The guy is a zionist and he is clearly concerned that the minister has embarrassed Israel and made zionist apologetics more difficult for for zios outside of Israel.
Don't come back here conflating zios with Jews. This isn't an Atzmon site.
There's something perniciously logical about the BNP's newfound position on Israel: you can't advocate a White Ingeland and deny the Jews an ethnopure piece of Heaven on Earth in Israel, now can you? That position is perfectly reconcilable with anti-Semitism too. Everyone in their own box, no fookin' mixin', yahear?
Bob, he's right. Get thee to Mondoweiss!. They love that shit over there, it's like meat and drink (and condiments) to Phil Weiss the site's owner.
Anti-racists clash with SDL fascists in Glasgow
Socialist Unity
14 Nov 2009
Pro-Israeli supporters in Edinburgh today, all 28 of them -
Anit-war protestors gather in capital (sic)
HeraldScotland
14 Nov 2009
But it is a discussion for Jews only. Not for anyone else.
And that is why I am always very wary of Goy like Gert who equate this policy with racism (and the BNP!) and appear to be overly interested in all things Jewish and just a little time on his cut-and-paste blog has demonstrated to me that in my opinion, Gert is deeply anti-Israeli and profoundly anti-Semitic.
I am not sure as to what masochistic reasoning he may have for immersing himself in the world of Jewish affairs but it is certainly not for the benefit of our people.
Now if we could just convince the KKK, the Vanguard sites and other White Supremacist sites to wholeheartedly embrace Zionism (instead of concentrating on fancy dress parties and learning German) then perhaps a few Zionists would begin to see the light about Zionism's absurd racism...
Sand’s self-dramatising attack in The Invention of the Jewish People is directed against those who assume, uncritically, that all Jews are descended lineally from the single racial stock of ancient Hebrews – a position no one who has thought for a minute about the history of the Jews would dream of taking.
Sand’s sense of grievance against the myths on which the exclusively Jewish right to full Israeli immigration is grounded is one that many who want to see a more liberal and secular Israel wholeheartedly share. But his book prosecutes these aims through a sensationalist assertion that somehow, the truth about Jewish culture and history, especially the “exile which never happened”, has been suppressed in the interests of racially pure demands of Zionist orthodoxy. This, to put it mildly, is a stretch.
Schama seems a bit of a Pollyanna.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/
b74fdf...144feabdc0.html
I don't know if reading Sand is worth the effort if all he is saying in the end is that 'the Jews' are not an racial-ethnic monolith.
"Think about that. How many of the world’s armies– especially those engaged in all-too-frequent combat– are concerned enough about ethics to develop such a code, and to include philosophers in the process?
Now of course Israel’s enemies will claim it is all just for show– a PR stunt. Such people lack the most fundamental understanding of Israeli society. The difficult matter of balancing Israel’s security with the objective of minimizing harm to non-combatants is one that most Israelis take very seriously. It is the subject of a great deal of debate in the country. The matter becomes even more difficult when one side in the fighting deliberately places itself among the civilian population."
Gene, I'm almost tear-eyed now. Philosophers!
No comments so far, so this could be a good oppo to get a 'strafing run' in but in all honesty I can't be bothered.
We need to consider - and of course some of us do - how Israel established and maintains its Jewish character. To suggest that Jews have a right to ethnically cleanse non-Jews to establish Jews as a preponderant majority is indeed racist. To further assert that Jews from anywhere should have more right to Palestine than the native non-Jewish population is also racist. I don't see how this can be honestly denied.
Cheers
"I am no Zio fan but I do agree that it is only fair and right that Israel must retain its Jewish character."
'Nuff said: you're a zio alright.
"In fact it is extremely dangerous for us to say and do otherwise considering our whole legitimacy is built upon it. That is not to say a total exclusion of everyone else. Of course not. But the overall character."
Your legitimacy is based on the Jewish character of Israel? You leave me speechless. Honest, what to say? Could you come back and try again, right now you sound like you're mentally incapacitated, it is Saturday night after all...
"But it is a discussion for Jews only. Not for anyone else."
And you call me a racist (LOLROF)...
"And that is why I am always very wary of Goy like Gert who equate this policy with racism (and the BNP!) and appear to be overly interested in all things Jewish and just a little time on his cut-and-paste blog has demonstrated to me that in my opinion, Gert is deeply anti-Israeli and profoundly anti-Semitic."
It's no surprise the BNP finally declared themselves Zionist, in fact it shows Griffin has some (admittedly limited) logical capability. What's the difference between a White Ingeland (or SA) and an exclusively Jewish Israel, Schmaiah?
My blog is anti-Zionist, BTW. It deals with Zionism, not with Jews or Judaism. Please don't equate or conflate: you risk seriously upsetting the fine natives of this blog...
"I am not sure as to what masochistic reasoning he may have for immersing himself in the world of Jewish affairs but it is certainly not for the benefit of our people."
Trying to deal with Zionism's multiple fallacies, not to mention its cruel nature, requires indeed possibly some proverbial masochism, yes. Mark's (Levi9909) answer of 6:07 pm is perfectly adequate to me, though...
Now come back and try some coherent thought.
Never again.
I have expressed my opinion and if you do not like it then I do not care; I consider you to be a deeply dishonest anti-Semite who has based his whole existence on debasing Israel and Israelis, that is Jews; anyone who doubts this fact should look on his blog for this nasty characters absolutely grotesque and disgusting parody entitled “Ze Ultimate Solushion” and go through some old threads on HP; indeed any threads that involve Israel or Jews and this schmo is there with a passion.
You clearly know bupkis about Israel or why it exists (because of people like you in short) but you drip with hatred for a country that I’ll bet you have never even visited let alone lived in.
You hate me and my people shtick drek? Well I spit on you. You are nothing to us. You have no say.
Was it your ancestors who have endured millennia’s of persecution, degradation, oppression and murder? Was it your ancestors who were brutally murdered by the million for simply being Jewish? Was it your ancestors who fought for a homeland so that all Jews have a homeland and a safe place from future persecution? Was it you who has fought and bled for his people’s right to exist? Is it you who has served them every day of his life?
You have no say. You have no right.
At least with the skinheads and the far-rightists we can see them coming; they are honest in their intent. But you? You make me sick.
Owners of this site are you even aware of what this schmuck really is and what he really stands for?
For someone who introduced themselves as being "no zio fan" you are very sensitive to zionism's opponents. In fact you have become so touchy about the subject you have managed to conflate zionism, the State of Israel, the land of Palestine, the Israelis and the Jews.
Your take on Jewish history is a little skewed as well. Much Jewish suffering had been at the hands of other Jews and in many (possibly most) times and places over the past 2,000 years, at the interface of Jews and non-Jews, Jews have been privileged, not persecuted. You look at Jewish history through the prism of the holocaust.
This idea of yours that non-Jews have no right to criticise or condemn Israel is extremely racist and it misses the obvious point of the interdependence of societies and states. Israel does not simply exist because Jewish supremacists want it to. More powerful forces than anything native or organic to the middle east have an interest in maintaining Jewish supremacy in occupied Palestine and in maintaining a state of tension there. Actually, thanks to that, Israel is just about the most unsafe place a Jew can be.
But the rest of humanity must have a say as to whether its structure or its behaviour is acceptable and when you consider humanity's approach to similar structures and behaviours it would appear not to be.
Jamie has already posted on this issue,
http://heathlander.wordpress.com...rit-of-the-idf/
, as have I,
http://bureauofcounterpropaganda...ront-
lines.html
Now I'm no philosopher and haven't followed developments in the discipline, but it seems nowadays, the most pathetically sloppy reasoning is no impediment to success and kudos in the field:
http://bureauofcounterpropaganda...demands-
it.html
Even if I assume S. to be real, there's no point in further rebutting his kvetch, since as Mark's done rather a splendid job doing just that. Thereby also saving me much time. Much obliged, Mark!
Ernie:
"Now I'm no philosopher and haven't followed developments in the discipline, but it seems nowadays, the most pathetically sloppy reasoning is no impediment to success and kudos in the field:"
Absolutely. That goes also for historians. Or 'terror experts', or that entire cottage industry of self-appointed 'experts' tout court...
It's fairly typical of Gene to be impressed by Israel's own judgment of its own army. Interestingly, he realised that his argument wouldn't hold much sway with 'Israel's enemies', hence the caveatish follow-up paragraph where he sings the praises of Israeli society ('The Most Moral Society in the World'?) Now, I don't proclaim to be an expert on Israeli society but the US State Department's view of it clearly indicates not all is well in the Promised Land.
I am not in synch with Zionism although I sometimes have had to serve its goals in the military. That is a soldier’s lot.
I would be happy to return our original borders or maybe even a renegotiated position but ONLY, and that is a big ONLY if Israel can then be truly Israeli. This is not racism at all. This is why Israel was founded in the first place. Without the premise that Israel is a homeland for Jews given by both God and earned by terrible history we have no argument to continue as a nation.
What is so terrible with a Palestinian nation being Palestinian? Or Japan being Japanese? Nothing. That is not to say we cannot have other peoples, but the overall character of our country must remain Jewish.
History has shown us that violent state anti-Semitism will once again raise its head, and it is looking ever more likely to occur sooner rather then later. And when it does, not only will Jews all over the world have a safe haven to come to, but a well equipped and experienced army of brothers and sisters to come to their aid. We need that. We know we need that. You say that Jews have been ‘privileged’ over the past 2000 years Levi, but I ask you if that were really the theme for Jews over the past 2000 years? I think we all know that not only were we forcibly evicted from every European country several times over those two millennia over false anti-Semitic constructs but that the misery, torture and murder that accompanied it was played out again and again. The Shoah was just the logical conclusion of all of that persecution.
I am fiercely Israeli and I am fiercely Jewish and I am fiercely proud that the two are the same and I will fight, kill and die to protect that. Not out of hate but out of love. Without that commitment all Jews all over the world will be back to floating precariously in a hostile world entirely dependent on the good will of the Goy.
Never again.
As for ‘Gert’ I have no intention of calling you a liar Sir, but how do you really know these things of his ancestors? Because he told you? Have you actually read any of his interactions on sites such as HP or read the extremely offensive and hateful parody he wrote entitled “Ze Ultimate Solushion”? In them I see very aggressive and deep rooted anti-Semitism. Sure he claims to be an anti-racist and even shrouds his virulent anti-Semitism in that disguise because he couldn’t function any other way but I can feel the real hostility underneath. It is there for all to see. I do not trust the motives of this man for one second and nor should you. You make up your own mind Sir, but arm yourself with the real facts before you do. Israel exists because of people like ‘Gert’, and it is from people like him it needs defending. His attacks, attacks from an uninvolved Goy, on our very existence say everything you need to know.
I, as an American Jew, pay for the Zionists little exercise in 18th century British-Public-school Biblical Geography and colonialism.
I damn sure have a say.
"a discussion for Jews only" Be careful what you wish for, fool.
We are getting damned tired of those nuts in Israel. And you can take it straight from me, buddy, I am not giving up one-groats worth of what we have achieved in America for those Zionist nutters and murderers.
Yup, that's right, "nutters and murderers". Or do you think there's a special Jewish way to steal from people so they don't notice it?
And I congratulate you on escaping from the concentration camps. It must be quite a harrowing story.
Ah, I shouldn't let that guy frustrate me, there's just no point in getting angry at addicts, ziocaine addicts, that is.
And tell me, chump, how you plan to stop them? By kvetching about your poor ancestors? Well, see, that works if you are talking about people making fun of candle-lighting or prayers. It doesn't mean shit when you are killing people. When you do that, people talk. Or do you figure the world owes us a certain amount of killing? You know, to make up for those poor baked ancestors?
"abuse me or my homeland"
"I am no Zio fan..."
Someday I'm gonna put some batteries in my flashlight, throw on the first barrel I see, and go looking for an honest Zionist. Ain't found him yet.
The sad news here is that in Gaza no news really is bad news...
Every single thing you said can be found here !!
Michael T
No, just a guy who put way too much ziocaine in his coffee.
Agreed.
Having read it again, I wouldn't call it my finest effort but all three Jewish Zionist commenters saw it for what it was. Only one imbecile whose blog folded later didn't get it. Neither does S.
Pass judgment, demolish, praise or be indifferent!
I know Gert well enough to know that what I said about his family background is true. I have seen his interventions at Harry's Place and it was the incisiveness of them that got him banned from there. HP (especially david t) seems to ban people that win arguments unless they have too high a profile like say Stephen Marks or Michael Rosen, then they just get the trolls to shout abuse at them.
But if you were truly concerned about issues like murderous antisemitism you might show a little concern at the way HPers trivialise the nazi era by accusing all but the closest approximations to nazism of being nazis. I found it quite astonishing and disturbing just recently that HP will defend the right of UK nazis to appear on mainstream tv in the UK whilst banning people who criticise Israel. There are also many ugly manifestations of sectarian and racist hatred on Harrys Place that have never been equalled or surpassed with anti-Jewish equivalents on the same site. And yet you can yabber about Gert's "antisemitism" there as if it's a given.
I don't know how you distinguish zionism from the Jewish supremacy that you insist must characterise Israel. You are contradicting yourself when you say that Israel must remain Israeli and that it must remain Jewish. If Israel was a state for Israelis regardless of religion or ethnicity there might not be a such a problem. All we need then is to factor in the right of return for the natives and we're sorted. Further, Israel remaining Israeli or Jewish is not the same as Japan remaining or being Japanese. Japan is Japan by dint of where it is. Israel is a purely artificial construct in every conceivable sense. The Japanese are the people of Japan. The Palestinians are the people of Palestine. We can now say that the Israelis are the people of Israel but Israeli judges have ruled that there is either no such nation as Israeli or that there is no such thing as an Israeli nation as distinct from the Jewish nation. The problem there is of course that Jews are not Jews because of where we are from but because of our religion or the religion of our ancestors. By the by I'm not sure where I stand regarding if the Israelis are a nation. Tony Greenstein and Moshe Machover are having an interesting on-off dialogue about that. Tony's blog will put hairs on your chest, Schmaiah.
Regarding Jewish history, your take is ahistorical. Jewish history has been as chequered as any other history and people do not carry the suffering of past generations around with them unless they are indoctrinated to do so or they decide to do so.
You keep wondering who has been to Palestine and how many times and so on. That has nothing to do with anything. There is enough credible information in the public domain for people to make informed judgements about the situation without being or going there. You're not there now, maybe you were never there, I don't know. Just for the record, I have been there a few times and some of the regulars here are Israeli. But it doesn't change a thing where people are from, where they have been or where they are, unless, like you, they are making out that they are in a place that they are not in.
The state of Israel was founded to give a homeland to Jews so that they may have place free from persecution. Please tell me you know this, Levi? Please tell me you at least understand why, after so very long, the world at last gave us our own place in the sun? Please acknowledge you know this, Sir?
Israel is our place, our promised land and our refuge. Where else will go when history repeats itself? Who else will look after our brethren?
I have said I would be more then happy to renegotiate land, but not our very premise our very legitimacy or our right to control.
Do you really not understand that in any other configuration, Israel and its entire reason for being becomes redundant? Unnecessary? Irrelevant? Superfluous?
And that each attack upon the very foundation of Israel is an attack upon the future of all Jews ability to protect and fight for their own?
Of course there have been excesses and of course they must end. I have seen them. I have been present at some. I hated it. Such is a soldier’s lot. I remained because a few bad do not represent the many good and we need good men to remain and serve. Ready for anything. I really do fear that soon, all Jews may well need us.
I act out of love, not hate and it is a question of the utmost importance if people have even visited, let alone live in our homeland. If they have not, what do they know of the realities? And if they are not Jewish, why know they of the perils we have faced and continue to face?
That is my position and I do not apologise for it nor will I ever change it; thankfully, neither will the true Israelis.
Sir, you still haven’t told me how you know these claims of ‘gert’ to be true; is it just his word that you are taking on this? If so then I would respectfully suggest that you do not. Read that disgusting piece he links to whereby he compares Jews to Nazis and thinks this is somehow satirical and humorous. Scum.
Sir, you say you have seen some of his interactions on HP, did you by chance witness the interaction whereby he sexually and racially abused a poster calling herself “Israeli Nurse”? Did you read his disgusting remarks about her “Jewish tits”? If you did Sir, and read others like it you would feel as I do that this gross anti-Semite is merely indulging in some public masochistic fetish by mixing with us whilst attacking us at the same time.
The state of Israel was founded to give a homeland to Jews so that they may have place free from persecution. Please tell me you know this, Levi? Please tell me you at least understand why, after so very long, the world at last gave us our own place in the sun? Please acknowledge you know this, Sir?
Israel is our place, our promised land and our refuge. Where else will go when history repeats itself? Who else will look after our brethren?
I have said I would be more then happy to renegotiate land, but not our very premise our very legitimacy or our right to control.
Do you really not understand that in any other configuration, Israel and its entire reason for being becomes redundant? Unnecessary? Irrelevant? Superfluous?
And that each attack upon the very foundation of Israel is an attack upon the future of all Jews ability to protect and fight for their own?
Of course there have been excesses and of course they must end. I have seen them. I have been present at some. I hated it. Such is a soldier’s lot. I remained because a few bad do not represent the many good and we need good men to remain and serve. Ready for anything. I really do fear that soon, all Jews may well need us.
I act out of love, not hate and it is a question of the utmost importance if people have even visited, let alone live in our homeland. If they have not, what do they know of the realities? And if they are not Jewish, why know they of the perils we have faced and continue to face?
That is my position and I do not apologise for it nor will I ever change it; thankfully, neither will the true Israelis.
Sir, you still haven’t told me how you know these claims of ‘gert’ to be true; is it just his word that you are taking on this? If so then I would respectfully suggest that you do not. Read that disgusting piece he links to whereby he likens Jews to Nazis and thinks this is somehow satirical and humorous. Scum. Sir, you say you have seen some of his interactions on HP, did you by chance witness the interaction whereby he sexually and racially abused a poster calling herself “Israeli Nurse”? Did you read his disgusting remarks about her “Jewish tits”? If you did Sir, and read others like it you would feel as I do that this gross anti-Semite is merely indulging in some public masochistic fetish by mixing with us whilst attacking us at the same time.
I'm sorry, Schmaiah, I didn't get the e-mail from on high at my synagogue, could you CC me a copy.
I do remember tho, that God sent a compact disc called the "Ten Commandments". Does the new "God says Israel is home" memo supercede that, or do they work together in some way I am not aware of?
Better make that ion-lithium rechargables, or even the nickel kind.
Yeah, they cost a lot and the charger isn't free, but when you have to use that flashlight day and night for years, they pay for themselves.
And the barrel? What can I say, on me it looks good!
But he's no "zio", you understand!
I better call my dry cleaner and see if he's pressed my barrel yet, I've got a long search in front of me. And I told him a hundred times, "no starch in the staves, just the hoops, please", but the anti-Semite never listens!
That is very easily understood, Schmaiah, in the light of Kafka's revealing statement:
"The insecure position of Jews, insecure within themselves, insecure among peple, would make it above all comprehensible that they consider themselves to be allowed to own only what they hold in their hands or between their teeth..."
And considering the subject, I couldn't agree more.
"Did you read his disgusting remarks about her “Jewish tits”?"
You are now getting borderline slanderous:
I remember the exchange with IsraeliNurse very well. At some point she came up with usual croc about Israel's size ('they have 20 something states and all we have is the tiniest sliver of land').
I responded that the size of Israel is about as relevant to this discussion "as the size of my dick" (paraphrased from memory).
She responded that the "thought of your dick is revolting" (paraphrased from memory).
I then asked her how she would feel had I made such a remark about "her Jewish tits".
Fell free to dig up the episode, since as clearly you know where it is?
My point was once again to expose the horrible double standards at HP, where anything pro-Zionist is applauded (no matter how wrong or fallacious the statement in question) but where any real opposition gets treatments like this:
A commenter using the moniker "Gert's daughter":
"I told Dad to clean out his basement of SS porn..."
Would you consider such a vile comment to be 'anti-Goy' (to use your terms)? Not me. Ad hom, yes.
"If you did Sir, and read others like it you would feel as I do that this gross anti-Semite is merely indulging in some public masochistic fetish by mixing with us whilst attacking us at the same time."
You've pegged me and this blog all wrong. I came here looking for shelter after having been abused by the Zionutzies from Harry's Place and these kind souls here gave me a bowl of soup ;-)
"I am working in the USA at the moment on business for the Israeli government, for our people, as I have spent my entire life in the service of our people [...]"
But you're not a zio, oh no ("I don't like Reggae, oh no, I luvve it!" - Dreadlock Holiday). Who are you? Mark Regev (aka Iffie Ozzie)?
And you can quite with the 'anti-Semite' ploy: didn't you get the memo in DC? Few are scared of that epithet anymore...
Gosh, Schmaiah, may I tell you as a Jew I may never forgive you for dragging our religion into the hell of colonial-settlement projects, political minipulation, state power, war, occupation and death. I just can't think of anything better calculated to give the death blow to Judaism. Why would you have Judaism be responsble for any harm, let alone involved in the machinations of taking a land from others? Is that what it is to you, an excuse to steal based on past crimes against us?
You want me to be proud my religious symbol is on an atom bomb? You're meshuggana
But of course, I assume you will have a signed order from God before you use one of those things, right?
The thing is though, she never once mentioned your ethnicity; if you really felt that sexual taunt was needed and that you were just the man to stoop to it that was all it had to be. Why add in “Jewish” too? For what reason? Why insult her “Jewish tits”?
She knew why. They all knew why. You know why. I know why.
And that was just one example of your obvious Jew hatred slipping through the cracks. Aside from the disgusting so called satire “Ze Ultimate Solushion” where you contemptuously and brazenly compare Nazis to Jews. You put us on the same footing as Nazi’s. How dare you.
And of course, as I am in the US on Israeli business I am automatically a ‘Zionist’ and no doubt part of some global Jewish conspiracy too in your book (protocols most likely.)
Only anti-Semites do not care about being challenged as an anti-Semite and only anti-Semites inform Jews that the challenge means nothing to them or anyone else. It is always the first step in a bloody road.
You are most certainly an anti-Semite ‘gert’ and very strange masochistic one at that.
Don’t ever visit my country as we can smell racists like you.
Only when all this didn't work to make me repent my sins did they pull out "you suck". Almost as if they had read Gabriel's post and took it as a guide...
But I guess for mathematicians, it is "everything sucks, therefore you suck, Q.E.D"
Christian - Bob from Brockley pulled the "everything sucks" at his own blog just today or yesterday. Hang on, let me find it. Aha - I love the Normblog post, which sums it up so well. What is "mainstream" these days, and what is "dissent"? (17:02)
He loves that. A tenants' newsletter is equal to the New York Times. Maybe it's even more powerful. Chomsky is rich, so is Jimmy Carter therefore both are read by as many people, more even, than those who say that Israel is the only democracy in the middle east or that it's antisemitic to liken Israel and/or the occupation to apartheid. And it's simply wrong to speak of them as being "silenced" as if that were meant in absolute terms.
Bob keep company with a cohort of mean and stupid fellows, but he himself is of a rather different dispensation. We are all social animals, and the smartest person would grow dull if left to live a long time in utterly stupid company. But Bob belongs to that rather larger group whose intelligence is turned off by default, yet when confronted with the common sense of others, it shines it back like a sheet of aluminum reflecting the ambient light. If you argue with him, he will eventually concede that 2+2 is, why, never more than say, 4.3. But as soon as he withdraws to his sunless cave, the reflection vanishes at once, and he'll say something like, "so and so perceptively noted that 2+2=7, and I wholeheartedly concur."
This is frustrating, but the only remedy is to come to terms with the fact that people like that do exist, and indeed may be quite a few. They remind us why a good society needs not only brilliant individuals, but even more importantly, decently well lit institutions that would guarantee the Bobs at least a few hours of salubrious sunlight every day.
Mind you there are some who won't budge at all at any time. I have just completed (I hope) a discussion on the (and with) Modernity Blog. It's fucking insane. He's linked to the Socialist Unity blog because the Sand book gets a passing mention at a Palestine solidarity meeting and Modernity Blog seems to believe that the Khazar hypothesis "delegitimises Jews". I tried to establish how that was the case and he simply repeated his assertions until help came in the form of a professed "historian by profession" who argued that today's Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of four matriarchs from the Middle East and that Arabs are not native to Palestine. He then went on to call me a lunatic and "predicted" that I would say that he was obsessed with ethnic purity! The same professional historian correctly claimed that none of that stuff (about Jews anyway) has any bearing on the rights or wrongs of the existence of a state specifically for the world's Jews. I couldn't agree more.
***
On Jimmy Carter and co: "Silenced" - isn't that an absolute term? Silenced means no noise at all, not a little bit quiet. Carter - and Chomsky, and Walt & Mearsheimer, and Judith Butler, Tony Judt and all the rest - make quite a bit of noise. If the "Lobby" is silencing them, it's doing a pretty bad job.
And if they are a little to un-anti-Zionist for you guys, over on the other side of you Gilad Atzmon hasn't been silenced very effectively either has he, despite the Lobby getting the additional support of Tony G and Sue Blackwell and Michael Rosen and co.
***
Are the Jews a nation? Glad to hear Mark's not sure where he stands on that one. Maybe we have more in common than we thought. The advantage of an "everthing sucks" position is it makes it easier when you don't know where you stand. Myself, I don't think the Jews are a nation, because I think all nations are fictions. It only becomes important to assert or deny that Jews are a nation if you follow a nationalist logic. This is why the far right are so keen on what you call the Khazar hypothesis.
***
Finally, on the original topic of the post, I disagree with Rabbi Schochet's "family" analogy (I have been critical of Stephen Pollard and co for thinking that Kaminski is a friend of the Jews because he's a friend of Israel, but then most Engage-niks, along with other "Zios" like Louise Ellman and Miriam Shaviv agree with me on that). But Rabbi Schochet makes this point after an "also", and before the "also" is a clear denunciation of the xenophobic content of Yishai's comments.
I was bit stunned by the total lack of basic self-awareness. (Not because they are academics, it's an occupational hazard, but because I thought I knew these people a bit.)
"Fallacious", hahahaha, I didn't even notice there was a possible unintended pun in there but there you go...
S. shows again how desperate Zionists and their apologists are: having ran out of arguments completely they're willing to resort to nothing but smearing of the worst and most dishonest kind or to embrace the most phallic (oooops, now I really meant fallacious!) of arguments.
In S.'s book Zionism isn't racist but it's sanctioned by a racist Realtor in the Skies. After centuries of European despots, monarchs and dictators claiming their power was invested in them by G-d, with all the unpleasantness that that brought with it, Zionism (or at least S.'s strand of it) thought it could try the same. No wonder Tony Judt rightly claims Zionism was an idea that came too late: the ethno state as a concept had been largely abandoned by the time it came on the scene.
S., of course you're a Zionist, you support Israel and the unconditional Right of 'Return' for Jews. Not only that but you're clearly also a Zionist activist.
As regards what Mark said about me and my family, I can assure you that it is completely correct. We are committed anti-racists and have fought anti-Semitism in precisely the same way we've fought, and continue to fight, other forms of racism, including Zionism.
And now I'm gonna have to look at that Modernityblog again (some things never change...)
Many reactionary politicos in Israel simply use Zionism as a tool of advancement, but not for you, no no.. you are an actual ideologue, an ideologue lost in space much like Sharansky.
You've really stumbled into the wrong neighbourhood buddy.
You are simply saying that various people are claiming to have been silenced but you haven't said the context in which it has been said.
The opponents of Israel are silent in most of the mainstream media whilst the supporters get a free rein often to say stuff that is simply untrue to promote Israel or to smear its critics. That's no doubt why you "love" that nonsense that questions the validity of the term "mainstream".
I think all of the people you named have had meetings cancelled at short notice by hosts acting under pressure from zionists and of course various publishers have cancelled commissions of work by Israel's critics under lobby pressure. You must know this. And didn't Mearsheimer and Walt have their paper removed from the Harvard (or maybe Yale) website whilst Alan Dershowitz was allowed a page denouncing them? I think that's what happened.
The Israel lobby is indeed doing a bad job. It's its job to do a bad job and it has been rather good at that bad job. You visit sites and bookshops where you can read these critics of Israel and the US. Most people don't. Most people get their info from the major corporate media
Are Jews a nation? I don't recall saying that I don't know unless I was in a hurry. I wouldn't say that Jews are not a nation unless we say that like Roma and Sinti, Jews are a non-territorial nation. I think the bottom line for nationhood as in people with the right to self-determination is territorial contiguity, that is, all the people of a country have to be included otherwise it is not self-determination.
Re this Schochet geezer, I was unduly harsh and hasty but he is still a zionist. I shouldn't make assumptions as to meanings but he doesn't object to Israel being a racist state. He only objects when an Israeli minister embarrasses the family. I don't think that was sufficient grounds to accuse me of saying that Jews can do nothing right, only wrong. But then the bogus allegation of antisemitism has been the main way that the Israel lobby seeks to silence criticism of Israel.
Christian - I read that a lab technician at Columbia emailed some vile racist abuse to Joseph Massad and just got a verbal warning.
As far as I can see, his leftist credentials are: "20 to 20,000 Herz, +- 1.5 db at %.o5 THD"
Look, the world was a mess, there were all these ideologies lying around discredited, and you could pick 'em up for nothing! And the poor dispossessed Jews couldn't kick, but we told them Zionism would cure their rheumatism.
You know, there always has to be all kinds of magic in Zionism, and it comes in with the word Jew. It can't ever be a question of what this person did, and what these people did, and its effects and consequences. As soon as the word Jew appears, we enter a realm of magic, according to the Zionists. God forbid you should bust their spell.
The one thing Zionists will never understand is this: A religion, all decent people try to respect. You may have a low opinion of its efficacy for certain things, but that respect is a pretty powerful social convention, "here in these United States".
Probably a convention with some merit.
A state? Sorry, not in the same class. States are very much open to beinmg hated, and almost all states, especially those which start within memory by conquest, do things to make themselves hated. So, out of their almost reverential awe for the Jewish religion, the Zionists made it a state! And minipulate the good-will owed their religion.
So, I mean, what a fuckin privilege you give us Schmiah! Amoung all my fellow Americans, I alone am in the vaunted position of having a religion which rerquires apologetics for killing, because it gets to kill, being a state! Can their frickin' mega-Church do that? Even the Mormons have put that behind them, I think.
Anyway, nice to talk to an Israeli, and a stout Zionist.
And when you say "I wouldn't say that Jews are not a nation unless we say that like Roma and Sinti, Jews are a non-territorial nation", I presume you mean "I wouldn't say that Jews ARE a nation unless..."?? I think that, if we accept the idea of nations, there's no reason not to accept the idea of non-territorial nations. Why should contiguous territory have a special status over, say, ethnicity, culture, history, language, religion? Defining what counts as a naiton seems to me to immediately introduce examples that don't work, which is one of the reasons I don't like the idea of nations and national rights. Or, everything sucks.
Because states rule territories and if one ethnicity, one culture, one community's history, one language, and/or one religion are given primacy over the territory, others within it will suffer discrimination or ethnic cleansing or, in the case of the Palestinian Arabs, both.
That's not to say that there aren't other states where clearly one identity group dominates the identity of the state but everyone should be equal for the purpose of citizenship rights and no one from within a state's jurisdiction should be rendered stateless or illegal.
Because of Israel's self-definition as the state of the Jewish people and not of Israel's people, it is a state based on a permanent state of population transfer where the position of non-Jews is always disadvantaged. It is always problematic when one identity group (from more than one) dominates a state but when the ruling identity group comes from abroad and the natives are dispossessed, that problem is compounded intolerably.
I don't think there is another state that exists explicitly for people who don't come from there and not for the people that do but that state of affairs means a state of permanent conflict without any lasting peace until either the Arabs are entirely wiped out or the zionist project is abandoned.
So as a post-nationalist, as someone who does not believe in "nations" you seem to have alot of trouble with the critique of nationalism.
Are you also a bullfighter who advocates for animal rights?
"I think that, if we accept the idea of nations, there's no reason not to accept the idea of non-territorial nations. Why should contiguous territory have a special status"
Well then, why do conquering, non-territorial, chimerical nations find their defendant in you? oh great post-nationalist?
But of course "everything sucks".
Yes, this is exactly why I don't believe in nation-states. The whole idea of a nation-state is about giving rights to one group over others.
I guess with that, we've reached full circle, because that was precisely the point I was arguing the last time I came over here. I'm off to bed now, and will not be near a computer tomorrow, so I'll probably bow out here.
Sure, Bob. And az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde!
And thus we complete out lesson on the Yiddish words of the day schmendrick, and nudnik.
Thank you Bob, and your explication of the nation-state is brilliant! Makes me want to start an army which doesn't have a state!
Bob
Afn gonif brennt das hittel.
C'mon, Bob, we better practice our common language lest we lose that coveted free-floating nation-state status. As you know well, I'm sure you know, the tax advantages are tremendous! So Dress British, and Speak Yiddish!
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