished Now????
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| Astonished | J Harris | Lematha | sawgrass |
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| Passin Pilgrim | LeeAnn6 | tynker | Kudzu Flat |
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| Samaritan | Patria One | beecharmer | Miss Pixie |
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| necho6 | glassheart3 | Friend_Or_Foe | Kirkland Junction |
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| nohorse | faintpraise | TBD | TBD |
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