Thursday, April 23, 2009

Madness

Well, I did not want to write about Israel and the Palestinians today, but circumstances force the issue.

First, let's focus on how I became the unwitting trigger of a blog war. On The Confluence, a recent thread explains the mechanics of a behind-the-scenes rift.

A few writers on that site took offense at the listing of Cannonfire on the blogroll, apparently because those writers considered my advocacy of a single-state solution in Israel to be proof of the raging anti-Semitism secretly lurking within every goyish heart. The de-listing did not bother me, and Riverdaughter (chief editor and writer of that site) retains my admiration.

(In case you're wondering, she and I do not correspond in private. I have nothing to do with that site beyond the occasional comment.)

But that minor adjustment of HTML coding did not suffice to placate the rebel faction, who now view their former home blog as incurably poisoned by Cannonite cooties. They formed their own site (a good move: Don't bitch, blog!) which unpromisingly uses the sinking Titanic as its visual symbol. They then proceeded to attack the folks at the Confluence for being -- get this -- neo-conservative.

The reasoning: A former link to Cannonfire equals opposition to Israel; opposition to Israel equals anti-Semitism; anti-Semitism equals evil; neo-conservatism equals evil -- therefore, any blog which once had a link to this site is neo-conservative. In other words: Eyeballs are spherical, the world is spherical, the world is a planet, therefore eyeballs are planets. That's logic for ya.

Let's see a few more logical statements (and I mean "logical" in the Glenn Beck sense of the term):
About a year ago or so I came out and said that Tushy Obama’s Mideast policy was going to predicated on selling out Israeli security to her enemies in exchange for a Cumbaya love fest with the radical Islamists.

Let’s take a look at the recent timeline of events. First Botox Troll John Kerry traveled to Gaza so Hamas would not think that all its fundraising for the Tushy was in vain. No one really paid much attention as he’s really just a nobody puppet for Pampers now. Then he went to meet with the region's favorite doctor turned rogue nation leader Bashar Assad of Syria...
It goes on and on like that. Apparently, John Kerry is a big anti-Semite. Apparently, Barack Obama hopes to achieve political glory by selling out to Osama. After all, that is the way to win the hearts of Americans, is it not?

According to this site, Uncle Sam himself doesn't like Jews -- and vice-versa:
The United States, in its typical ignorance of the functionings of the Middle East, seems to think that it can blackmail Israel by sending the message that there will be no help on the Iran nukes front until Israel consents to a Palestinian state with a divided Jerusalem. [the folks at the Konfluence don’t seem to realize that utilizing this kind of blackmail to dictate the policy of a sovereign nation is the same neocon tactics used by George W. Shrub, but they don’t care as long as they get the results they want; a Palestinian State led by its current terror kleptocracy which means a fucked Israel...

What Tushy Obama, and his anti-Israel cabal don’t understand is that Israel does not need the United States’ approval to bomb the mother loving crap out of Iran. Israel does not need access to Iraqi airspace to bomb the mother loving crap out of Iran...
And it goes on and on like that. One more example:
Rahm is on board with his master's plan to curry Islamist favor by setting up Israel to be rocketed out of existence.
This leads to more blather about how the Department of State "perennially sells out Israel's security interests."

Well. I must say that I am surprised to learn that one of Israel's greatest enemies is the United States of America. But then again, why should this attitude surprise us? We have, after all, the precedent of the Pollard scandal -- in which Israel not only stole our secrets but sold them to the Russians during the cold war.

Our examination of this one small (and probably inconsequential) blog allows us to see the larger picture more keenly. The madness on display here reflects the insanity which has come to grip Israel's defenders.

At the Durban Review Conference on Racism, Alan Dershowitz -- whom I used to admire, believe it or not -- went completely off his coconut:
US attorney Alan Dershowitz said Monday on the sidelines of the Durban Review Conference on racism in Geneva that Switzerland's president was supportive of 'hate mongering' and that the anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu was a 'racist and bigot.'
This is Desmond freaking Tutu we are talking about.

Again, perhaps we should not be surprised. Israel and apartheid South Africa remained close allies when Tutu called for disinvestment.

Here in California, a professor named William Robinson, who teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara, may lose his position over an email containing an attached article by a Jewish journalist:
In January of this year, he forwarded an email condemning the Israeli attacks on Gaza. The email contained an editorial by a Jewish journalist condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza as well as juxtaposed images of Nazi atrocities with congruent images of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. The email was an optional read for students, intended to spark conversation by relating contemporary events to conceptual ideas discussed in class.

One week later, the ADL wrote him a letter charging him with anti-Semitism and sundry violations of the Faculty Code of Conduct (none of which were coherent claims)...
Repeat: The "offensive" article was written by a Jewish author. This led to the filing of formal student complaints which now endanger the professor's career.
The complaints are that 1) critique of Israel is evidence of anti-Semitism and 2) the Israeli-Palestinian issue should not be discussed in a class on Globalization.
Meanwhile, in Israel itself, Jewish fundamentalism -- which is every bit as obnoxious as its Islamic, Hindu and Christian siblings -- continues to infect the public psyche.

* A Jewish "modesty patrol" in a Jerusalem suburb tossed acid in the face of a 14 year-old girl who committed the crime of wearing pants.

* IDF troops refused to attend a performance featuring a female singer. (Remember when Israel was applauded for allowing women to serve in its army?)

* In some parts of Israel, women are required to sit in the back of the bus. A newspaper editor characterized a petition to change this practice as an attempt "to impose Western secular culture on us."

"Western secular culture"? A telling phrase, that. In my view, this new disdain for "western secular culture" ties into the anti-U.S. blather quoted above.

* Children's books in Israel openly promote ethnic hatred and religious animosity.

* Rabbis told Israeli troops assaulting Gaza that theirs was a holy war -- a jihad, if you will -- against Gentiles. This fanaticism resulted in the deliberate murder of civilians.

* Although Israeli apologists in the U.S. decry anyone who suggests that Israelis seek to eradicate all non-Jews in "their" land, rabbis in Israel have decided that the time has come to take off the petticoat and show what's underneath. From the Los Angeles Times:
But some soldiers say they also were lectured about a more ambitious aim: to banish non-Jews from the biblical land of Israel.

"This rabbi comes to us and says the fight is between the children of light and the children of darkness," a reserve sergeant said, recalling a training camp encounter. "His message was clear: 'This is a war against an entire people, not against specific terrorists.' The whole thing was turned into something very religious and messianic
Gaza veterans said rabbis advised army units to show the enemy no mercy and called for resettlement of the Palestinian enclave by Jews.

"The rabbis were all over, in every unit," said Yehuda Shaul, a retired army officer whose human rights group, Breaking the Silence, has taken testimony from dozens of Gaza veterans. "It was quite well organized."
By the way: How do we define "Biblical" Israel? I'm thinking of Samaria, Idumea...

* Avigdor Lieberman. Need I say more?

* Racism in Israel has segued into an open search for a final solution to "The Non-Jewish Problem":
Israel's Jewish community increasingly supports the delegitimization, discrimination and even deportation of Arabs, found a report on racism in Israel, set to be released Wednesday.

The report, to be presented at a press conference in Nazareth by Mossawa, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel, states that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has clearly impacted public opinion, and warns that ideas such as population exchange and racial segregation are gaining ground. It also warns that several Jewish politicians are gaining influence based on a platform of racial hatred.
Most cases of Arab citizens injured by Jews were not fully investigated, and the attackers were not indicted in most cases, according to the report.

However, the report says Arab violence against Jews led to immediate police action, including collective punishment in villages like Jisr al-Zarqa this month.
How can one not compare these outrages -- calls for deportation, differing standards of justice, collective reprisal, open talk of racial superiority/inferiority -- to Nazism?

* As non-racist, or less-racist, secular Jews (sensibly) immigrate from Israel, the population remaining in that nation is increasingly wedded to crazed forms of religiosity.
Israel's Haredi ultra-Orthodox religious community, for example, is growing at a rate so high that it is redefining the political landscape. According to Israeli government statistics, Haredi Jews average 7.6 children per woman, almost three times the rate of the population as a whole. Of the Israeli Knesset's 120 members, 20 are ultra-Orthodox, up from five just a couple of decades ago.
Some argue that attraction to ultra-Orthodoxy is a rejection of the Western liberal tradition.
The theme sounds again: The rejection of the West.

Americans are now the bad guys -- perhaps because U.S. taxpayers refuse to pay for a new war against a perceived enemy of Israel. Or maybe it's those damned female singers we keep foisting on the world. I never knew that Britney was that big of a problem...

In short and in sum: A mania has overtaken many Jews, in Israel in elsewhere. Not all Jews are religious bigots, but all Jews are as susceptible to bigotry as is the rest of our sorry species.

The current mania parallels similar frenzies which have afflicted just about every other culture in the world at one time or another. Study the faces of fanaticism as their ghosts march past: Simon de Montfort, Savonarola, Torquemada, John C. Calhoun, George Armstrong Custer, General Phil Sheridan, Edouard Drumont, Stalin, Mussolini, Tojo -- yes, Hitler and Himmler. And certainly one should include Osama Bin Laden and his band of psychopaths, even though they have, unhappily, escaped ghost-hood.

Jews may look at that ghastly list and mutter: No, not us; never us. It's not possible. We're different; we're better. We are immune from the disease that afflicts the rest of humanity.

No. They are not.

Racism, ethnocentrism and religious fundamentalism (the concepts are inextricably intertwined) are like the chicken pox: The only sure prevention is to have gone through the illness. It has to be part of your past. The disease is bad enough when it strikes during childhood -- but it's much worse during adulthood. The pox often leaves lasting scars. A bad case of adult-onset chicken pox can damage one's ability to see clearly, to stand up straight, to control the sphincter. The very worst cases are fatal.

Jews have never really confronted this "pox" before -- not on this scale. Over the course of centuries, they saw it hit others en masse, but not themselves. They thought they were resistant. In fact, they had built up no immunity.

Thus a great many Jews have now caught the human disease, and a once-handsome visage has become repellent. Temporarily, I hope. But the marks are there, and it's no use pretending otherwise.

Jews who have fallen to this pandemic look in the mirror, and they don't like what they see: Not us, not us. It cannot happen to us. That wretched, blemished face in the glass does not match the pristine self-image seen by the mind's eye. The disjunction is damning.

And so they go mad.

9 comments:

Caro said...

Sounds like the pox that engulfed the Obamaphiles last year.

Sadly, it was not a fatal disease.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to point out that the eye socket is sometimes referred to as an "orbit"

katiebird said...

I hate to break it to you about that link in the blogroll. You might want to take another look at it.

Sarah Palin said...

In January of this year, he forwarded an email condemning the Israeli attacks on Gaza. The email contained an editorial by a Jewish journalist condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza as well as juxtaposed images of Nazi atrocities with congruent images of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. The email was an optional read for students, intended to spark conversation by relating contemporary events to conceptual ideas discussed in class.

The Raving Badger said...

Jeebus. For years we complained that Republicans were off their rockers while ignoring so many Dems are, too. Thank gawd I am both an Atheist and an Independent. I'd be embarrassed to associate with any of these fools.

BTW- Given the Harman matter, maybe the AIPAC extremists might want to shut up. Same with the Kos krowd who revere Pelosi.

It's all the same sickness.

SN in MN said...

Awhile back I posted the opinion that Hitler had based nazism on zionism, and you responded that you had not seen any evidence of it. Are you starting to change your mind yet? Hitler would've never given the jews credit for it, but knowing your enemy and fighting fire with fire are old axioms.

Anonymous said...

I'm speechless, joseph - this sums it up better than anything I've ever read. I have always loved Jewish people, their wit and intelligence is a beacon in our musty old world. but racism is racism. racism and bigotry are universal and must be seen INSIDE, owned and self-forgiven in humility, individually and collectively, in order to have immunity from the disease like you said. no one is exempt, no one! the blame-game and fingerpointing just don't cut it anymore! the message is GROW UP, we all have to do it, it's painful but the only way out is through.
emmag

b said...

And these foaming-at-the-mouth nutcases are armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, pretty much control most of the western media, provide the "security" at American nuclear installations, and so on. Did I mention Rahm Emanuel and his steak knife? The one he repeatedly stabbed the table with, screaming out the names of his adversaries, followed with the exclamation "Dead! Dead! Dead!" What a sane and responsible guy.

Displaying a concentrated form of the sort of mental dissociation all those elected representatives in America showed when they declared "Israel has the right to defend itself" in the middle of the Gaza massacre. Evil? You bet. Let's stop trying to be liberal intellectual arguers.

I've noticed it too. When you sit down with a sigh and think "For G-d's sake! Look at the sheer extent of Zionist control over this or that news story!", you see another one where they're straining at the boundary, claiming everyone's discriminating against them, or has got it in for them. Claiming the US is ultra pro-Palestinian. Claiming Mohammed al-Dura was murdered by Arabs in a snuff movie. (Yes, there are well-funded websites which argue precisely that, and others which take the "middle ground", saying Arabs killed him but it's not clear whether they did so deliberately or accidentally).

One thing is for absolute certain: this will end in tears. My prediction for parts of the West is famine within 10 years. It's not like Russia, where people remember starvation and have got the sense not to believe politicians and celebrities, knowing that their lives depend on whether they can get hold of a sack of seed potatoes in the autumn and find a tiny plot somewhere and defend it with their axe if need be. In the West most people lost such sense years ago. Which connects with the massive rise in personal debt, and the cultural changes that have been necessary in order to bring that about...

Emigrate if you can, Joe!

b

Anonymous said...

Simon de Montfort! NO! Not Simon de Montfort!!