JayinPhiladelphia
A bit of a 'response' to Mike's post here on Friday, and I'm sure he can relate. I just want to quickly note why even bothering to engage in 'I-P' at sites like Daily Kos (one of the leading blogs when it comes to the mainstreaming of antisemitism on the Left over the past decade) is not just a waste of time, but beyond that is indeed a dangerous legitimization of that hate-friendly site, as well.
Let me first start out by saying that JNEREBEL is one of the best, and most consistent, pro-I folks that unfortunate site has ever seen. Along with fizziks (just to mention another name noted here recently), and a few others. But that's not the point here, so I'll move on.
My main contention is now, and has been for months, that the problem with that site is that pro-Israel people like us are forced to start with two hands tied behind our back, one foot shackled to a staple rack, and blind-folded.
Unless we internalize the Palestinian narrative, that Israelis are colonialist interlopers practicing Apartheid, or some such other ludicrous bullcrap, one automatically starts off from a position of suspicion. As a 'racist,' or some such other nonsense. It certainly doesn't help, either, that certain "progressive zionists" there take it upon themselves to act as enforcers, as well.
After all, what better way to boost their 'progressive' credentials in the eye of the "Adalah" side there, than to agree with terrorist lovers, that people like Mike and oldschool and I hold positions beyond the pale?
I even know of a 'progressive zionist,' in fact, who admitted to being confused as to whether to even oppose BDS or not, until just recently. I guess he finally felt safe doing so once his Batman felt it was a sure... spike... to come out against it.
This is a place where the much-loved moderator once called the Nazis "a blip," in order to justify his insanely bigoted position that mentioning "concentration camps" in the context of I-P did not automatically mean one was comparing Israelis to Nazis. A hallmark of contemporary antisemitism, which Mr. Blades so desperately sought to provide an excuse for.
Why on earth would he be so desperate to do that?
I wonder. Oh wait, no I don't.
But back to the above. I reject the position we're necessarily forced into, as supporters of Israel, on that site. Particularly as when viewed against how the antisemites and other assorted bigots there start out, and are allowed to go on. And on. And on. And on. And on. And on.
One of their leaders at that site is a violent, hate-filled woman who harasses Holocaust survivors, and then whines when security at TLV tags her as the dangerous bigot that she is.
Here's my question - why do we even need to respect the opinion of a racist lunatic like her in the first place? Those who continue to participate at Daily Kos, unfortunately, do so by their continued presence there. It's time to stop that. And it's also time to call out that site for what it is. A hate-friendly pile of shit, which continues even to this day to mainstream antisemitism through the diaries of those who are considered "trusted users" there.
When the front page stops publishing the "findings" of antisemitic, Troofer commissions, then I'll cut some slack to that site. Until then, no.
UPDATE: I still can't comment via Blogger, here or anywhere else, for whatever reason. The dropdown box contains no options for me to 'sign in' under any account, although I can endlessly sign out! I don't know what's going on with that, I tried to set up a new Blogger account and that didn't work, either, so it's probably that my browser is busted or something. I'll figure it out next weekend, I guess.
Anyway, I didn't really post this to get an answer or anything. Just something I had to say, and now that I did I feel better. From here on out, it's my intent to stop paying any attention whatsoever to that place, and to get my focus back on things that actually matter to me. Like food politics, and trying to clean up the sickening zombie town at the foot of the Somerset El station here in Kensington. This was just closure, is all.
UPDATE 2: It's fascinating to me, how clearly important this site is to someone who nonetheless loves smearing and hurling charges at all of its participants, as if there's nothing more important in the world to him. Even more important than trying to come up with new ways to say "Obama rocks my socks!" Also, I don't know about any of youze, but if I believed somebody was threatening my family, and made a point of crying about that for weeks, I wouldn't continue to obsessively follow and post on that very person's blog, myself. But perhaps our guest was lying about that, too. Totally shocking. Or not.
The Day of the Dhimmi is Done - Michael Lumish, PhD, proprietor. (mike.lumish@gmail.com)
Jay,
ReplyDeleteI have to say, I find this piece poignant. It's very inside baseball, tho, in the sense that most people reading it will not really know what to make of it, unless they know about the internals of dkos I-P.
You raise a number of issues that I am curious about. One has to do with the person who goes by the name of "soysauce" on Daily Kos, who is in various venues Sandra Tamari and Sandra Mansour, if this source can be believed.
http://innostrumviadomus.blogspot.com/2009/12/sandra-tamari-why-i-going-to-gaza-come.html
The truth is that while I definitely agree with you that the person who goes by the name "soysauce" on dkos, and who is apparently Sandra Tamari, if not Sandra Monsour, is a proponent of the racist boycott against the Jews in Israel, I do not see where what she did in that video constitutes harassment.
What she is, however, is a demopath:
Demopaths are people who use democratic language and invoke human rights only when it serves their interests, and not when it calls for self-criticism or self-restraint. Demopaths demand stringent levels of human “rights” but do not apply these basic standards for the “other” to their own behavior. The most lethal demopaths use democratic rights to destroy democracy.
Sandra Monsour has shown us time and again on dkos that she is perfectly comfortable with the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state which would result, yet again, in the slaughter and oppression of the Jews of that region.
This means that she is not the least little bit interested in anything that could possibly resemble human rights.
I will have more to say on your piece, you can be certain.
Cheers!
Only compared to what Christian, and post-Christian, and pre-Christian, European and culturally European people have done to the Jewish people throughout the past over two thousand years could what Muslims have done to the Jewish people throughout the past fourteen hundred years be thought of as being "mild". In no other context could what Muslims have done to the Jewish people throughout the past fourteen hundred years be thought of as being "mild".
ReplyDeleteAnd, now, there is, and, for the past approximately 90 years, there has been, the Muslim and Arab racist war against the re-founding of, and, subsequently, against the existence of, the nation of the Jewish people (the liberal democratic very small nation of the Jewish people), Israel; and the more sophisticated Western (originally "Right-Wing", and now also, and most prominently, "Left-Wing") racist (diplomatic (governmental), and propagandic (journalistic, academic, governmental), and espionage and sabotage (governmental)) war against the existence of the nation of the Jewish people (the liberal democratic very small nation of the Jewish people), Israel.
ReplyDeleteAnti-Semitism 2.0, by Mudar Zahran (Mudar Zahran is a 'Palestinian' Arab writer and academic from Jordan and currently lives in the U.K. as a political refugee)
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/1979/anti-semitism-20
"The concept of the 'evil Jew' has made a well-disguised comeback: Criticizing Israel and Zionists, is now deemed a legitimate option to cursing Jews and Judaism. Not only is it open, socially acceptable and legal, but it can actually bring prosperity and popularity. This new form of anti-Semitism 2.0 is well-covered-up, harder to trace and poses a much deeper danger to the modern way of life of the civilized world than the earlier crude form of it, as it slowly and gradually works on delegitimizing Jews to the point where it eventually becomes acceptable to target Jews, first verbally, then physically -- all done in a cosmopolitan style where the anti-Semites are well-groomed speakers and headline writers in jackets and ties; and not just Arab, but American and European, from 'sanitized' news coverage of the most bloodthirsty radicals, to charges against Israel in which facts are distorted, selectively omitted or simply untrue...
"...Anti-Semitism and the image of the 'evil Jew' find their roots deep in Europe's intellectualism, from Shakespeare to Nietzsche, not to mention the fraudulent Franco-Russian Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The pretexts for Hitler's Nazi ideology existed vigorously before he came to power. Hitler probably manifested more of a crude exposure of a public trend, exacerbated by a terrible economy, except that the suffering Hitler brought to the world was not limited to Jews. It took the destruction of entire nations and the deaths of millions for people to realize that racism and extremism can be as dangerous to the oppressors and the haters as it is the oppressed and the hated.
"As a result, European societies of today collectively renounce racism and anti-Semitism, but even though the haters encountered rejection and exclusion, they were nonetheless able to find an alternative pathway by prospering on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. As it has raged -- and continues to rage -- for sixty years, the global media have found a lively source of news material that is endlessly interesting as a conflict between 'two religions,' 'two ethnicities,' and the line between the West, represented by Israel, and the East, represented by the Palestinians and Arabs in general.
"This form of hatred is hurting us all; it must be countered."
Jay,
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe that not a single one of "the group" has the gonads to respond.
My only requirement is that people not be abusive, malicious, and just plain nasty... and, yet, they remain incapable of a response.
And, further, much to their individual disgrace, they will tell others that we are "racist" or "homophobic" for daring to recognize that radical Islam is the foremost political movement today throughout the Middle East.
These people who you are addressing claim to represent the liberal Jewish community, yet they are so cowed that they cannot even bring themselves to acknowledge "Pallywood" because they are ideologically blinkered and consumed by social fears.
It never ceases to amaze me.
Your statement deserves to be addressed, I just wish that it would be addressed in a rational manner.
You know very well that I meant "Islamophobic."
ReplyDeletebtw, how is it that you and your friends fail to recognize "Pallywood"?
Are you entirely unaware of Richard Landes?
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/
LOL no, I don't know you know meant that... My psychic powers are on holiday this week.
ReplyDeleteMike, we all know about "Pallywood" and the fraud that it is. This is not new. I was arguing about this before you even knew what Israel was.
Here is the thing Mike... and now I am being serious... For the most part my friends and I are focused on two things: The first and foremost is the election this year. Israel is important to all of us but it is not first and foremost on our list. We are all Americans and to us, the Republican Party as it currently exists represents disaster for America. SO... we focus on that battle. For myself (and I can speak for at least a few others), our country's economy, environment, civil rights, education and other issues are what I care most about. I don't care whether Barak Obama called Benyamin Netanyahu a pain in the ass or not. I really don't. It does not mean that he is the second coming of Adolph Hitler. Really, it doesn't.
The second thing is that we are neither Palestinian nor Arab. If they want to live in the 12th century there is not a lot I can do about it. Our own community has its own issues and as a Jew, I am focused on that. If I demand that Arabs in particular and Palestinians in general self-police their community then shouldn't I do the same?
Now, you would probably respond that while I am focusing on our own issues, the Arabs and Palestinians are not and that puts me at a disadvantage. But I don't think so. The Yishuv was successful by following the lead of the Labor Zionists who sought to build an enlightened society. They did things differently from the Arabs at the time and guess what? They succeeded (at least compared to the Palestinians). If I have to become like my enemies then how am I any different from them?
I don't need to see the millions of ways that the Arabs or Palestinians don't like Israel and consider the Jewish people to be second class citizens. I (and everyone else I know in my group) know that already. Just because I and others don't need to write 50,000 articles talking about what bad people Muslims are or how the Arabs want to destroy Israel doesn't mean that we are not aware of the problem. It just means that we want to fix what we can fix and that by doing better as people we just may fix it.
Not everything Mike, is a worst case scenario and not everything (in fact not most things) goes to an ultimate conclusion.
Please show me a single diary that you have written centering on Pallywood.
ReplyDeleteI haven't written one.. where did I say I have? Does that mean I don't know about it or ignore it? Of course not.
ReplyDeleteGlad you read the comment. Let me know when you do.
Blip? BLIP?????????
ReplyDeleteI can't believe I missed that. So the man with the same initials as the Muslim Brotherhood (how ironic is that) shows his true POS values vis a vis the Holocaust.
Is it any wonder I call that place the swamp?
You and your group may be aware, but that does not mean that others are, which is why it is important to expose things like Pallywood and the greater danger of the false narrative presented.
ReplyDeleteWho says that Obama is the second coming of Hitler?
Who says that by contesting what the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims do is to "become like my enemies?" Do you really believe it is fair to equate the sides this way?
Similarly, do you really believe that Israel does not self-police, so that it needs our help, or that the need to self-police in Israel is any way comparable to need to do so among Palestinians?
Forgetting Democrat and Republican, what would it take from Obama to change the view that he is best friend to Israel of any President, like you profess?
You say: Part ONE
ReplyDeleteYou and your group may be aware, but that does not mean that others are, which is why it is important to expose things like Pallywood and the greater danger of the false narrative presented
No problem exposing things like "Pallywood", (in fact I think it is a good thing to do that) but acting like this is the only thing that Palestinians do and pushing the meme over and over again without context I think is both wrong and serves a more nefarious purpose. It is like the people that push meme's about Israeli shows or commentary that could be considered racist and portraying that over and over again. I get that you want to make a point. I am just not sure what that point is since the advocacy goes beyond simple information.
Who says that Obama is the second coming of Hitler?
Your little crew here. What do you think it sounds like when you all talk about or let comments slide talking about President Obama supporting and enabling the Jihad and a "Nazi Based" organization like the Islamic Brotherhood? What do you think it sounds like when Mike keeps publishing ridiculous crap about Obama as enemy of the Jewish people and no one says.... "WTF are you talking about"? Do you understand just how deranged saying things like that comes off? I get that you think it is just rhetoric and "slightly" hyperbolic. But it is not. It is pure craziness. Go ahead and say those things to the majority of American Jews. I would bet you almost anything 70% of Jewish people in America would call to have you committed.
Who says that by contesting what the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims do is to "become like my enemies?" Do you really believe it is fair to equate the sides this way?
When take people like Eric Alan Bell, David Horowitz and Pamela Geller seriously you are just like our enemies. They are racists who hate Muslims and have track records of hardcore Islamophobic commentary. Sure they may get 1-2 or things right, but, so what? Their racism renders everything they say (including "the sky is blue") as irrelevant.
Think about it this way... take Omar Barghouti. Some of the things he says are right particularly regarding equal treatment for Arabs and problems with the Occupation. BUT so f-ing what. He is also the leader of one of the racist tactic of BDS. He wants nothing more than to do away with Israel. Why should I take anything he says seriously? His racism prevents him from being relevant.
And yes, I believe it is absolutely fair to equate the sides this way. Our racists are no less hateful than their racists. They are racists and should be ignored by both sides. If you can't ignore them and instead give them creedance, how exactly are you any different? You are not. Period.
You say Part II
DeleteSimilarly, do you really believe that Israel does not self-police, so that it needs our help, or that the need to self-police in Israel is any way comparable to need to do so among Palestinians?
Bad framing. I never said Israel doesn't police itself. It very much does. This is sort of a throw away comment. I am Jewish, I should police my own community. Are you saying that people shouldn't police their own community? See how that was done?
As I stated previously I am Jewish so I "police" my own community and I think every Jew should do the same. I believe we should constantly strive to make ourselves better. Are you saying we shouldn't?
And yes, it is comparable to the Palestinians need on a few levels. First of all we are human, are we not? I think all people should do the same for their communities. Look at the Germans in 20's. They had one of the most enlightened societies under the Weimar regime. What happened to them? How about Iraq? They had a Jewish Finance Minister in 1932 - look what happened there. Societies need to police themselves constantly. It matters not who you are.
Forgetting Democrat and Republican, what would it take from Obama to change the view that he is best friend to Israel of any President, like you profess?
I guess that if President Obama did not:
1: Stress the highest level of cooperation of U.S. support for the IDF ever (according to both Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak)
2. Did not support Israel at the U.N. constantly most definitely during the whole Palestinian Statehood debacle
3. If the President had never given Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres the Medal of Freedom
4. If the Obama administration had not gone out and secured EXTRA funding which make Iron Dome, Magic Wand, and David's Sling Missle defense systems. Systems that save Israeli lives and will save American lives when perfected for our use.
5. Here at home had not been the first President ever to hold annual Seders in the White House. You may not think that is a big thing but I very much do.
6. Also here at home had not been the first President to actually promote Jewish culture through establishing Jewish History month
7. If the President was not standing by Israel through the "Arab Spring" and was not pulling strings on Egyptian Aid to make sure that the treaty stands.
8. If the President were NOT trying to work towards a Two State solution as a permanant end to the Israeli Palestinian conflict and was not evolving his position to understand Israeli Security concerns.
9. If the President had not spoken out against Arab racism in Cairo and had not visited a Concentration Camp (unlike Republican icon Ronald Reagan who visited and commemorated German SS Soldiers)
10. If the Israelis like Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres had not called the President an "EXCEPTIONAL FRIEND" of Israel.
And the list goes on, and on, and on.
I suppose if the President hadn't done all of those things then I might not consider him one of the best friends or the best friend that Israel has ever had in the White House (though Bill Clinton was pretty darn good too).
I hope that answers your questions.
From your criticism, I have a hard time knowing if you have read those that you are so quick to label and condemn because they have a different perspective.
DeleteIt is simply inaccurate to to say that people act like Pallywood "is the only thing that Palestinians do and pushing the meme over and over again without context." People who care about Pallywood care about much more than you appear able to acknowledge.
The Obama/Hitler thing is way over the top. No one says he is the second coming of Hitler. If that is how you interpret criticism, I suggest your interpretation is unreasonable. The fact is that Obama has cozied with the MB, as contrasted with moderate Muslim voices, and its origins are clear. Morsi just reinforced what the MB is about, despite the appearances for too many Western eyes and ears.
Ironically, some of the harshest Obama critics are similar to the harshest supporters. I have objected here, many times. At your site I have experienced less tolerance, especially if one does not accept that Obama is Israel's BFF, which I also find an extremist position. Indeed, I was censored and shut out in a most unprogressive fashion for daring to submit that Obama is not as supportive as suggested.
As for the people you mentioned, the fact that you say they get "1-2 or things right" indicated, to me, that really do not know what they are saying. I dispute they are Islamophobes, and suggest that is a catch word developed at Muslim think tanks to silence and beat down ANY criticism of Islam. Have you examined where the concept originated?
To equate the racism of the sides is preposterous, in both the aggregate and the degree. No racism should be condoned, but that does not mean all racism is equal. Humanitarian racists are less objectionable than racists that incite violence or seek genocide. Not to mention that for every Jewish "racist" there are how many antisemites?
I did not say that people should not police themselves. The issue is that the Palestinians don't respect human rights, and the comparison drawn is suspect.
Finally, you evaded the question about what it would take to change your view about Obama and Israel.
oldschool....
DeleteIf you say that I evaded your last question then you didn't read my "You Say Part II" comment.
Also... you say all racism is unequal... Well that to me tells me all I need to know. Levels of Racism or hate my vary but the sin of racism is equal
And with that I am out. But thank you for confirming what I already knew about you.
I asked what it would take not to support him, not why you did support him.
DeleteThe sin of racism may be equal, but the manifestation is not. I am more concerned about those that take their racism to a different level because of the danger they pose. That is why antisemites are different than humanitarian racists. Simple statements like yours do not address the reality of the matter.
I note that you mentioned Islamophobia, yet did not respond to my inquiry about how the term was developed.
Finally, it is sad that you judge people so cavalierly and are so fast to use slurs. The fact is that what you know about me is your own fantasy, and not based on reality, but a fraction of information, the whole of which you will never know because of a variety of factors.