Monday, January 27, 2014

On Settlements and Stupidity: Initial Synopsis of Chapter One

{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under.}

People familiar with Israel Thrives will find the below redundant.

I believe that I have said pretty much everything that I want to say and am at this point consolidating ideas and organizing thoughts.  What we have below is merely the beginning of an attempt to do so.

It is a continuation of the previous piece entitled, ZioNazi, which represents an initial draft of an outline.

My conclusions and outlooks are based on my readings over the previous four or five years, yet remain tentative.

There are a number of excellent pro-Israel bloggers who are outlining the news of the day and presenting their beliefs concerning that news.  What I intend to do going forward is to consolidate and rethink and that is what On Settlements and Stupidity is all about.

I very much welcome your criticisms and concerns, but I also think that we must acknowledge the betrayal of the progressive-left, and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic party, against the Jewish people and all women, Gay people, and non-Muslims throughout the Middle East.

If the left refuses to stand for universal human rights then it stands for nothing whatsoever.


Thesis Statement 


The progressive-left, and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party, has betrayed its Jewish constituency through its acceptance of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism, and the BDS movement, as part of its larger coalition.

This betrayal is a symptom of the undermining of progressive-left values due to the ascendancy of the multicultural ideal over that of universal human rights within the heart of the western progressive movement and of the Democratic Party in the United States.

The undermining of universal human rights as a core value within the progressive movement led also to the betrayal of women, the betrayal of Gay people, and the betrayal of Christians throughout Islamic regions of dominance, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, but also including sections of Europe.

It has also brought the defamation of Jewish supporters of Israel as something akin to Nazis or "ZioNazis," as is sometimes claimed, in a delicious inversion of historical reality for the purpose of beating up Jews as guilty for the very crime that murdered our families.


Synopsis of Chapter One


The movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction the Jews of the Middle East (BDS), which has found a home for itself within the international progressive-left and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic party in the United States, has a history that goes to traditional Islamic Jew hatred, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union.

Within traditional Islam, of course, the Jews were mainly considered second and third-class non-citizens for 1,300 years throughout the region, including the Jewish homeland of Judaea and Samaria. The Arab-Muslim boycott of the Jews is derived, in part, from the fact that within al-Sharia no land that was ever under Islamic control can ever be considered anything but part of the vast Arab-Muslim holdings of Dar al-Islam. The Arab boycott of the Jews, in the twentieth-century, was also heavily influenced by the earlier Nazi boycott of Jewish goods which served as an example and inspiration that long outlived World War II; a war that actually never ended for the Jews of the Middle East.

Soviet Communism, of course, allied with the Arab states against the Jewish State of Israel during the Cold War and Marxist ideology, as it expressed itself in the west, opposed all forms of nationalism, but particularly Jewish nationalism.

The rise of post-modernity and neo-colonial theory within western academic fields in the humanities, following World War II, gave rise to important theorists such as the late Edward Said, of Columbia University, and Rashid Khalidi, of the University of Chicago, both of whom represent significant influences on the political ideology of US president Barack Obama.

Meanwhile a new generation of Israeli historians, including Benny Morris, Ilan Pappé, and Avi Shlaim, sought to deconstruct the idealized founding myths of the Jewish State in order to allegedly present a more balanced historical picture.

All of these factors came together in the beginning of the twenty-first century to create a political alliance between "Arab Spring" Sharia Islamists, of the type aboard the Turkish Mavi Marmara, and western progressives, including significant "liberal" politicians, who joined them aboard that ship for the purpose of freeing Hamas to break that blockade and bring additional weaponry into Gaza in May 2010.

Thus, through the final months of 2012, Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their allies could launch hundreds of rockets against the minority Jewish population of the Middle East without any concern by the western progressive-left, including most of progressive-left Jewry.  And, yet, when Israel finally hit back the Jews of the Middle East were castigated as something akin to Nazis by many within western-left circles.

6 comments:

  1. Mike this is tremendous and important stuff. I will be doing my best to spread it.

    If I was to say there was just one message that I am trying to get around it would be that this is not just an issue about the Jews and Israel. It is about all of us. It is about me as an Australian. It is about the kind of world we want for humankind and the fact that Israel's existence is even in issue says something scary about the political cultures of some Western universities and some party factions in left/liberal/labor/Green parties and some right groups in all our countries .

    Including I have been appalled to hear, thanks to your resonate voice, yours.

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    1. The period 1933-1941 saw an explosion of Nazi founded and inspired "groups" in the mideast. The Nazis poured a great deal of effort into building them as spinoffs of the Nazi party. The Ba'ath party IS a Nazi type fascist party with all the trappings, beliefs even the symbolism of the 3rd Reich. It's founder, Michel Aflaq was in fact a Syrian French Nazi.

      A common prayer or greeting Arabs (in Mandatory Palestine) at the time would use is "Allah in heaven and Hitler on earth".

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  2. One other comment.

    I found your choice of title and imagery confronting to say the least. No doubt that is exactly what you intended.

    You will know that there are people who find the very sight of this imagery and words viscerally repugnant. You and me for a start but there are people in our countries who you could argue have a right to be not confronted with stuff without it be clearly explained as best as possible what you are trying to do.

    I guess that was intended as well.

    Thanks. Cheers.

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    1. The image is repugnant.

      It describes how many people throughout the western left see the Jewish people of the Middle East.

      I encountered it, live and in the flesh, for the first time when I a went to my very last anti-war rally in SF.

      I write about that here.

      http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/06/20/744905/-I-Was-Wrong-about-Anti-Zionists

      Heck, maybe I will reprint that one at Israel Thrives.

      It caused something of a storm over there at the time.

      I just will never forget standing there among thousands of anti-war progressives looking up at a sign that showed the Shield of David intertwined with a Nazi Swastika.

      I was absolutely horrified and it represents my break with the left.

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  3. The Arab boycott of Israel is simply ripped from the pages of the Nazis and later, the Soviet Union who both employed it openly and to their own great success. No one likes better than to vent their own hatred the easy way, by NOT doing something. I wouldn't be shocked if some freshly scrubbed morons on college campuses confuse Gandhi with Hitler on this very point.

    The Arab boycott of Jews has gone on since 1934 when the first stirrings of the Arab revolt began in Mandatory Palestine. It ended more or less with the outbreak of open hostilities of WW2 5 years later. Since then it's been employed by every Arab group, faction and government in precisely the same way. Similarly, the Soviets decided to boycott its own Jews in the CCCP and the Jewish state both before and after Stalin, especially in the 1952-53 time frame and again 1956 and beyond, after the Anglo-French-Israeli Sinai war. Likewise after the Egyptian coup of 1952 it was set in stone that all Arab states would boycott Israel forever no matter what.

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    1. It's funny that you mention the Nazi-Soviet-Arab boycotts, because that is the aspect that I am least familiar with and the one that I will need to conduct the most research upon.

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