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Before you ban 'Nazi,’ stop trivializing the Holocaust

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This is from Haaretz and comes to me by way of Lynda Mortl



Only in a country of boors could a law whose purpose is to remove a few common curses from the lexicon spark so much opposition. Judging by the excitement that gripped the social media, one would conclude that nothing is dearer to the hearts of young Israelis than the ability to curse others freely. A plethora of mocking comments could be read this week, and all of them led to the conclusion that the ban on use of the word “Nazi” as a form of verbal abuse was seen as a severe infringement on individual freedom.

I must confess that, for me at least, it would take a great deal of psychological effort to cleanse our speech of all kinds of curses that I periodically hiss through clenched teeth at moments of outrage, such as “May you die (or may you burn) at Hitler’s black grave.” That’s what people said in the neighborhood where I grew up. I also recall angry adults yelling “What is this, Auschwitz?” when, for instance, the line at the health clinic was especially long.

Yet the law is aimed not at naive expressions like these, but rather at truly intolerable, downright kitschy, uses, in the form of comparisons with the Holocaust and Nazism at demonstrations and protests by the left, the right and various other pressure groups that want something from the state.

Asylum seekers from Africa protest that they’re being mistreated? Hey, it’s a Holocaust. The ultra-Orthodox claim they’re being injured? Let’s go, another Holocaust. In my view, there was something unacceptable even in protests by elderly Holocaust survivors, of the state’s failure to adequately provide for them, that used Holocaust symbols on T-shirts and caps printed by the efficient public relations firm that volunteered to help them. It really does trivialize Holocaust victims when their singular catastrophe is turned into a routine metaphor that’s ostensibly appropriate for any injustice to any group of people whatsoever.

Nevertheless, it truly is impossible to rejoice at such a law, and I confess that I personally find it repulsive – though not for the semifacetious reasons generally offered on social media. My revulsion derives from the cumulative disappointment that is the lot of many members of my generation, who were born shortly after the establishment of the state and without asking for it were fed on the poisoned conduit of the Holocaust as if by intravenous drip.

Next came the ugly political manipulations of the Holocaust, perpetrated by left and right alike, each for its own reasons. And now, in our old age, we’ve reached the third stage, the worst of all, in which even what is termed “trivializing the Holocaust” has become terribly trivialized. And now I’ll explain what I mean.

When I say “the poisoned conduit of the Holocaust,” I’m referring to the fact that our childhood was spent in the shadow of the Eichmann trial, and the liberty that all and sundry took of filling our brains with descriptions of atrocities, without any consideration for the fact that this could do mortal damage to our childish souls. I believe the damage done then to an entire generation of children who were forcibly exposed to atrocity stories is what should have been curtailed by law. This unlimited exposure to atrocity among children of the first generation of the state is, in my view, what created many of the serious ills that we cry about today.

Even that miserable statement (in my view) by Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who called the settlers “Judeo-Nazis,” caused enormous damage. Had there been a law then of the kind they’re trying to pass now, perhaps this word – which caused a completely unnecessary schism and unnecessary hostility between people, who found themselves forced to choose between affiliation with absolute evil and absolute good – would never have been said. Who the Judeo-Nazis were was clear. And who were the absolute good? Clearly, they were Yeshayahu Leibowitz and all those who followed in his footsteps by calling the settlers “Nazis.”

In other words, the left also damaged itself by affixing the term “Nazis” to the settlers. It damaged itself primarily because it thereby became the refuge of the self-righteous, for whom the very fact that they weren’t settlers ostensibly sufficed to make them righteous. Or to put it another way, the moment there are absolute evildoers in the other camp, you don’t have to make any great effort to be good. And all this could have been avoided had they come up then with the bill they are advancing now, too late.

Those responsible for trivializing the Holocaust are politicians who arrogate for themselves the right, asserted back then by people such as Menachem Begin, for whom the pain of the Holocaust was a first-person experience, in order to imitate them by continuing to use the terminology of victimhood – which, as noted, was authentic with Begin but is completely empty for people like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet the new bill, naturally, doesn’t apply to the trivialization of the Holocaust these two figures perpetrate when they sow fabricated fear of a new Holocaust in their speeches.

Thus this bill, which was meant to prevent the trivialization of the Holocaust, completely misses its target. Instead of dealing with the unacceptable practices that lie at the root of this trivialization – including the irreversible damage done to children’s souls by unbridled Holocaust horror stories and the brainwashing they undergo as teens whose peak is the trip to the death camps in Poland – the law addresses only the fringes of the fringes of this trivialization.

Or to put it another way, is it any wonder that Israelis are aggressive and completely lacking in restraint when for years it’s been dripped into their brains that if they don’t stand up for themselves, they will suffer the fate of those who were thrown into the gas chambers? Isn’t it obvious that such aggressive creatures, whose entire world of the imagination rests on second- and third-hand Holocaust trauma, would resort in moments of outrage to imagery from the world of their imaginary traumas? So first, let’s please disconnect the poisoned conduit from their brains.

'Ah, How Sweet It Is To Be Jewish ...'

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This piece from 1998 by Robert Faurisson for the IHR well exemplifies my belief that we Jews have a basic ethnic flaw: For all our cleverness we are always too busy, busy, busy to glance into the eyes of the other - and see that he's had enough.

Alain Finkielraut's words, as reported by Professor Faurisson, should be read with raised eyebrows, by all Jews today.

Paying Tribute to Jewish Power
'Ah, How Sweet It Is To Be Jewish ...'

Robert Faurisson

Alain Finkielkraut is a professor of philosophy at France's elite Ecole Polytechnique who for years has been a darling of a certain section of the Parisian intelligentsia. In 1982, at the time of one of my first trials for calling the Auschwitz gas chamber story a historical lie, he revealed his concern about revisionism in a muddled work entitled L'Avenir d'une négation ("The Future of a Denial"). On the first page of this book he described me as being "of the ilk of Big Brother," and on page 66 he wrote: "In terms of method, the deniers of the gas chambers are the spiritual children of the big Stalinists."

In 1987 I had a personal encounter with Finkielkraut in Paris' Latin Quarter, when an anti-revisionist conference was being held at the Sorbonne. Groups of young Jews were roaming the area, on the lookout for potential revisionists. Finkielkraut was with one of these groups. Together with three or four young Jews, he came into the café where I happened to be. I greeted him with the words "They're done for, your gas chambers!" a rash remark for which I was to pay an hour later. But, at that moment, taken aback, he mumbled a reply and quickly left the café with his friends.

Since then I have followed his activities. He has steadily made something of a speciality of denouncing the "Jewish maximalism" of such figures as Claude Lanzmann.

Last October, Finkielkraut wrote an essay defending Cardinal Stepinac (1896-1960), who was being widely attacked for having collaborated with Croatia's wartime "Ustasha" regime. The essay, published in the leading French daily Le Monde, October 7, 1998 (p. 14), is entitled "Mgr Stepinac and Europe's Two Griefs" ("Mgr Stepinac et les deux douleurs de l'Europe"). In it Finkielkraut defended both the late Cardinal's memory and the wartime Croatian Roman Catholic Church. He recalled that, from 1941, the Church defended the Jews against the Ustasha regime. Stepinac, he went on, suffered personally as a victim of what he calls "Europe's two griefs": Fascism and Communism.

But what especially catches the reader's attention are the essays opening lines:


Ah, how sweet it is to be Jewish at the end of this 20th century! We are no longer History's accused, but its darlings. The spirit of the times loves, honors, and defends us, watches over our interests; it even needs our imprimatur. Journalists draw up ruthless indictments against all that Europe still has in the way of Nazi collaborators or those nostalgic for the Nazi era. Churches repent, states do penance, Switzerland no longer knows where to stand ...

Obviously, it is "sweet" to be Jewish in these final years of the century, but only a Jew has the right to say so. In effect, as Finkielkraut acknowledges, it is no longer possible to publish without the imprimatur of organized Jewry. In effect, I mightadd, the Jew reigns unopposed.

Each year in France, the Interior Ministry and certain specialized and generously subsidized agencies carefully note and tally every incident in our country that might be regarded as anti-Semitic. Try as they do to inflate their figures, the result isclear: practically no anti-Semitic incidents can be detected in France.

If it is true that it is so sweet to be Jewish, then what right do Jews have to complain of a (nearly non-existent) anti-Semitism, or to demand, and obtain, ever harsher legal repression of revisionism, which they have succeeded in identifying with anti-Semitism?

This same October 7 issue of Le Monde reports that Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of France's National Front party, must once again pay dearly for having had the temerity, at a meeting in Munich in December 1997, to state that the gas chambers are a detail of Second World War history. [See "French Courts Punish Holocaust Apostasy," March-April 1998 Journal, pp. 14-15.] The European Parliament, by a huge majority, had just voted to suspend Le Pen's parliamentary immunity. A German court may sentence him to five years' imprisonment. In the European Parliament, German member Willy Rothley, speaking for the Socialist faction, said that a goal of his country's penal code is to "protect the young against falsifications of history." He went on to warn: "If Mr. Le Pen does not answer the summons of my country's courts, he will be imprisoned as soon as he sets foot on German soil."

In Germany, repression has reached new heights. (Even Americans traveling in Germany, or a neighboring country, can be thrown into a German jail for revisionist felonies.) For the same offending remark, Le Pen has been, and is again being, prosecuted in France. In 1991, a French court ordered him to pay 1,200,000 francs (more than $200,000) for his original "detail" remark, made in 1987. On the basis of an emergency interim ruling of December 26, 1997, he is also currently "under investigation" in Paris for his Munich "detail" remark. Thus, for the same statement, he is being charged simultaneously in Munich and in Paris.

Precisely a week after the publication of his Le Monde essay, in which he conceded that Jews have nothing to complain about in France, Finkielkraut had the chutzpah to appear as a witness in the Paris Court of Appeal (11th chamber) to complain about the alleged threat to French Jews posed by revisionists. On October 14 he testified against Roger Garaudy, author of The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, and publisher Pierre Guillaume. Finkielkraut regarded Garaudy an anti-Semite and a "Faurissonian." He declared his approval of France's anti-revisionist "Fabius-Gayssot" law. The state, Finkielkraut said, must punish hatred. (The first to call for the introduction in France of an anti-revisionist law on the model of the Israeli law of July 1981 was a group of Jewish historians including Pierre Vidal-Naquet and Georges Wellers, united around René-Samuel Sirat, Chief Rabbi of France [Bulletin quotidien de l'Agence télégraphique juive, June 2, 1986, p. 1, 3]. This law, called the "Fabius-Gayssot Act," was promulgated on July 13, 1990.)

Day by day, I follow with interest this mighty rise of Jewish power. In my own modest way, I pay tribute to this power. Each month I send my payment of 5,000 francs (about $900) to the "Paris Fines Receiver," which collects the sums I am obliged regularly to hand over for revisionism, that is to say, for having annoyed organized Jewry.

I must constantly reckon with new charges and court battles.

In France, in Germany, in Palestine -- indeed, when one looks closely, everywhere in the world, including Japan, it is prudent not to offend, even indirectly or unwittingly, those who, like Finkielkraut, can sigh: "Ah, how sweet it is to be Jewish at the end of this 20th century!"

As for the rest of us, we do not even have the right publicly to mutter: "Ah, how grievous it is not to be Jewish at the end of this 20th century!"

-- October 15, 1998

A German soldier's story

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From Justice for Germans

The following was sent to me by a German friend who wished to share a portion of his grandfather’s personal testimony, along with some photos and documentation, regarding his grandfather’s post-war captivity in Austria, outside of Linz:



My Grandfather was Karl Matter. His division fought on the Hungarian border before surrendering to US forces. They fought a narrow line between the Soviets and the US and surrendered to the US side after running out of ammunition on May 9th. His Division, including others of about 20,000 men were held in an open field compound outside of Linz Austria (likely at Gallneukirchen). It was a large muddy compound just like the Rhine Meadow camps. I can assure you there were a lot more than 188 such camps that are acknowledged in the documentary.

What happened in the field is a story that I was told as a young man which I’ll never forget:



They were placed in a muddy field with no tents, no food and no clothing, packed together for a week living in their own feces, surrounded by an enormous circling wall of hundreds US vehicles, and thousands of men. Once in a while for fun, a US guard would target practice on indiscriminate prisoners. That was a common event I later learned, because many US soldiers never had the opportunity to claim “a kill” until after the war.

After a few days they began drinking their our own urine and eating leather. After one week with no food whatsoever, a US transport plane flew over the compound of these emaciated POW’s and dropped large Red Cross packages of butter, but nothing else. Just pure butter. Those that ate it died, because it greased their insides, causing diarrhea, and thereby, to lose whatever remaining fluids were still in their bodies. Grandfather refused to eat it, but they lost a lot of men that way. Then, the following day, a transport flew over again and dropped the Red Cross bread! That meant, that these surrendered soldiers were deliberately refused food, which was available, for one whole week!

I later learned from my own research that local civilians were ordered not to feed them, or they would be executed as non combatant partisans aiding the enemy. The facts of the butter and bread story confirmed to me that it was an intentional, cruel and deadly plan. The provisions were intentionally withheld for reasons of vengeance, or it was someone’s sick idea of a joke, and it was no different than the guards taking pot shots at them ‘just for fun’.

Afterwards, of those who survived the initial ordeal, the entire remaining Division, which had consisted mostly of Germans and some others from Baltic countries, was then handed over to the Russians, who executed all of them, and all within hearing distance of the US military which had transported them back over the border. But Grandfather survived because his ”Soldbuch” showed that he was born in Yugoslavia, which made him property of Tito, and not the Russians, so he was sent back to an American labor camp, but due to illness, was unable to continue working. Eventually reunited with his family and they escaped Tito’s concentration camps, via the Red Cross after a year or so. Perhaps closer to two years.





There’s also another vivid account of from my Grandfather which never made any history books, regarding the retaking of Kharkov as part of I SS Panzer Korps and the incredible war crimes that the Soviets committed on the civilian population there. It’s very sad! The story of the 3rd Waffen SS Division is not widely published and only very few survived captivity, so there were only a few autobiographical accounts. One book is “Wie ein Fels im Meer” by Karl Ulrich, the commander of one of the three regiments that made up the Division; my Grandfather’s Regiment was #3. In fact, there’s a photo of my Grandfather in that book! It well describes the final roundup of the Division like no other book, which is only available in German, but I recommend it!

Source: Ray Matter (who is also a long time and very dedicated war crimes researcher)

Holocaust denial is despicable – but it's wrong to ban it

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This is from The Telegraph by someone called Brendan O'Neill :

For all kinds of reasons, Brendan has filled me with hope.

Dieudonne M'bala M'bala. (Photo: Getty)

If I was drawing up a list of the most morally repugnant people, Holocaust deniers would be right up there, probably in the top three. These pathetic individuals possess all the worst traits of the modern era. They’re anti-intellectual, cynically insulating themselves from truth and proven fact. They’re paranoid, being convinced that a conspiracy of dastardly Jews invented a great crime in order to make money and create Israel. And, of course, they’re hateful, being fuelled by the oldest of prejudices, anti-Semitism. They try to doll up their truth-distorting project as a “radical” or “revisionist” take on the events of the 20th century, but it doesn’t take much scratching to discover that behind every expression of doubt that the Holocaust occurred there lurks someone who simply fears and loathes the Jews.

So, should we ban them? They seem ideal candidates for censorship. What they say and publish has absolutely no historical or moral worth. It is factually incorrect, it is often deeply disturbing, and it is upsetting to those who survived the Holocaust or whose forebears perished in it. I would wager that the vast majority of humankind would not miss the outpourings of these scoundrels if they were to be expunged from public life.

Should we expunge them, then? No. Never. Holocaust denial might be a highly immoral enterprise, but to ban it would be a grave moral error, too, since it would send the message that we, the huge majority of humanity that knows the Holocaust occurred, have something to hide, and that Truth is incapable of winning a war of words and wits against Falsehood.

The question of whether Holocaust denial should be banned has been raised once more by recent events in France. The ridiculous comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, infamous for making the anti-Semitic quenelle salute popular, is currently banned from performing in various French cities. The main justification for the ban is that his performances could pose a threat to public order, but according to French politicians it is also Dieudonne's penchant for denying the Holocaust that makes him unsuitable for public life. The French Interior Minister Manuel Valls says Dieudonne is being censored because he spreads “racism, anti-Semitism [and] Holocaust denial”. France has strict laws against denying the Holocaust. Under the 1990 Gayssot Act, anyone who “disputes the existence of crimes against humanity” carried out by the Nazis can be punished by one month’s to one year’s imprisonment or a hefty fine. The French state says it will now try to ban videos of Dieudonne's performances from the internet.

Banning Holocaust denial is always a mistake. It does nothing to confront or challenge the prejudices that underpin this worldview. On the contrary, in pushing such prejudices underground, away from public view, it allows them to fester and even to gain in popularity among the more fringe and freakish sections of society. Censoring Holocaust denial turns it into a kind of forbidden fruit, making it seem dangerous and edgy, something that so freaks out the entire state, political class and mainstream of society that it must be stringently criminalised. This gives it a feeling of intrigue. Certainly censoring Holocaust denial does nothing to reduce the attraction of such denial to those sections of society likely to embrace it in the first place – self-styled outcasts, "anti-establishment" types one step away from becoming full-blown anti-Semites, immigrant communities who loathe Zionism – and in fact can make it seem even more enticing to them, through imbuing it with a strange, mysterious, establishment-rattling power.

The terrible irony in Europe today is that the banning of Holocaust denial could be the one thing that keeps this clapped-out, fact-free ideology chugging along. Indeed, the increasing use of the quenelle, a kind of stymied Sieg Heil salute, speaks to how the censoring of Holocaust denial leads to a situation where this ideology not only comes to be expressed in more coded, guarded ways, in order to escape the attentions of the censor, but also wins more and more acolytes who come to see it as a dark, exotic, politician-snubbing outlook. An outlook which by now ought only to be held by tiny handfuls of sad Hitler sympathisers in macs has somehow, in recent years, become a growing movement, an underground political tribe. There are numerous reasons why Holocaust denial has gained this new lease of life, but it seems unquestionable that its unwitting mystification by states and experts keen to extinguish it has been a key contributor to its cultish revival. The continued existence and even growth of Holocaust denial in countries like France and other places where it is banned reveals a really important fact about censorship – that it is the worst tool one could possibly use to combat backward ideas, since it opts childishly to blank out such views rather than defeating them through a public moral reckoning and the marshalling of truth for a showdown with BS.

The worst thing about the censorship of Holocaust denial is that it gives the impression that the mainstream of society is defensive on the question of the Holocaust – so defensive that we feel the need to erect around this historical event a forcefield of censorship preventing people from questioning what happened. This hands a moral victory to the deniers, fuelling their belief that we, the reasoned people, are trying to hide something, are scared of debate, are worried that the truth of the Holocaust might be easily pricked by… well, pricks. There is no need for such defensiveness. We know, we have proven, the truth of what happened to the Jews of Europe 70 years ago. Let losers doubt it and deny it, and let the rest of us either ignore them or, if you encounter one face to face, give him hands-on talking-to. Sooner or later, robbed of the power unwittingly ascribed to it by the panic and censorship of officialdom, Holocaust denial will go the way of most other lies in history – to the grave.

Dissidence and its discontents

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The piece below comes from Kevin MacDonald writing in The Occidental Observer

MacDonald's piece is called "Conversion to White Advocacy: The Social Nexus" - pretty cool terms for something as emotional as is dissidence - but then Kevin MacDonald is a scientist.

I'm always interested in the subjects Kevin MacDonald is interested in - White Advocacy, race and sociobiology - but here, it's the 'dissidence' that really interests me.  

I tried to write about my own dissidence, such as it is, in My Life as a Holocaust Denier - but that was written quite soon after I wrote The Holocaust Warswhen my feelings - anger, upset and bewilderment - were even rawer than they are now and I had very little understanding of what was going on. 

Since then things have changed - but not all that much. I still haven't got anywhere near to the bottom of it all, nor have I satisfactorily extracted any universal principles. But I have had some thoughts and here they are: 

MacDonald's piece contains the quotation "Life often forces us to choose between subjective happiness and greater goods.” This really caught my eye. I can safely say I've never done anything because of any conscious wish to promote any 'greater good', no, for me, the key word in that quote is 'forced'. I've done whatever I've done simply because I could do nothing else - and my hunch is this is true for others as well. 

And I'll go further and offer a piece of completely unsolicited advice to any wannabee big-shot dissidents out there: If you can possibly avoid it, do so. If you really cannot not do it, then go ahead full-steam and do it - and good luck.

People often think dissidents and people like that are noble folk with some deep, inner contentment. I've not found this to be so. The dissidents I've met are often (not always - Ernst Zundel, for example, seems a delightfully centered and contented man) solitary, discontented folk, even somewhat embittered. But this should come as no surprise. If you'd been insulted, ignored, vilified for years and had to desperately cling on to something pretty much all by yourself,  how do you think you'd end up? 

The main problems come from those closest to you. The story that comes to mind is that of Richard Goldstone, the South African (Jewish) international jurist who wrote a report on the 2008 Israeli assault on Gaza. The report was highly critical of Israel but it also contained some serious criticisms of Hamas. Predictably, the Jews (As ever, by this I mean those Jewish apparatchiks who cause so much grief to non-Jew and Jew alike) came down on Goldstone like a ton of bricks. 

Now Goldstone was an experienced Jew and a respected and experienced jurist and public figure so this kind of thing could have come as no surprise to him. But he recanted and why, because his family were going to bar him from attending his grandson's barmitzvah. 

When I wrote The Holocaust Wars I knew it wouldn't exactly be warmly received by the Palestine solidarity movement so I was pretty well prepared for what followed but, to quote myself: "...nothing but nothing  could have prepared me for the effects on my family.....their anger I could bear - harder to bear were their tears.My relations in this respect with my own family (very dear to me and I to them) have certainly never involved any threats and recantations - but they have involved pain on all sides.

Dissidence means loneliness. This is nothing to do with how many friends you have, or how many people applaud you. It's to do with knowing something you can never share, about being in a crowded room but always being alone inside. 

Note: This isolation is wonderfully ameliorated by those many friends / colleagues /comrades/ kameraden / fellow travellers etc. You know who you are.


Conversion to White Advocacy: The Social Nexus by Kevin MacDonald

Greg Johnson asked me to comment on my conversion to my present political views in his essay on William James’s ideas on religious conversion “The Psychology of Conversion” (December 17, 2013). I agree with the general point that people who convert have already come to accept a new set of ideas, so that conversion for me was a matter of re-prioritizing beliefs already there. As an evolutionary biologist by training, I was open to the idea that the human mind was shaped by natural selection. I could see that in many ways, particularly in the area of sex differences. But when scientists like J. Philippe Rushton came out with data on race differences in IQ, I saw this work as subject to the same standards of scientific scholarship as any other.

I had long been aware that the opponents of sociobiology were often the same people who made hysterical, blatantly political pronouncements on race differences, and from my days as a graduate student, I was aware that the most prominent among them were Jews in elite academic positions—most notably, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin. Much of this then became the focus of Chapter 2 of The Culture of Critique, which may be seen as a sort of intellectual, footnoted version of what started out as a gut level reaction to my surroundings and readings as a graduate student in the 1970s.

And at an even more basic level, an appreciation of the process of evolution makes one aware that the name of the game is competition between different gene pools—a basic idea underlying my writing on Judaism from an evolutionary perspective. Again, the same people who were trashing sociobiology and the science of race differences were creating an evolutionary biology of humans in which fitness (what Frank Salter labels “ethnic genetic interests”), particularly relative fitness between groups, didn’t matter at all. Quite frankly, I became very concerned about the future of the people from my gene pool—would we prosper in the future, or even survive at all. Going the way of the dinosaurs is more than an expression. Where are the Samaritans now? The decline of Whites and their culture is happening with breathtaking speed. As humans, we can decide not to play the evolutionary game. But if you don’t play, you lose. Animals instinctively play the game—they are engineered to do nothing else. But at this point and given the importance of culture for humans (the culture of White pathology), White people have to decide that the game is worth playing and that it is morally acceptable to play.




When my books on Judaism from an evolutionary perspective came out, I was contacted by individuals who had a long history of involvement in White advocacy and who had understood Jewish issues (often beginning at their father’s knee or from personal experience or from reading someone like Wilmot Robertson). At that point, I was ready to be converted into someone for whom these issues are at the very center of personal identity. Like Greg, I did not become converted because of the educational efforts of the racialist right. Rather, it was a personal odyssey of discovery which led me in their direction.

In doing this, the most difficult thing was dealing with the moral stigma when one comes out as publicly identified with White advocacy and criticism of Jews—also the case with Greg. This underscores the critical importance of attending to the moral case for White advocacy. But when the inevitable explosion happened at my university, resulting in ostracism and vilification, it helped greatly to know that other people I respected believed as I did and valued my contribution.

In effect, I had jettisoned one moral community for another. I had come to see my former moral community as not only intellectually bankrupt, but also highly immoral because the policies they were advocating would be a completely undeserved disaster to the traditional people and culture of the West. I came to realize that the emotions and attitudes of those advocating these positions were typically motivated by hatred of the traditional people and culture of the West rather than love of abstract, universal humanity that often appeared as the surface.

Even these convictions were not enough to completely compensate for the hatred directed at me by colleagues, particularly Jewish colleagues, at my university. But with time, it gets easier. And I think there is a grudging, if tacit, respect among many White faculty, realizing, as they must, that their own political options are very narrowly constrained and seeing with their own eyes the consequences of White displacement that is occurring throughout the university.

So I agree that information alone cannot produce conversion. In my case and I suspect for many others, it requires discovering a supportive community of like-minded people. As Greg notes, “Life often forces us to choose between subjective happiness and greater goods.” That’s very true. You may have to give up some aspects of personal happiness to be a committed White advocate. But there also is a great deal of solace in finding a supportive community.

The topic of conversion is central to how we move ahead. I recently came upon Understanding Religious Conversion, by Lewis R. Rambo (Yale University Press, 1993), which is something of a classic in the field of the psychology of religious conversion. Rambo argues for the following sequence which seems relevant to what happened with me and likely many others:
Context: The context of conversion was the above-described disenchantment with the politically motivated attacks on sociobiology in the 1970s and the attacks on race differences research in the period after J. Philippe Rushton integrated race differences research with evolutionary biology in a compelling manner. (Jensen’s pioneering research on race differences in IQ was not an influence probably because, as an evolutionary biologist, behavior genetics research was not at the center of my intellectual world.) I was also troubled by Reagan’s immigration amnesty and I had developed negative attitudes toward the power of the Israel Lobby during the 1976 presidential campaign when, ironically, Jimmy Carter pledged fealty to Israel during a campaign appearance in New York. These were not sufficient to produce a conversion to White advocacy, but they were the context in which it occurred—increasing disenchantment and anxiety over a number of issues, reinforced now with my reading on Jewish influence.
Crisis. Rambo proposes that the crisis typically comes before the person encounters advocates of the new framework—that people often seek out conversions, and I suppose that would apply to me. “During a severe crisis, the deficiencies of a culture become obvious to many people, thus stimulating interest in new alternatives.”

Many of us believe that the system as presently constituted is unsustainable in the long run, but even in the short run there is a much-commented-on feeling of anger and dissatisfaction in White America, seen, for example in the Tea Party movement — a sense of uncertainty about the future and a sense that the country they grew up in is fast disappearing. As Greg notes,

Like Communism, the American system is becoming increasingly hollow and brittle as more whites decide, in the privacy of their own minds, that equality is a lie, diversity is a plague, and the system is stacked against them. But they do not act on these convictions because they think that they are basically alone. If they slip, they know they will be persecuted, and nobody will come to their defense. (Nobody but those people.) But if the system’s ability to stifle dissent wavers long enough for people to realize that they are not alone, then things can change very quickly. And such changes hinge on moral factors, not information.

In other words, more and more Whites have entered a crisis mode where comforting bromides about diversity as “our greatest strength” and the moral imperatives of Whites ceding power and of egalitarian outcomes in all areas of life seem nothing more than lies propping up a corrupt, anti-White system. But they need to find support groups of like-minded people.
Quest: The crisis sets off a search for new ideas and new support groups. Rambo notes that in order for conversion to occur, the person must be connected within a religious community. The analogy here is obvious. Quite possibly, this could result in finding the many sites on the Internet that now put out intelligent commentary from a White advocacy point of view. These days, people who are in a quest for a new perspective and a new support group centered in White advocacy have lots of options available.
Encounter: Rambo notes that close personal friendships in the conversionary group are important: “personal relationships are often important in the validation of a new belief system. … Even when a conversion is intellectual in content, the presence of friendships or a system of support provides a critical milieu in which the person can explore intellectual and spiritual issues” (109–110). In coming out as a White advocate, it certainly helped that I had formed friendships with people like J. Philippe Rushton as well as others at various conferences and events.
Interaction: Encounters lead to interactions, which Rambo describes as an “intense and critical” part of the conversion process. Unlike the stereotypes promoted by the media, I found that a great many of the people I was now interacting with were warm, well-adjusted, intelligent people, resulting in relationships that are very personally rewarding. Without these relationships, I very much doubt that I ever would have made a public commitment to White advocacy. Living in a highly populated area like Southern California where the negatives of diversity and White displacement are starkly apparent, many of us look forward to regular social events at the local level with like-minded others.

Sometimes I get emails from people who are intellectually on page but don’t know anyone they can talk to and relate to in a personal, face-to-face manner. It may take a while depending on one’s geographical location, but the general malaise of White America means that there are actually quite a few people who are potential friends. One just has to work at it. For example, going to a public conference, such as the recent National Policy Institute in Washington, DC, would be a good place to meet like-minded others and develop friendships and the social support necessary to maintain commitment.

Similarity in age is very important. Recently Matt Parrott noted in his comments on the October NPI conference, “since I first started doing this work in my early twenties, the Left has teased us for being a dying breed, a handful of crusty geezers who are ‘afraid of the future.’ There was some truth to the charge when I first started, but the tide’s been turning for a while now.”

I’ve noticed the same thing (although I have to acknowledge that I am getting to be part of geezerdom myself.) Lots of great young people are now well-established in the movement.
Commitment: Becoming a completely committed convert is a gradual process, with greater levels of commitment forged as one becomes more comfortable in one’s new milieu and more confident that it has at least partially adequate substitutes for the satisfactions and solaces of one’s previous social milieu. Part of what this means, however, is that all involved in White advocacy should do their best to make White advocacy a supportive, welcoming environment. All of us understand that for many, there is still a very large price to pay for coming out publicly, including job loss, so we have to be tolerant of different levels of commitment and public exposure, as Greg also advocates.
Consequences: The consequences of conversion can be profound both at the level of the individual and, we hope, eventually at the level of society. At the individual level, Rambo notes that all strong cultures reward conformity and punish deviance and that, in general, people who convert under hostile circumstances are marginal people. At this time, White advocacy is a deviant idea, very much subject to punishment, and all of us in the White advocacy movement have seen our share of marginal people. However, as noted, the good news is that we are beginning to attract people who are not marginal at all, well-educated, bright, attractive people who can become good friends and dependable, responsible, effective members of the White advocacy community.

The future is bright indeed.

More on David Stein (Cole)

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This is by Kevin Barratt and is posted on Veterans Today

“Holocaust expert” David Cole Stein: Quintessentially Jewish – with a shred of integrity



David Cole, who used to make revisionist Holocaust documentaries, changed his name to David Stein, and started “giving mainstream audiences what they want.”
by Kevin Barrett



Nobody can say that professional Holocaust expert David Stein, née David Cole, lacks even a shred of integrity.

He definitely has a shred. Maybe even a couple of shreds.

Which is more than can be said of his detractors.

The West Coast Republican Party establishment is howling with rage, livid that many of its leading figures were “tricked” by David Stein – the founder of “Republican Party Animals” – who turned out to be the kinder, gentler incarnation of Jewish Holocaust revisionist David Cole.

The thought of all those Hollywood Republican bigwigs and neocon poobahs making “Holocaust denier” David Cole their go-to guy for socializing has them all rolling around on the floor convulsing in rage. The rest of us are rolling around convulsing in laughter.

As The Guardian explains:

“Over the past five years Stein’s organisation, Republican Party Animals, drew hundreds to regular events in and around Los Angeles, making him a darling of conservative blogs and talkshows. That he made respected documentaries on the Holocaust added intellectual cachet and Jewish support to Stein’s cocktail of politics, irreverence and rock and roll. There was just one problem…”

The problem was that the Republican Party was partying with one of the world’s leading “holocaust deniers.”

David Cole Stein’s parties must have been a gas. I understand the bedroom closet with the tank of nitrous oxide was called the “gas chamber,” and you could sometimes find Fred Leuchter in there sucking the hose and chipping away at the drywall with his hammer and chisel.

I’m kind of sorry I missed those parties.

But the best part about the whole story is – get this – David Cole, under his new name “David Stein,” has been earning a living making mainstream Holocaust documentaries…which he apparently doesn’t believe a word of! His explanation: “I gave mainstream audiences what they wanted.”

Too much! David, you have just earned yourself a Larry Silverstein Award for Chutzpah Above and Beyond the Call of Duty.

And you have proved that chutzpah is not just for assholes like Silverstein. It’s also for guys like you who are too cool for words, and who somehow retain a shred or two of integrity under seriously difficult circumstances.

I don’t know whether David Cole is right about the Holocaust. But the more I study the issue, the more I think that Cole and my friend Nick Kollerstrom and others like them are raising legitimate questions. It’s disgusting how Dr. Kollerstrom was witch-hunted out of University College of London for publishing a scholarly article that nobody there could refute. And it’s disgusting how the Jewish Defense League terrorists silenced David Cole for all these years with their death threats.

The Republicans who were partying with David Cole yesterday, and falling all over themselves to disown him today, are even more disgusting.

These people apparently have no arguments. So they bleat like terrified sheep, or howl like rabid jackals, as they scramble to distance themselves from the one intelligent human being in their midst – the one guy with the ability to think for himself, the one guy with a shred of integrity.

This is the sort of thing that happened to the prophets, when they spoke truths the corrupt society around them didn’t want to hear.

I submit that not only is David Cole something of a genius – he’s also quintessentially Jewish. Which makes the people who don’t like him – dare I say it – anti-Semites. (There – that will shut them up!)

David Cole is a walking, talking embodiment of what Douglas Rushkoff identifies as the core of Judaism: iconoclasm. According to Rushkoff, Jews take the spirit of “nothing sacred” to extremes, smashing tribal idols of all varieties – which is one reason they’re always getting themselves in trouble with their neighbors.

David Cole’s revisionist work aims to smash one of the biggest, ugliest tribal idols of our time: The Holocaust religion, which seems to have replaced Judaism and Christianity as the idolatrous new faith of the West. Just standing up in public as the leading Jewish Holocaust revisionist is a courageous act of ultimate iconoclasm…which makes David Cole one of the greatest Jews of our time, maybe even of all time. (That may or may not get him a standing ovation in LA’s B’nai David Judea synagogue…)

Rushkoff also credits Judaism with the invention of “abstract monotheism.” And abstract monotheism – the notion that the same ineffable, abstract God created and presides over the entire universe, and cares about human ethics – leads to abstract, universal morality…which is a huge advance over concrete, tribal moralities (“my tribe right, your tribe wrong.”) By stepping outside the emotional logic of the tribal consensus, and applying a universalist historical methodology to Holocaust studies, David Cole has proven himself an outstanding exemplar of the best kind of Judaism.

Rushkoff also points out that this best kind of Judaism has always evinced a strong concern for social justice. (Of course, you wouldn’t know it by looking at the Zionists’ behavior…maybe that’s because Holocaustian Zionism is a completely different, idolatrous pseudo-religion that is incompatible with Judaism.)

David Cole’s Holocaust revisionism is deeply rooted in this traditional Jewish notion of justice. If indeed the Holocaust Religion is based on falsehoods and exaggerations, as Cole maintains, then justice requires some serious idol-smashing.

Kinky Friedman, lead singer of the Texas Jewboys, tells us “they ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus any more.”


“They ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus any more.” Maybe not – but David Cole has enough integrity to endure media crucifixion, and thumb his nose at the JDL.

Maybe not. But like Jesus, David Cole is willing to stand up and speak the truth as he sees it, even if it earns him the vilification of the Empire and the Pharisees – maybe even a chance at martyrdom.

But wait a minute here…let’s not get carried away!

After dropping out of revisionism and changing his name due to ADL terrorist threats, Cole supposedly began to sincerely evince “fervour for a hawkish foreign policy, a strong Israel and conservative social policy.”

To convincingly play the role of Zionist hawk and mainstream Holocaust expert, Cole presumably had to do some method acting. And as Kurt Vonnegut said: Be careful what you pretend to be, because one morning you might wake up and find out that’s what you are.

“I gave mainstream audiences what they wanted.” That’s what the Hollywood schlockmeisters and pornographers and war-sellers and 9/11-coverup-propagandists are going to have to explain to God, and their own consciences, when they shuffle off this mortal coil.

Which brings us to another, less endearing, quintessentially Jewish trait: The chameleon-like ability to blend into just about any potentially profitable niche, and to lie shamelessly in service to money and power.

Yes, Virginia, Jews do sometimes show negative traits as well as positive ones…like anybody else, only more so.

So I guess my plan to nominate David Cole as the Messiah needs to be put on hold.

But somehow, I still love the guy. He obviously has not just a shred of integrity, but several shreds. It would have been easy for him to disown his revisionism – but he won’t do it. That’s impressive.

I wonder what percentage of the American population today has that kind of courage to stand by their beliefs, even if it’s going to get them crucified by the media.

I’ve been through the media-character-assassination thing too; I know what he’s going through.

So if anybody has David Cole’s phone number, please pass it on. I imagine he could use some tea and sympathy right about now.







Jewish names

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From Business Insider

Here's The Fascinating Origin Of Almost Every Jewish Last Name

jewish surname map
Richard Andree's 1881 map of the Jews of Central Europe.
Ashkenazic Jews were among the last Europeans to take family names. Some German-speaking Jews took last names as early as the 17th century, but the overwhelming majority of Jews lived in Eastern Europe and did not take last names until compelled to do so. The process began in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1787 and ended in Czarist Russia in 1844.
In attempting to build modern nation-states, the authorities insisted that Jews take last names so that they could be taxed, drafted, and educated (in that order of importance). For centuries, Jewish communal leaders were responsible for collecting taxes from the Jewish population on behalf of the government, and in some cases were responsible for filling draft quotas. Education was traditionally an internal Jewish affair.
Until this period, Jewish names generally changed with every generation. For example, if Moses son of Mendel (Moyshe ben Mendel) married Sarah daughter of Rebecca (Sara bat rivka), and they had a boy and named it Samuel (Shmuel), the child would be called Shmuel ben Moyshe. If they had a girl and named her Feygele, she would be called Feygele bas Sora.
Jews distrusted the authorities and resisted the new requirement. Although they were forced to take last names, at first they were used only for official purposes. Among themselves, they kept their traditional names. Over time, Jews accepted the new last names, which were essential as Jews sought to advance within the broader society and as the shtetles were transformed or Jews left them for big cities.
The easiest way for Jews to assume an official last name was to adapt the name they already had, making it permanent. This explains the use of "patronymics" and "matronymics."
PATRONYMICS (son of ...)
In Yiddish or German, "son" would be denoted by "son" or "sohn" or "er." In most Slavic languages, like Polish or Russian, it would be "wich" or "witz."
For example: The son of Mendel took the last name Mendelsohn; the son of Abraham became Abramson or Avromovitch; the son of Menashe became Manishewitz; the son of Itzhak became Itskowitz; the son of Berl took the name Berliner; the son of Kesl took the name Kessler, etc.
MATRONYMICS (daughter of …)
Reflecting the prominence of Jewish women in business, some families made last names out of women's first names: Chaiken — son of Chaikeh; Edelman — husband of Edel; Gittelman — husband of Gitl; Glick or Gluck — may derive from Glickl, a popular woman's name as in the famous "Glickl of Hameln," whose memoirs, written around 1690, are an early example of Yiddish literature.
Gold/Goldman/Gulden may derived from Golda; Malkov from Malke; Perlman — husband of Perl; Rivken — may derive from Rivke; Soronsohn—son of Sarah.
PLACE NAMES
The next most common source of Jewish last names is probably places. Jews used the town or region where they lived, or where their families came from, as their last name. As a result, the Germanic origins of most East European Jews is reflected in their names.
For example, Asch is an acronym for the towns of Aisenshtadt or Altshul orAmshterdam. Other place-based Jewish names include: Auerbach/Orbach; Bacharach; Berger (generic for townsman); Berg(man), meaning from a hilly place; Bayer — from Bavaria; Bamberger; Berliner, Berlinsky — from Berlin; Bloch (foreigner); Brandeis; Breslau; Brodsky; Brody; Danziger; Deutch/Deutscher — German; Dorf(man), meaning villager; Eisenberg; Epstein; Florsheim; Frankel — from the Franconia region of Germany; Frankfurter; Ginsberg; Gordon — from Grodno, Lithuania or from the Russian word gorodin, for townsman; Greenberg; Halperin—from Helbronn, Germany; Hammerstein; Heller — from Halle, Germany; Hollander — not from Holland, but from a town in Lithuania settled by the Dutch; Horowitz, Hurwich, Gurevitch — from Horovice in Bohemia; Koenigsberg; Krakauer — from Cracow, Poland; Landau; Lipsky — from Leipzig, Germany; Litwak — from Lithuania; Minsky — from Minsk, Belarus; Mintz—from Mainz, Germany; Oppenheimer; Ostreicher — from Austria; Pinsky — from Pinsk, Belarus; Posner — from Posen, Germany; Prager — from Prague; Rappoport — from Porto, Italy; Rothenberg — from the town of the red fortress in Germany; Shapiro — from Speyer, Germany; Schlesinger — from Silesia, Germany; Steinberg; Unger — from Hungary; Vilner — from Vilna, Poland/Lithuania; Wallach—from Bloch, derived from the Polish word for foreigner; Warshauer/Warshavsky — from Warsaw; Wiener — from Vienna; Weinberg.
OCCUPATIONAL NAMES
Craftsmen/Workers
Ackerman — plowman; Baker/Boker — baker; Blecher — tinsmith; Fleisher/Fleishman/Katzoff/Metger — butcher; Cooperman — coppersmith; Drucker — printer; Einstein — mason; Farber — painter/dyer; Feinstein — jeweler; Fisher — fisherman; Forman — driver/teamster; Garber/Gerber — tanner; Glazer/Glass/Sklar — glazier; Goldstein — goldsmith; Graber — engraver; Kastner — cabinetmaker; Kunstler — artist; Kramer — storekeeper; Miller — miller; Nagler — nailmaker; Plotnick — carpenter; Sandler/Shuster — shoemaker; Schmidt/Kovalsky — blacksmith; Shnitzer — carver; Silverstein — jeweler; Spielman — player (musician?); Stein/Steiner/Stone — jeweler; Wasserman — water carrier.
Merchants
Garfinkel/Garfunkel — diamond dealer; Holzman/Holtz/Waldman — timber dealer; Kaufman — merchant; Rokeach — spice merchant; Salzman — salt merchant; Seid/Seidman—silk merchant; Tabachnik — snuff seller; Tuchman — cloth merchant; Wachsman — wax dealer; Wechsler/Halphan — money changer; Wollman — wool merchant; Zucker/Zuckerman — sugar merchant.
Related to tailoring
Kravitz/Portnoy/Schneider/Snyder — tailor; Nadelman/Nudelman — also tailor, but from "needle"; Sher/Sherman — also tailor, but from "scissors" or "shears"; Presser/Pressman — clothing presser; Futterman/Kirshner/Kushner/Peltz — furrier; Weber — weaver.
Medical
Aptheker — druggist; Feldsher — surgeon; Bader/Teller — barber.
Related to liquor trade
Bronfman/Brand/Brandler/Brenner — distiller; Braverman/Meltzer — brewer; Kabakoff/Krieger/Vigoda — tavern keeper; Geffen — wine merchant; Wine/Weinglass — wine merchant; Weiner — wine maker.
Religious/Communal
Altshul/Althshuler — associated with the old synagogue in Prague; Cantor/Kazan/Singer/Spivack — cantor or song leader in shul; Feder/Federman/Schreiber — scribe; Haver — from haver (court official); Klausner — rabbi for small congregation; Klopman — calls people to morning prayers by knocking on their window shutters; Lehrer/Malamud/Malmud — teacher; Rabin — rabbi (Rabinowitz—son of rabbi); London — scholar, from the Hebrew lamden(misunderstood by immigration inspectors); Reznick — ritual slaughterer; Richter — judge; Sandek — godfather; Schechter/Schachter/Shuchter etc. — ritual slaughterer from Hebrew schochet; Shofer/Sofer/Schaeffer — scribe; Shulman/Skolnick — sexton; Spector — inspector or supervisor of schools.
PERSONAL TRAITS
Alter/Alterman — old; Dreyfus—three legged, perhaps referring to someone who walked with a cane; Erlich — honest; Frum — devout ; Gottleib — God lover, perhaps referring to someone very devout; Geller/Gelber — yellow, perhaps referring to someone with blond hair; Gross/Grossman — big; Gruber — coarse or vulgar; Feifer/Pfeifer — whistler; Fried/Friedman—happy; Hoch/Hochman/Langer/Langerman — tall; Klein/Kleinman — small; Koenig — king, perhaps someone who was chosen as a “Purim King,” in reality a poor wretch; Krauss — curly, as in curly hair; Kurtz/Kurtzman — short; Reich/Reichman — rich; Reisser — giant; Roth/Rothman — red head; Roth/Rothbard — red beard; Shein/Schoen/Schoenman — pretty, handsome; Schwartz/Shwartzman/Charney — black hair or dark complexion; Scharf/Scharfman — sharp, i.e  intelligent; Stark — strong, from the Yiddish shtark ; Springer — lively person, from the Yiddish springen for jump.
INSULTING NAMES
These were sometimes foisted on Jews who discarded them as soon as possible, but a few may remain:
Billig — cheap; Gans — goose; Indyk — goose; Grob — rough/crude; Kalb — cow.
ANIMAL NAMES
It is common among all peoples to take last names from the animal kingdom. Baer/Berman/Beerman/Berkowitz/Beronson — bear; Adler — eagle (may derive from reference to an eagle in Psalm 103:5); Einhorn — unicorn; Falk/Sokol/Sokolovksy — falcon; Fink — finch; Fuchs/Liss — fox; Gelfand/Helfand — camel (technically means elephant but was used for camel too); Hecht—pike; Hirschhorn — deer antlers; Karp — carp; Loeb — lion; Ochs— ox; Strauss — ostrich (or bouquet of flowers); Wachtel — quail.
HEBREW NAMES
Some Jews either held on to or adopted traditional Jewish names from the Bible and Talmud. The big two are Cohen (Cohn, Kohn, Kahan, Kahn, Kaplan) and Levi (Levy, Levine, Levinsky, Levitan, Levenson, Levitt, Lewin, Lewinsky, Lewinson). Others include: Aaron — Aronson, Aronoff; Asher; Benjamin; David — Davis, Davies; Ephraim — Fishl; Emanuel — Mendel; Isaac — Isaacs, Isaacson/Eisner; Jacob — Jacobs, Jacobson, Jacoby; Judah — Idelsohn, Udell,Yudelson; Mayer/Meyer; Menachem — Mann, Mendel; Reuben — Rubin; Samuel — Samuels, Zangwill; Simon — Schimmel; Solomon — Zalman.
HEBREW ACRONYMS
Names based on Hebrew acronyms include: Baron — bar aron (son of Aaron); Beck —bene kedoshim (descendant of martyrs); Getz — gabbai tsedek (righteous synagogue official); Katz — kohen tsedek (righteous priest); Metz — moreh tsedek (teacher of righteousness); Sachs, Saks — zera kodesh shemo (his name descends from martyrs); Segal — sgan levia (second-rank Levite).
OTHER HEBREW- and YIDDISH-DERIVED NAMES
Lieb means "lion" in Yiddish. It is the root of many Ashkenazic last names, including Liebowitz, Lefkowitz, Lebush, and Leon. It is the Yiddish translation of the Hebrew word for lion — aryeh. The lion was the symbol of the tribe of Judah.
Hirsch means "deer" or "stag" in Yiddish. It is the root of many Ashkenazic last names, including Hirschfeld, Hirschbein/Hershkowitz (son of Hirsch), Hertz/Herzl, Cerf, Hart, and Hartman. It is the Yiddish translation of the Hebrew word for gazelle: tsvi. The gazelle was the symbol of the tribe of Naphtali.
Taub means "dove" in Yiddish. It is the root of the Ashkenazic last name Tauber. The symbol of the dove is associated with the prophet Jonah.
Wolf is the root of the Ashkenazic last names Wolfson, Wouk, and Volkovich. The wolf was the symbol of the tribe of Benjamin.
Eckstein — Yiddish for cornerstone, derived from Psalm 118:22.
Good(man) — Yiddish translation of the Hebrew word for "good": tuviah.
Margolin — Hebrew for "pearl."
INVENTED ‘FANCY SHMANCY’ NAMES
When Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire were required to assume last names, some chose the nicest ones they could think of and may have been charged a registration fee by the authorities. According to the YIVO Encyclopedia, "The resulting names often are associated with nature and beauty. It is very plausible that the choices were influenced by the general romantic tendencies of German culture at that time." These names include: Applebaum — apple tree; Birnbaum — pear tree; Buchsbaum — box tree; Kestenbaum — chestnut tree; Kirshenbaum — cherry tree; Mandelbaum — almond tree; Nussbaum — nut tree; Tannenbaum — fir tree; Teitelbaum — palm tree.
Other names, chosen or purchased, were combinations with these roots:Blumen (flower), Fein (fine), Gold, Green, Lowen (lion), Rosen (rose), Schoen/Schein (pretty) — combined with berg (hill or mountain), thal (valley), bloom (flower), zweig (wreath), blatt (leaf), vald or wald (woods), feld (field).
Miscellaneous other names included Diamond; Glick/Gluck — luck; Hoffman — hopeful; Fried/Friedman — happiness; Lieber/Lieberman — lover.
Jewish family names from non-Jewish languages included: Sender/Saunders — from Alexander; Kagan — descended from the Khazars, a Turkic-speaking people from Central Asia; Kelman/Kalman — from the Greek name Kalonymous, the Greek translation of the Hebrew shem tov (good name), popular among Jews in medieval France and Italy; Marcus/Marx — from Latin, referring to the pagan god Mars.
Finally, there were Jewish names changed or shortened by immigration inspectors or by immigrants themselves (or their descendants) to sound more American, which is why "Sean Ferguson" was a Jew.
Let us close with a ditty:
And this is good old Boston;
The home of the bean and the cod.
Where the Lowells speak only to the Cabots;
And the Cabots speak Yiddish, by God!
A version of this post originally appeared on Jewish Currents.
Bennett Muraskin is a contributing writer to Jewish Currents magazine and author of The Association of Jewish Libraries Guide to Yiddish Short Stories and Let Justice Well Up Like Water: Progressive Jews from Hillel to Helen Suzman, among other books.


Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/01/08/ashkenazi_names_the_etymology_of_the_most_common_jewish_surnames.html#ixzz2qp1BhqYC

My hero

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This is from The Final Call which I think is the Nation of Islam's website.


It's about my hero,  Muhammad Ali and before the article, I've some reasons why he's my hero. 

"This was a black man who knew how to defend himself"

"I am Muhammad Ali, a free name - it means beloved of God - and I insist that people use it when people speak to me and of me."


The young Cassius

trials_muhammad_ali_01-07-2014.jpg
The Trials of Muhammad Ali

By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Assistant Editor- Jan 1, 2014 

CHICAGO (FinalCall.com) - One of the most recognizable figures on the Earth is Muhammad Ali. While many have heard his name and been told of his exploits in the ring, do you truly know his story?

You may know that he suffers from Parkinson’s disease and is not the fast talking, swift moving athlete he once was. You may know that he joined the Nation of Islam, and you might even know that he refused to fight in America’s military, but how did he become such a beloved American figure?

You could say he has now become the quintessential American symbol. You don’t get much more American than carrying the Olympic torch and lighting the flame, as he did during the opening ceremonies of the 1996 games in Atlanta.

Historically speaking, many are acquainted with the popular portrayal of Muhammad Ali as a brash, braggadocios (some might even say arrogant) boxer who in his own words “shook up the world” becoming the heavyweight champion of the world as a 22-year-old in 1964. Though many movies and documentaries have been produced purporting to tell his story, they typically gloss over his turbulent times outside of the ring. Many fail to realize that at one time, he was one of the most vilified people in the United States.

As it is with many widely known historical figures, opinions and perceptions vary because information about them is delivered to the unsuspecting public through the social and political lenses of authors, commentators, film producers, and media personalities.


Muhammad Ali on the cover of Muhammad Speaks newspaper in 1966.

The fact that he backed up his words by defeating his foes in the ring is very important, but the fact that he stood firmly on his beliefs outside of the ring defeating his foes in an epic battle of morality must be looked at more carefully and perhaps does more to tell you about who Muhammad Ali is.

“The Trials of Muhammad Ali,” from Kartemquin Films (Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters) is by far the fairest treatment I’ve seen because of the prominent presence and voices of those who actually lived through it. One of the primary reasons for that is Khalilah Camacho-Ali, wife of Muhammad Ali from 1967 to 1977.

She said when she was approached to be a part of it in the very beginning, she told the director, Bill Siegel, that Minister Louis Farrakhan’s valuable perspective must be included if the truth about the champion fighter was to be told.

“I said he has to be in there,” said Ms. Camacho-Ali. “When Ali and I got married, we weren’t very wealthy or anything so we didn’t have any money to go on a honeymoon or anything, so Minister Louis Farrakhan invited us up to New York to his home, took us on a boat ride on the Hudson River, took a little 8mm video and stuff, we had a ball! We were on the cover of every Jet Magazine with Farrakhan and his family as being our sponsors. They took care of us during the time when we had nothing. For him not to be in there would be absurd,” she added.

The Farrakhan family, knowing her long before she even met the champion fighter, provided a sanctuary for a young Muslim girl whose life was now in the spotlight, and supported them both providing comfort and compassion during times of woe and depression.

Ms. Camacho-Ali said Mr. Siegel did not object at all, and that was when she knew this was an individual that she believed would really work to honestly tell the story. She said for various reasons, many are afraid to delve into the complexities of Muhammad Ali’s membership in the Nation of Islam, the court cases and others aspects of his life which are deemed controversial.


Ali family featured on the cover of Ebony magazine in 1969.

Talking about Muslims is sometimes seen as threatening to producers and filmmakers, and they don’t know how far they can go with it, so there is a sense of fear which usually results in them “playing it safe” and simply sticking to boxing, she said.

If you’ve already had the opportunity to watch the documentary, you know she has a lot of personality, and believe me, she was the same way in person. Very colorful, expressive, and direct. She had no problems vividly recalling the sights and sounds of her youth and speaking plainly about her experiences.

She said when she first saw Muhammad Ali, she was a young student at the Muhammad University of Islam and it was an exciting moment for her and her classmates. She said she heard the members of his entourage walking down the hallway before they came into view.

“It sounded like gladiators walking down the hallway and I looked through the crack of the wall and there he was—a gladiator—a live in living color Black man,” said Ms. Camacho-Ali. “I knew God had Black gladiators on the Earth and I saw it when he came through the hallway. That’s when I knew he was a gladiator; one of those gladiators that wins all of the time—I felt it,” she added.

Although it was a memorable moment for her, she said she was not thinking at all about him being her husband. She was just a young student who was willing at any moment to defend her belief in Islam as taught by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. She said she remembers others teasing her and her friends for wearing long dresses and head scarves.

“I remember going on the school bus, going from home to school or going from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s house because I grew up in the house with his grandchildren and I would see the girls roll their skirts up—the ones that weren’t really Muslims—so people wouldn’t laugh at them,” she said.

She said she was a fierce defender of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and often, her father would get calls about her knocking people’s teeth out for speaking negatively about the patriarch of the Nation of Islam. She even told me about an encounter where one young boy got more than he anticipated after doing so.

“There was one boy was hollering about Elijah Muhammad and you know how in the suburbs you have the big mountain or hill when they’re building a new house? That boy ran across that hill and I picked up a rock and said ‘Allah hit him for me’ and I threw that rock hard as I could and it went straight in the boy’s mouth! Now that’s what you call God sent!” said Ms. Camacho-Ali matter of factly.


Khalilah Camacho-Ali holds photo of the two as a young married couple. Photo: Tim 6X

“I say you can talk about my momma, you can talk about my daddy, you’re not going to get a rise out of me but you better not talk about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad! I will hurt you. Don’t step across that line—that is one line you don’t want to cross with me. I might not be no Muhammad Ali but you will not get up,” said Ms. Camacho-Ali, who is shown in the documentary with boxing gloves and punching the heavy bags. “Oh I’m serious! I was a warrior of Islam.”

It is a mistaken belief that the Nation of Islam misguided or misused Muhammad Ali. In fact, it was the opposite, said Ms. Camacho Ali. The Nation of Islam protected Muhammad Ali from unscrupulous elements who controlled the boxing industry in particular and sports in general.

“Quiet as it is kept, if it wasn’t for the Nation of Islam, if it wasn’t for Elijah Muhammad, if it wasn’t for (Jabir) Herbert Muhammad protecting his interests, Ali could have been sold-up to any kind of Italian mafia or Jewish mafia,” said Ms. Camacho-Ali. “The mobsters were involved or over all sports events basically. The mob handles gambling, they handle sports. This was a time and era and thank God that didn’t happen and that was a good protection for Muhammad Ali. He could do what he pleased, do what he wanted, do what he did best without any conflicts or deceit or gambling. That was a good feeling and that was a good thing to have in our corner.”

She also said during the most trying times, it was the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who stepped in to make sure they had what they needed.

“We had the Nation of Islam, we had the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and when we really ran out of money and didn’t have anything, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad came in and supported us, he gave us money to survive and prevail. That was a great help,” she said.

Ms. Camacho-Ali talks about working with, living with and supporting one of the most famous men on Earth during his battles with the courts and the U.S. government after he ignited the anti-war movement declaring himself a conscientious objector and subsequently losing his boxing license hindering his ability to make a living. Trying times that affected them both, but secondary to him being a man with courage, standing for a cause, and living a life with purpose.

“That’s a battle we battle within ourselves every day. I feel that if they see the battles that Ali went through, they can see the battles they’re going through because it’s all the same and I think they can learn from that,” said Ms. Camacho-Ali. “It’s not just the trials of Muhammad Ali it’s the trials of us all and that’s why it’s so important to see that film. You know documentaries are as boring as can be, but it’s nothing boring about Muhammad Ali, it’s nothing boring about the real side of Muhammad Ali that nobody had a chance to see,” she added.

(This documentary contains little known facts along with outstanding archival footage of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and candid interviews with Nation of Islam pioneers, veteran journalists, and commentators. For information regarding nationwide viewings and screenings of “The Trials of Muhammad Ali” visit kartemquin.com. Khalilah Camacho-Ali can be reached via her website khalilahali.com.)

Just in case you thought I was kidding...

I can't believe it

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This is from the Jewish Chronicle.

It was sent to me by Laura Stuart who also supplied the title above.

Take a lawyer's advice - visit the occupied territories
By David Middleburgh, January 16, 2014

I have just returned from a three-day tour of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, organised by the pro-Israel, pro-peace organisation, Yachad. The participants were all passionate Zionists and, were it not for some grey hairs and wrinkles, we could have been a youth group. In fact, we were all senior lawyers or individuals with a particular interest in the rule of law.

The purpose: to understand the legal context to the occupation. The centrepiece, a unique visit to the IDF military courts that maintain law and order (for Palestinians only) in the West Bank, unique in that we were the first organised group of British Jews to visit the courts. In the course of the tour we met a very broad spectrum of people from representatives of Israeli NGOs, a senior employee of the Yesha Council, which represents settlers, and a senior adviser to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

My conclusions? First, there is no substitute for finding out what is really happening on the ground by visiting and asking difficult questions. I had made numerous assumptions from both Jewish and non-Jewish media, which were simply wrong.

Secondly, those who consider that stories of systemic breaches of human rights under the occupation are an anti-Israel myth are deluding themselves.

We spent a morning at the military courts observing young Palestinian boys, aged 13-17, being processed, and speaking to their mothers. It is clear that children are invariably arrested in night raids by the army at gunpoint, cuffed and blindfolded and held, often for hours, in that condition, denied access to food, water and toilet facilities, interrogated without being advised of their rights, without a lawyer and without their parents.

Military Court Watch, an Israeli NGO, has carried out a detailed forensic review and they found over 50 per cent of children were arrested in night raids and 83 per cent of children blindfolded. All of the children we saw in court were in leg shackles.

There was a shocking passivity of the Palestinians we observed at court. Parents and detained children smiled and joked with each other and we did not see a single case of anger. That’s not to say parents did not care that their children were being imprisoned.

But conviction rates are 99.7 per cent. The passivity bespeaks a people who have become resigned to their reality. They recognise there is no longer any point in fighting for basic rights. I felt that the court system was clearly a figleaf for a system of arbitrary justice where the guilt of the child is beside the point. The courts are part of a system that effectively keeps Palestinian society in a state of constant fear and uncertainty.

So why do the authorities bother with the expense of maintaining the pretence of justice? The answer is that without scrutiny it is possible to pretend that the system is fair. So, defendants are legally represented and proper rules of evidence apply.

Scrape away the veneer, and the charade is exposed with convictions routinely obtained based upon forced confessions and defendants facing remand without bail pending trial for periods in excess of sentences when pleading guilty. No sane defendant would plead not guilty in this Catch 22 situation.

I would argue that diaspora Jews who are true friends of Israel have a duty to visit the territories to understand the problem, and then to lobby friends in Israel to strive for a just end to this situation.

If we do nothing, can we complain if we awake one day and Israel has sleepwalked into the status of a pariah country?


David Middleburgh is a partner in the London firm of Gallant Maxwell solicitors

Henry's hat

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The latest from outside Beth Israel, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Hate and Hate Speech

My partner gets pulled off the dance floor this week by a close friend of hers who opines that my t-shirt and hat are examples of the hate that she's certain lies within me and is the sole driver of my activism. This close friend is a social worker and recognizes hate. Did I mention that she's also Jewish?



A neighbor begs for help from Ann Arbor City Council members from the hate speech she encounters walking past my house and looking at the small imprint in the sidewalk which says, "Stop US Aid to Israel 2008". This person is not Jewish, but most likely has been instructed since birth that Jews are eternal victims and need her support.


A Diversion

Typing in "hate speech" into Google can get one mired for weeks trying to nail this glob of jelly to the wall in an attempt to tease out the definition of this term. Is there a legal definition? Why do people throw it around other than to tarnish a message they don't like? If nothing else, Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends' ten-year-old vigil stakes the claim that our actions certainly do not fall into the legal category of hate speech. Otherwise the clever lawyers inside the brick walls of Beth Israel Congregation would long ago have had us prosecuted for violating this chimera called hate speech.

One observes that Israel has committed atrocities against the Palestinian people for over 65 years; he observes that this Jewish state, using its emissaries in the US government, synagogues, media and think tanks, works feverishly to maintain the fiction of coinciding national interests when none exist; he observes outright murder of US citizens by this Jewish state and the US government is bribed or bullied into embarrassing silence by the Jewish Lobby from prosecuting these murders; he observes that Zionism - the invasion of European Jews into the Middle East to create a Jewish supremacist state - is primarily responsible for these atrocities and is convinced that the general public, armed with similar information, will no longer support a Jewish state.

And after considering these observations and convictions he initiates actions, holds political protests at powerful Zionist synagogues and churches, and wears clothing with phrases designed to provoke thought and conversation. But he doesn't learn that pointing these things out and acting on them are examples of hate speech, according to some gate keepers on the political left.

Is it 1984 yet?


Michigan Weather

A steady 38-degree rain fell on a foot of already-fallen snow, producing hazardous conditions for standing still and holding signs at our last vigil. This writer called a few of our senior citizens and leaders and encouraged them to stay home and sit this one out. Three veteran vigilers and one rookie showed up.


Comments? http://blog.deiryassin.org/2014/01/20/report-on-beth-israel-vigil-01-11-14

Four vigilers
No Hate
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends
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Combating the Glorification of Nazism

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This comes from Global Research via Lasse Wilhelmson

Combating the Glorification of Nazism
by Carla Stea

Iran, Israel, Syria United, For Almost A Decade, in Support of United Nations Anti-Nazi Resolution; United States, For Almost a Decade, Opposed To This Resolution

On November 15, 2013, the United Nations Third Committee adopted Resolution A/c.3/68/L.65/Rev.1, on the Elimination of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

The Resolution is entitled:

COMBATING GLORIFICATION OF NAZISM AND OTHER PRACTICES THAT CONTRIBUTE TO FUELLING CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND RELATED INTOLERANCE.’

This resolution is unique within the United Nations because it has united Iran, Israel and Syria, together with 123 other member States, in support of this resolution, repeatedly, year after year for almost a decade, while this same resolution, combating the resurgence of Nazism, has been consistently opposed by the United States, almost in isolation, during the same years.

The resolution states:

“Recalling the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Judgement of the Tribunal, which recognized as criminal, inter alia, the SS organization and all its integral parts, including the Waffen SS, through its officially accepted members implicated in, or with knowledge of the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity connected with the Second World War, as well as other relevant provisions of the Charter and the Judgement.”

“Alarmed, in this regard, at the spread in many parts of the world of various extremist political parties, movements and groups, including neo-nazis and skinhead groups as well as similar extremist ideological movements”

“Reaffirms the relevant provisions of the Durban Declaration and of the outcome document of the Durban Review Conference, in which States condemned the persistence and resurgence of neo-nazism, neo-fascism and violent nationalist ideologies based on racial and national prejudice and stated that those phenomena could never be justified in any instance or in any circumstances,”

“4. Expresses deep concern about the glorification in any form of the nazi movement, neo-nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization, including by erecting monuments and memorials and holding public demonstrations in the name of the glorification of the nazi past, the nazi movement and neo-nazism, as well as by declaring or attempting to declare such members and those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition and collaborated with the nazi movement participants in national liberation movements.”

“5. Emphasizes the recommendation of the Special Rapporteur that ‘any commemorative celebration of the nazi Waffen SS organization and its crimes against humanity, whether official or non-official, should be prohibited by States.”

“6. Expresses concern at recurring attempts to desecrate or demolish monuments erected in remembrance of those who fought against Nazism during the Second World War, as well as to unlawfully exhume or remove the remains of such persons, and in this regard urges States to fully comply with their relevant obligations, inter alia, under article 34 of Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949.”

“10. Stresses that the practices described above do injustice to the memory of the countless victims of crimes against humanity committed in the Second World War, in particular those committed by the SS organization and by those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition and collaborated with the nazi movement, and that failure by States to effectively address such practices is incompatible with the obligations of States Members of the United Nations, under its Charter and is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the organization.”

Although the United States attempted to rationalize its opposition to this resolution by claiming adherence to principles of freedom of speech and expression, the restrictions on freedom of speech and expression within the United States are increasing alarmingly, leading to the inevitable concern that the United States’ explanation for its opposition to this resolution is less than candid, and that the motivation for US opposition is being concealed. John Loftus, former United States government prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice, in his book: “America’s Nazi Secret,” reveals the enormity of United States corporate collaboration with nazi Germany throughout World War II, and the protection given these nazi collaborators by the very government agency, the Department of Justice, charged with prosecuting them for treason.

“The former Special Assistant Attorney General was the Justice Department lawyer who let free all the American corporate executives who had stayed in Germany to help their nazi clients…These businessmen had literally given aid and comfort to the enemy during the was…The Special Assistant Attorney General of the United States closed all of the treason cases in Occupied Germany. Not a single corporate officer ever went to jail for doing business with the Nazis – the Justice Department covered it all up. More than a hundred American traitors were returned home after many profitable years of serving Hitler. The army’s original investigative files, codenamed ASHCAN and DUSTBIN are still off limits to ‘protect the privacy’ of the American citizens involved. An American intelligence officer, Allen Dulles, used his position in the OSS to protect himself and his clients from investigation for laundering nazi funds back to America. In addition to Dulles, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had his own Vice President a nd Attorney General under surveillance for protecting those American businessmen with commercial ties to the Third Reich. After British wiretapping suggested that FDR’s right hand man had leaked classified information to a pro-nazi Swedish businessman, FDR quickly replaced his Vice-President with Harry Truman (who had a reputation for bi-partisan investigation into American corporate corruption.)”

“During the Nuremberg trials, one of the prosecuting attorneys, Walter J. Rockler – who later became my boss at OSI, discovered a German document listing the thirteen American banks that had secretly worked for the Third Reich during WWII….The US Justice Department had known all along where Rockler’s missing witnesses could be found. The German bankers that Rockler was trying to prosecute at Nuremberg had hired American and British corporate executives - It was the Special Assistant Attorney General Victor Swearingen who had kept all the American and British moneymen hidden from the nosy Nuremberg prosecutors.”

“Political smear tactics forced Rockler out before I could tell him why all nazi financial crimes investigations kept getting closed down. He was getting much too close to the truth. The money that funded the banks and corporations of the Third Reich came from Wall Street and ‘the City,’ London, England’s financial district and Wall Street equivalent. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew about it, and so did his Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau. Morgenthau initiated Operation Safehaven, a program to trace nazi flight capital back to the western investors. The problem was that Roosevelt never told Harry Truman about his real motive for the nazi bankers trial at Nuremberg. The German bankers were supposed to point their finger at their American investment partners, which would effectively incriminate the principal financial contributors to the GOP. Had he lived, Roosevelt might have succeeded in bringing treason charges against some of the leading lights of Wall Street.”

So it was that Wall Street and the “City of London” financed the nazi juggernaut, the global scourge that slaughtered 6 million Jewish civilians and more than 30 million Soviet civilians, with the ultimate goal of exterminating communism in the Soviet Union and everywhere else. All this for the ultimate profit of the “Robber Barons” who perpetrated a barbarism of the human species that perverted the human soul itself, in an orgy of sadism possible only with the annihilation of human values that capitalism requires.

In “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” William Shirer reveals:

“Before the postwar trials in Germany, it was generally believed that the mass killings were exclusively the work of a relatively few SS leaders. But the records of the court leave no doubt of the complicity of a number of German businesses, not only the Krupps and the directors of I.G. Farben Chemical Trust, but smaller entrepreneurs who outwardly must have seemed to be the most prosaic and decent men, pillars – like good businessmen everywhere – of their communities…. “

“There were practices of the Germans during the short-lived New Order that resulted from sheer sadism…The nazi medical experiments are an example of this sadism;…it is a tale of horror – this criminal work was known to thousands of leading physicians of the Reich, not a single one of whom, so far as the record shows, ever uttered the slightest public protest.”

“In the murders in this field the Jews were not the only victims. The nazi doctors also used Russian prisoners of war, Polish concentration camp inmates, women as well as men, and even Germans. The “experiments” were quite varied. Prisoners were placed in pressure chambers and subjected to high altitude tests until they ceased breathing. They were injected with lethal doses of typhus and jaundice. They were subjected to “freezing experiments” in icy water, or exposed naked in the snow outdoors until they froze to death. Poison bullets were tried out on them, as was mustard gas. At the Ravensbrueck concentration camp for women hundreds of Polish inmates – the ‘lapins’ or ‘rabbit girls’ as they were called – were given gas gangrene wounds while others were subjected to ‘experiments’ in bone grafting. At Dachau and Buchenwald gypsies were selected to see how long and in what manner they could live on salt water. Sterilization experiments were carried out on a large scale at several camps by a variety of means on both men and women, for as an SS physician, Dr. Adolf Pokorny wrote to Himmler, ‘the enemy must be not only conquered but exterminated.’”

“Dr. Samuel Rascher seems to have been responsible for the more sadistic of the ‘medical experiments.’ At the ‘Doctors Trial,’ the witness, Neff provided a description of the ‘dry-freezing’ experiment’: ‘Prisoners were placed naked on a stretcher outside the barracks in frigid weather in the evening. They were covered with a sheet, and every hour a bucket of water was poured over them. The test person lay out in the open like this until the early morning. As the prisoner slowly froze, Dr. Rascher or his assistant would record temperature, heart action, respiration, and so forth. The cries of the suffering prisoner often rent the night.’

An Austrian inmate, Anton Pacholegg who worked in Dr. Rascher’s office has described ‘high-altitude experiments.’ ‘I have personally seen through the observation window of the decompression chamber when a prisoner inside would stand in a vacuum until his lungs ruptured. They would go mad and pull out their hair in an effort to relieve the pressure. They would tear their heads and face with their fingers and nails in an attempt to maim themselves in their madness. They would beat the walls with their hands and head and scream in an effort to relieve the pressure on their eardrums. These cases usually ended in the death of the subject.’”

The above was the New Order of Nazism. Oligarchs of Wall Street, “the city” of London, Germany and elsewhere funded the rise of the Nazi party, and financed the holocaust.

The Robber Barons knowingly continued business transactions (often through third, “neutral” countries) throughout World War II with the worst mass murderers in history. Following the war, they shielded the perpetrators of this mass murder, having ensured, through every subterfuge, that their own complicitous role in this global atrocity would remain hidden, as they engineered further global malevolence elsewhere, and to this day.

Where is the concern for human rights, where is the concern for democracy? What is the real agenda of the US vote opposing this resolution which is so crucial that it has united Iran, Israel and Syria in support of this same resolution? It is ominous that the 50 abstentions include the EU countries, Georgia and Ukraine, as these were the countries that suffered the horrific nazi onslaught in World War II, and many of which now host powerfully resurgent Nazi movements.

Ukraine’s Svoboda party has deep roots in the nazi OUN led by Stefan Bandera, one of the worst Nazi war criminals. Under the leadership of the OUN Bandera, the German intelligence service prepared several assassination attempts against President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, attempts which were, fortunately aborted.

This UN Third Committee Resolution provides a warning of the possible direction of global political and military developments, if the lessons of history are not heeded. Will the oligarchs, again drive us into another World War in their insane gluttony for profits?

EPILOGUE

The Nazis were finally defeated, largely by the Soviet Union’s desperate and heroic effort. As eloquently described by William Shirer:

“On December 6, 1941, General Georgi Zhukov, who had replaced Marshall Timoshenko as commander of the central front but six weeks before, struck……The blow which this relatively unknown general now delivered with such a formidable force of infantry, artillery, tanks, cavalry and planes, which Hitler had not faintly suspected existed, was so sudden and so shattering that the German army and the Third Reich never fully recovered from it…For the first time in more than two years of unbroken military victories the armies of Hitler were retreating before a superior force….That was not all. The failure was greater than that. ‘The myth of the invincibility of the German army was broken….December 6, 1941 is another turning point in the short history of the Third Reich, and one of the most fateful ones. Hitler’s power had reached its zenith; from now on it was to decline, sapped by the growing counterblows of the nations against which he had chosen to make aggressive war.”

Two guys on the make

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From BuzzFeed

A Personal Middle East Conflict In The Fight For Palestine

Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish were best friends and their generation’s brightest lights. Then the two-state consensus fell apart, and so did their friendship.posted on January 21, 2014 at 11:12am EST


Ben SmithBuzzFeed Staff




The Twitter account @Ikhras means “shut up” in Arabic. It devotes a fair share of its time to attacking Hussein Ibish, a moderate advocate for a Palestinian state. The attacks are harsh and unrelenting, if not always accurate, and favor words like “liar” and “clown” and “house Arab.”

But sometimes, the takedowns are more sophisticated. And then Ibish thinks he knows who is writing them: his old best friend, Ali Abunimah.

“If you ever see the IQ level jump up about 80 points, it’s probably him,” Ibish said.

Abunimah, a prominent radical voice on Palestine, scornfully denies a role in the anonymous attacks. But neither he nor Ibish make any secret of the rubble of their friendship. Their divide over their shared cause — how to create a Palestinian state — marks a particularly poisonous feature of the conflict over Israel and Palestine: That so many people who have spent their lives working for the same thing despise one another.

When they met 15 years ago, Ibish and Abunimah were two of the best young minds among the American advocates for Palestine. They were a formidable pair, both fiercely intellectual and joyously confrontational. Abunimah is slim, quick, with the accent of an educated Englishman, and so passionately personal in his politics that some of his graduate school classmates said they were afraid to take him on. Ibish, no less confrontational, is physically massive and more phlegmatic in his approach.

They were close friends, speaking every day and sometimes several times a day, Ibish recalled, and sharing bylines on their most important work. They were also among the relatively few Arab-American voices making the case — against the Iraq War, for the Palestinian cause — in American outlets like the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. They contributed a chapter on media bias to an October 2001 book called The New Intifada: Resisting Israel’s Apartheid and shared a byline in the radical newsletter CounterPunch, among other outlets. Their most ambitious project was a 2001 monograph making the legal and moral case for the Palestinian Right of Return, which called it “an essential element of [Palestinian refugees’] reconciliation with Israel.” The paper warned against giving into “the barefaced racism in the disparity between Israel’s Law of Return and the Palestinian Right of Return.”

A decade later, the hope that undergirded their work — of a Palestinian state — has stalled. And the two men, once best friends, are the bitterest of enemies, standing on either side of a deep divide over the future of Palestinians and Israelis. Each has written a book making the case for his side of the argument that increasingly divides supporters of the Palestinian people: one state or two. Ibish, now 50, has accepted the twin Israeli and Palestinian nationalisms as, he says, necessary evils. Abunimah, now 42, tweeted in 2010 that “supporting Zionism is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.” But their split is hardly just about lines on a map.



“There’s some personal animosity there that goes beyond disagreements over policy,” said a Palestinian activist who knows both men and who was one of many to ask that his name not be used for fear of getting caught in the crossfire.

The two men, who live in the public debate — which is to say these days, mostly on Twitter and their blogs — make no effort to disguise it.

“How did Hussein Ibish turn from a defender of Palestinian rights into an apologist for Zionism? Was it something in the water?” Abunimah asked on Twitter in 2008.






“Pathetic how @AliAbunimah has totally degenerated into a totalitarian enforcer of political correctness & hatred vis all alternative views,” Ibish tweeted last November.

Many in the digital conversation have taken sides. Abunimah is a popular figure among the online advocacy community and traditional activists, a leader of the one-state cause. Ibish has become a respected Washington figure whose byline has graced the New York Times op-ed page, whose group hosts gala dinners with the likes of Hillary Clinton, and who can be found in the capital’s better power dining rooms. Many of their peers regard their intellect and commitment with respect; others are pained by the spectacle. Radical voices for a binational solution, like Abunimah, have little traction with the Islamists in Gaza whose legitimacy they sometimes defend. Moderates like Ibish recently lost their champion in the West Bank capital Ramallah, the technocratic former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

“The real reason an Arab voice or Palestinian voice in Washington doesn’t exist is because of jackasses like these people,” said Fadi Elsalameen, a fellow with the New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program in Washington who once worked with Ibish at the American Task Force on Palestine but is now a critic of the group. “Everyone is a one-man show, everyone’s ego is bigger than the other, and they have no involvement in the process.”

The feud between Ibish and Abunimah is the sort of bitter and all-encompassing divide on which aficionados of American Jewish intellectual life have written volumes, many of which open with a scene in the City College cafeteria in the late 1940s. Arab-American intellectual life, itself long riven by important divisions, has drawn less attention. The split between Ibish and Abunimah also follows a central and widening fault line in the pro-Palestinian debate. Running through their personal break is the idea — which Abunimah was among the first to abandon, and on which Ibish continues to stake his career — that two states, Israel and Palestine, can and will co-exist.

When Hussein Ibish first, as he remembers, encountered Ali Abunimah, these questions had simpler answers. The scene for their first real encounter, Ibish said, was the 1999 convention of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee at a Marriott just outside Washington, D.C.

When they met, Ibish had just left the radical precincts of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to become communications director for the group, which then split its attention between civil rights in the United States and advocacy on international causes. A mountainous man with “campus hair,” as his future boss Ziad Asali recalled, he had started wearing a suit for the first time. He also had deep roots in Arab intellectual life: His Syria-born father, Yusuf, was a leading scholar of Islamic culture, a fixture at the American University of Beirut (where Abunimah’s father had been educated) and in Beirut’s vibrant pre-Civil War intellectual scene, where his friends and admirers included Rashid Khalidi, now the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia.

Ibish, who had studied film at Emerson College in Boston, was finishing his dissertation in comparative literature, which he defended in the fall of 2001, on “Nationalism As an Ethical Problem for Post-Colonial Theory.” The paper was a high-theory critique of the ability of post-colonial critics including Edward Said — the leading figure both in post-colonial studies and the Palestinian national movement — to reckon with the cultural phenomenon of nationalism after post-colonial states became independent. When Ibish had a chance to interview Said for his dissertation, he asked a question that continues to run through his thinking (if not in the most comprehensible form): “How is secularism available to the ethical narration of decolonized of collective subjectivities, and how would you deploy it as a practical point of view, politically?”

Ibish’s own conclusion was that Palestinian, Israeli, and all other contemporary nationalisms are a sort of indefensible “lesser evil” — a political necessity but an intellectual embarrassment.

Ibish’s intellectual skepticism — of faith, and of nationalism — run through his work. But he was better known in the Palestinian movement for the confrontational politics he expressed as a graduate student, delivering radio commentaries for the leftist Pacifica radio network and writing in the more accessible pages of the Daily Collegian. There, he was accused of “hate speech” for a column titled “Zionism and Assassination” that accused Jewish militias of terrorizing Palestinians to clear the land (it made Jewish students “very upset,” the director of the college’s Jewish Affairs office said). In another column, he condemned “the racist logic of Zionism.”

Like Ibish, Abunimah’s roots in intellectual life were deep and personal, and even more closely tied to the fight for Palestinian statehood. He was raised, he later wrote, on his mother’s memories of growing up alongside Jews in the West Bank town of Lifta, and then of fleeing Jewish militias there in 1948. His father, the former Jordanian ambassador to the United Nations, Hasan Abu Nimah, “spent nearly four decades as a diplomat working for peace,” Abunimah wrote in his 2007 book, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.

“He believed in a two-state solution,” Abunimah wrote of his father, who has been a regular contributor to the website his son founded, Electronic Intifada, for years. “When he was Jordanian ambassador in Brussels, I often listened from behind the door as he briefed and argued … and I too became convinced that such a solution — while it did not mean justice for the Palestinians — would nevertheless be a path to peace. Palestinians would not become Zionists, but they would accept the reality of the Jewish state and endeavor to live with it.”

(Abunimah responded to repeated inquiries about his friendship and enmity with Ibish by saying he is “not interested.” He is, however, a prolific writer and an extremely prolific tweeter, even by the standards of a person who tweets a lot — more than 118,000 times since joining the service, more than twice an hour on average — and his tweets and his writing offer regular snapshots of his thinking.)

Abunimah arrived at Princeton from an education in Britain and Brussels, and he fought his own student battles — he was accused of, and denied, destroying fliers advertising a pro-Israel speaker. He received his masters degree in political science in 1995 from the University of Chicago, and directed his energy to media criticism. In particular, he was among a first wave of activists to discover the power of the internet, in typically obsessive, combative, and stylish fashion. Around the time he first visited the West Bank, in 1996, he began writing emails, sometimes more than once a day, to National Public Radio, politely alleging bias in their coverage of the Middle East. He emailed each day’s letter to fellow activists and published it on his website, which he called Ali Abunimah’s Bitter Pill, signing off on the first one in classic NPR style: “In Chicago, this is Ali Abunimah.” He said in 1998 that he had written “several hundred” of them already (some 237 are online), and his complaints about bias grew harsher over time, though he continued to intersperse occasional emails of praise for, for instance, “Julie McCarthy’s outstanding report from Jenin.” (The website is no longer online, but some of its contents are preserved on archive.org.)

The network took his complaints seriously, and engaged him, which in turn brought him an immediate measure of respect and attention in a community that had long railed with less effect about media bias. NPR’s first ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, said he recalled Abunimah vividly 18 years later, as a “very dogged and persistent critic.”

Then, in February 1997, Said — a revered figure for Palestinian activists — gave Abunimah his blessing during a speech at Bethlehem University in which he told students to “write your own history.”

“Each time I check my email, I find copies of email sent by a young Palestinian to radio stations, TV reporters, and newspaper editors, commenting on their coverage of the Palestinian issue. In his effective, electronic way, this man, Ali Abunimah, is writing his own history every day,” Said said, according to accounts from the time. “For the past four months, I too have been checking my email each day in anticipation of Ali’s perceptive, well-honed responses. Nor am I alone. By word of modem, as it were, Ali now has over 200 on his ‘cc’ list. Even NPR News interviews him!”

Ibish and Abunimah were young stars of a movement in desperate need of fresh, engaged faces. They also had a great deal in common. They were schooled in the humanities, unlike the professionals, doctors, and engineers who largely populated the previous generation of activists. They had deep roots in the Arab world and Arab politics and intellectual life, matched by total confidence in their ability to navigate the American debates in the new 21st century, ones that some of their elders struggled to penetrate. And much of their work from the time — like the 2001 two-state monograph — still stands out for its attempts at rigor in a space dominated by polemics. In that paper in particular, they attempt to square the principle that Palestinians have a right, under international law, to houses from which their families were forced out; with the goal of a quick peace.

“For Palestinians, the recognition of the right of return is an essential element of a reconciliation with Israel and a just resolution to the conflict,” they wrote.

That monograph was their largest collaboration; in retrospect, Ibish said, he wonders if he and his collaborator saw the project differently from the start.

“I always saw it as an effort to strengthen the Palestinian negotiators’ hand,” he said. “I think he understood it as something that was immutable and non-negotiable and sacred. I don’t think I quite realized the difference at the time.”

But both their personalities and their chosen paths pulled them in different directions. Abunimah, whose email list gave him an early taste of the transformative power of the web, worked with a small circle of activists to build a new digital network, first on email lists and then on the web, when the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, after the collapse of the peace process Bill Clinton led, ending a wave of optimism for the two-state solution.

With a few allies, he created a website named for the moment — Electronic Intifada. At first, it was meant to extend the media criticism Abunimah had done elsewhere, recalled Nigel Parry, a co-founder of the site who first learned of Abunimah from Said’s speech. But its mission soon changed: “We realized that it’s one thing to critique the media, but what you really want to be doing is reporting on the things you think they’re not,” Parry said.

The site really hit its stride on April 18, 2002. Israeli military operations in the West Bank had disabled the website of the Palestinian Authority, pna.net. So Palestinian officials redirected it to Electronic Intifada, whose traffic jumped from about 60,000 visitors a month to more than a million, Parry recalled. (The site does not reveal its current traffic, and Abunimah didn’t respond to an inquiry about it.)

The Second Intifada wore on, and suicide bombings dominated the American press, even as Abunimah raged about the exclusion of Palestinian victims. As the site — and the sense of an outsider momentum — grew, Abunimah’s own views shifted. He and Ibish and their peers had always viewed the Oslo process, which created the Palestinian Authority in the early 1990s and was intended to set the path to peace, as unfair and incomplete, at best.

But now Oslo increasingly appeared to him (as it did to harder-line activists on both sides) as a totally unacceptable compromise in the first place in which the Palestinians gave up the right to resist in exchange for a weak, limited kind of self-governance. He saw the Palestinian Authority as a Quisling body. Oslo’s failure proved, he wrote, that the path toward two states was blocked, and he went looking for a different way.

The men were still talking every day, Ibish recalls, between his Foggy Bottom bachelor pad and Abunimah’s place in Hyde Park, Chicago. By Ibish’s recollection, it was during 2003 and 2004 that their daily conversations became “entirely monologues by him and then he would run out of breath and I would start to say something contradictory and he would interrupt me.”

Yasser Arafat died in the fall of 2004, and Abunimah derided the Palestinian Authority election to replace him — which he considered illegitimate. Ibish approved of the election and supported the results, and that was the final break between the men. “The die was cast. There was no agreement between us,” Ibish recalled. Abunimah had abandoned the hope of a negotiated settlement or a Palestine rising out of the framework of the failed peace talks. (When, a year later, the Islamist group Hamas won an election in Gaza, the debate was roughly reversed: Ibish was dismayed by the result, while Electronic Intifada heatedly defended both the process and the result.)

Their chill was evident when they appeared together on Democracy Now on Feb. 8, 2005. Ibish made the baritone case that the apparent breakdown in negotiations had actually put Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a box.

“Well, it’s good to try to put an optimistic and positive spin on things, but I really can’t share the optimism,” Abunimah responded drily.

By then, Abunimah was deep in the new ferment of the web. Ibish is webby too, but his intellectual life had taken a totally different turn. Soon after arriving in Washington in 1999, he’d tagged along to a lunch — which turned into 10 hours of drinking and talking — with Christopher Hitchens, the iconoclastic leftist writer who was in the process of turning into an unlikely admirer of elements of George W. Bush’s war on terror. Hitchens and his friend, whom he referred to affectionately as “Mount Ibish,” shared both wide intellectual range — Ibish’s recent publications include an essay in The Baffler on the Marquis de Sade’s influence on the United States — and a deep dislike of what both men described as “theocracy.”

Their minds met on Palestinian issues as well. Ibish’s militant secularism, like Hitchens’, has made him an outspoken critic of Islamist groups like Hamas — which Abunimah has cast as carrying on legitimate resistance — and of Israel’s leadership. And Hitchens never extended to support for Israel: Its tribalism and its religious roots repelled him. Hitchens cited “my friend” Ibish in his first column after Sept. 11 as his source for the claim there had been acts of retaliatory violence against Arabs and Muslims. Friends of both men describe them as extremely close and see Hitchens, who died in 2011, as a major influence on, in particular, Ibish’s polemical style.

His mark is visible on, for instance, Ibish’s scathing assault on one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s favorite stories, of how archaeologists recently unearthed a signet ring carrying the name “Netanyahu.” The prime minister’s family name, he noted archly, was Mileikowsky; his father’s adoption of the name, and his son’s reliance on it for national legitimacy, was for Ibish, a metaphor for the entire national myth.

Hitchens also drew Ibish into a different Washington, one that could at least flirt with the political power that is the city’s reason for existing. And Ibish found a way into the pragmatic politics of the Palestinian issue when Asali, who had been president of the ADC, decided to create a new advocacy group focused on Palestine. In his view, the ADC needed to focus on domestic civil rights; and meanwhile, there was an opportunity, in Asali’s view, to create an advocacy group that made the case for a Palestinian state based on American national interests. He launched the American Task Force on Palestine in 2003, and Ibish joined about a year later.

The move away from the traditional, outsider struggle and toward a time-honored Washington insider route — figures like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell spoke at the banquet of the ATFP — “took a little chutzpah on our part, and involved confronting the community a little bit,” said Asali. The old leadership, including figures like Abunimah, “depends on the misfortunes of the peace process — it will all evaporate if we have a peace agreement next month. All of them, the Alis, will have to justify their existence.”

When Ibish signed on with Asali’s new group, its commitment to two states, and its place inside normal American politics, “he started on the irreversible track of separating from these guys. He had a lot of work behind him in that ‘struggle’ — he had emotional as well as intellectual investment,” said Asali.

“He’s a really singular talent — he had no match among all these people, that’s why they felt his loss so acutely,” Asali said. “That explains in large part the animosity to me — that I lured [Ibish] out of the revolutionary path.”

The majority of the organized Palestinian movement in the United States saw things a bit differently. Ibish, Columbia’s Khalidi said in an interview, had become a “Palestinian neocon.” (“I am a liberal in every possible sense — I can’t think of a single conservative position I hold,” Ibish responded in an interview, calling the label “ridiculous.”) The two men’s debate culminated with the publication of a pair of books: Abunimah’s A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, published in 2007, and Ibish’s 2009 response, What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda?

Abunimah’s book is, if you are a reader of his confrontational, lacerating online persona, surprisingly gentle and humane. Though he devotes much of it to Palestinian suffering under Israeli occupation, its core is a vision of a functioning, democratic binational state that includes the current state of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, an old idea and one that Said himself had championed. The book begins with nostalgia for his mother’s friendship with a Jewish girl in Lifta, and imagines, in detail, a campaign of international and internal pressure based not on competing nationalisms but on international principles of human rights — the vision that underlies a current attempt to launch the sort of boycott against Israel that helped topple South Africa’s apartheid regime and drives the allegations of “apartheid” in Israel.

Ibish is mentioned (though not thanked) in the acknowledgements, as one of a half-dozen people with whom Abunimah “often replayed our many conversations.”

One Country devotes 12 central pages to a study of Belgium, and suggests that “Israelis and Palestinians may actually be better-positioned [than Flemish and Walloon Belgians] to develop truly cross-community politics.”

The book has helped spark a rich online conversation over a democratic binational state, largely among the diaspora. But many more traditional activists deride Abunimah’s vision as a fantasy — “starry-eyed enthusiasm,” in Khalidi’s words.

But the book helped spur a shift — at least in the burgeoning online conversations among activists — toward an alternate vision from two states. One Country is “one of the foundational books of the core canon of the dawning shift,” said Virginia Tilley, a professor at the University of the South Pacific and another leading writer in the one-state movement.

As Abunimah articulated that inclusive vision in print, he had become both a more divisive and a more central figure online. In 2008, he “seized control” of Electronic Intifada amid a debate about whether it should be structured as a nonprofit, raise more money, and professionalize, Parry, the co-founder of the site, recalled.

(Parry was also at the center of a separate community battle: He was arrested in 2007, the NYPD confirmed, for aggravated harassment in New York. He once described the incident as a “psychotic episode of sorts” that was misunderstood by its targets, including women in the Palestinian movement, and which included both emails and pounding on a woman’s door. Abunimah “was very supportive during that whole period as a friend and he got targeted by a lot of people in the community for that support,” he said in an interview. Some in the community say they still haven’t forgiven Abunimah for siding with Parry over his alleged victims.)

The raw anger in Abunimah’s digital voice, and his quickness to throw words like “fraud” and “liar” and “imperialist scum” at his digital foes, meanwhile, has made him an intimidating presence. His targets frequently include sometime allies: He’s currently waging internecine battles on The Nation and the London Review of Books. Three Arab-American activists who are broadly sympathetic with his point of view cited a fear of clashing with him on Twitter as a reason not to be quoted by name. Electronic Intifada is “really a useful resource,” said one, who declined to be quoted, saying even that for fear of his “slash-and-burn style.” His Twitter persona is “a bit rash,” said one of his leading intellectual allies.

Supporters of both Israel and of the nationalist leadership in the West Bank see Electronic Intifada as a dangerous channel for the Islamist politics of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to enter the mainstream. Though Abunimah has condemned suicide bombings against civilians, he has had kind words for some Islamist leaders. In 2009 he memorably describedIslamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah as “super intelligent, eloquent and hot.” He has also pointedly suggested that the definition of “combatant” is pretty broad: “Israeli occupation worker shot and killed while helping to enforce siege of Gaza,” he tweeted of a Bedouin Defense Ministry worker shot dead while repairing the fence between Israel and Gaza. In 2011, the pro-Israel site NGO Monitor helped persuade the Dutch government to drop indirect funding for the site, pointing to Electronic Intifada’s campaign to boycott Israel and to specific posts, including a letter from a Palestinian artist and activist in New York saying that “Israel has lost its moral right to exist.”

EI’s parent nonprofit brought in more than $243,000 in donations in 2011, the last year for which public tax returns are available; the site says that a combination of reader donations and private foundations pay for its work, but doesn’t disclose its backers.

Ibish pointed to the tonal gap between Abunimah’s book and his tweets in a blog item, but also responded in more detail to Abunimah’s One Country in the 2009 book published by his own task force, What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? The book was driven, Ibish said, by a sense that the one-state movement was gaining momentum broadly, not to Abunimah in particular. The book argues that the Gaza conflict, which had pushed Abunimah toward belief in a single state, “reminded us, with a fury and horror that few other recent events could match, that the choice facing Israelis and Palestinians is between peace based on two states or continued conflict, increasingly in the name of God, for the foreseeable future” and speaks of the lack of a practical path toward a single state. “The idea that a single, democratic state in all of mandatory Palestine is a viable, plausible and serious political option for both peoples and for the Palestinian national movement is simply an illusion,” Ibish wrote.

He also took a backhanded shot at his old friend, comparing Abunimah’s book (the subject of nine of Ibish’s 41 footnotes) to Tilley’s on the same subject. “Tilley’s book is more scholarly, serious and sustained, while Abunimah’s is better written, more engaging and probably more effective with the general public,” Ibish wrote.

That was their last sustained and civil public exchange. Now Ibish and Abunimah battle it out in the trenches of Twitter (though they don’t actually follow each other) and on their blogs. Many of their friends and allies have no idea that they were once close.

With additional reporting by Anita Badejo.

What if...

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The piece below is from MSN Sport

I'm fairly sure Nicolas Anelka will get a hefty ban for his brave quenelle at the December 28th West Ham match. 
And when he does, what if  he straightway gives the FA another one. 

And what if at the next match without Anelka, and in the pre-match lineup, his teammates together, give another one to Zoopla, the Jewish-owned firm who pressured West Brom and the FA to have him banned. 

And what if the fans, all 25,000 of them, stand together and, as one, give a right royal quenelle to 'the Jews' - those Jewish individuals and organisations and their non-Jewish minions who, by their arrogant and supremacist ways, put people like me (also a Jew) at risk.

And what if 'the Jews' gaze in dismay at 25,000 Britons giving them that right royal quenelle and, in their fear, see their worst nightmare unfold before their eyes...

...well, they can comfort themselves they have only themselves to blame. 



Anelka considers FA charge response

West Brom insist striker Nicolas Anelka will remain available for selection while he considers his options after being charged by the Football Association over his controversial 'quenelle' goal celebration.

The Frenchman has until Thursday to respond to the charge for the gesture, which some say is an inverted Nazi salute and has anti-Semitic connotations.

Anelka has been charged with making an improper gesture and that it was an aggravated breach, in that it included "a reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or religion or belief."

Under new FA rules, such aggravated offences carry a minimum five-match ban and possibly a longer suspension.

In a statement West Brom said there would be no action from them until the FA had concluded their disciplinary process.

"West Bromwich Albion has noted The FA's charge against Nicolas Anelka regarding the gesture he made after scoring his first goal against West Ham United on December 28," said the club.

"Anelka has received a 34-page document explaining the allegations against him and informing him that he has until 6pm on Thursday to respond. The player is now considering his options.

"Under FA rules, Anelka remains available for first-team selection until The FA's disciplinary process has reached its conclusion. Following this, the club will conclude its own internal enquiry."

The FA said in a statement: "The FA has charged the West Bromwich Albion player Nicolas Anelka following an incident that occurred during the West Ham United versus West Bromwich Albion fixture at the Boleyn Ground on 28 December 2013.

"It is alleged that, in the 40th minute of the fixture, Anelka made a gesture which was abusive and/or indecent and/or insulting and/or improper, contrary to FA Rule E3[1].

"It is further alleged that this is an aggravated breach, as defined in FA Rule E3[2], in that it included a reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or religion or belief."

West Brom's shirt sponsor Zoopla, an online property search engine which is co-owned by Jewish businessman Alex Chesterton, said on Monday it would not be renewing its deal at the end of the season because of the incident.

Anelka has denied the goal celebration was intended to be anti-Semitic and has agreed not to perform the salute again after the club accepted it had caused some offence, but there has been no apology from the player.

He has insisted however that the quenelle was anti-establishment, and a gesture in support of his friend, the controversial French comedian Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, who has been prosecuted for anti-Semitism and who created the salute.

The FA brought in an academic expert to help decide on whether charges should be brought and has spent several weeks working on the case due to its sensitivity.

A three-man independent regulatory commission will now be appointed to deal with the case - either to decide on the sanction if Anelka admits the charge or to hold a disciplinary hearing if he denies it.

Vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews Jonathan Arkush insisted Anelka should be banned for longer than five matches if the FA wanted to send out a significant message.

"The decision to charge the player was obviously the correct one," Arkush, a leading barrister and chair of the Board's defence division responsible for addressing anti-Semitism, told Press Association Sport.

"The FA is taking it seriously and the Board looks to the FA to follow it through.

"The Board itself believe any incident on or off the pitch which has racial connotations should be addressed with zero tolerance.

"I know under the rules that on a first-time offence there is a minimum five-game suspension but I think what he did was sufficiently serious to justify a longer suspension than five matches."

Arkush also criticised Anelka's lack of contrition following the outcry over his gesture.

"He has simply said he wouldn't do it again and that is not good enough," he added.

"He has not indicated one bit of remorse or regret or apologised for his actions."

While pressure groups are calling for a lengthy suspension, Anelka has received support from Everton striker Romelu Lukaku.

The Belgium international, who spent last season on loan from Chelsea at West Brom, played against Anelka in Monday's 1-1 draw at The Hawthorns.

Speaking before details of the FA charge were announced Lukaku told evertontv: "He was my idol as a kid and he still is.

"I don't think he should be banned for that, he was just supporting a comedian in France. We don't have to make such a big deal about it.

"I hope he doesn't get suspended because he is a player people want to play on the pitch."

related stories on msn

The Blind Alley of J Street and Liberal American Zionism

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This comes from The Huffington Post and is jointly written by Abba A. Solomon and Norman Solomon.

Since its founding six years ago, J Street has emerged as a major Jewish organization under the banner "Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace." By now J Street is able to be a partial counterweight to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The contrast between the two U.S. groups is sometimes stark. J Street applauds diplomacy with Iran, while AIPAC works to undermine it. J Street encourages U.S. support for "the peace process" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, while AIPAC opposes any meaningful Israeli concessions. In the pressure cooker of Washington politics, J Street's emergence has been mostly positive. But what does its motto "Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace" really mean?
That question calls for grasping the context of Zionism among Jews in the United States -- aspects of history, largely obscured and left to archives, that can shed light on J Street's current political role. Extolling President Obama's policies while urging him to intensify efforts to resolve Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, the organization has staked out positions apt to sound humanistic and fresh. Yet J Street's leaders are far from the first prominent American Jews who have struggled to square the circles of the moral contradictions of a "Jewish state" in Palestine.
Our research in the archives of the American Jewish Committee in New York City, Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere shows that J Street is adhering to -- and working to reinforce -- limits that major Jewish organizations adopted midway through the 20th century. Momentum for creation of the State of Israel required some hard choices for groups such as the influential AJC, which adjusted to the triumph of an ideology -- militant Jewish nationalism -- that it did not share. Such accommodation meant acceding to an outward consensus while suppressing debate on its implications within Jewish communities in the United States.
In 1945, AJC staff had discussed the probability of increased bloodshed in Palestine -- and a likelihood of "Judaism, as a whole, being held morally responsible for the fallacies of Zionism." In exchange for AJC support in 1947 for UN partition of Palestine, the AJC extracted this promise from the Jewish Agency: "The so-called Jewish State is not to be called by that name but will bear some appropriate geographical designation. It will be Jewish only in the sense that the Jews will form a majority of the population."

A January 1948 position paper in AJC records spoke of "extreme Zionists" then ascendant among Jews in Palestine and the United States: The paper warned that they served "no less monstrosity than the idol of the State as the complete master not only over its own immediate subjects but also over every living Jewish body and soul the world over, beyond any consideration of good or evil. This mentality and program is the diametrical opposite to that of the American Jewish Committee." The confidential document warned of "moral and political repercussions which may deeply affect both the Jewish position outside Palestine, and the character of the Jewish state in Palestine." Such worries became more furtive after Israel became a nation later in 1948.

Privately, some leaders held out hope that constraints on public debate could coexist with continuing debate inside Jewish institutions. In 1950 the president of the American Jewish Committee, Jacob Blaustein, wrote in a letter to the head of an anti-Zionist organization, the American Council for Judaism, that the silencing of public dissent would not preclude discussion within the Yiddish-language and Jewish press. In effect, Blaustein contended that vigorous dialogue could continue among Jews but should be inaudible to gentiles. However, the mask of American Jewry would soon become its face. Concerns about growing Jewish nationalism became marginal, then unmentionable.

The recent dispute in the Jewish student group Hillel -- whether its leadership can ban Hillel chapters on U.S. college campuses from hosting severe critics of Israeli policies -- emerged from a long history of pressure on American Jews to accept Zionism and a "Jewish state" as integral to Judaism. The Jewish students now pushing to widen the bounds of acceptable discourse are challenging powerful legacies of conformity.

During the 1950s and later decades, the solution for avoiding an ugly rift was a kind of preventive surgery. Universalist, prophetic Judaism became a phantom limb of American Jewry, after an amputation in service of the ideology of an ethnic state in the Middle East. Pressures for conformity became overwhelming among American Jews, whose success had been predicated on the American ideal of equal rights regardless of ethnic group origin.

Generally flourishing in a country founded on the separation of religion and state, American Zionists dedicated themselves to an Israeli state based on the prerogatives of Jews. That Mobius strip could only be navigated by twisting logic into special endless dispensations for Jewish people. Narratives of historic Jewish vulnerability and horrific realities of the Holocaust became all-purpose justifications.
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As decades passed after the June 1967 war, while the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza wore on, younger American Jews slowly became less inclined to automatically support Israeli policies. Now, 65 years after the founding of Israel, the historic realities of displacement -- traumatic for Palestinians while triumphant for many Jewish Israelis -- haunt the territorial present that J Street seeks to navigate.

The organization's avowed goal is an equitable peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians. But J Street's pragmatic, organization-building strength is tied into its real-world moral liability: continuing to accept extremely skewed power relations in Palestine. The J Street leadership withholds from the range of prospective solutions the alternative of truly ending the legally and militarily enforced Jewish leverage over Palestinians, replete with the advantages of dominance (in sharp contrast to the precept of abandoning white privilege that was a requirement in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa).

Every conceptual lane of J Street equates being "pro-Israel" with maintaining the doctrine of a state where Jews are more equal than others. Looking to the past, that approach requires treating the historic Zionist conquest as somewhere between necessary and immaculate. Looking at the present and the future, that approach sees forthright opposition to the preeminence of Jewish rights as extreme or otherwise beyond the pale. And not "pro-Israel."

Like the Obama administration, J Street is steadfast in advocating a "two-state solution" while trying to thwart the right-wing forces led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A goal is to reduce his leverage by altering the political environment he encounters in the United States, where AIPAC -- riding high astride much of the U.S. Congress -- is aligned with the hard right of Israeli politics. In contrast, J Street is aligned with a fuzzy center that copes with cognitive dissonance by embracing humane rhetoric about Palestinians while upholding subjugation of Palestinians' rights.

At J Street's 2011 conference, Rabbi David Saperstein congratulated the organization: "When the Jewish community needed someone to speak for them at the Presbyterian Convention against the divestment resolution, the community turned to J Street, who had the pro-peace credibility to stunt the efforts of the anti-Israeli forces, and they were compellingly effective. They did so at Berkeley on the bus ad fights, debating Jewish Voice for Peace." Saperstein -- a Reform Judaism leader described by Newsweek as the USA's most influential rabbi -- lauded J Street for its special function among "the strongly pro-Israel peace groups that have the credibility to stand before strongly dovish non-Jewish groups and guide them away from delegitimization efforts."

Such praise for being a bulwark against "delegitimization" is a high compliment for J Street. And it is surely gratifying for its founder and president, Jeremy Ben-Ami. When he reaffirms "our commitment to and support for the people and the state of Israel," he frames it in these terms: "We believe that the Jewish people -- like all other people in the world -- have the right to a national home of their own, and we celebrate its rebirth after thousands of years." His official J Street bio says that "Ben-Ami's family connection to Israel goes back 130 years to the first aliyah when his great-grandparents were among the first settlers in Petah Tikva [near present-day Tel Aviv]. His grandparents were one of the founding families of Tel Aviv, and his father was an activist and leader in the Irgun, working for Israel's independence and on the rescue of European Jews before and during World War II." Readers are left to ponder the reference to leadership of the ultranationalist Irgun, given its undisputed terrorist violence.

Whatever its differences with the Likudnik stances of AIPAC and Netanyahu, J Street joins in decrying the danger of the "delegitimization" of Israel -- a word often deployed against questioning of Jewish privileges in Palestine maintained by armed force. In sync with U.S. foreign policy, J Street is enmeshed in assuming the validity of prerogatives that are embedded in Netanyahu's demand for unequivocal support of Israel as "the nation-state of the Jewish people." In the process, the secular USA massively supports a government that is using weapons of war emblazoned with symbols of the Jewish religion, while the U.S. Congress continues to designate Israel as a "strategic ally." An AIPAC official was famously quoted by Jeffrey Goldberg as boasting, "You see this napkin? In 24 hours, we could have the signatures of 70 senators on this napkin."

J Street is aligned with more "moderate" personalities in Israeli politics, but what is considered moderate Zionism in Israel may not match sensibilities outside Israel. On a J Street-sponsored U.S. speaking tour, Knesset member Adi Koll said she is pleased that Palestinian refugees from 1948 are dying off, which she portrayed as good for peace: "This is what we have been waiting for, for more and more of them to die," to finalize the War of Independence expulsion of Palestinians. J Street's Ben-Ami has warned of "the 'one state nightmare' -- a minority of Jewish Israelis in a state with a majority of non-Jewish residents." For J Street, an embrace of perpetual Jewish dominance as imperative seems to be a litmus test before any criticism of the occupation is to be deemed legitimate.

A human rights lawyer active with Jewish Voice for Peace, David L. Mandel, sees a double standard at work. "Too many progressives on everything else still are not progressive about Israel and Palestine," he told us. "And J Street, by making it easier for them to appear to be critical, in fact serves as a roadblock on the path to a consistent, human rights and international law-based position."

Covering J Street's annual conference in September 2013, Mondoweiss.net editor Philip Weiss pointed out: "J Street still can claim to be a liberal Zionist organization that wants to pressure Israel to leave the settlements. But more than that it wants access to the Israeli establishment, and it is not going to alienate that establishment by advocating any measure that will isolate Israel or put real pressure on it."

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While evocations of the "special relationship" between the United States and Israel may sound uplifting, J Street ultimately lets the Israeli government off the hook by declaring that relationship sacrosanct, no matter what. The organization insists that political candidates funded by J StreetPAC "must demonstrate that they support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, active U.S. leadership to help end the conflict, the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel, continued aid to the Palestinian Authority and opposition to the Boycott/Divestment/Sanction movement."

The sanctity of the proviso about "the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel" became evident to one of us (Norman Solomon) while running for Congress in 2012 in California. After notification that J Street had decided to confer "On the Street" status on Solomon and another Democratic candidate in the primary race, the group's leadership suddenly withdrew the stamp of approval -- after discovering a Solomon op-ed piece written in July 2006 that criticized Washington's support for the Israeli bombing of Lebanon then underway. In a specially convened conference call, J Street's top leaders told the candidate that one statement in the op-ed was especially egregious: "The United States and Israel. Right now, it's the most dangerous alliance in the world."

In December 2013, while visiting Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry affirmed that "the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable." He added that -- despite occasional "tactical" differences -- "we do not have a difference about the fundamental strategy that we both seek with respect to the security of Israel and the long-term peace of this region."

Two days later, on Dec. 7 at a Saban Center gathering in Washington, Kerry joined with President Obama in paying tribute to the idea of a nation for Jews. Obama endorsed the goal of protecting "Israel as a Jewish state." (He sat for an interview with billionaire Zionist Haim Saban, who joked: "Very obedient president I have here today!") For his part, Kerry addressed Israeli ethnic anxiety by urging that Israel heed U.S. advice for withdrawal from some territory, to defuse what he called the "demographic time bomb" -- non-Jewish births -- threatening the existence of a "Jewish and democratic" state.

Although "militant Islam" is common coin in U.S. discourse about the Middle East, militant Jewish nationalism lacks a place in the conversation. This absence occurs despite -- and perhaps because of -- the fact that militant Jewish nationalism is such a powerful ideology in the United States, especially in Congress. Yet recent erosion of the taboo has caused some alarm. In May 2011 the Reut Institute, well-connected to the Israeli establishment, held a joint conference with the American Jewish Committee and met with smaller organizations to formalize a policy of "establishing red-lines with regards to the discourse about Israel between legitimate criticism and acts of delegitimization."

In its own way, J Street has laid down red-line markers along the left perimeter of American Zionism. For instance, some of the most telling moments of J Street's existence came during the November 2012 Gaza crisis. As the conflict escalated, Israel threatened a ground invasion. J Street urged Israeli restraint but did not oppose the ongoing intense bombardment of Gaza. Instead, echoing President Obama, the organization endorsed Israel's "right and obligation to defend itself against rocket fire and against those who refuse to recognize its right to exist and inexcusably use terror and violence to achieve their ends."

J Street's statement, titled "Enough of Silence," eerily mirrored the brutal asymmetry of the warfare then raging -- and, for that matter, the asymmetry of the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While far more Palestinians than Israelis were dying (87 Palestinian and four Israeli noncombatants lost their lives, according to a report from the human-rights group B'Tselem), J Street condemned the killing by Palestinians but merely questioned the ultimate efficacy of the killing by Israelis. While J Street was appropriately repulsed by the bloodshed, it could not plead for reversal of the underlying, continuing injustice beyond its advocacy of a two-state solution. During the years ahead, J Street is likely to be instrumental in establishing and reinforcing such red lines.

A rare instance when J Street has not endorsed President Obama's approach in the Middle East came in September 2013, when the administration pressed for U.S. missile strikes on Syria following claims that the Bashar al-Assad regime had used chemical weapons. J Street remained officially silent on the issue; Jeremy Ben-Ami reportedly pushed for endorsement of an attack, but many others in the organization were opposed. The Forwardnewspaper quoted a J Street activist: "Jeremy is a pragmatist. He wants to keep us as progressive as possible without going too far from the mainstream."

***** ***** ***** *****

J Street is striving to support Israel differently than AIPAC: by fostering the more peaceful, humane streams of Zionism. But among new generations of U.S. Jews, the Zionist rationales for Israel as a whole are losing ground. In a 2013 Pew Research Center study, 93 percent of American Jews state they are proud of being part of the Jewish people -- but only 43 percent say that "caring about" the State of Israel is essential to being a Jew, and the figure drops to 32 percent of respondents under 30 years old.

The Jewish establishment has always represented those Jews choosing to affiliate with institutionalized Judaism. More and more, this leaves out large numbers who don't believe that blood-and-soil Jewish nationalism should crowd out their Jewish and universalist values. As the Pew survey shows, American Jews are less sympathetic than American Jewish organizations to enforcing Jewish political nationalism with armed force.

Last summer, Ben-Ami told the New Republic: "We are advocating for a balance between the security needs of Israel and the human rights of the Palestinians. It is by definition a moderate, centrist place." Ben-Ami highlighted his strategy for practicality: "We have the ear of the White House; we have the ear of a very large segment of Congress at this point; we have very good relations with top communal leadership in the Jewish community. If you want to have a voice in those corridors of power, then get involved with J Street."

We recently submitted three questions to Ben-Ami. Asked about the historic concerns that a "democratic Jewish state" would be self-contradictory, he replied: "J Street believes it is possible to reconcile the essence of Zionism, that Israel must be the national homeland of the Jewish people, and the key principles of its democracy, namely, that the state must provide justice and equal rights for all its citizens. In the long run, Israel can only manage the tension between these two principles if there is a homeland for the Palestinian people alongside Israel."

Asked whether relations with non-Jewish Palestinians would be better now if Jewish leaders who favored creation of a non-ethnically-based state had prevailed, Ben-Ami did not respond directly. Instead, he affirmed support for a two-state solution and commented: "History has sadly and repeatedly proven the necessity of a nation-state for the Jewish people. J Street today is focused on building support in the American Jewish community for the creation of a nation-state for the Palestinian people alongside Israel -- precisely because it is so necessary if Israel is to continue to be the national home of the Jewish people."

The shortest -- and perhaps the most significant -- reply came when we asked: "Do you believe it is fair to say that the Israeli government has engaged in ethnic cleansing?"

Ben-Ami responded with one word. "No."

"They have destroyed and are destroying ... and do not know it and do not want to know it," James Baldwin wrote several decades ago. "But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime." Those who have seen to the devastation of "others" -- and have even celebrated overall results of the process -- cannot begin to atone or make amends without some genuine remorse. With a pose of innocence, in the absence of remorse, the foundation of J Street's position is denial of the ethnic cleansing that necessarily enabled Israel to become what it is now, officially calling itself a "Jewish and democratic state."

Population transfer of Arabs was part of the planning of Zionist leadership, and it was implemented. Benny Morris, the pioneering Israeli historian of the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Israel, said: "Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here."

In a talk five decades ago at Hillel House at the University of Chicago, philosopher Leo Strauss mentioned that Leon Pinsker's Zionist manifesto "Autoemancipation," published in 1882, quotes the classic Hillel statement "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if not now, when?" -- but leaves out the middle of the sequence, "If I am only for myself, what am I?"

"The omission of these words," Strauss said, "is the definition of pureblooded political Zionism."

The full integrity of Rabbi Hillel's complete statement -- urging Jews not to be "only for myself" -- is explicit in the avowed mission of J Street. But there is unintended symbolism in the organization's name, whh partly serves as an inside Washington joke. The absence of an actual J Street between I and K Streets is, so to speak, a fact on the ground. And sadly, the group's political vision of "Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace" is as much a phantom as the nonexistent lettered street between I and K in the Nation's Capital; unless "peace" is to be understood along the lines of the observation by Carl von Clausewitz that "a conqueror is always a lover of peace."

________________________________

Abba A. Solomon is the author of "The Speech, and Its Context: Jacob Blaustein's Speech 'The Meaning of Palestine Partition to American Jews.'" Norman Solomon is the founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, cofounder of RootsAction.org and the author of "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death."
 

Oh dear...another of those “anti-Semitic cartoon” rows.

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Here are four articles  Three are current and one is from a year ago, All are on political cartoons which have caused controversy for being allegedly 'anti-Semitic'. The first is by Jonathan Cook and the other three are from the Jewish press.

Two things strike me: The first is the quality, and seeming objectivity of much of the Jewish press represented here (Am I alone here?) and the second is the continuing and nagging ambivalence about the term 'anti-Semitic'. And guess what? The worst offender is the estimable Jonathan Cook.

So Jonathan and others, a question for you (and you, reader): If that cartoon is not anti-Semitic (and I'm perfectly happy to accept that it isn't) what is it, and what kind of cartoon would be anti-Semitic and what's the difference?


Jonathan Cook

Israel lobby has Economist on the run
21 JANUARY 2014

The Economist has found itself at the centre of another of those “anti-semitic cartoon” rows. The cartoon has upset the Israel lobby because it shows, well, that the Israel lobby has a lot of influence in Congress. The article it illustrated refers to President Obama’s attempts to reach a deal with Iran, a diplomatic process being subverted by AIPAC’s efforts to persuade Congress to intensify sanctions.

And just to prove how little influence the lobby really has, it has made a huge fuss (again) about anti-semitism and the Economist has … quickly pulled the cartoon (from this article). So just how anti-semitic is it? Here it is for you to judge:



In fact, I’m not sure if you’ll notice the Star of David on the cartoon, so here it is highlighted to make sure you do see it.



To my mind, this cartoon underestimates the influence of the Israel lobby in Congress, certainly on issues relating to the Middle East – which, after all, is what the cartoon is about. Most analysts, even very conservative ones, nowadays concede that the lobby is extremely powerful in Congress, as occasionally do lobby members themselves.

The Israeli media have regularly noted that the Israel lobby is the chief driver for intensified sanctions against Iran.

There’s nothing secret about this. It is on AIPAC’s website: “Congress must pass legislation that will increase the pressure on Iran and ensure any future deal denies Tehran a nuclear weapons capability”.

There is also nothing new about this relationship. A British intelligence report shortly before the British left Palestine in 1948 referred to the “effective pressures which Zionists in America are in a position to exert on the American administration”.

Here are just a few relevant quotes on the lobby’s powers:

Former US President Jimmy Carter: “It’s almost politically suicidal … for a member of Congress who wants to seek reelection to take any stand that might be interpreted as anti-policy of the conservative Israeli government.”

A Congressional staffer supportive of Israel told journalist Michael Massing: ”We can count on well over half the House – 250 to 300 members – to do reflexively whatever AIPAC wants.”

During an interview, AIPAC official Steven Rosen put a napkin in front of him and said: “In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”

Former AIPAC staffer M J Rosenberg recounts a conversation with Tom Dine, AIPAC’s executive director in the 1980s. Dine told him he did not think a US president could make Israel do anything it didn’t want to do given the power of AIPAC and “our friends in Congress.”

James Abourezk, former Senator from South Dakota, said: “I can tell you from personal experience that, at least in the Congress, the support Israel has in that body is based completely on political fear – fear of defeat by anyone who does not do what Israel wants done.”

Uri Avnery, veteran Israeli journalist and former Israeli MP: “For five decades, at least, US Middle East policy has been decided in Jerusalem. Almost all American officials dealing with this area are, well, Jewish. The Hebrew-speaking American ambassador in Tel Aviv could easily be the Israeli ambassador in Washington.”

Note too this interesting figure: Since 2000, members of Congress and their staffs have visited tiny little Israel more than 1,000 times. That’s almost twice the number of visits to any other foreign country. Roughly three-quarters of those trips were sponsored by AIPAC. These trip are particularly popular with Congress members who serve on foreign policy–related committees.



The Jewish Daily Forward

The Economist Pulls 'Anti-Semitic' Cartoon on Barack Obama and Iran
ADL Says Magazine 'Cannot Repair the Damage'



By JTA
Published January 21, 2014.

The Economist removed a cartoon from an article on its internet edition that has been characterized as anti-Semitic.

The cartoon was removed Tuesday from the weekly publication, where it ran alongside an article published on Jan. 18. The cartoon appears in the print edition of the magazine.

An editor’s note appended at the end of the article titled “Negotiating with Iran: A Big Gap to Close,” about the difficulties between the United States and Iran over negotiating changes to Iran’s nuclear program, read: “The print edition of this story had a cartoon which inadvertently caused offense to some readers, so we have replaced it with a photograph.”

The cartoon shows President Obama with a leg shackled to the seal of the U.S. Congress, which is covered with Stars of David. He is reaching out to shake the outstretched hand of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who is followed by extremists burning an American flag. The cartoon seems to indicate that Congress is run by Jews or Israel.

The Anti-Defamation League called on the Economist to issue a “full-throated apology” for publishing the editorial cartoon.

“The Economist cannot repair the damage of publishing an anti-Semitic image with only half-measures. They owe their readers a full-throated apology, which not only acknowledges the offensive nature of the cartoon but explains to readers why this image implying Jewish control was so outrageous and hurtful,” ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said in a statement.

“The Economist already has a credibility problem when it comes to Israel. The fact that this cartoon passed editorial muster without raising red flags raises serious questions about its editorial judgment and the possibility of a more deeply ingrained bias against the Jewish State,” he concluded.


The Times of Israel

The Economist: How the Jews control Congress

EYLON ASLAN-LEVY January 19, 2014,


“Negotiating with Iran: a big gap to close”: The Economist, 18/01/14. Cartoon: Peter Schrank.
The Seal of the United States Congress tells an observer a number of salient facts about American politics: the olive branch stands for America’s commitment to peace; the arrows represent its readiness for war; and the Star of David, which The Economist has helpfully added to the original design, symbolises the control of Jews and/or Israel over America’s policies of war and peace.

Peter Schrank’s cartoon, which accompanies an article on negotiations with Iran in this week’s Economist, depicts President Obama with his ankle shackled to the Judaised seal of the US Congress, thereby prevented from shaking hands with Iran’s President Rouhani, who is being restrained by his nefarious-looking, US-flag-burning compatriots.

The message is that either American Jews or Israel (and it is unclear which, because the Star of David is both a Jewish and Israeli symbol) are holding the United States back from making peace with Iran – and moreover, that they are doing so through their control of the machinery of the American government, since the Star of David is incorporated into the official insignia of the US, alongside the stars and stripes. The Israel Lobby, as the cartoon rather nefariously hints, is not a separate influence on the US government – it is a constituent part of it.

Schrank’s previous cartoons have hardly been kind towards Israel, but one can only wonder what was going through the mind of his editors: there are questions about the impartiality of the magazine’s coverage of Israel, but as last week’s very fair and reasonable “Who is a Jew?” feature suggests, The Economist is hardly an anti-Semitic publication.

Intentionally or not, however, Schrank’s cartoon is now an addition to the disturbing trend of cartoons hinting at the sinister control of Western governments by Israel or Jews, following Steve Bell’s Guardian cartoon showing Netanyahu as a puppeteer with Tony Blair and William Hagueas finger-puppets, and a cartoon in the Qatari Al-Watan newspaper depicting an Orthodox Jew driving with Obama’s head as a gearstickand the UN logo as his steering wheel.

I shan’t accuse The Economist directly of anti-Semitism, but it bears repeating that the EUMC Working Definition, adopted by the British government, covers “stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as… the myth … of Jews controlling the… government” and also covers “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism… to characterise Israel or Israelis”. Readers are invited to draw their own conclusions.

The notion that Jews control the world’s major institutions of power, including governments, media and banks, is one of the most established and pernicious myths peddled against Jews, and it is difficult not to see continuity between contemporary hints about “Zionist” control of world governments and nineteenth-century cartoons depicting a Jewish octopus with its tentacles over the globe.

In France, 29% believe Jews have too much control of international financial markets; in Italy, 39% believe Jews have too much power in the business world; and in Hungary, Poland and Spain, well over half of the population believes at least one of these propositions. In the United States, 14% believe that “Jews have too much power in the U.S. today”, and that’s from the most philo-Semitic of countries out there.

Anti-Semitic tropes enjoy even greater vibrancy in the Muslim world, where the Elders of Zion is taken as gospel, Jewish conspiracies are more common than Jews, and The Economist is available too – subtly, and quite probably unintentionally, reinforcing such prejudices.

The Economist’s readership might be more intelligent than the general public, but it should not flatter itself. Even if its readers believe the myth of Jewish power in proportions far lower than is average, their perceptions are hardly likely to be dispelled by such cartoons, which contribute towards a toxic drip-drip in public discourse, confirming the unarticulated suspicions about Jewish power of those who find that such beliefs are neither rare nor taboo.

It may well be that the cartoon was intended only as a nod to the influence of Israel or AIPAC in Washington’s policy-making on Iran; and perhaps the cartoonist had good reasons not to include a Tricolore and shahada, despite similar pressure from the French and Saudis. Nevertheless, it does not take a Professor in Anti-Semitism Studies to understand how such an image can reinforce the myth of the Jewish conspiracy in the minds of those already convinced of its veracity, and for whom the words “Jewish lobby” trip too easily off the tongue.

Cartoons work by using images and symbols familiar to readers in order to induce them to read between the lines and infer a particular unspoken message from the image. The best that can be said about Schrank’s cartoon is that it is ambiguous, but this ambiguity is precisely what makes it so noxious: the Economist can dissociate itself from the most toxic of interpretations, but still the process of “wink wink, nudge nudge” will continue to encourage readers, quite reasonably, to jump to conclusions about Jewish control over Capitol Hill from the incorporation of the Star of David into official US symbols.

Belief in a Jewish conspiracy is sufficiently prevalent worldwide that for the Economist to buttress them, even unintentionally, is negligent at best and utterly reckless at worst. If there is nuance, the Economist cannot protest innocence when it is lost in translation.

Update: The Economist has pulled the cartoon from its website, explaining: “The print edition of this story had a cartoon which inadvertently caused offence to some readers, so we have replaced it with a photograph.” Given that the article makes no mention of AIPAC, the Israel Lobby, or indeed Israel (bar a passing reference in brackets to Benjamin Netanyahu), this was probably a wise move.

The Jewish Daily Forward

The Cartoon and Anti-Semitic 'Mission Creep'

By Eddy Portnoy January 2013

When it comes to cartoons, it’s usually Muslim fundamentalists that throw hissy fits. But, in a turn of events, some of our storied communal defenders, Abraham Foxman and Marvin Hier among them, have been taking the lead. Indiscriminately tossing around accusations of anti-Semitism, our fearless leaders have attacked at least three editorial cartoonists over the past few months on charges that they have defamed the Jewish people.


Representing important institutions, you’d think that Foxman, of the Anti-Defamation League, and Hier, who represents the Simon Wiesenthal Center, might have figured out how to differentiate an anti-Semitic cartoon from an editorial cartoon that criticizes Israeli policy. Although both are undoubtedly experts on anti-Semitism, they both seem to take leave of their senses when it comes to criticism of Israel. And yet both claim to be ardent supporters of free speech. Except when it comes to that one thing, that Israel thing.

So when the London Times published a cartoon showing Benjamin Netanyahu cementing Palestinians between bricks of a wall, it was a perfect opportunity for Foxman to pipe up, accusing the cartoonist of evoking the blood libel. Britain’s Chief Rabbi opined that the cartoon caused “immense pain to the Jewish community in the UK and around the world.” The Israeli ambassador to Britain, who also chimed in on behalf of the International Jewry, argued that the cartoon added insult to injury, as it was published on European Holocaust Memorial Day.

Okay, so the cartoon and its timing were a bit ham-handed, for which Acting Editor of The Sunday Times Martin Ivens apologized. Gerald Scarfe, who has been visually excoriating British politicians since the late 1960s, was the artist behind Pink Floyd’s, The Wall. It appears, walls are, when all else fails, his fallback metaphor.

Sure, his cartoon wall dripping with Palestinian blood references the separation wall, which incidentally, isn’t particularly newsworthy right now, so it doubles as a symbol of Netanyahu’s recalcitrance vis-à-vis the peace process and how it crushes Palestinian life. Netanyahu comes in for some harsh criticism here, but so do all the other public figures Scarfe has drawn over the years. In fact, compared to Margaret Thatcher, Bibi gets off easy. It’s an obnoxious cartoon, but it’s not anti-Semitic. It’s also been removed from the Times website.

It’s not a particularly clever cartoon, but, thanks to a distinctly Jewish hysteria that raises its hackles when Israel or its leaders are on the receiving end of a perceived slight, it’s garnered a huge amount of press. The inaccurate accusations of blood libel and anti-Semitism seem to be attempts to stifle such commentary, and, perhaps more importantly, to get figures like Foxman and Hier in the spotlight. Press coverage such as this cartoon has received and, even better, Rupert Murdoch’s tweeted apology for it are fundraising gold for their organizations.

Are Jewish leaders and politicians off limits for editorial cartoonists? Are only the most milquetoast criticisms of Israel permitted in an editorial field that is notorious for its brutal critiques? It bears repeating that not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. To slap that label wantonly on anything they don’t agree with, Israel’s supporters risk degrading the meaning of anti-Semitism.

It goes without saying that the ADL and the Wiesenthal Center have done great work combatting anti-Semitism and racism. But when they overreach, as they’ve done here, it’s a huge disservice to their cause.

This said, it’s an absolute mystery as to why they missed the chance to attack Guardian cartoonist, Steve Bell’s mid-November piece, which showed Netanyahu as a puppet master, holding up small versions of Tony Blair and William Hague on a podium. Perhaps they felt their British counterparts could handle it on their own, which they did, with the same type of overreactive aplomb.

Again, Bell’s cartoon was aimed only at Bibi and his perceived British minions and not the Jews at large. But, London’s Jewish Chronicle brought out the anti-Semitism charge, and it caused a ruckus. This time, the charge at least had some rationale as Bell unwittingly used an anti-Jewish puppeteer trope that has been around since the Nazi era. While Bell obviously didn’t intend it as such, hypersensitive sensibilities perceived it as crossing a line. Even the Guardian’s Readers Editor agreed. But where were our hall monitors?

At the time, Hier was busy fulminating over a different cartoon, one by Brazilian cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, which showed Netanyahu standing over a ballot box, squeezing votes out of a dead Palestinian child. Hier was so incensed that he put Latuff the No. 3 slot in the Wiesenthal Center’s hokey, year-end top 10 list of anti-Semites, right behind the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran.

“[It’s] almost worse than an anti-Semitic cartoon,” said Hier in response to the cartoon. What might be worse than an anti-Semitic cartoon isn’t made clear. But, according to Hier, this one nearly crosses the red line that’s apparently after that other red line. The irony is that this isn’t an anti-Semitic cartoon at all. It is an attack on Benjamin Netanyahu that accuses him of wringing votes out of Palestinian deaths during the recent conflagration in Gaza. In case the Wiesenthal Center needs a reminder, editorial cartoons typically use extreme exaggeration, as this one does, to make their points. The question this cartoon so indelicately raises is whether it’s possible for a country’s leader to initiate attacks on an enemy in order to gain votes in an upcoming election. Yes, it’s a vicious, one-sided attack, but vicious is standard fare — and should be — for an editorial cartoon.

That’s really the point here, that editorial cartoons are the angry delinquents of the opinion page, there to ruin the party with their vulgar displays. They pull their political targets apart in ways that text can’t. Their visual lexicon is part joke and part serious. They bend reality in ways that allow barely recognizable figures perform the impossible and still maintain credulity. Most people understand that political cartoons are an integral part of a normative editorial page and accept their distortions as a unique form of critical commentary. The context in which they appear is also important: The Guardian and the London Times are not Der Stuermer. Their existence as part of a free press in a liberal democracy precludes that. Why the ADL and the Wiesenthal Center can’t grasp that is a mystery.

Slapping “anti-Semitism” on every obnoxious editorial cartoon that criticizes Israeli policy is mission creep for Foxman and Hier. There’s plenty of real anti-Semitism out there for them to deal with, and they know it. Genuine, truly rank anti-Semitic cartoons are published frequently throughout the Arabic, Farsi and other presses, cartoons that are not satire, but propaganda. Both organizations know this. But getting an apology Tweet from Rupert Murdoch garners a lot more press than one from an unknown Bahraini editor.

Where Fascism succeeded

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This is from The Wall Street Journal. It's about how well-designed, Mussolini's fascist world could be. 

Well, if that little knick-knack pictured below is anything to go by, you'll get no argument from me. Wouldn't I like to have that in my living room?

The article goes on to say, "Somehow the design, architecture and public art produced under Italian Fascism have not been tarred in the same way that Nazi style, with its red flags and black insignia, remains so utterly sinister and repellent." 

Well, they have to say that, don't they, and I don't agree. I think National Socialist Germany presented itself just beautifully much I understand under the direct influence of Hitler himself who, I understand, had quite an eye for design.

This is dangerous territory. Nothing I've ever written has provoked quite as much outrage and disgust (and not from 'the Jews' but from good ole', right-on solidarity folk) as the one or two pieces in which I've confessed my lifelong fascination and engagement with Nazi, and even, (gasp, God forbid), Zionist iconography. Actually, it's not really that odd since, to fascinate and engage were the precise objectives of both iconographies)


It occurred on the pages of deLiberation when I posted Zionism's fierce beauty  - the phrase was supplied by the wonderful Ariadna Theokopoulos  - and a lot of the controversy is reflected in the comments - and also Nazism's fierce beauty posted here.

Far less controversial here is the startling similarity in imagery of both ideologies. The big question is: who got it from whom?


Where Fascism Succeeded
Italian design between the world wars looks surprisingly good today.

Jan. 15, 2014 5:37 p.m. ET





'Echoes and Origins' and 'The Birth of Rome' are at the Wolfsonian through May 18. The Wolfsonian-FIU
Miami Beach, Fla.
An engrossing assemblage of small but related exhibitions at the Wolfsonian museum here will have you wondering how your own aesthetic leanings could be so compatible with those of Benito Mussolini.
Somehow the design, architecture and public art produced under Italian Fascism have not been tarred in the same way that Nazi style, with its red flags and black insignia, remains so utterly sinister and repellent. And while Italian design of the same period now sometimes looks to us like kitsch, much of it manages to achieve a resonant modernity.
Focusing on the years between the two world wars, the show, collectively called "Rebirth of Rome," sheds light on the staying power and indefatigable allure of Italian design produced in the 1920s, '30s and early '40s. At the same time it touches on even larger themes of identity and power, aesthetics and morality. As the director of the Wolfsonian, Cathy Leff, writes in the catalog: "The things we make are never merely things."
The exhibit opens with a perfect example of the complicated appeal of these design objects: A darkly dynamic sculpture by Renato Bertelli is a bronzed ceramic of Mussolini's profile from 1933. Hardly a routine silhouette, it shows the Roman-nosed dictator's head in solid rotation as if extruded onto a spinning turntable. "Continuous Profile of the Duce," manifests the avant-garde Futurists' love of machinery and motion even as it alludes to the myth of Janus, who could look in two directions at once. Its message of omniscient authoritarianism may be ominous, but its conceit of speed made plastic is as invigorating today as it must have been then.
Drawing on the Wolfsonian's incomparable collection of some 120,000 decorative art objects, ephemera, books and cultural artifacts associated with and produced during political movements from 1885 to 1945, curator Silvia Barisione delves first, with "Echoes and Origins: Italian Interwar Design," into the search for national identity that was fanned into an obsession when Mussolini declared his intention in 1925 to build a new, "Third" Rome, as grandiose as anything from the age of Augustus.
It was barely 50 years since the establishment of Italy as a unified country, and for Mussolini, pinning down a national identity would serve to consolidate his power and ambitions for a new Augustan empire. Ancient history proffered a deep well of symbols and myth to draw on, but the future also had to be secured. Mussolini had a voracious interest in the new; unlike Hitler, he did not equate the avant-garde with degeneracy.
And so the decorative arts abounded with motifs sourced in ancient times but treated in new ways. Old technologies like majolica were revived, and new materials such as aluminum were used to make furniture (especially after exotic woods from Africa became scarce due to League of Nations sanctions for Italy's invasion of Ethiopia). The she-wolf that fostered the founding twins of Rome, Romulus and Remus, could be seen on posters for Fiat sports cars; satyrs sold Pirelli rubber tires; ceramics were decorated with streamlined urns and lion heads in what could be called Deco Etruscan. One of the most ubiquitous motifs—rods bundled together with an ax as carried by ancient guards, and called fasces—provided the root of the word "fascist," and appeared on everything from buildings to biscotti wrappers.
In a second exhibition, "The Birth of Rome," the focus shifts to urban planning and Mussolini's grand building projects shaped by two goals: to relieve need and realize magnificence. Intriguingly, architects at the time couldn't do anything new and grandiose without first dealing with the old. Their thoughts about preservation within a dense urban setting—whether to strip them of latter-day accretions or isolate them from context—have become only more relevant today.
Two projects stand out. The Foro Mussolini, renamed Foro Italico (Italian Forum), and the fairgrounds of the Esposizione Universale di Roma (Universal Exposition of Rome), or EUR, were envisioned by Mussolini on an imperial scale—overblown but somehow more natural-looking there than the totalitarian gigantism of Albert Speer's plans for Berlin. The original intent may have been to exalt the loyal and intimidate the rest, but those parts of the forums that were built are now curiously well integrated into the city.
The first Fascist urban plan, the Foro Mussolini, was conceived in 1927 as a sports complex championing every region of the country. The central piece is a stadium for 8,000 encircled by 60 monumental male nudes in Alpine white marble and an obelisk dedicated to Mussolini. The Foro was still the largest sports facility in Rome when the stadium hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and remains a popular venue.
If the Foro's towering male nudes now make for a freakishly eroticized urban setting, the EUR fairgrounds also feel eerie today. Following the 1939-40 New York World's Fair with its World of Tomorrow theme, Rome was to host the 1942 Olympics of Civilization, a celebration of Mussolini's "empire" fashioned according to Fascist ideology. The 420-acre site, cast as a new city about five miles south of central Rome, was never completed due to the war. But broad axial roadways, a symmetrical plan and a few signature buildings attest to its ambitious but pragmatic scope. Aiming for a fusion of modern rationalism and classical symmetry, the extant buildings look more like a de Chirico dream set or, as one commenter put it, "a marble ghost town."
The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, better known as the Square Colosseum with its stacked arcades, is the most interesting building there. Designed by Ernesto Bruno Lapadula, Giovanni Guerrini and Mario Romano, it appears here through sketches of slight variations and in a large-scale model of the site. There are also drawings, posters and models of the unbuilt parabolic arch by Adalberto Libera that is said to have inspired Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Libera's even more distinctive Palace of Congress features a flying-saucer dome and sheer glass facade layered over classical columns. EUR is a favorite source of inspiration for architects to this day.
Throughout these two exhibitions, the drive to define a national style does not feel exclusively like the blunt exercise in authoritarian control one might expect. (A third exhibition of war murals by the artist Antonio Santagata does feature straightforward propaganda.) The most compelling objects and architecture here transcend the aesthetics of dictatorship as authentic explorations into new ideas. It is probably that spirit of diversity and experiment—generally supported, not quashed, by Mussolini—that makes these Italian designs less like casualties of repressive politics and closer to living art.
Ms. Iovine writes about architecture for the Journal.

How Palestine became Israel

Jews and the military

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This, from the Occidental Observer is about how Jews are reluctant to fight for their country. Well, why should they - after all, it's not really their country.

Actually, this is just the kind of problem that Zionism was supposed to solve. 


Review of Derek Penslar’s “Jews and the Military”

Posted: 23 Jan 2014T

Jews and the Military: A HistoryDerek Penslar
Princeton University Press, 2013


“The rate of draft-dodging for the peasant population in the Pale of Settlement was 6%; for the Jews it was 34%. Jews evaded the law and misused the court system, even as they demanded special protection from the authorities.” Professor John Klier, Russians, Jews and the Pogroms of 1881–1882 [1]


The subject of Jewish attitudes to military service, particularly in the diaspora, has been a key interest of mine for some time. Since ancient times, military service has been regarded as the touchstone of true citizenship and patriotism and, to me at least, it seemed the perfect backdrop against which Jewish identity and its hierarchy of loyalties might be seen more clearly. Though never given truly comprehensive scholarly attention, there are countless brief references to Jewish attitudes and actions in taking up arms in works ranging from flagrant Jewish apologetic, to the productions of the racialist right. Most of these references pertain to accusations that Jews historically have shirked military service and often resorted to the most elaborate, and often ridiculous, methods in order to avoid doing “their share” in the defence of the nation-state.

More or less dissatisfied by much of the fare on offer from both sides, I was quite interested late last year to hear of the publication, by no less than Princeton University Press, of Derek Penslar’s Jews and the Military: A History — the jacket of which promised “the first comprehensive and comparative look at Jews’ involvement in the military and their attitudes toward war from the 1600s until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.” Penslar promised to show “that although Jews have often been described as people who shun the army, in fact they have frequently been willing, even eager, to do military service.”


Advertisement However, what I found was that Penslar, the current Samuel Zacks Professor of Jewish History at the University of Toronto, has in fact produced an occasionally interesting, but mostly bland and typical, example of Jewish apologetic. Crucially, the book avoids analysis, or even serious discussion, of allegations of Jewish draft-dodging, preferring instead to deconstruct the more tangential “Zionist myth” that Jewry boasted hardened warriors in ancient Israel, but became timid in the face of its “persecutors” among the nations. What I hope to do in this, the first of two separate but related essays, is to break down and discuss the book itself. While the subject still deserves far greater attention and analysis, in the later essay I aim to present my own account and interpretation of Jewish military performance in the diaspora, or lack thereof.



For a question so obviously situated at the heart of the issue of the Jewish relationship with the modern state, the conundrum of Jewish participation/non-participation in modern armies has been noticeably overlooked. This is in itself illuminating, and it is clear to the instructed reader that those topics least covered in Jewish historiography are often most worthwhile in terms of further investigation. Take, for example, some of my own earlier comments on the neglect or dismissiveness of Jewish historians when it comes to the obviously important role of Jewish economic practices in generating anti-Jewish attitudes:


the majority of Jewish historians have long displayed an aversion to the idea that Jewish economic practices have played a significant role historically in provoking anti-Semitism. For example, Leon Poliakov in The History of anti-Semitism: From Voltaire to Wagner, argues that the idea of economic anti-Semitism is “devoid of real explanatory value.”[4] Similarly, Jonathan Freedman has stated that, in explaining anti-Jewish attitudes, economic anti-Semitism should play only a “small explanatory role.”

One finds a similar malaise when it comes to serious discussion of Jewish attitudes to serve in the armies of Europe and America. Not only is Penslar’s book a rarity in tackling the subject, but reviews of the book are also sparse. Tellingly, Anna Altman’s review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review is both brief and rather hurried in its dismissal of what Altman describes as a “dry question.” Penslar himself states in his introduction that the subject languishes in historiographical “oblivion,” though he attributes scholarly neglect in this instance to the idea that “Europe’s betrayal of its Jews made the century and a half of patriotic Jewish military service appear futile and misguided.”[2]

In Penslar’s reading of the subject then, Jewish military service has been ignored out of a kind of embarrassment — not rooted in non-participation or other uncomfortable home truths, but rooted instead in the “futile” and “misguided” service of those who fought for non-Jews who betrayed them.

The question of Jews and the military in relation to “loyalty” is thus inverted. Jews have not abandoned their hosts in times of conflict. Rather, the host nations abandoned their Jewish warriors. Indeed this is essentially the primary thesis advanced by Penslar’s text.

To be fair to Penslar, although Jews and the Military is a deeply flawed work (in that its narrative is skewed in precisely the way one would expect from a Jewish academic) his book isn’t anywhere near as one-sided or extreme as, say Anthony Julius’ Trials of the Diaspora. Pointedly, in relation to the “lachrymose” school of Jewish history writing, Penslar makes it clear that “Jews were participants in, and not merely victims of, violent acts. They also fantasized about bloody vengeance against Gentiles even when they did not have the ability or fortitude to act.”[3]

The book is far from polemical and in several instances I found Penslar’s comments insightful and refreshingly honest. For example, Penslar makes it clear right at the outset that “Jews have frequently seen the military as something to be feared and avoided at all costs.”[4] The book is generally well-written, and Penslar’s use of primary material is impressive in depth and scope, particularly his use of French and Austro-Hungarian military archives.

The first chapter, which is by some margin the most interesting of the book, deals with the Jews’ historic self-image as a people that shuns what the Hebrew writer S.Y. Agnon called, “the craft of Esau, the waging of war.” Penslar points to rabbinic tradition which holds that “Jews are the children of Jacob, who is presented as meek and studious in contrast with his aggressive brother Esau.”[5]

Additionally, Penslar highlights the specific conditions of Jewish life itself, in which the maintenance of faith and community meant that Jews saw little reason to “cross social boundaries or endanger their lives through military service.”[6] The clearest manifestation of the Jewish view of the military affairs of the host nation was, and remains, draft-dodging. Penslar’s attention to this aspect of Jewish attitudes to military service is brief and concerned almost exclusively with the Tsar’s army, but some of his comments are nonetheless illuminating. Penslar points to the popularly held Jewish notion of conscription into the imperial Russian army, and the “tragic narrative” of young men having their whole lives “stamped by the threat of military service.”[7] Jews saw the Russian army as “a teeming mass of coarse, aggressive, and frequently drunk peasants, barely kept in check by reactionary and disdainful, even sadistic, officers and fanatical Orthodox priests whose hatred for Jews was exceeded only by their zeal to convert them.”[8]


Most Ashkenazic families have stories of relatives who fled the Tsar’s army lest they be forced into a twenty-five year term of service, or of khappers, thugs hired by the Jewish community to round up Jews targeted to meet the annual conscription quotas, and of unspeakably cruel conditions for Jews once they did wind up in uniform.[9]

Admirably, Penslar alerts readers to the fact that these Jewish narratives of Russian conscription “blend fact with fiction,” and correctly asserts that the primary aim of this fiction has been to reinforce “a deeply rooted perception by Jews that throughout most of their history they have been a meek and pacific people.”[10] Disappointingly however, Penslar stops short of unequivocally locating this and other fictive narratives within the discourse of the “quintessential victim,” but then we are reading the work of a Jewish academic.

Much clearer on the issue was the late Professor John Doyle Klier who, in his Russians, Jews, and the Pogroms of 1881–1882 stated that, “the Jews loved to represent themselves as a downtrodden minority, and they complained of their official designation as “aliens” (inorodtsy) in Russian law. This allegedly degraded them in the eyes of the common people and placed them outside the protection of the law. In fact, the Jews were a privileged group, due to their unsurpassed ability to evade every law and regulation.”[11]

Although not made explicit, it’s clear that Penslar is aware of the fiction of Jewish victimhood in the East. He points out that the Jews often enjoyed privileged status and exemptions when it came to military service for Eastern European states. For example, “until the intense and protracted cycle of wars in Poland in the mid-seventeenth century, Polish Jews were not required to go to war, which was waged mostly by serfs and mercenaries and commanded by the nobility. [Jewish] contributions to the military were mainly financial.”[12]

Penslar demonstrates that although conscription of Russian Jews began in 1827, it was common practice for Jewish community leaders to be able to select those for conscription. In these instances, the sons of the wealthy and the learned were spared, and those on the fringes of the Jewish community, “the paupers, orphans, and other social undesirables,” were sent in their place.[13] Jewish draftees were taken at a slightly earlier age than non-Jewish draftees (with assimilation in mind), but they were not sent into combat until the age of eighteen, and contrary to the popular narrative “the army did not have a policy of coercing conversion.”[14]

And far from being the site of grim conditions, the Russian army allowed “exemptions from certain kinds of work on the Sabbath and holidays. From the 1870s Jewish communities were allowed to donate Torah scrolls to military camps and help build soldiers’ synagogues. At times, Jewish soldiers received permission to cook in separate pots.”[15]

One important omission by Penslar is that he neglects to focus on one of the greater fabrications fashioned by Russian Jewish immigrants to the United States in the 1880s and 1890s. Almost every Jewish immigrant during this period arrived with the claim that they were fleeing either “pogroms,” or a compulsory twenty-five year conscription term in the Tsar’s army. I’ve dealt with the ‘pogroms’ previously, but it should suffice to state, in reference to the latter, that the twenty-five year term was not applied solely to Jews, it was rarely enforced, and had in fact been abolished with the accession of Alexander II in 1855 — some thirty years prior to the first major wave of Jewish immigration.[16] As a stated reason for “refugee” status, it was as hollow and untrue as the stories of mass butchery.

Returning to the point at hand, despite numerous accommodations, Jewish draft-dodging was endemic, leading to frequent clashes with government officials throughout the 1880s.[17] Penslar writes that “there are numerous documented cases of Russian Jews employing bribery and various forms of subterfuge to get out of the draft. The same was true for Jews in Habsburg Galicia and members of many other nationalities in Eastern Europe. During the Crimean War, Russian and Galician Jews alike fled to the Danubian principalities, which were under Habsburg and Ottoman occupation, to avoid conscription.”[18] Efforts to avoid the draft often reached extreme levels. “Ha-Melitz, a periodical published in St. Petersburg, cautioned young Jewish men against cutting off their fingers, starving themselves, and engaging in other forms of self-harm that violated both Jewish and Russian law.”[19] In 1874 the ability of the rabbis to select “socially marginal youth” was revoked by universal conscription legislation. This resulted in “yeshiva students and the children of the well-to-do,” the most valued sons of the Jewish communities, losing their protection. Unsurprisingly, briberies, draft-evasions, and self-mutilations increased exponentially. Exhibiting true warrior spirit, when these Jews were cornered and successfully drafted, Penslar states they were almost unanimous in their open preference “to serve in the back lines rather than combat units.”[20]

Jewish resistance to the draft comes across as a universal and predictable feature of Jewish life. In Galicia, “Jewish conscripts were mourned as if dead, and volunteering was taboo.”[21] In 1871, the average Jewish no-show rate across the province was 30% but in some areas reached as high as 60%.[22] Military reports from the previous year described a “rampant culture of corruption” in which Jews “bribed local officials, military officers, and army doctors (both Jewish and Polish) to grant exemptions. Desperate young men hired barber-surgeons to augment existing deformities or create new ones.”[23]

One of the more interesting points Penslar raises is that Jewish communities have not been afraid to resist conscription violently when the number of other evasive options is limited. Joseph II, ruler of Habsburg Galicia, issued a decree in 1788 that the Galician Jews should serve in the service corps and artillery. The Josephinian state, which has been described elsewhere as “remarkably sensitive to the Jewish recruit,” even provided Jewish soldiers “separate uniforms free of shatnez, that is, the mix of fibres prohibited by Jewish law.”[24] Ever grateful for Gentile sensitivity, Galicia’s “Jews fled into remote areas of the province or into the remnants of independent Poland. In Brody, Jews armed with clubs chased away a press gang; armed troops were brought in from L’viv to put down the demonstration.”[25] Penslar summarizes this phenomenon by nothing that Jews have not been averse “to the use of force to maintain their traditional privileges, one of the most important of which was exemption from military service.”[26]

Essentially this is just another example of Jews being first in the line of citizens when it comes to wringing concessions from the state, and the last in line (if not vanished from it entirely) when the state seeks concessions from its citizens. Although he doesn’t go into the subject in any great detail, Penslar bravely writes that Jewish apologetic literature is awash with bold claims about the numbers of Jewish troops who fought in World Wars I and II, and adds that “all the numbers in the apologetic literature about Jews in both world wars are estimates, and are at times artfully cobbled together”[27] — the idea being that draft-dodging was a theme of those wars also, but was glossed over at the time, and in standard histories written since the cessation of those conflicts. Of course, there are more nuanced theories and conclusions to be deduced from this spectrum of Jewish behaviors in relation to war in the diaspora, and these will be more fully discussed in a later essay.

Outside of his brief treatment of Jewish draft-dodging, Penslar’s book has only a few other redeeming qualities. I found his analysis of Jewish participation in the armies of France and Italy to be illuminating. It would be ludicrous to suggest that all Jews are cowards, and that shirking the frontlines is a true universal among the Jewish people. As such, I expected to find a few tales of Jewish heroism and valor, and Penslar does include these even if he does over-stress their overall significance. For example, I was initially very impressed by his evidence that Jews were overrepresented seventeenfold in the Italian officer corps in 1895. However, I was significantly less impressed by his qualification that the vast majority of these men came from areas with “high levels of assimilation, intermarriage, and conversion.”[28] Indeed, “intermarriage between Jews and Christians reduced the number of self-identified Jews in Italy by almost 30 percent between unification and World War One.”[29]

The conclusion one is led to reach is that the less a man identifies as Jewish, the more likely he is to participate in warfare on behalf of the state. This rule crossed national boundaries. Britain’s most successful Jewish officer of the fin de siècle, Colonel Albert Goldsmid, “was raised as a Christian and became aware of his Jewish background only as an adult.”[30]

Penslar’s discussion of Jewish involvement in the French military during the Dreyfus Affair also contains a few interesting facts. Over the course of the Third Republic, Jews had flooded France’s governing elite as “prefects, parliamentarians, cabinet ministers, judges,” and eventually even military officers.[31] Accusations quickly arose that Jews were only achieving military “promotions and choice assignments through bribery and pulling strings.”[32] Thus, the key accusation was that Jews were getting ahead through ethnic networking rather than talent — a phenomenon that is endemic to Judaism throughout its history. Attempting to defend the honor of Jews against such a charge, the Jewish lead instructor of fencing at the École Polytechnique, and therefore supposedly one of the most talented fencers in the country, challenged one of the main proponents of the “networking over talent” argument, the Marquis de Morès, to a duel. The abundant talent of Armand Mayer, the Jewish captain in question, must have deserted him that day as he very quickly found himself mortally wounded at the hands of the Marquis. The Marquis was a flamboyant character and a one-time gunslinger in the Badlands of the North Dakota territory. He once even challenged Theodore Roosevelt to a duel. Never backing down from a confrontation, and not exactly a fan of Jews, on his return from the United States he challenged Ferdinand-Camille Dreyfus, a Jewish member of the Chamber of Deputies, to a duel. The challenge was not accepted.

Penslar also strays into some interesting territory when he discusses “the sizeable presence of Jews in finance and business who made money from war.”[33] He describes the motivations of these bankers and businessmen as a blend involving “transnational Jewish solidarity and international economic interests that knew no borders.”[34] Jews were “prominently involved in an international banking system that derived considerable profit from lending funds to governments or packaging and selling government debt.”[35] “Pioneered” by the Rothschilds in France during the 1830s, Joseph Seligman picked it up in the United States during the Civil War, ensuring “the Union government’s debt skyrocketed from $65 million to $3 billion, some 30 percent of the Union’s gross domestic product.”[36] Later, the Seligmans “encouraged the United States’ intervention in Columbia in 1903 to carve out a quasi-independent Panama, where the Seligmans had invested in land along the prospective route of the canal.”[37]

However, when war was deemed not in the interests of the great Jewish banking dynasties, efforts were not spared to shut down conflicts in their infancy. On the eve of the World War I, Baron Rothschild attempted to force The Times of London to tone down the bellicosity of its editorials. This attempt met with an uncompromising response which described Rothschild’s efforts as a “dirty German-Jewish financial attempt to bully us into advocating neutrality.”[38]

In addition to playing roles as draft-dodgers and war profiteers, Jews have also played leading roles as revolutionaries, rebels, assassins, and subversive irregular fighters. Penslar points to the “hundreds” of Jews who were involved in violent radical organizations in late nineteenth-century Russia. Jews featured in “the People’s Will”, which assassinated Tsar Alexander II — the same benevolent Tsar who had freed the serfs, but made the fatal mistake of ending Jewish privileges.[39] Also described are the Jewish members of the Social Revolutionaries, “among them future leaders of the Zionist community in Palestine such as Moshe Novomesky, Pinchas Rutenberg, and Manya Schochat. All of them were directly responsible for murders.”[40]

In fact, when it is deemed that Jewish interests are under threat or when revenge for some grievance is available, it becomes difficult to keep Jews out of a conflict. During the Spanish-American war of 1898, “there were no moral qualms in hating Spain, which had expelled its Jews in 1492. … Jews in Chicago, Richmond, Virginia, and Newport, Rhode Island, tried to establish separate Jewish companies, and a group of Jews in Cincinnati undertook to purchase a battleship for the government.”[41]

Penslar states that Jews have been significantly more responsive to the call to arms when the war in question is “perceived as serving Jewish interests.”[42] For example, Jews were very prominent among the socialist-communist-anarchist faction in Spanish Civil War. Jews comprised one-fifth of the International Brigades, and provided six commanders and three divisional commanders.[43] Forty-five percent of Polish volunteers were Jewish, and thirty-eight percent of American volunteers were Jewish. One Romanian brigadista recalled that “the only way for members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to communicate with the Spanish commander of the Romanian brigade was by speaking in Yiddish.”[44]

Overall then, Penslar’s book is not devoid of useful and interesting information, even if it is more than a little light on deeper analysis on some of the issues raised. This I hope to provide in a forthcoming article.






[1] J. Klier, Russians, Jews and the Pogroms of 1881-1882, (Cambridge University Press, 2011), p.349.


[2] D. Penslar, Jews and the Military: A History, (Princeton University Press, 2013), p.2.


[3] Ibid, p.8.


[4] Ibid.


[5] Ibid, p.3.


[6] Ibid, p.10.


[7] Ibid, p.18.


[8] Ibid, p.17.


[9] Ibid, p.28.


[10] Ibid, p.18.


[11] J. Klier, Russians, Jews and the Pogroms of 1881-1882, (Cambridge University Press, 2011), p.349.


[12] Ibid, p.24.


[13] Ibid, p.29.


[14] Ibid, p.29.


[15] Ibid, p.30.


[16] M. Stanislawski, For Whom Do I Toil? Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry, (Oxford University Press, 1988), p.25.


[17] Penslar, p.30.


[18] Ibid, p.31.


[19] Ibid, p.31.


[20] Ibid, p.32.


[21] Ibid, p.48.


[22] Ibid.


[23] Ibid.


[24] M.K. Silber, From Tolerated Aliens to Citizen Soldiers: Jewish Military Service in the Era of Joseph II, in P.M. Judson (ed), Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe, (Berghahn, 2005), p.19.


[25] Penslar, p.46.


[26] Ibid.


[27] Ibid, pp.214-5.


[28] Ibid, p.94.


[29] Ibid.


[30] Ibid, p.87.


[31] Ibid, p.97.


[32] Ibid.


[33] Ibid, p.145.


[34] Ibid.


[35] Ibid, p.146.


[36] Ibid.


[37] Ibid, p.147.


[38] Ibid, p.149.


[39] Ibid, p.75


[40] Ibid, p.75.


[41] Ibid, p.77.


[42] Ibid, p.195.


[43] Ibid, p.201.


[44] Ibid.

Dumping Israel

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For me, these two pieces are further evidence that 'the Jews' are in the process of dumping Israel. 

And why not?

Israel has long been a bit of a liability for 'the Jews' causing a lot more trouble than it's worth.

And, it goes both ways because, in my view, if the Israelis were to break away from 'the Jews' they'd have a much greater chance of living reasonably in in the Middle East


This is from Ha'aretz

The places a regular Birthright tour doesn’t take you
Gideon Levy spends a day in the company of young Jewish-Americans who came on the Birthright program and stayed on a few days to see the West Bank.

By Gideon Levy and Alex LevacPublished 14:54 23.01.14

Participants of Extend, in Ramallah. “It’s time to stop talking about history and start talking about the present,” said one. Photo by Alex Levac

A group picture on the steps of PLO headquarters in Ramallah. Around 20 young Jewish-Americans are posing for a photographic memento. In the background is a PLO sign, and two armed Palestinian soldiers in battle fatigues look on from the side. A few hours later, they are wondering aloud: “What will people in the States say?” “Maybe you don’t have to publish the picture?” Some members of the group panic: They’re afraid of what their parents will say and of what people in the synagogue will say.

Still, they’re here, in Ramallah, these members of a Birthright Israel group. After 10 days of indoctrination, including the Western Wall, Yad Vashem, Rabin Square, Masada, the IDF and the kibbutz in a pita, a veritable shakshuka of propaganda, they decided to stay on for five days of touring the occupied West Bank. It was a courageous, estimable decision - but still, they were leery of the photograph at the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In the course of these five days of penitence, they visited Hebron and Ramallah, and the villages in the forefront of the Palestinian struggle, Bil’in and Nebe Salah; met representatives of left-wing organizations - B’Tselem, Peace Now, Breaking the Silence; and stayed in a guesthouse in the village of Jifna, near Ramallah. They also met with representatives of the Yesha settlers’ council and with the committee of Jewish settlers in Hebron, as well as visiting the settlement of Psagot. All in all, a very intensive study tour, balanced and horizon-broadening. Few young Israelis ever get to see what this group from America saw.

The person behind this new and refreshing initiative is Jon Emont, a young Jew of 23 from New York. Determined, energetic and brimming with good intentions, Emont has set himself the goal of presenting the other side of the coin, the dark side of the Birthright Israel moon. As a teenager, he thought he would enlist in the Israel Defense Forces - his parents are active Zionists. It was always clear to him that Israel’s enemies are also America’s enemies. Still, Emont did not make his first trip here until 2012, when he visited as part of a delegation, organized by Israel, of editors of student newspapers. A friend suggested that he also visit the West Bank, to get a better perspective on the situation. He then spent a few months in Shanghai, where he conceived the idea of the tours.

He and a friend, Sam Sussman, founded a new organization they called Extend. The idea is to extend Birthright, extend one’s knowledge. At the moment it’s a small initiative with a meager budget. This week they concluded their third tour, in which almost 20 young people took part, almost all of them refugees from Birthright. Zach, Rob, Emily and Daphna from New York, Lily from Maryland, Russell from Canada, Eliza from Boston, Ethan from Vermont, Kayla from Oregon, Julia, and even Aviva, from Alaska – a very likable group of eager-to-learn young people who had read about Israel before coming here, and listened closely to the speakers and taken notes while touring.

Contrary to expectations, perhaps, their bold choice to visit the territories did not make them pro-Palestinian. They’re not likely to join the International Solidarity Movement anytime soon. Most of them say they remain faithful Zionists. Only one of them said that after she read about the massacre in Lod in 1948, described by Ari Shavit in his new book, “My Promised Land,” she pondered the question of whether a Jewish state should have been established if that was the price. (She asked to remain anonymous.) They joined the Extend tour because they wanted to know more and see more. Some of them said that the five days in the West Bank actually made them more involved and more caring Jews. Almost all of them disagree with the prevailing view that you can’t be considered a friend of Israel and be concerned about the country’s future and wellbeing, and at the same time be critical of its policies.

As part of the changes that the large and influential Jewish community in America is undergoing, amid the search for a new identity, their voices should be taken into account, too. But let’s keep things in proportion. So far, this is only a handful: Some 350,000 young Jews have taken part in Birthright since its inception, whereas only a few dozen have availed themselves of project Extend.

After the group photo on the stairs, they enter the PLO building, which is situated at the edge of the Muqata - Palestinian Authority headquarters - in Ramallah. At the entrance to the impressive and deserted mausoleum holding the tomb of Yasser Arafat, a Palestinian soldier suggests that they visit the burial place of “Abu Amar” (Arafat’s nom de guerre), but the group hears it as “Obama” and promises to convey their impressions to him.

The street leading to the compound was lined with Canadian and Romanian flags: The leaders of the two countries were visiting and scheduled to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the adjacent building. Two spokeswomen, Rasha Uthman and Samar Awadallah, from the PLO’s information and culture unit, spoke to the group in a luxurious conference room. The young women were plied with tough questions: Why does a map of the whole of Palestine appear on the PLO’s logo? Has the PLO decided to abandon the path of violent resistance, and if so, when was the decision made? Does the PLO support a one-state solution? We hear a lot about apartheid, but why the use of the term “ethnic cleansing”? Why is Mahmoud Abbas said to be so weak as a leader?

“Go home and write about your impressions, write in your student papers and on Facebook, and tell your friends,” was the message of the two spokeswomen, one of them a Palestinian-American, to the group. “Tell people that you met Palestinians and that they are not as horrible as they are made out to be in the United States. Humanize us in the face of all the dehumanization. Ask your congressmen why they support Israel so massively despite the American values of democracy and human rights. You are Jews, so what you say carries great weight in the United States, in contrast to what we say. You can do so much. Talk about us.”

But afterward, on the way out of Ramallah in the minibus, some in the group said they felt they had not received genuine answers to their questions. Daphna Spivack, from New York, thought the two spokeswomen were somewhat out of touch: “So many people are talking about the one-state solution, and they only talked about two states.”

When they crossed the Hizma checkpoint, north of Jerusalem, they started to clap, as people do when their plane touches down at Ben-Gurion Airport. Emont told them that this was their last checkpoint. But here, too, they didn’t waste a minute. On the way to their next stop - a bar in Tel Aviv’s gentrifying Florentin neighborhood, for another political discussion - they engaged in a very lively conversation, not even pausing to look out the window. Almost all of them say they are secular Jews, even if their families belong to synagogues. They are preoccupied with their Jewish identity, the meaning of Zionism and their connection to Israel – all the more so after this visit.

They were astonished to discover that the two communities - the Israeli and the Palestinian - are so remote from one another and how deeply each is immersed in its own narrative. “It’s time to stop talking about history and start talking about the present,” Rob Roth, from New York, urged. Lily Sieradzki, from Maryland, said that the Jewish establishment in her country lacks a critical approach. Julia Peck recalled that in Bili’in, the day before, she had met a girl who was afraid of soldiers, and afterward they had visited the settlement of Ofra and seen two bullet holes in the kindergarten there. “Both communities are afraid in such a human way.” But she was also shocked to discover that there are two separate legal systems, one for Jews and one for Palestinians, in the territories. “Basic human rights, in which we were raised as Jews, are being violated here,” she said.

“I don’t know what you feel at the end of this visit,” Eliza Kaplan, from Boston, said, “but I feel more connected to my Jewish side and more involved in what’s happening here.” Zach Braunstein, from New York, observed that everything is presented in black and white here, “and I, as an outsider, was able to paint the gray for myself.” Ethan Tischler, from Vermont, noted that precisely because he is a Jew, it was important for him to visit the West Bank and see what the Jewish state is doing.

Someone said that if Zionism is occupation and settlements, then he is not a Zionist. Someone else added that Jews may have the right to live here, but not necessarily in a Jewish state. Julia said she will post the photos on her Facebook page. Aviva Hirsch, from Alaska, said she was more confused now than she had been. The organizer, Jon Emont, invited everyone to come to his shul in New Jersey this coming Valentine’s Day. He’ll be talking about his impressions of the trip.




From The Occidental Observer

The Israel Lobby: Nowhere to Hide
Posted: 25 Jan 2014 11:00 AM PST


Mondoweiss excerpted a talk by a rabbi, Melissa Weintraub, on strategies used by the Jewish community for dealing with Israel. The difficulty that Jews have is that they are the vanguard of the liberal, pro-immigration/multicultural anti-White left in the U.S., while at the same time their favorite country, Israel, is energetically engaged in apartheid and ethnic cleansing. This leads to cognitive dissonance and intense politicking in the Jewish community. But it’s clear that the most common strategy is simply avoidance (two versions).


Israel has become the most volatile wedge issue in American Jewish life, by most observers, journalists, rabbis, people who are immersed in this field. We’ve got 3 prevailing avenues for Israel engagement, currently.

One is avoidance. Nearly every American Jewish social justice organization– I was recently in a room with all the luminaries of the Jewish social justice movement and veritably every one of them has an organizational policy to avoid Israel. The rabbis of every denomination and from across the political spectrum talk about what actually a local rabbi Scott Perlo who’s at 6th and I calls the “the death by Israel sermon”, which means we can talk about anything but Israel. We can talk about health care or guns or other controversial issues, but say anything about Israel and we could be fired. It seems every day I hear of another organization that’s banned Israel from its listserve….

So that’s avoidance, the first pattern… The first pattern is really reacting to the second pattern, but I stated avoidance first because it’s become most ubiquitous…

The Second pattern is more overt antagonism; vilification, demonization; attacks and counter attacks on op ed pages, funding threats, boards and executive directors in utter terror, paralyzed, because they are in damned if you do and damned if you don’t situations on a regular basis. A lot of this is outside of public view, but I can tell you as someone who works in this field that I hear dozens of institutions facing these kinds of dilemmas every month.

And you know equally as damaging: reckless caricatures of each other’s positions, distortions, quoting each other out of context, impugning each other’s motives, antagonism.

The third pattern I call avoidance 2.0. And that is congregating with, conferencing with those who agree with our own politics, and dismissing everybody else as loony, or malicious, or dangerous. Taking pride in the numbers of those who are with us, categorically, one dimensionally dismissing everyone else. And that is becoming increasingly common as well.

So whatever happens with the current campaign for war with Iran, don’t expect American Jews to change their status as the backbone of the anti-White left. They may avoid the issue or do a lot of screaming at each other, but it won’t affect their attitudes on the core issues facing White America.

The rabbi’s remarks indicate an uptick in anxiety about Israel among American Jews. For one thing, the BDS movement, and in particular the recent anti-Israel resolutions by the American Studies Association and the Modern Language Association, indicates a shift in elite opinion where non-Jewish liberals feel the need to act on their principles. Israel as a pariah state is increasingly obvious to everyone.

Secondly, and more immediately, there is the push for war with Iran which, as everyone who is not living under a rock knows, is a project of Israel and its fifth column in the U.S. Indeed, although the New York Times failed to mention the Lobby in a recent article on the Kirk-Menendez-Schumer Iran war bill in the Senate, the role of the Israel Lobby is obvious. The Economist gets it:






Indeed one gets the feeling that many prominent American Jews are trying to preemptively disassociate themselves from the war push. Ultimately, it’s because this time around, unlike Iraq, the role of the Israel Lobby can’t be hidden. As expected, all the, the heavy hitters in the organized Jewish community are in favor of the bill. As Peter Beinart notes,




AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations all support a sanctions bill that Obama insists will wreck his chances of achieving a nuclear deal. In fact, “support” may be too weak a word. The new Iran sanctions effort, claims a well-placed congressional aide, is “totally and completely Jewish-community run.”

“Totally and completely Jewish-community run.”

But this is not a business-as-usual situation where AIPAC twists arms behind closed doors, throws money around, and then the politicians talk as if they have nothing but American interests at heart. To be sure, what should be labeled “the AIPAC Iran War bill” has a majority in the Senate, but little support among the Democrats, including four Jewish Senators, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee; Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee; Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Environment Committee; and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the chairman of the Energy Committee. In the House, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, described by Scott McConnell as “an influential congresswoman who is often flamboyantly pro-Israel,” has not taken a stand on the bill. Because she represents a heavily Jewish district, Wasserman Schultz is getting intense pressure to support the bill.

So, despite the Lobby’s long history of successfully quelling dissent within the Jewish community, there has been significant leakage this time around, much more than in the case of the Iraq war.

This effort is entirely a project of the organized Jewish community, and everyone knows it. Beinart claims that “many of the key challenges facing the Jewish people stem not from our weakness but from our power.” Perhaps. But in fact the organized Jewish community has wielded huge power for quite a long time. If there is a war with Iran, it wouldn’t really be any different than the war in Iraq in terms of responsibility of the organized Jewish community.

The difference is that Obama is standing up to the Lobby in a way that George Bush, surrounded as he was by neocons, never did. Not having Obama on board has been very costly to the Israel Lobby. Rather than being inundated with propaganda pieces on WMD which put all the focus on Saddam Hussein, phony intelligence produced by Jewish operatives in the Department of Defense (see here, p. 47 ff), and with the ADL screaming bloody murder if anyone mentioned the role of the Israel Lobby in promoting the war, the president instead asks that those who favor the bill to state explicitly that they want war. Excellent tactic because the American people are overwhelmingly against a war.

Imagine if Obama had gone along with the Lobby on this one. There would be a political consensus between Obama and Congress; the media would surely fall in line. The emphasis would be on Iran’s nuclear program and why even low levels of enrichment (that are allowed under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) must be prevented in the case of Iran—a provision that all but ensures a war. The few voices implicating the Israel Lobby would be easily ignored and squelched, as happened in the case of Iraq (see here, p. 15ff). It’s one thing to oppose the Lobby by refusing loan guarantees for Israel or selling AWAC planes to Saudi Arabia, to recall two previous highly publicized battles between presidents and the Lobby. These issues have little emotional impact for the vast majority of Americans. However, it’s quite another thing to ask America to go to a very costly war on behalf of the interests of around 2% of its people. As with Syria, an overwhelming majority of Americans don’t want it.

Obama is an honest leftist, like the backbone of the BDS movement. The same goes for the EU and the recent academic critics of Israel in the American Studies Association and the Modern Language Association. Obama likely sees Palestinians as non-Whites battling a colonial regime; he’s for the Palestinians in the same way that he sees Mandela as a hero in South Africa and the same way he supports the multicultural, anti-White left in the U.S.

This principled, ideological world view makes a difference. Fundamentally, Obama is uncomfortable with Israel being dominated by the ethnonationalist right committed to ethnic cleansing on the West Bank, oppressing the Palestinians, and completely uninterested in peace or a two-state solution. These policies put Israel at odds with virtually the entire world. The U.S. alliance with Israel makes a mockery of the U.S. commitment to democracy and human rights.

Sadly, the demise of the campaign for war with Iran is just another indication of the power of the left and not really good news for White advocacy or for stemming Jewish power in maintaining the anti-White regime in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West. But without doubt, it is good news that American blood and treasure are much less likely to be spent on a war with Iran.

In any case, the result of Obama’s intransigence is that most of the focus is on AIPAC pressure on Congress, not on Iran’s nuclear program. This time around, if the ADL went after everyone who has noted the connection between the Israel Lobby and promoting war with Iran, they would be in the ridiculous situation of going after pretty much everyone. Nevertheless, the ADL managed to get the Economist to withdraw publishing the above cartoon from its website due to the ire of the ADL which described it as “anti-Semitic.” As usual, everyone knows it, but no one is supposed to talk about it.

But despite this ADL victory, the cat is out of the bag. It’s common knowledge that the push for war is entirely a project of the Jewish community.

Which makes at least some thoughtful Jews a bit concerned that the Iran situation could blow up in their faces. It’s one thing when everyone in the mainstream media and political arena pretends that it has nothing to do with Israel, AIPAC, and the ADL aggressively stifles what little dissent there is. It’s quite another thing when everyone knows that it’s all about the Lobby. As many have noted in this context, lobbies live in the dark and die in the sunshine, and in this case, as the Forward notes, “keeping a low public profile is proving impossible.”

This time around, it’s in-your-face, brazen partisanship on behalf of a foreign country, and that’s a tough sell to the American people when something as important as war is at stake. It’s a great object lesson on the power of the presidency, even when the Lobby still retains great power over Congress.

So I am not surprised that some prominent Jews are bailing out on this one and that the process is stalling in Congress. At this point, it’s a reasonable assessment of what’s good for the Jews.
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