Jews: This Is About YOU

[jordan179]

This is sort of an open letter to all the Jews in the world -- including those who were born Jewish but became something else (usually atheists) as in my own case.

When you see those mobs of demonstrators, in Western countries, condemning Israel's recent war in the Gaza, full of hate and (increasingly) willing to become violent toward anyone who

Comments

[igorilla]

As Netaniahu said some years ago : the leftists forgot what does it mean to be a Jew

[baron_waste]

I've never understood why “Jewish liberal” has been considered nearly synonymous for decades… Unless it be from that astounding deception that has been practiced for just as long, that the Nazis were a right-wing dictatorship, opposed by the heroic Left…  That “National-” and “Soviet Socialism” were so nearly identical that the two Parties swapped members routinely - and indeed, that pogrom is a Russian word and Stalin made Hitler look like an amateur when it came to exterminating Jews - this was quite deliberately swept under the rug it seems.

[jordan179]

The deep roots of Jewish liberalism comes from the fact that centuries ago the "conservatives" favored keeping Jews in a disfavored legal status and the "liberals" favored granting Jews the same rights as any other citizens. This mostly ended in America in consequence of America being a child of the Enlightenment and the Constitution increasingly becoming what American conservativism "conserved." In Europe the attitude persisted well into the 20th century, often to the self-impairment of the Powers doing so -- consider the effect of L'Affaire Dreyfus on French military readiness in 1914 (*)

Thus, in Europe, politically-interested Jews tended to become Leftists -- often Socialists of one or another stripe. Leftist anti-Semitism did not become important in Europe until the 1920's with the rise of the Soviet regime to secure power in Russia (and note: the previous Tsarist regime had also been viciously anti-Semitic, though less murderously so

[gothelittle]

Aye, that was the situation here. The members of my family who emigrated from Eastern Europe were those who fought in favor of socialism, against imperialism, because they were promised new and better rights in the New Order.

They fled before those rights failed to appear.

[inverarity]

I think your analysis is somewhat inaccurate.

The Arabs and a lot of the Europeans demonstrating against Israel? Yes, that's motivated in large part by anti-Semitism.

But here in North America, the reflexive anti-Israeli sentiment on the Left is because in any conflict between white people and brown people, the white people are the bad guys. Period end of. Israel is seen (rightly or wrongly) as a catspaw of the U.S. and Western colonialism, therefore Israel is evil.

I am not saying anti-Semitism in its pure form does not also exist among North American leftists, but you'd be hard-pressed to make the case that it's more prevalent there than among right-wingers.

[superversive]

A great deal of the rhetoric against ‘neocons’ to emerge from the American Left in the past decade has been motivated by antisemitism. The usual line taken is that the Evil Joooos, through their wholly owned subsidiary the Bushitler Administration, turned the U.S. into a giant dupe and sacrificed millions of innocent lives on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan for nefarious Israeli interests.

[inverarity]

I have seen very little rhetoric explicitly about "evil joooos" that wasn't from the right. Like I said, there are certainly anti-Semites in the liberal camp, but it's rarely them talking about how Jews own the media and the government. (Unless you are counting the Nation of Islam among mainstream leftists, which is a stretch.)

[jordan179]

No, on the Left it's "evil Zionists." A category that is purely Jewish, and which includes all Jews whenever necessary. I'm not quite sure that there is a meaningful difference here.

[jordan179]

Because the Jews stubbornly-adhered to their religion when caught between two great forces -- Christianity and Islam -- each of which defined itself in terms of its religion. Nowadays, Christianity has become tolerant, and it is Islam which mostly hates the Jews -- while many Christians, fearing Muslim violence and foolishly imagining that pretense to sympathy with Islam will save them, join in the Jew-hatred.

Modern Muslim anti-Semitism is the creation of barbaric hatred; modern Western anti-Semitism of despicable cowardice.

[superversive]

Don’t forget the economic motive. Like the most nearly analogous diaspora, the overseas Chinese, the Jews have been generally successful wherever they have gone; they had to be, for they knew that some men profess to worship Christ, some profess to worship Allah, some profess to worship Brahma or Buddha, or Moloch for that matter; but all reserve a fair share of worship for the Golden Calf, and prosperity is the best protection against a multitude of afflictions.

In particular, mediaeval Christians hobbled themselves by adopting the Aristotelian prohibition against levying interest on loans; they also inherited the Roman contempt for trade, the idea that the best people were landowners with no other business but owning land, and that those who knew how to manage money were vulgar and inferior. So when they wanted to borrow money, they frequently had to borrow from Jews. It is sadly easy to whip up a fury of ‘religious’ hatred against persons to whom you owe money.

Thank you!

[baron_waste]

prosperity is the best protection against a multitude of afflictions

- and THAT'S why I'm a Republican, stated in a nutshell.

An interesting article -

[baron_waste]

- that you may have already seen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/opinion/sunday/israels-move-to-the-right-challenges-diaspora-jews.html?_r=0

Today, the dominant Diaspora organizations, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, as well as a raft of largely self-appointed community leaders, have swung to the right, making unquestioning solidarity with Israel the touchstone of Jewish identity - even though majority Jewish opinion is by no means hawkish

Re: An interesting article -

[jordan179]

I have literally no idea what you're getting at in connection with what I originally posted. Unless you mean that the logical outcome of this situation will be the Israel annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, which I doubt is what you mean.

Re: An interesting article -

[baron_waste]

Well, the only 'connection' is the subject matter, and that you were addressing all Jews worldwide, not just Israelis.  As I say, I thought it was interesting to hear a second opinion, from a citizen of Israel who still believes that differing opinions ought to be permitted (a dangerous and obsolete view in these troubled times).

Re: An interesting article -

[jordan179]

As I say, I thought it was interesting to hear a second opinion, from a citizen of Israel who still believes that differing opinions ought to be permitted (a dangerous and obsolete view in these troubled times).

The opinion you quoted proposed no course of action for either the Israelis or the Jews. Furthermore, Israel is a free society in which all manner of "differing opinions" are "permitted," so your statement here is also puzzling.