Thursday, February 23, 2012

Brief Notes: On Grooves and Ruts



Michael

We spend a lot of time around these parts criticizing political Islam (for its genocidal tendencies), the progressive-left (for its acceptance of political Islam), and progressive Zionism (for its failure to stand up when it counts).

Part of the reason that progressive Zionism fails is because they are, in my opinion, in an ideological rut. They’re just playing the same records, the same old LPs, over and over and over again until the grooves are worn and useless.

We have got to move beyond old ways of thinking because times have simply changed. Here are two examples. Let us consider, in broad strokes, the progressive movement and the Oslo peace process. It is obvious that neither are particularly viable in advancing peace for, or the well-being of, the Jewish people. This is difficult to imagine to many, many people (Jew or non-Jew) because both movements long ago took on lives of their own that are entirely distinct from their actual utility for good.

American Jews, needless to say, were central to the development of the progressive movement as it emerged out of nineteenth century abolitionism. The progressive movement is as American as baseball and your grandma. (Maybe not my grandma, but that’s beside the point.) The reason that Jews went into that movement is obvious. We were a persecuted minority and it was the progressive movement which stood up for black people and women and labor and persecuted minorities like the Jews.

But times, my friends, have changed. When I look at the progressive movement now what I see is a political structure, bolstered by an ideology, that is directly harmful to the well-being of the Jewish people because it is directly harmful to the well-being of the Jewish state. The polls remain consistent. Conservatives and Republicans have much higher rates of friendliness toward Israel than do liberals and Democrats. That is simply a fact.

Although there is anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism on the far fringy right, it is on the left where anti-Semitic anti-Zionism is being mainstreamed and institutionalized. Within the Democratic Party, within the mainstream liberal news outlets and many unions, many universities, and some “high” denominational churches, Israel is persistently defamed and demonized. Thus anti-Semitic anti-Zionism is a growing problem on the left and one that we need to consider when we think about our political allegiances.

BDS, of course, is also left-wing.

So, why should Jewish people support a political movement, the progressive-left, that also supports people who seek to rob Jews of self-determination and self-defense?

It makes no sense.

Furthermore, given the fact that the progressive movement no longer even stands for universal human rights, as we can plainly see from their near total disinterest in Darfur or the Congo or the Kurds or Tibet, not to mention the civil liberties of women and gays and Jews in the Middle East, why should we maintain any allegiance to a shell of a political movement that incorporates elements that are directly hostile toward Jewish well-being?

As for the peace process, it is over.

There is no peace process. Is that not obvious? The truth is that there never has been an actual peace process with the Palestinians. The reason for this is not because of those insidious conservative Likudnik followers of Jabotinsky and that Devil Incarnate, Meir Kahane, but because Muslim religious prejudice does not allow Jewish sovereignty on land that was swiped by Arabs shortly after Muhammed kicked the bucket.

That’s the truth.

And because that is the truth we need to start thinking in different terms than we did, say, when Clinton was president and when we still hoped for a negotiated end of conflict. If the Palestinians refuse to accept a state for themselves in peace next to Israel, then we need a unilateral solution. What that unilateral solution might look like is open for discussion. But to continue praying that if only we can yank enough Jews out of Judea it will produce peace is beyond wishful thinking.

It is, in fact, ridiculous.

We need to break out of the progressive Zionist rut.

.

5 comments:

  1. For an overview of the situation:

    Israeli life and culture,
    and the Islamic Jihad
    www.youtube.com/user/danielbielak

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  2. I'll give it a look-see, Dan.

    Many thanks.

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  3. I would only add that Progressive-Zionists, as they call themselves, rather than focus on the Republican candidates or others that speak to issues that endanger Jews and others, would do better to focus on the antisemitism and disproportionate attention on Israel we see among many that call themselves Progressive.

    There are plenty of places to attack Republicans. What's the big deal with that, adding one more voice to the drone? However, problems in the Progressive "intelligentsia" are systemic and this needs to be confronted.

    From the PZs, virtually nothing about the upcoming Harvard "one state" conference, about the recent happenings at UPenn, or the goings on elsewhere where Progressives are front and center in fomenting incitement against Israel and/or Jews.

    So far as I can tell, at the Progressive Zionist site, there was one small, but good diary about Apartheid Week, but hardly any other discussions.

    As a liberal, I speak about this issue concerning those on the prejudice from the Progressive wing quite often. The message is stronger when it comes from within. That is why I like to refer to what apostates say. I have been banished from within by some. It would be nice to see more of them stepping forward.

    Oh well....

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  4. Iranian Antisemitism: Stepchild of German National Socialism, by German academic scholar, and former member of the "Anti-Zionist" Left in Germany, Matthias Küntzel
    http://europenews.dk/en/node/29641

    What Iranian Leaders Really Say about Doing Away with Israel - A Refutation of the Campaign to Excuse Ahmadinejad's Incitement to Genocide
    http://www.jcpa.org/text/ahmadinejad2-words.pdf

    "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian TV Sermon, Dec. 15, December 15, 2000: "Iran’s position, which was first expressed by the Imam [Khomeini] and stated several times by those responsible, is that the cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region."

    Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, member of President Ahmadinejad’s inner circle, Chairman of the Guardian Council of the Constitution: "The blind enemies should see that the wish of these people is the death of America and Israel."

    Senior advisor to Supreme Leader Khamenei, and one of the founders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Yahya Rahim Safavi, February 23, 2008: "With God’s help the time has come for the Zionist regime’s death sentence."

    Adviser to Ahmadinejad, Secretary of the political committee of the Rayeheh Khosh-Khedmat party which supports Ahmadinejad, and Holocaust-denier, Mohammad-Ali Ramin: "Among the Jews there have always been those who killed God’s prophets and who opposed justice and righteousness. Historically, there are many accusations against the Jews. For example, it was said that they were the source for such deadly diseases as the plague and typhus. This is because the Jews are very filthy people. For a time people also said that they poisoned water wells belonging to Christians and thus killed them."

    Ayatollah Hussein Nuri Hamadani, a leading religious authority associated with the Iranian regime, Mahdaviyat (messianic) Studies Institute, April 2005: "One should fight the Jews and vanquish them so that the conditions for the advent of the Hidden Imam will be met."
    "...at present the Jews’ policies threaten us. One should explain in the clearest terms the danger the Jews pose to the [Iranian] people and to the Muslims....Already from the beginning the Jews wanted to hoard
    the world’s goods in [their] greed and voracity. They always worked in important professions and now they have hoarded all of the wealth in one place. And all of the world, especially America and Europe, are their slaves."


    The Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Mohammad-Ali Jafari, in a message to Secretary General of Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah, February 2008: "In the near future, we will witness the destruction of the cancerous microbe Israel (جرثومه سرطاني اسرأييل ) by the strong and capable hands of the nation of Hizbullah."

    The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, in a speech at Tehran University’s mosque, February 2008: "The countdown has begun for the destruction of the Zionist regime."

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  5. "If I were not a Jew, my hair would stand on end with fear", by Matthias Kuentzel
    http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/if-i-were-not-a-jew-my-hair-would-stand-on-end-with-fear

    "'If I were not a Jew', wrote Hannah Arendt, the Jewish philosopher, in 1942, 'but belonged to any other people, my hair would stand on end with fear if only a single hair on a Jew's head were to be touched.'"
    "...For Jews and the state of Israel, antisemitism is a matter of to be or not to be."
    "...But what about the non-Jews (or Gentiles) like myself? As a rule, they still prefer to point the finger at Israel and the Jews which is a comfortable position..."
    "...Genocidal antisemitism means that you want to kill Jews in order to redeem the world. A Nazi party directive of May 1943 provides an example. It prophesied: 'This war will end with antisemitic world revolution and with the extermination of Jewry throughout the world, both of which are the precondition for an enduring peace.'
    "Ahmadinejad, in his speeches, has revived this kind of genocidal utopia. Thus, he promised to the audience at the Holocaust deniers' conference in 2006 in Teheran: 'The Zionist regime will be wiped out, and humanity will be liberated.'"

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