response 125 of 203:

Apr 30 17:25 UTC 2002

why's it called a "booby" trap?

response 127 of 203:

Apr 30 21:16 UTC 2002

Who's Anti-Semitic?

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, April 30, 2002

If I weren't a Jew, I might be called an anti-Semite. I have 
occasionally been critical of Israel. I have occasionally taken the 
Palestinians' side. I have always maintained that the occupation of the 
West Bank is wrong and while I am, to my marrow, a supporter of Israel, 
I insist that the Palestinian cause -- although sullied by terrorism -- 
is a worthy one.

In Israel itself, these positions would hardly be considered remarkable.
People with similar views serve in parliament. They write columns for 
the newspapers. And while they are sometimes vehemently criticized -- 
such is the rambunctious nature of Israel's democratic din -- they are 
not called either anti-Semites or self-hating Jews.

I cannot say the same about America. Here, criticism of Israel, 
particularly anti-Zionism, is equated with anti-Semitism. The Anti 
Defamation League, one of the most important American Jewish 
organizations, comes right out and says so. "Anti-Zionism is showing 
its true colors as deep-rooted anti-Semitism," the organization says in 
a full-page ad that I have seen in the New Republic as well as other 
magazines. "No longer are the Arab nations camouflaging their hatred of 
Jews in the guise of attacking Israel."

I feel compelled to pause here and assert my credentials. Few people 
have written more often about Arab anti-Semitism than I. I have come at 
this subject time and time again, so often that I have feared becoming 
a bore. Arab anti-Semitism not only exists, it is often either state 
sponsored or state-condoned, and it is only getting worse. It makes the 
Arabs look like fools. How can anyone take seriously a person who 
believes that Jews engage in ritual murder?

But that hardly means that anti-Zionism -- hating, opposing, fighting 
Israel -- is the same as anti-Semitism, hating Jews anywhere on account 
of supposedly inherent characteristics. If I were a Palestinian living 
in a refugee camp, I might very well hate Israel for my plight -- never 
mind its actual cause -- and I even might not like Jews in general.

After all, Israel proclaims itself the Jewish state. It officially 
celebrates Jewish holidays, including the Sabbath on Saturday. It 
allows the orthodox rabbinate to control secular matters, such as 
marriage, and, of course, it offers citizenship to any person who can 
reasonably claim to be Jewish. This so-called right of return permits 
such a person to "return" to a place where he or she has never been. 
Palestinians must find this simply astonishing.

To equate anti-Zionists or critics of Israel in general with anti 
Semites is to liken them to the Nazis or the rampaging mobs of the 
pogroms. It says that their hatred is unreasonable, unfathomable, based 
on some crackpot racial theory or some misguided religious zealotry. It 
dismisses all criticism, no matter how legitimate, as rooted in 
prejudice and therefore without any validity.

No doubt there has been an upsurge of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe. 
But there has also been an upsurge of legitimate criticism of Israel 
that is not in the least anti-Semitic. When Israel recently jailed and 
then deported four pro-Palestinian Swedes, two of whom are physicians, 
under the misguided policy of seeing all the Palestinians' sympathizers 
as enemies of the state, it was an action that ought to be condemned -- 
and the Swedes who have done so ought not be considered anti-Semites.

When the same thing happens to a Japanese physician, that too ought to 
be condemned -- and it was, as it happens, in the Israeli newspaper 
Haaretz. A column by Gideon Levy made the point that Israel cannot 
reject and rebut all criticism by reciting the mantra: "The whole world 
is against us."

The same holds for American Jews. To turn a deaf ear to the demands of 
Palestinians, to dehumanize them all as bigots, only exacerbates the 
hatred on both sides. The Palestinians do have a case. Their methods 
are sometimes -- maybe often -- execrable, but that does not change the 
fact that they are a people without a state. As long as that persists 
so too will their struggle.

The only way out of the current mess is for each side to listen to what 
the other is saying. To protest living conditions on the West Bank is 
not anti-Semitism. To condemn the increasing encroachment of Jewish 
settlements is not anti-Semitism. To protest the cuffing that the 
Israelis sometimes give the international press is not anti-Semitism 
either.

To suggest, finally, that Ariel Sharon is a rejectionist who 
provocatively egged on the Palestinians is not anti-Semitism. It is a 
criticism no more steeped in bigotry than the assertion that Yasser 
Arafat is a liar who cannot be trusted. That does not make me anti 
Arab -- just a realist who is sick and tired of lazy labels.

response 129 of 203:

May 2 15:45 UTC 2002

I didnt post this article for any reason other than I thought it might 
be relevant to this discussion. I chose this particular article because 
it represents a view that is pretty close to my own. 

What false statements are people believing and embracing? 

response 131 of 203:

May 2 17:11 UTC 2002

Here is another article on this topic that might be relevant to this 
discussion. I am not sure how much exactly I agree with the author but 
there are some very good points made.


Playing The Anti-Semitism Card

By Marty  Jezer
AlterNet Article Dated 4/30/2002


Among the many responses Iıve received for my columns on the Middle 
East two stand out. A number of non-Jews, in person and by e-mail, have 
told me, "You write what I believe, but Iım afraid to speak out. Iım 
afraid to criticize Israel because people will think that Iım anti-
Semitic."

A second response, spoken by an acquaintance whom I respect for his 
decent, liberal values, was more unsettling. "Iım starting to feel anti-
Semitic," he said without any suggestion of irony. "It is disgusting 
what Israel is doing to the Palestinians."

"Anti-Semitism is not the issue," I replied. "Itıs not Jews attacking
Palestinians, itıs Israelis. Many Jewish people, myself included, share 
your disgust."

But maybe anti-Semitism is an issue, a subtext of the Palestinian 
Israeli conflict that no one wants to talk openly about. In the 
cauldron of the times, anti-Semitism has become an accusation, a 
weapon, a way of silencing critics of Israel without having to listen 
to their arguments. And when used against Palestinians, itıs a way of 
denying their aspirations and ignoring their grievances. Anti-Semitism 
exists, but to extract its meaning it has to be put into perspective. 
Under Hitler, the German people murdered millions of European Jews. But 
today most Germans are friends and allies of Jews and of Israel. As a 
Jew, I still feel a gut wariness whenever I meet a German. But I also 
feel elated. That we two, German and Jew, can interact empathically 
fills me with hope. The history of modern Germany is proof that people 
can change, that ancient feuds and tribal bloodbaths need not dictate 
humanityıs future. Blacks-whites, Hutus-Tutsis, Bosnians-Serbs, even 
Arabs and Jews: We shall overcome.

Anti-Semitism exists in the Arab world. Increasingly, Arabs couch their 
opposition to Israel in the anti-Semitic rhetoric that originated in 
Europe. But is anti-Semitism driving the Palestinian resistance? Or is 
the Middle East conflict simply a battle over land, two peoples with a 
historic claim over the same territory? For centuries Jews lived 
amongst the Arabs of the Middle East. Coexistence was never easy and 
during World War II many Arab leaders gave verbal support to the Nazis. 
But Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state in Palestine, was a 
European phenomenon; Middle Eastern Jews did not look to the biblical 
holy land for security and lifeıs meaning. After the holocaust the 
logic of Zionism could not be denied. European guilt assured Israeli 
statehood. But it was the Palestinians who bore the brunt. And they 
were not consulted.

Supporters of Israeli policy in Israel and America, rarely acknowledge 
this. They speak of the conflict with the Palestinians in terms of Arab 
anti-Semitism, and in the context of the holocaust and Jewish survival. 
Rarely mentioned is the historic record of Israeli provocations: the 
occupation of the West Bank, the military checkpoints, the continuous 
expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory.

Anti-Semitism in America, except on the margins of society, rarely 
includes overt acts of violence and discrimination. It is usually more 
subtle, expressed politically in the belief that the United States is a 
Christian nation or, among evangelical and some other fundamentalist 
Christians, that Jews cannot find salvation unless they accept 
Christian dogma. People have an absolute right to religious belief, but 
once it enters the political arena, it opens itself to critical comment.

On April 15, an Israeli Solidarity Rally brought speakers from all 
across the political spectrum. One speaker was Janet Parshall, a 
national talk show host who is a director of the evangelical Christian 
National Religious Broadcasters and the spokesperson for the Family 
Research Council, an anti-choice, homophobic front-group for right-wing 
Republicans whose web site promotes tax cuts, bashes liberals, and says 
nothing about Israel. But at the Solidarity Rally, Ms. Parshall 
enthusiastically identified herself with what she considered the cause 
of the Jews and drew cheers attacking the idea of "land for peace." "We 
will never give up the Golan," she announced. "We will never divide 
Jerusalem," she declared.

Jewish organizations that uncritically support Ariel Sharon in the name 
of security for Israel are avidly courting the Christian right. A 
headline speaker at a recent meeting of AIPAC (the influential American 
Israeli Political Action Committee) was Republican House Whip Tom DeLay 
who drew applause for calling the West Bank by its biblical 
name, "Judea and Samaria," and for stating that Israel should not give 
any land back to the Palestinians. Delayıs politics are anathema to 
most American Jews, but all that can be overlooked, or so it seems, for 
his support of Israel. On his web site, Delay boasts of his 100% 
support for the positions of New American Magazine, the house organ of 
the John Birch Society. He has also publicly said, according to USA 
Today, that Christianity offers the "only viable, reasonable, 
definitive answer" to the questions of life. Note the word "only." No 
other religions are in the game.

What then is one to conclude about this new Jewish compact with the 
most reactionary elements of American society? It seems to me that 
right-wing Christians are happy to support a new crusade to drive Arabs 
from the Holy Land, and that theyıll cheer the killing of Palestinians 
down to the last Jew. But donıt expect Jewish warriors to be granted 
salvation. As the fundamentalist Christians describe it, heaven is off 
limits to Jews; unless, of course, we Jews convert to their right-wing 
theology and denounce the religious legitimacy of our own Jewish faith.

In the context of American politics and religious culture, the Jewish 
organizations that demand uncritical support of Ariel Sharon have 
embraced organizations most closely reflective of anti-Semitism itself. 
For the sake of solidarity with Israel theyıve allied themselves with 
religious organizations most problematic for Jews. Supporting Sharon is 
bad enough. An alliance with the religious right is a second mistake.

response 133 of 203:

May 3 05:59 UTC 2002

i'll admit they're not doing a great job at fighting for their cause, but it
doesn't mean their cause isn't justified.

response 135 of 203:

May 3 15:01 UTC 2002

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18441-2002May1.html

'Final Solution,' Phase 2
By George F. Will
Thursday, May 2, 2002; Page A23


Such is the richness of European culture, even its decadence is creative.
Since 1945 it has produced the truly remarkable phenomenon of anti-Semitism
without Jews. How does Europe do that?

Now it offers Christian anti-Semitism without the Christianity. An example of
this is the recent cartoon in La Stampa -- a liberal Italian newspaper --
depicting the infant Jesus in a manger, menaced by an Israeli tank and saying
"Don't tell me they want to kill me again." This reprise of that hardy
perennial, Jews as Christ-killers, clearly still strikes a chord in
contemporary Italy, where the culture is as secular as a supermarket.

In Britain the climate created by much of the intelligentsia, including the
elite press, is so toxic that the Sun, a tabloid with more readers than any
other British newspaper, recently was moved to offer a contrapuntal editorial
headlined "The Jewish faith is not an evil religion." Contrary to what
Europeans are encouraged to think. And Ron Rosenbaum, author of the brilliant
book "Explaining Hitler," acidly notes the scandal of European leaders
supporting the Palestinians' "right of return" -- the right to inundate and
eliminate the state created in response to European genocide -- "when so many
Europeans are still living in homes stolen from Jews they helped murder."

It is time to face a sickening fact that is much more obvious today than it
was 11 years ago, when Ruth R. Wisse asserted it. In a dark and brilliant
essay in Commentary magazine, she argued that anti-Semitism has proved to be
"the most durable and successful" ideology of the ideology-besotted 20th
century.

Successful? Did not Hitler, the foremost avatar of anti-Semitism, fail? No, he
did not. Yes, his 1,000-year Reich fell 988 years short. But its primary work
was mostly done. Hitler's primary objective, as he made clear in words and
deeds, was the destruction of European Jewry.

Wisse, who in 1991 was a professor of Yiddish literature at McGill University
and who now is at Harvard, noted that many fighting faiths, including
socialism and communism, had arisen in the 19th century to "explain and to
rectify the problems" of modern society. Fascism soon followed. But communism
is a cold intellectual corpse. Socialism, born and raised in France, is
unpersuasive even to the promiscuously persuadable French: The socialist
presidential candidate has suffered the condign humiliation of failing to
qualify for this Sunday's runoff, having been defeated by an anti-Semitic
"populist" preaching watery fascism.

Meanwhile, anti-Semitism is a stronger force in world affairs than it has been
since it went into a remarkably brief eclipse after the liberation of the Nazi
extermination camps in 1945. The United Nations, supposedly an embodiment of
lessons learned from the war that ended in 1945, is now the instrument for
lending spurious legitimacy to the anti-Semites' war against the Jewish state
founded by survivors of that war.

Anti-Semitism's malignant strength derives from its simplicity -- its
stupidity, actually. It is a primitivism which, Wisse wrote, makes up in vigor
what it lacks in philosophic heft, and does so precisely because it "has no
prescription for the improvement of society beyond the elimination of part of
society." This howl of negation has no more affirmative content than did the
scream of the airliner tearing down the Hudson, heading for the World Trade
Center.

Today many people say that the Arabs and their European echoes would be
mollified if Israel would change its behavior. People who say that do not
understand the centrality of anti-Semitism in the current crisis. This crisis
has become the second -- and final? -- phase of the struggle for a "final
solution to the Jewish question." As Wisse said 11 years ago, and as cannot be
said too often, anti-Semitism is not directed against the behavior of the Jews
but against the existence of the Jews.

If the percentage of the world's population that was Jewish in the era of the
Roman Empire were Jewish today, there would be 200 million Jews. There are
13 million. Five million are clustered in an embattled salient on the eastern
shore of the Mediterranean, facing hundreds of millions of enemies. Ron
Rosenbaum writes, "The concentration of so many Jews in one place -- and I use
the word 'concentration' advisedly -- gives the world a chance to kill the
Jews en masse again."

Israel holds just one one-thousandth of the world's population, but holds all
the hopes for the continuation of the Jewish experience as a portion of the
human narrative. Will Israel be more durable than anti-Semitism? Few things
have been.

(c) 2002 The Washington Post Company

response 137 of 203:

May 4 02:13 UTC 2002

You mean years, don't you?  Yasser is a little bigger than a groundhog, though
slightly less attractive...

response 139 of 203:

May 4 16:51 UTC 2002

On odd combination of Holocaust denial and the desire to eliminate Jews:

http://www.memri.org/news.html#1020371954

SD# 375 - Columnist for Egyptian *Government* Daily to Hitler:
"If Only You Had Done It, Brother" 

The following are excerpts from an article by Fatma Abdallah Mahmoud titled
"Accursed Forever and Ever," which recently appeared in the Egyptian
*government* daily Al-Akhbar: [Al-Akhbar (Egypt), April 29, 2002.]

"They are accursed in heaven and on earth. They are accursed from the day the
human race was created and from the day their mothers bore them. They are
accursed also because they murdered the Prophets. They murdered the Prophet
John the Baptist and served up his head on a golden platter to the singer and
dancer Salome. Allah also cursed them with a thousand curses when they argued
with and resisted his words of truth, deceived the Prophet Moses, and
worshiped the golden calf that they created with their own hands!!" 

"These accursed ones are a catastrophe for the human race. They are the virus
of the generation, doomed to a life of humiliation and wretchedness until
Judgement Day. They are also accursed because they repeatedly tried to murder
the Prophet Muhammad. They threw a stone at him, but missed. Another time,
they tried to mix poison in his food, but providence saved him from their
treachery and their crimes. Allah cursed them when they carried out the
criminal massacre of the peaceful Palestinians in Sabra and Shatilla." 

"They are accursed, they, their fathers, and their forefathers... until
Judgment Day, because they burst into Al-Aqsa Mosque with their defiled,
filthy feet and violated its sanctity." 

"Finally, they are accursed, fundamentally, because they are the plague of
the generation and the bacterium of all time. Their history always was and
always will be stained with treachery, falseness, and lying. Historical
documents prove it." 

"Thus, the Jews are accursed  the Jews of our time, those who preceded them
and those who will come after them, if any Jews come after them." 

"With regard to the fraud of the Holocaust... Many French studies have proven
that this is no more than a fabrication, a lie, and a fraud!! That is, it is
a 'scenario' the plot of which was carefully tailored, using several faked
photos completely unconnected to the truth. Yes, it is a film, no more and
no less. Hitler himself, whom they accuse of Nazism, is in my eyes no more
than a modest 'pupil' in the world of murder and bloodshed. He is completely
innocent of the charge of frying them in the hell of his false Holocaust!!"

"The entire matter, as many French and British scientists and researchers have
proven, is nothing more than a huge Israeli plot aimed at extorting the German
government in particular and the European countries in general. But I,
personally and in light of this imaginary tale, complain to Hitler, even
saying to him from the bottom of my heart, 'If only you had done it, brother,
if only it had really happened, so that the world could sigh in relief
[without] their evil and sin.'" 

"Since their birth, the Jews [have amassed] hatred and hostility towards Islam
and the Muslims. They have always laid traps for the Muslims, woven
conspiracies and crimes against them, and been biased in favor of their
enemies and occupiers..." 

"They always try to warp and distort everything fair and beautiful!!
Basically, they are a model of moral ugliness, debasement, and degradation.
If only Allah would curse them more and more, to the end of all generations.
Amen."

response 141 of 203:

May 5 18:53 UTC 2002

leeron, are you keeping track to the # of times aaron brings up
Baruch Goldstein?  At least on of us ought to.

response 143 of 203:

May 5 22:07 UTC 2002

Heh. I don't think anybody is confused by the fact that I present the 
truth, and that you find it impossible to respond to the truth - either 
because you are blinded by your hatred of Palestinians or because you
are  simply dishonest. But I do appreciate your petty insults, and how
you see  me as so central to discussions I rarely even visit.

You were the one who defended the terrorist Baruch Goldstein, Leeron. I 
simply challenged your nonsense.

response 145 of 203:

May 7 04:53 UTC 2002

Yup. Unapologetically presenting the truth. Sorry it bothers you.

response 147 of 203:

May 8 02:26 UTC 2002

From the The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001"

        International anti-Semitism has been so accepted that the United
        Nations did not condemn it as racism until 1999.

response 149 of 203:

May 8 22:17 UTC 2002

I agree, but I can't help but wonder which of these groups is truly
the short-sighted one. Reminds me of this poem by Martin Niemoller:

        In Germany they came first for the Communists
        and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

        Then they came for the Jews
        and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

        Then they came for the trade unionists
        and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

        Then they came for the Catholics
        and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

        Then they came for me --
        and by that time no one was left to speak up.