Racist Kossack Spreads the Blood Libel

Mike L.

On Daily Kos the spreading of hatred toward the Jewish people, via the spreading of hatred toward the Jew among nations, is basically a daily occurrence. There have been some tensions, and some violence, recently in Israel due to a large influx of illegal immigrants from South Sudan.

This, needless to say, has the anti-Semitic Kossacks licking their chops because it means that they can use it as an excuse to spread hatred toward Jews:

We have created a bully, there are no consequences at all for any actions whatsoever. Kill an American citizen in cold blood? Well, that citizen was of Turkish descent so it doesn't matter. Illegal settlements? Well, that is unfortunate, here is some more financial aid. Invade another country for no discernable reason whatsoever? Congress stands up on its hind legs and cheers. Kill some Iranian University professors using car bombs? Good job! Discriminate against and attack women? Oh, just a few bad apples.

The above is a snippet of a comment from someone going under the name Orcas George. It serves as an excellent example of the kind of thing that progressives like to tell one another about the Jewish state of Israel. Let's unpack it a bit.

We have created a bully...

There are two related canards that progressives tend to indulge in when they spread malice toward the Jew among nations. One is that Israel is merely a puppet of the west, particularly the United States. The other is that the west is merely a puppet of Israel, particularly the United States. Although these are contradictory and false notions, this progressive-left racist employs both. When Orcas George says that "we" have created a bully, the clear implication is that the US controls Israel and has thus created it in its alleged bullying nature.

there are no consequences at all for any actions whatsoever.

Here the suggestion is that the US should take some action against the tiny state of the Jewish people. It's not enough that the Jews of the Middle East have been living under an Arab siege for almost one hundred years. No. What's needed is for the US to join with the Islamists in smacking around the Jews of the Middle East.

Kill an American citizen in cold blood? Well, that citizen was of Turkish descent so it doesn't matter.

This is a reference to one of the dead aboard the Mavi Marmara which was a Turkish vessel carrying both Jihadis and progressives seeking to violently confront Jews in an effort to break the blockade of Gaza. When the IDF boarded the vessel they were attacked with pipes and knives and in defending themselves nine people were killed. But for this racist Kossack Jewish self-defense represents a killing in cold blood. It's OK to attack Jews, but if a Jew defends himself he is clearly a racist.

Illegal settlements? Well, that is unfortunate, here is some more financial aid.

Here the notion is that if Jews dare to live where neither Mahmoud Abbas nor Barack Obama want them to live, i.e., in Judea, then they are illegitimate and "illegal." Non-Jews, and many "progressive Zionists," are very fond of demanding that Jews be allowed to live over here, but not over there. It's as if they still think that we Jews should be subject to the laws of 14th century Italy.

Invade another country for no discernable reason whatsoever?

The essence of the blood libel is the charge that Jews are inherently violent and, therefore, must be confronted and stopped. It is the source of countless violent pogroms against us and here it is repeated about Israel. The claim is that Israel starts wars for no reason whatsoever and the reason that this person can make this charge is because he does not consider violence against Jews, or violence against the Jewish state, to be violence at all. Thus if Israel attacks Gaza because of thousands upon thousands of rockets fired upon it, it represents "no discernable reason whatsoever."

Congress stands up on its hind legs and cheers.

Israel is both the American master and its slave in the fevered imagination of this particular racist. We created the "bully," even as Congress licks the Israeli boot. Either way it whips up hatred for the Jewish other.

Kill some Iranian University professors using car bombs? Good job!

The assumption here is that Israel is behind the assassination of Iranian scientists. But the writer gives no indication that Iran has threatened genocide against the Jews of Israel as it seeks nuclear weaponry. Of course Israel is going to do what it needs to do to prevent Iranian nukes. But, again, violence against Jews is not considered violence at all by western-progressive genocidal racists.

Discriminate against and attack women? Oh, just a few bad apples.

Women, of course, have more rights and greater civil liberties in Israel than in any other country in the Middle East and as much rights and civil liberties as any other country on the entire planet. Yet this racist Kossack wants to suggest that Israel is a misogynistic country while ignoring the outright atrocities against women committed by its Arab neighbor states.

Now, I have to go see about murdering some innocent trout, but this is the kind of hatred that is spread toward Israel on the progressive-left and, yet, against all reason and basic human decency, progressive-left Jews continue to support that movement.

This is a mistake in need of remedy.

The Bar and Grill Executive Summary #1

geoffff

The Bar and Grill has just now got to this video on our allied blog, Israel Thrives, currently off with close ones for a short break to launch a genocidal blitzkreig on the defenceless and for the most part harmless rainbow trout population of some region in wet and hilly Oregon. A good week's work in anyone's books.

I was struck again while listening to these guys by a weird and recurring sense of astonishment and despair that they are even having the discussion ; and then that hope that mixes in that the mere fact of the discussion and all the other debates by free men and women around the world will prove the bleeding obvious and carry the day. A leap of faith, if you will, and to see a Christian friend of Israel put the point so passionately has given the Bar and Grill cause for pause.

The very fact that these most passionate of issues can be debated in this way is the point, the whole point and nothing but the point. That has simply not been possible across much of the Arab and Muslim world and the prognosis is not remarkable anywhere despite the Arab Spring and that's putting it as charitably as possible.

At one time the Bar and Grill worked in one of those jobs that required advising other busy managers and professionals of the implications of a specialised but often enormously complicated and potentially dangerous area affecting their operations nationally and abroad. There are alot of jobs like that and mine was certainly nothing remarkable .It was a conservative firm so I was given a lot of latitude. A curious fact.

When the heat was on, which was most of the time, it was useful to deliver the advice upfront and in point form. Put the firm's conclusions on the front page in language you would appreciate if you were in their shoes. More importantly reach some conclusions. Don't piss about. Obvious when you think about it but it was a radical concept at the time. The clients seemed to like it.

So this is a report in that style.

• The Middle East dispute is not about the Middle East and it is not about the Jews. It is about the poor hapless Palestinians least of all.

• There is only one cause of the dispute between Israel and those parts of the Arab and Muslim worlds that declare they are in dispute with the state. This is an implacable and strategically convenient hostility to the very concept of the Jewish state as a Jewish state. In this calculation the plight of the "Palestinian people" enters not at all.

• This in turn is driven by the warlike political cultures of a number of Muslim and Arab states and entities that are themselves routinely engaged in brutal wars among themselves. The political culture across the region is identical in all material respects to that of pre-1945 Europe. In many ways the regimes that rule these states and factions owe much of their political cultures to that of pre-war Europe. The cost in human terms of the wars and conflict with Israel although horrific is of several orders of magnitude less than the cost in death, injury, displacement and general human misery and stagnation generated by even one of the lesser conflicts among these regimes and factions but this matters not at all. The need and urge for an enemy that is external to them all is irresistible. It varies in intensity in time and place but can reach a genocidal pitch.

• The Israelis will never surrender their state. No free people would. That this is now the open and official demand of the "Palestinian cause", supporters of the "cause" are openly exposed as pro-war and most of all anti-Palestinian. Notions such as the "binational state" and other grotesque bigoted shams offend the intelligence, and as their proponents could not really expect to be taken seriously, are cynically dishonest as well as profoundly racist. They are equivalent to demanding that South Africans revert to the oppression of an apartheid state or that American blacks submit to slavery; and are about as likely to be adopted.

• There is no greater enemy of the Palestinian people than the "Palestinian cause".

• Israel is close and convenient but is by no means the only target. It is not even the main target. It is certainly not the target that is most vulnerable or at risk not even in the Middle East. Israel is strong and appears to have snapped out of a spell woven by post-Zionists or non-Zionists or ex-Zionists or whatever-Zionists now notoriously out of fashion in Israel but apparently not yet in the diaspora, given that now the "Palestinian cause" has made its position crystal clear. The Jews are to lose their state without a fight. Sure. That's going to happen. So 1990's. Like tattoos and Goth fashion. Quite quaint really.

• The "Palestinians" are by now a real and distinct people no matter what you might think of the leadership ethos which on the whole is no better or worse than that prevailing over much of the Arab and Muslim world which of course is appalling.. The people deserve to be recognised as a people if that is what they were indeed able to freely choose in the unlikely event the "Palestinian cause" could be persuaded to allow that to happen anyway. It would mean accepting Israel and allowing Palestine to exist both of which the "Palestinian cause" fiercely opposes. It would also mean peace with Israel and the "Palestinian cause" opposes that most of all. It was created to prevent peace and the "Palestinian cause" is itself at the mercy of a turmoil of foreign influences that reach from Tehran to the great universities of the West most of which are now more or less openly pro-war as a matter of regime policy or ideology.

• None of this will change while the "Palestinian cause" has growing support especially from the West even though it has once again declared for the destruction of Israel. It sees and interprets the intense pressure on Israel to accept the blame for existing while itself being exempted from any apparent pressure to accept the two state solution as clear evidence that the "cause" is in the ascendancy. The "cause" is probably right to think this of itself but ultimately the "Palestinian cause" is not even about Israel. Even if Israel was to cease to exist the "Palestinian cause" would survive intact in one guise or another and the misery of the Palestinian people would continue unabated even if the whole notion of Palestinian nationhood was to die with the Jewish state. It would worsen. Ultimately the "Palestinian cause" is even less about the Palestinians than it is about "Israel" and it is risible to suggest that it has anything at all to do with Nakba. The Nakba is the least of the atrocities the "Palestinian cause" has delivered on the Palestinian people and there is plenty more where that came from for the Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims

Cross posted Geoffff's Joint, Bar and Grill

Daispora Jews Demanding the Boycott of Jews Born in the Wrong Place

geoffff
Seriously, is there anything more disgusting? Can you imagine any other people on the face of the planet who would attack their own because of an accident of birth, no matter what they might perceive to be their politics?


What Isi Leibler said:

...

Diaspora Jews fall into an entirely different category. When they call for global boycotts of Israeli settlements, they are effectively promoting delegitimization and paving the way for broader boycotts. Besides, unlike their delusional Israeli counterparts, they are mere observers, physically unaffected by the negative repercussions of their actions.

...

Today, we are witness to a sea change in public opinion at the grassroots level, both in Israel and the diaspora, with a broad recognition that the current Palestinian leadership cannot possibly be considered to be a genuine peace partner. One can of course debate the pros and cons of this approach. However, to legitimize and describe as a Zionist, a Jew calling for a boycott of Israeli settlements, gives credence to activities which have the potential of impacting disastrously on Israel. There must be red lines. Many of us have reservations about diaspora Jews publicly condemning the democratically elected Israeli government on security issues but we recognize that in a democracy they are entitled to their views. But that surely does not apply to those directly calling for boycotts against sectors of Israeli society.

Exactly. In fact I would put it far more strongly than Isi Leibler. Far more. I would start with the phrase "sheer mindless gutlessness combined with wilful fuck you ignorance" and move on from there.

In the meantime demanding the murder of Israeli soldiers is now an acceptable form of Judge Stamped free expression in Australia. The Netzarim Junction blood libel has made it to the streets of Sydney thanks to a Sydney judge..




Crossposted: Geoffff's Joint, Bar and Grill 

Gone Fishin'

Tomorrow Laurie and I head up to Sunriver, Oregon, to see what we can do about ethnically cleansing the rainbow trout population. We'll be gone for about a week, so I will be in and out of this joint. I doubt that I'll be writing very much, but I will be spending considerable time with one of my oldest and dearest who also happens to be a hard-left screaming socialist of a type that I once was.

My old college chum, Chris.

During the end of the Clinton years, and early in the Bush II years, we would stay up late and just bitch, bitch, bitch over cocktails or beer.. and cigarettes. Like many people at the time we despised George W. Bush and his entire administration with the heat of a thousand suns. We were convinced that Al Gore was robbed in Florida and that Bush was a knuckle-dragging faux-Christian war-monger of the very worst sort. We made fun of Rumsfeld and heaped contempt upon Alberto Gonzalez. Cheney was, of course, Darth Cheney, the evil genius scheming in his Hidden Location, while Karl Rove, aka "Turd Blossom," was the sniveling little Machiavelli crouching behind the throne... Wormtongue.

We nurtured our hatred, fed one another with it, and called it virtue.

Chris still maintains the old hatreds and the old faith, whereas I have moved on. Not that Chris is not an excellent guy, he most certainly is. The difference between us is that he still despises Republicans and I simply no longer do.

Heck, I'm even looking forward to voting for one come this November.

I am free of ideology, and I am free from ideologically mandated hatreds, and for that I am profoundly grateful.



"They turned a petting zoo into Auschwitz!" - Lewis Black

A Tip 'O the Kippa to Dan Bielak

Mike L.

This is a fascinating clip.

It shows a brief piece (5 minutes) of a recent debate in Florida, on May 15, 2012, around the question, "President Obama: Good or Bad for Israel?"

The first speaker is Mark Alan Siegel, the Palm Beach County Democratic Chairman. The second speaker is Tom Trento, described as a "Christian Zionist." I think that we can be sure that the great majority of the audience were Jews, yet it is the Christian Zionist who receives the most applause.

Jewish political involvement is beginning to shift and in some small measure this clip may illustrate that shift... perhaps. My suspicion is that diaspora Jews, more and more, are coming to the realization that "Oslo" is dead and that the local Arabs have no intention whatsoever of making peace or accepting a state for themselves in peace next to the Jewish one.

In any case, the above clip is very interesting.

Kudos to Daniel Bielak for bringing it to our attention.

{Make of it what you will.}

David Littman has died.

by oldschooltwentysix

I never heard of David Littman before I started to learn about human rights, and then as it connects to Israel and an international "cooperation" that holds the only Jewish state to a standard of perfection different from any other state. This phenomenon is seen best at the United Nations, and particularly the Human Rights Council. Littman served as representative of the World Union for Progressive Judaism in Geneva, where the HRC meets. I first saw him excoriate the HRC in no uncertain terms for hypocrisy in promoting political rather than humanitarian concerns. Here is an illustration:



He spoke out repeatedly and appropriately, and here he explained his recent activities promoting human rights at the HRC:



I learned what an extraordinary life this man lived. That his wife, Gisele, writes under the pen name Bat Ye'or about the status of Jews and Christians in Muslim lands, and authored Eurabia. How many that condemn this book have read it?

I learned later that in 1961 he helped rescue of 530 Moroccan-Jewish children in a secret Mossad mission, posing as a tennis-playing, Christian English gentleman living with his wife and baby in Casablanca. The details of "Operation Mural" only came to light when a documentary was made in 1986.



For his service, Littman was conferred the "Hero of Silence" Order by the Israeli government in 2009.

To me, Littman defines what it means to be a liberal Zionist. This liberal is not opposed to the nation state because it is the mechanism for which self-determination and human rights are most optimally obtained by peoples and individuals. This liberal speaks against violations of human rights by using a single 21st Century standard of universality as a point of departure, based on principles of individual liberty and dignity that states and non-state entities must respect, protect and fulfill, free from discrimination. Rights do not include freedom not to be insulted, or protection of ideology, or freedom to destroy the system on which the rights are secured. This liberal believes that the worst violations that involve the most people and suffering deserve the spotlight of action and attention. There are limited resources overall for implement and enhance human rights protection.

Littman knew all this only too well. The world is less because he represents too few, and this post is, among many, a small testament to his accomplishments to better humankind.

I hope you will take the opportunity to learn more about this champion of human rights for all, but especially those most vulnerable with the least voice.

All Criticism of Israel is Anti-Semitic!

Mike L.

(Cross-Posted at Geoffff's Joint, Bar and Grill and Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers.)

There is an article in this morning's Jerusalem Post by Benjamin Kerstein entitled, "Yes, all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic!" When I first noticed it I rolled my eyes and moved on because the premise is so obviously nonsensical. Of course not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. If all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic then Israel, itself, is the most anti-Semitic country on the entire planet.

Nonetheless the idea seemed so outrageous and so patently false on its very face that I decided to see what the writer was saying. Perhaps his title, like mine above, was meant as snark. But, nope. Kerstein means precisely what he says. All criticism of Israel is inherently anti-Semitic for historical reasons. This is what he writes:

All criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic because of the specific historical circumstances under which we currently live. That is to say, the historical circumstances under which Israel and the Jews exist in the world today render any non-anti-Semitic criticism of Israel impossible. And, ironically, these are circumstances that Israel’s opponents have themselves created.

To hold that this is not the case requires acting – and demanding that others act – as if these circumstances do not exist, even as they sit as patiently as a pachyderm in the parlor waiting for us to notice them and, sometimes, when our self-willed ignorance grows too infuriating, murder our children and set off bombs in our streets.

Nonetheless, these circumstances are not complex, nor are they numerous. They are simply these: A large portion of the world, West and East, has come to believe that Arabs and Muslims have earned the right to murder Jews.

This last bit, I have to say, is unquestionably true. Those of us who follow the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic party on the question of the Long Arab War against the Jews see this constantly. That is, we are constantly told that the reason that so many Arabs and Muslims seek to murder the Jews in the Middle East is because those Jews are mean. In places like Daily Kos or the Huffington Post or the UK Guardian (not to mention TIME magazine, Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania) we are constantly told that the reason Palestinians sometimes strap suicide belts onto children and send them off into areas crowded with Jews is because Israel is a racist, colonialist, imperialist, apartheid state and that if Israel would simply end the Occupation (with a capital "O") then the local Arabs would become as gentle as narcofied lambs.

In this way, the Jews of the Middle East, who, as a tiny minority in that part of the world, have been subject to 14 centuries of persecution, are at fault for that persecution. Just as so many Germans in the early-middle part of the twentieth century told one another that the Jews have it coming, so today many, many western progressives tell themselves precisely the same thing. What it amounts to is the notion that if for 2,000 years we Jews have been unjustly persecuted and oppressed, thus artificially holding down our numbers, in this generation we really DO deserve whatever beating the Arab or Muslim world wishes to give out.

Every generation of Jews prior to 1948 was perfectly innocent, but NOW we just happen to actually be guilty.

Derived from this right, they have also come to believe that the destruction dismantling, and erasure of the State of Israel, and the slaughter, expulsion, and/or perpetual subjugation of its Jewish population are entirely legitimate and indeed desirable.

That is, ultimately, what anti-Semitic anti-Zionism of the kind found so commonly on the left is about. That's what anti-Zionism means. It means that after 2,000 years of getting our collective ass kicked it is immoral and wrong for Jewish people to come together in their own self-defense because it means effectively fighting back against Arab Muslim persecution and, as everyone seems to know, Jewish self-defense is immoral and unacceptable.

Derived from the preceding is the belief that the Jewish people in general, in Israel or the Diaspora, either do not exist as a people deserving the same rights as other peoples, or are an evil and debased people who must be slaughtered, expelled, and/or perpetually subjugated in order to prevent them from committing further debased evils.

The western left never puts it in these kinds of terms. They never would because they see themselves as enlightened anti-racists. Instead, they often talk to one another about the Occupation (with a capital "O") and what a shame it is that the Jews are behaving something like Nazis. What usually, but not always, goes unspoken is the idea that if Israel is something akin to Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa then it must be dismantled as a Jewish state and any such effort can only lead to war, if not a second Holocaust.

So, is all criticism of Israel anti-Semitic?

No.

I'm sorry, but despite the above the very notion is still ridiculous on its face. Nonetheless, it's not really that difficult to understand where Kerstein is coming from. Israel represents about half the world's Jewish population and it is surrounded by people numbering 60 to 70 for every Jew and a very great proportion of those people hold murderous hostility toward those Jews. People in the west do not really understand, or care to understand, what a precarious position those Jews live under. People in the west do not really understand, or care to understand, that the Jews in the Middle East have been living under siege since they were freed from dhimmitude in the early part of the twentieth century.

In the comments of Kerstein's op-ed we read this:

Freezey

Bizarre and counter-intuitive proposals like all criticism is anti-semitic are a mark of either Power or Desperation.

The western progressive-left thinks that Israel is powerful, but the truth is that the Jews of the Middle East are desperate. They desperately wish to be left alone to raise their children in peace, to worship G-d, to work on computer and medical technology, and to send Natalie Portmans out into the world. That's what they want, but instead they live with constant hatred coming at them from all quarters and bloodthirsty violence directed at them from many in the local Palestinian population.

When malicious progressives direct their hatred toward the Jews of the Middle East they are confusing victims with victimizers and seeing their own hatred in noble terms.

There is a reason why young Jewish kids in Israel must go into the IDF and it is not because the Jews of the Middle East are essentially militaristic and mean. It is because so many of the 400 million Arabs surrounding those Jews are hell-bent for fury and hundreds of millions of westerners seem to favor the Arabs over those Jews.

One thing that I know for certain is that if the shit ever really hits the fan over there and we end up with a whole mess of dead Jews (and dead Arabs), the tendency on the western left will be to blame the Jews for the hostility against us.

That's the way it has been every generation for 2,000 years.

This one is no different.

Geoffff Has Some Words

This comment by Geoffff cuts right to the heart of the matter:

I don't get this whole progressive/left/liberal/whatever Zionist thing and for me it has come as a surprize that, whatever it is, apparently it has to be taken seriously.

What do they want Israel to do? What do they expect the Diaspora to do?

Let me explain. I was born in the year 1954 of Australian born parents and I guess we are all the products of our age and place. For me Zionism was as natural as breathing. It still is. I knew about antisemitism from an early age of course. It was impossible not to in regional Queensland where I grew up (think "Driving Miss Daisy") but I honestly did not know there was even such a thing as an anti-Zionist Jew until I read about it in one of Chaim Potok's beautiful novels in my late teens.

Anti-Zionist Jews I now understand. They are arseholes. There have always been them. I get that. But J-Street style Zionists?

If they stand for anything at all it must be that Israel and the Jews are at least in part to blame for the hatred directed at them and that they should be doing something to stop it. We should be looking within for the source of this hatred from outside. As if we haven't done enough of that. It is up to us to solve the nasty and dangerous little war against us and Israel. We should be doing ... something ...

What?

Negotiate? Come on .. try to be a little honest. Jews have been trying that for as long as there has been Zionism. Compromise? Sure. Been there, done that. Agree to another Muslim state on the borders of Israel and they can call it what they like (if, seriously, that is what they want)? Now that's the one that really disgusts me. How many bloody times do you have to say "yes"?

What do they want Israel to do in the face of all this genocidal madness? No new settlements? That's been policy for over twenty years. Freeze the settlements? That's been tried. It didn't work and besides surely the issue is who should have sovereignty over the settlements, and which ones, in any event. That the settlements are the problem is a copout lie for people with another agenda and there is no excuse by now not to know that.

What else? Stop "Judaising" Jerusalem? Don't make me sick.

I will be impressed when the "progressive/liberal/whatever" left starts to put a fraction of the pressure on the Palestinian side to accept a genuine two state solution that they do on Israel to make further concessions. You never hear this from them. Why do they refuse to pick up the two state solution and make peace? Why isn't the left demanding to know this from their Palestinian "friends"? Why aren't they even asking the question?

This is the unspoken horror at the core of all this. They do not want a Jewish state and they want it defenceless and torn down. They do not want Jews. They don't care about a Palestinian state. They don't care about Palestinians. If they did they wouldn't be keeping so many of them on display in cages like animals in zoos generation after generation and seemingly for generations to come.

This is not about "Palestine". It hasn't been since 1948. It is about something else entirely and sooner or later left Zionists must admit that.

I couldn't agree more.

Who Cares if Muslims Persecute and Murder Christians in the Middle East?

Mike L.

Not too many people, apparently.

It's a very odd thing, but even the pope barely seems to care about Muslim on Christian persecution. And, of course, the very last thing that anyone cares about is Muslim on Muslim violence. Even the Muslims, themselves, have virtually nothing to say about it, at least in the English language press.

According to Raymond Ibrahim of the Gatestone Institute (International Policy Council):

As Easter, one of the highest Christian holidays, comes in April, Christian persecution in Muslim nations—from sheer violence to oppressive laws—was rampant: In Nigeria, where jihadis have expressed their desire to expunge all traces of Christianity, a church was bombed during Easter Sunday, killing some 50 worshippers; in Turkey, a pastor was beaten by Muslims immediately following Easter service and threatened with death unless he converted to Islam; and in Iran, Easter Sunday saw 12 Christians stand trial as "apostates."

The persecution of Christians has come to regions not normally associated with it. As in Nigeria, Muslim militants are now also running amok in Timbuktu, Mali—beheading a Christian leader and threatening other Christians with similar treatment. Sharia law has been imposed, churches are being destroyed, and Christians are fleeing Timbuktu in mass.

It's one of the hideous ironies of today's political moment that even as the Muslim world is chasing out its Christians, and as Israel is the only country in the entire Middle East with a growing Christian presence, and as the Jews of the Middle East struggle against Muslim persecution, that the western left continues to harp on the alleged transgressions of the Jewish state of Israel.

There was a recent conference at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research entitled "Jews and the Left." Eitan Kensky, a participant, wrote, “one of the most intriguing aspects of the conference was the extent to which the participants who self-identify with the left agreed with the view that it had indeed betrayed the Jewish state.”

That's what I've been saying for years, now.

In any case, I am very much looking forward to reading these conference papers and will report back here when I do.

Israel Will Not (And Should Not) Divide Jerusalem

Mike L.

Netanyahu speaks at Jerusalem Day ceremony, says "Israel without Jerusalem is like a body without a heart," adds that those who want to divide Israel's capital are misguided.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel will continue to build and develop the capital city of Jerusalem.

Speaking a Jerusalem Day ceremony at Ammunition Hill, Netanyahu said that "Israel without Jerusalem is like a body without a heart."

"The people who say that we should split Jerusalem believe that this would bring peace," he said. "They believe it, but they are wrong... Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish people and it will not be divided."

In my not so humble opinion, the Palestinian Arabs could have had the eastern section of Jerusalem for a capital of a Palestinian state, if they were willing to accept a state for themselves in peace next to the Jewish one. The fact of the matter is that they have, time and again, refused to live in peace next to their Jewish neighbors.

This being the case they have forfeited any consideration regarding a possible Palestinian capital in the city of Jerusalem.

Let them make their capital in Ramallah.

A Tip 'O the Kippa to Shirl in Oz for recommending this video, which is also now available under the video tab:

Stuart Has Some Words

Mike L.

In a comment within an earlier post I noted the following:

So, for example, if I say something like, "the progressive-left, as a movement, has betrayed its Jewish constituency through the admission of anti-Semitic anti-Zionists into the larger coalition" I am always met with slack-jawed silence.

Now, the above assertion may be true or it may be false or it may somewhat true, but with the brief exception of fizziks no progressive has yet to address the charge.

Stuart has been kind enough to take the time to address the issue and I very much hope that he will not mind if I front page his response:

I'm reasonably sure that I have addressed it at least once in the past. I know I did when we had coffee a couple months ago.

I have to acknowledge here, that my exposure is pretty limited to the national political scene as reflected in the main stream media, dkos, and a few smaller community blogs, as well as regularly reading a handful of writers who may fit into the progressive tent. I've never been to any annual meetings. So this is no more than my perception. And I really don't have a real good handle on the difference between progressive and liberal or even far left.

I think the "movement" you describe as the progressive left, is nothing more than series of loosely allied coalitions. No membership card required. No litmus test. There are pro-life progressives. There are progressives opposed to marriage equality. There are anti-Obama progressives, even some pro-Austrian economics cultists that would describe themselves as progressive. (I think an oxymoron, btw.)

And within this broad group of coalitions, the pro-life coalition gets shouted down by the pro-choice crowd. The anti-marriage equality group gets shouted down by those in favor of marriage equailty. The anti-Obama anarchists get shouted down by the Obama-bots. And I/P sits alone in a corner room, were issues are fiercely debated by those interested, and those uninteresed either wish it would go away, or don't really give a shit. You and I, and most of the readers here, see the issues clearly, and those who have opposing views see the issues just as clearly. And everyone else occasionally take a peek and see the issues through either an opaque piece of glass, or never even looks, unless for some reason it makes front page news. And even then, the issues are so nuanced, require so much background knowledge that only the brave and foolish dip their toes into the water.

And as it pertains specifically to dkos, and more specifically Markos, he is the fucking honey badger. He just doesn't give a shit. And he wishes it would go away. He's not pro Israel, he's not pro Palestinian. It's just an issue, that from his perspective, is one he would rather not see if he doesn't have to. And when it's forced on him, he takes a scorched earth attitude, doesn't even pretend to care about the issue, only the relative peace on his site. I know you've mentioned Huffpo, and I have no opinion. Read there only infrequently, and usually when linked there from elsewhere.

You see anti-semitism and anti-zionism. I see it. Often clearly. But others, without our background, don't see it. I would submit that it is not unlike the dog whistles the gay community sees, that we may not always see. I remember the first time I learned that cocksucker is a term derrogatory to gays. Had never occurred to me.

We are members of such a group. We see things that others might not see. We see the anti-semitism in "jews control the media". I was in a fierce discussion in the last year, with a Ron Paul supporter on a real estate blog. It included a dozen people, went on for days. And eventually he came out with the jews and the media thing. And I accused him of being a bigot. I sware he had no idea what I was talking about. And some of the others were similarly confused. What seems so obvious to us may as well be a foreign language to others.

So there. No slack-jawed silence. No defense. It is what it is. I don't see it as betrayal. I see it as ignorant indifference. But without blame nor condemnation.

Medics Attacked by Palestinians Near Jerusalem

Mike L.

An emergency medical crew narrowly escaped being lynched this week while responding on the scene of an injurious car accident near Jerusalem, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday...

"They started cursing the IDF, Magen David Adom and everything affiliated with the state," S. said. "They called us 'maniacs and f***ing Jews.' We were shocked by how angry they were."

Meanwhile, more Palestinians gathered around them. When some began hitting the ambulance, the paramedic took charge of protecting his crew mates – a female driver and a 16-year-old male volunteer.

"I told them to lock themselves in the ambulance while I remained outside to deal with the situation," S. said, "The attackers cursed and pushed me. At one point more than ten people surrounded me and began punching me in the ribs and the head."

A Note to a Friend

Mike L.

We don't deal in absolute truths. There is no God's Eye View. But this does not mean that truth is entirely unknowable or unapproachable.

It seems to me that if we want to understand the problems of the Jewish people in the Middle East then we must acknowledge the history of Jewish people there. The fact is the history of the Jewish people in the Middle East was for 1,300 years second and third class citizenship under the boot of Arab-Muslim imperialism. In some places and times it was better and in other places and times it was worse, but there is no doubt that the Jews have been the victim of Arab-Muslim persecution for 1,300 years, followed by the current 100 years of war against us there.

One of the things that I want to see change is a coming to a recognition that we cannot really understand the Arab-Israel conflict without coming to grips with 1,400 years of Jewish persecution at the hands of Arab neighbors. To try to understand the I-P conflict without reference to 1,300 years of dhimmitude is like trying to understand the history of American Black people without reference to slavery.

Our friends on the progressive-left basically see Jews as the aggressors in this conflict whereas, in fact, we are the defenders. The Palestinians, of course, only separated themselves as a distinct ethnic group from the larger Arab world when the Jews regained sovereignty. The fact is that the Palestinians are the newest national group on the face of the planet and only came into being, as a people, in order to destroy Jewish sovereignty and self-defense.

Speaking strictly for myself, I see no reason to respect the notion of a newly emerged people whose purpose is to destroy our national sovereignty. In a sense, this is why we are failing. We are failing to free ourselves from Arab-Muslim persecution because we in the diaspora, and very many Jews in Israel, do not really seem to understand that we are in a war for survival.

That's a fact.

After 1,300 years of persecution the Arabs have launched a war against the Jews in the Middle East that has lasted now for almost 100 years.

We need to stop viewing this war through Arab eyes and resume viewing it through Jewish eyes.

The Czechs Get It.

geoffff

It is too easy to look at Europe and despair at how easy it is for free people to surrender even their most basic liberties in the face of the bizarre prevailing political culture of the hour or even to outright physical intimidation. People of the fashionable left who march in the streets of London or Paris behind banners that glorify Hamas or the "Palestinian Resistance" or which proclaim "We are all Hezbollah Now" have already lost any respect for themselves and the vast cultural achievements of their countries. Little European countries that prosecute politicians for "hate speech" for making some observations about the dangers of Islamic extremism while savagely defending and protecting the worst forms of genocidal racist incitement from Islamic extremists have already primed themselves for another Nazi occupation.

This is why it is gratifying to be reminded that there are still some liberal democracies in Europe that have enough respect for human rights and their own nationhood to actually support liberal democracy abroad and enough courage to stand up to the ugly fanatics who want to see it torn down at home and to recognise them for who they are. It should come as no surprise that these tend to be countries of liberal tradition that not only had to endure fascist occupation seventy years ago but also had to throw off Stalinist rule within the living memory of most.

The Czech Republic is the prime example.

Yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited Prague with seven Cabinet ministers. Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas took the opportunity to tell the Israeli press that the Czechs had “a special feeling” for Israel.

“We’ve got a full understanding of Israel’s situation as a small, democratic country in a very dangerous region with very dangerous neighbors,” Necas told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview before the meeting.

He said the Czech Republic would like to continue to be a strong supporter of Israel within the European Union. “We are concerned about the Iranian missile and nuclear programs,” he said.

Israel’s situation was reminiscent of Czechoslovakia’s in the 1930s, Necas said. In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded the country, citing the need to defend its German-speaking minority.

“We’ve got a special feeling for Israel’s situation – that of a small nation surrounded by enemies. We remember our situation in the 1930s, when the small democratic Czechoslovakia had neighbors that wanted to destroy it or take part of our territory.”

Without question the Czechs will remember something else.

In 1938 Czechoslovakia not only was an advanced liberal democracy but had a strong and professional military and a world class armaments industry. This did not prevent the cowards of London and Paris in charge of the two leading democracies of Europe selling out the country to the Nazis in a midnight meeting with Hitler while the Czech delegates were forced to wait outside the door to hear the fate of their nation.

It would be three generations before the Czech people were free of totalitarianism and got back their democracy.

None of us should forget that the appeasement of racist hatred and tyranny only serves to inflame them. The Czechs know this. We are watching exactly the same thing now. Appeasement of totalitarian imperialism does not avert war. By its nature it will only be satisfied by complete submission. Appeasement ensures war and makes certain that when it comes it will more terrible than anyone can imagine.

Crossposted Geoffff's Joint, Bar and Grill

BDS Birdbrains

Doodad

Are there any more silly people than the BDS'ers?  I think not. We have all seen their epic fails lately and is it any wonder when we see the kind of nutbars they really are? Case in point:

UK daily slammed for referring to Israel’s national bird 

 Anti-Israel activists sharply criticized the socialist British daily the Morning Star for referring to Israel’s national bird the hoopoe in its daily quiz.

In a letter to the newspaper, Linda Claire, the chairwoman of Manchester’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign, asked why it had referred to the bird after it has “always been the newspaper you could rely on to support the cause of the Palestinians.”

“Maybe you don’t support the methods chosen by the international solidarity movement of BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel] to assist the Palestinians in their struggle for freedom and justice,” she said, adding that this included any reference to Israel’s wildlife.

“Despite its condemnation of zionists [sic] it yet finds space to include an item in its daily quiz about Israel’s national bird. Is the Star not aware there’s a cultural boycott going on?” Claire’s husband, George Abendstern, asked in another letter.

Birdbrains, indeed.Here's a special little bird just for them.

Why peace is impossible, reason #6350

Doodad

Elder of Ziyon nails the truth again.

Two articles in the mainstream Arabic press about yesterday's "Nakba Day" prove that as long as Israel exists in any form, Arabs will not accept it. No matter what.

The first comes from the popular pan-Arab Al Quds al Arabi site. The title is all you need to know: "The 64-Year Occupation of Palestine." If the "occupation" is 64 years old, that means that even if Israel accedes to all the current PLO demands, there will still not be peace.

The second comes from Jordan's Addastour site, which is titled "Palestine Nakba is a dagger in the side of the Arab nation." It goes through a ridiculous history lesson (did you know that one reason Arabs fled Palestine is because the Jews stole their water?) but the main point is that Israel is a dagger that must be removed for the Arab people to be healed.

This is a critical point that Westerners cannot quite grasp. The conflict is not solvable. The Arab masses, brought up on generations of hate, are not going to accept Israel peacefully. The best anyone can hope for is a series of tactical truces and long term management of the conflict. And it is Israeli strength, not Israeli concessions, that is a prerequisite to having the Arab nations (including the PLO) grudgingly accept that Israel cannot be defeated and learn to deal with it.

 The conflict is not solvable. The conflict is not solvable. The conflict is not solvable. Get it?

This is For Shirl

Shirl in Oz asked me to post this, so how could I say "no"?

Introducing the Video Tab!

I am slowly in the process of filling in the tabs at the top of the page and am making steady progress on the video tab. My intention is to create something of a library of videos that I find interesting with 3 sub-divisions: "Lectures and Interviews," "Humor, Music, and Miscellaneous," and "Arab and Muslim Anti-Semitism and Related Issues."

If you guys have any particular videos that you would like to see represented, please let me know.

TIME Magazine Smears Israel

Mike L.

When I think about anti-Israel publications I tend to think about Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, and the UK Guardian. However, it has to be acknowledged that TIME magazine has proven itself to be almost as hostile to Israel as these other publications.

You may recall an issue from some months back that featured this cover.



"Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace."

I cannot even imagine a more mendacious and poisonous notion than that the Jews of the Middle East do not want peace. Those people have been living under siege for almost one hundred years! Of course, they want peace. There are probably no other people anywhere on the planet who are more desirous of peace than are the Israelis, yet TIME publishes an article suggesting that they do not really care about peace because (get this) Israelis are too busy making money. If you read the article that is the suggestion.

I find it entirely despicable.

And now we have the most recent issue:



"King Bibi: He's conquered Israel. But will Netanyahu now make peace - or war?"

What is this horrendous nonsense? I haven't yet read the article, but the cover just speaks volumes about the image that TIME is projecting about that country. First of all, of course, Netanyahu is not a king. They know that, obviously, but nevertheless project a view of Israel which suggests that it is a non-democratic country.

Furthermore, to suggest that it is up to Netanyahu to make peace when it is obviously the Palestinians who refuse an end to hostilities with a negotiated agreement (with a little help from Barack Obama on that score) is just irresponsible as hell. And then to further suggest that, in fact, he may be a warmonger for wanting to protect Israel from future Iranian nukes is also despicable.

TIME magazine is dead to me.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

J Street President: Senators, Congressmen 'Live in Fear' of Pro-Israel Groups

Doodad

What is it about Progressives that they have to continuously encourage the antisemitic canard that Israel/Jews wag the American dog?

J Street founder and President Jeremy Ben-Ami stated that many congressmen and senators refuse to criticize Israel because they "live in fear" of retribution from pro-Israel groups, Haaretz reports. Ben-Ami made the comments on Tuesday evening during a tepid debate between Ben-Ami and Bill Kristol, editor of Weekly Standard and a director of the pro-Israel Emergency Committee for Israel, on what it means to be pro-Israel in America in 2012....

Many American senators and congressmen “keep quiet” and refrain from criticizing Israeli policies because they “live in fear” and are “intimidated” by pro-Israeli groups such as the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), according to J Street founder and President Jeremy Ben-Ami.

Ben-Ami’s bald assertion came during a debate with Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, a director of ECI, held on Tuesday night at Manhattan’s palatial B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue and moderated by Jane Eisner, the editor of the Forward. Ben Ami said that because of accusatory ECI ads in the New York Times and other media outlets, members of Congress are afraid of being branded as anti-Israel and are deterred by the “ramifications” of voicing open criticism of Israeli policies.

This is just one example of many lately from Progressive circles using  antisemitic style rhetoric. How low can these idiots go from here? And when will they give up on the sham statement that they are pro-Israel? No, Progressives are anti-Israel more so every day. In fact, at that Synagogue, "The crowd of 700-800, mainly from Manhattan’s Upper West Side, clearly favored Ben Ami’s positions..." Jewish Stockholm Syndrome or what?
.

Say "Hello" to Daphne Anson

Mike L.

(Cross-Posted at Geoffff's Joint, Bar and Grill)

One of my favorite new pro-Israel bloggers is Daphne Anson. I am highlighting her blog because I think that it is important that pro-Israel bloggers support one another and because I just happen to like her work.

She says of herself:

I'm a writer/researcher, with many academic books and articles under my own name. Daphne Anson is my blogging alias. Combining the names of two ships, it's a moniker of special significance to me - I'm a naval history buff. I use an alias owing to a perceived need to keep my blogging and professional identities separate. An Aussie, I've long been interested in politics and foreign affairs, having studied International Relations in the USA and Britain for my first degree, and I also hold a doctorate. I began blogging in response to the exponential rise in antisemitism and hostility to Israel in the wake of the Mavi Marmara affair.

Interestingly enough, as my readers know, it was the Mavi Marmara affair that also inspired me to start pro-Israel blogging in earnest. What shocked me at the time was that the effort to break the blockade of Gaza was an effort that saw a coalition of western progressives working with actual murderous Jihadis for the purpose of violently confronting Jews on the high seas.

That was quite a wake-up call, I have to tell you.

In any case, I very much encourage the Israel Thrives readership to check in with Daphne. She is a welcome addition to the pro-Israel / pro-Jewish blogosphere... despite the fact that, sadly, she is probably not a San Francisco Giants fan.

Mets102 Bravely Goes After the Westboro Baptist Church

Mike L.

In a Daily Kos "diary" entitled Nine-Year-Old Teaches Westboro Haters Lesson: G-d Hates No One, a brave fighter for the Jewish people goes after the Westboro Baptist Church.

For those of you who may not know, the Westboro Baptist Church is a tiny hate-filled church in Topeka, Kansas that has made itself infamous for telling the world that "God Hates Fags" and for protesting the funerals of Iraq War soldiers. It is, in truth, one of the most vile, reprehensible, generally insane, and entirely irrelevant organizations in the United States.

To call out the Westboro Baptist Church on a place like Daily Kos is just weak.

Of course, the Westboro Baptist Church is terrible and ridiculous, but everyone knows that, already. Certainly, everyone on the progressive-left knows that this organization is racist and filled with hatred. What bothers me, I think, is that while someone like Mets102 could be highlighting genuine threats he instead chooses the lowest hanging fruit imaginable in order to get a few scratches behind the ear from people who think that Israel is the devil and that the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood (which is to say, the rise of radical Islam) is almost irrelevant.

The message of his diary is, apparently, that "God hates no one."  That's very nice, as far as it goes, but the problem is that it doesn't actually go anywhere.  Of course, God hates no one.  I cannot even imagine a more facile or obvious statement.  It's nothing more than a well-meaning bumper sticker.

He might as well have simply posted this and have done with it:






Mets102 can thus feel good about himself for standing up to racism, while actually do nothing whatsoever about racism. He gets his scratch behind the ear from his fellow ideologues, but raises consciousness not one iota about genuine problems.  And while it may be true that God hates no one, the progressive movement is filled with hatred for all sorts of people.  There is, in fact, no more bigoted political movement of any significance in the west today.

If Mets102 actually cares about racism, then he might care about the genocidal racism that is pointed at his own people from the Arab and Muslim worlds. Jews are a tiny minority within the Middle East and they are surrounded by people comprising 60 or 70 times our number, many of whom use violence against us in order to make us understand that Jewish sovereignty is not welcome on Jewish land.

In this way, Mets102 avoids the real fight, while kidding himself that he is standing up against racism. The truth is that Mets is afraid to fight relevant racism because to do so means personal risk. On a physical level and on a social level, standing up against the foremost racist movement in the world today, which is the vehement racism of radical Islam, means taking personal risk.

Maybe someday Mets will decide to stand up... I hope that he does... but until that time there is little to respect in his reaching for such obviously low hanging fruit.

The Theft of Jewish History

Mike L.

One of the fundamental characteristics of the Long Arab War against the Jews is the Arab-Muslim theft of Jewish history. I've written on this before and sooner or later will begin to fill in the "Theft" tag on the top of the page.

Today, as you are probably aware, is "Nakba Day," a holiday (of-sorts) in which Palestinians mourn their failure to slaughter the Jews at the end of November 1947, after the United Nations voted in favor of a further partition of Jewish land.

In Israel, today, Palestinian MK Ahmad Tibi said the following:

As far as the Palestinians are concerned, the Nakba is equivalent to the Destruction of the First and Second Temples. It's a traumatic event that transformed the Palestinian people from a people living in their homeland to refugees longing for the right to return to their homeland.

In other words, the Palestinians are the New Jews.

Richard Millet Attacked at Anti-Israel Event

Mike L.

(Cross-Posted at Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers)

Richard Millet is a British pro-Israel blogger whose work can be found here:

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/

This morning I received, along with a number of other people, the following email from Adam Levick of CiF Watch.

.
.
.

Friends:

Intrepid blogger, Richard Millett, was assaulted and subjected to racial abuse earlier this evening at an anti-Israel meeting at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. Though Richard is a bit shaken up he is largely ok.

The pretext for assaulting Richard was because he refused to stop filming even though this was a public meeting and there were according to him others present who were filming.

This all took place in front of a room full of people - who taunted Richard - as well as speakers, Karma Nabulsi and Abdel-Bari Atwan, who are both well known on the anti-Israel circuit. Nabulsi teaches at Oxford University and is a former PLO representative while Atwan is a Palestinian journalist. Atwan of course is known for making the following statement: "If the Iranian missiles strike Israel – by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square, and dance with delight if the Iranian missiles strike Israel."

Fortunately, Richard has footage of what happened at the meeting which you can view at the links below. I urge you take 5 minutes to review the footage.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/camera-grabbed-rucksack-snatched-and-racially-abused-at-soas/

http://cifwatch.com/2012/05/14/camera-grabbed-rucksack-snatched-and-racially-abused-at-soas/

This is not the first time an incident like this has taken place at SOAS. Last year a pro-Israel supporter was physically attacked by a rabid (literally) anti-Israel hater. The attacker was later acquitted.

This incident cannot pass without criminal charges being brought against Richard's attackers and disciplinary action being brought against the organizers and the speakers. Richard has already filed a complaint with the police.

We need to let right-thinking people know that the atmosphere of violence and hate against Jews on British campuses is getting out of control and those that stand silent or incite as the speakers did need to know that they are accomplices to this hatred and must be disciplined accordingly.

Here are some suggestions of things that you can do:

1. If you are in the UK, please write to your MP and ask what he/she is going to do about this.

2. Complain to the Director of SOAS, Professor Paul Webley - email - pw2@soas.ac.uk tel - 0207 898 4014.

3. Complain to Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, Andrew Hamilton - email - vcweb@admin.ox.ac.uk tel - 01865 270252

4. Complain to Abdel Bari-Atwan on twitter - @abdelbariatwan (Nabulsi does not have an active twitter account)

5. If you know a journalist or blogger, please encourage them to write about what happened. This story should be making national news.

Please don't stand silent and please be firm but respectful and polite in any communication with anyone you complain to.

Feel free to forward this email.

Adam Levick, Managing Editor
CiF Watch
http://cifwatch.com/

64 Years!

After 1,300 years of dhimmitude in the Middle East, it's called freedom, I would say.



Freedom is scary!

The Netzarim Junction Blood Libel -- When will the Western Media be Called to Account?

Part One

geoffff



The Bar and Grill has an ongoing interest in what is commonly called the Muhammad al-Durrah incident, perhaps the most dangerous and vile blood libel in all of history. Without question it is the fastest and most widely spread. What once took days and months to swamp perhaps a county or country now reaches the world in a second and once it is planted is there forever.

Previous pieces on this affair are here, here and here.

I know the Bar and Grill has readers who may not be completely familar with the concept of the "blood libel" and what a truly disgusting and dangeous thing it is. Again Wikipedia has a pretty good run down on this strange and cultish phenonomen but the internet is teeming with reliable information as always.

A blood libel in its purest form is the ancient allegation that Jews murder Christian (or more latterly Muslim) children as part of their religious rituals. At one time the libel was that the Jews crucified an innocent Christian child at around Easter time to re-enact the killing of Christ. The innocence of the child was symbolic of the innocence of Jesus. Common variations include Jews drain the childrens' blood to use in the baking of matzo as part of the Passover ceremony (which usually occurs around Easter).

Likely these choice little fantasies from hell have their origins in the Christian Bible and specifically to a reference in Matthew 27:25. where after Pontius Pilate has publicly washed his hands of the fate of Jesus the (presumably Jewish) crowd shouts "His blood be on us and on our children" about yet another Jew (one of many thousands) about to suffer an horrific death under the Roman occupation.

That sounds likely.

In doing so, so the story goes, in some mediaeval Christian minds at least, the Jewish people as a whole and for perpetuity bore direct responsibility for the crucifixion and were therefore fair game for persecution and extermination. Or so The Guardian says, and The Guardian is never short of a good story when it can be twisted into an opportunity to bash conservatives and Americans.

Thanks alot, lunatic religious fanatics with mediaeval minds. Deicide. This blog admits to the occasional rough night over the course of his life and for sure some beer has been spilt and the odd glass broken. But I have never killed anybody; least of all God. I'm certain I would remember if I had.

Perhaps the most repellant feature of the twentieth -first century so far is how many lunatic religious fanatics with medieval minds there are, more than ever it seems, and how tolerated they are even in the heart of Europe at the very scene of countless atrocities inspired by the mindset.

The Guardian curiously ignores the substantial English contribution to the blood libel. A nasty piece of theological propaganda written perhaps a hundred years after the death of Christ and at the peak of the turmoil of the Judeo/Christian split, as bad as it was, was raised to a much more potent and dangerous level first in England. The libel was tied to an actual child's death, who was then given the status of martyr and the central figure of an officially condoned cult that drove the murder and persecution of Jews, happened first in England. This is indeed the defining pattern of the blood libel since the twelth century. This is what distingushes it from even the most venal kinds of war propaganda such as WW1 images of German soldiers spearing and hoisting babies on bayonets.

The blood libel is different. First the sick lie. Then the glorious martyr. Next the cult and finally the massacres of innocent and helpless Jews over and over again including inevitably the killing of children in the cruelest ways possible. This apparently is important for the libellers. There have been hundreds of these. In 1144 there was William of Norwich. In 1255 there was Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln. Simon of Trent in 1475. The Holy Child of La Guardia in 1491.

It is so easy to think of this as the work of a depraved clergy from an ignorant and superstitious age when the supernatural ruled the everyday that has now passed into distant history. Since then there has been the Enlightenment surely?

Lest we think that this is entirely a thing of the Dark Ages that went out of fashion with witchhunts and the Inquisition, all of these children were among those canonised by the Roman Catholic Church as late as the ninteenth century and often retained their sainthood and cult status, based entirely on the fabrication of Jewish ritual murder, as late as 1964. The Russian Orthodox Church to this day has only one child saint. , the patron saint of children with his own annual feast day, who the Church alleges was ritually murdered by Jews to make matzo for Passover.

It took until 1955 for the Anglican Church to place a plaque at the former shrine of Little Saint Hugh whose remains were buried in the Lincoln Cathedral to say his death inspired a hateful and murderous legend and cult.

In the twentieth century the blood libel prospered and moved on from Christianity. It was a staple of the Nazi gutter press of course but had already infected the Muslim world and this was spread with relish by Nazi allies and Islamic ideologues such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

In 1910 the Jews of Shiraz, Iran were accused of murdering a Muslim girl. The Jewish quarter was pillaged and12 Jews killed in the subsequent pogrom. In 1928, the Jews of Massena, New York were accused of kidnapping and killing a Christian girl. The 1946 Kielce pogrom against Holocaust survivors in Poland was sparked by an accusation of blood libel. King Faisal of Saudi Arabia specifically accused Parisian Jews of a blood libel.

In 1986 the Syrian Defense Minister, as his contribution to Arab literature, published The Matzah of Zion. The book renewed ritual murder accusations against the Jews of Damascus. It has been cited by Syrian UN delegates and at October 2002 was into its eighth reprint and being translated into English, French and Italian

And on and on it goes. In 2003 a 29 part television series Ash Shatat ("The Diaspora") was broadcast in Lebanon by Hezbellah and since across the Arab world. The series is based on the antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, (also now a staple across the Muslim world) depicts the Jewish people as engaging in a conspiracy to rule the world and presents Jews as people who murder children for their blood.

The Arab Muslim world, and Iran, and beyond, is drenched in the blood of the blood libel.

A hundred years ago the Jew haters only had the pulpit and the printing press to spread the hideous lie.


"Christians, take care of your children!!! It will be Jewish Passover on March 17"


They still have the pulpit and the press of course, but now they have something new and I don't mean just the internet. They have the entire Western left/liberal media at their disposal. Which brings us to the Netzarim Junction blood libel; the first fresh blood libel of the twenty-first century..




This was a blood libel in its purest sense and across the Muslim world it played as such as was intended. It has all the elements. The contemptible and sick lie in this case cynically staged. The irretrievably evil Jews forever condemned by God himself. The noble and innocent child martyr well on his way to sainthood.. The blood thirsty religion inspired cult and then the massacres of innocent Jewish people with a special emphasis on their children.

But at once, while this was going on in all its fury, in the West it was given just a very slight new spin by the self appointed high priests of this secular multicultural era; the progressive left intelligentsia in the universities and the left/liberal media. In an instant they grabbed the libel with both hands and in a frenzied mob rage they waged their own paper pogrom against the very concept of a Jewish state.

They took God out of it of course. It would have been unenlightened and embarrassing to leave him there and besides he was no longer needed. They knew you could get a perfectly good blood libel raging against the Jews without resorting to God, at least in the West. The Nazis and the Stalinists had proven that.

All you need is faith.

.

[To be continued]

Crossposted at Geoffff's Joint, Bar and Grill.

The Failures of Progressive-Left Zionism: Forever Playing Defense

Mike L.

Progressive-left Jewish Zionists are failing the Jewish people.

If the first way in which progressive-left Zionism is failing is in its ostrich-like reluctance to acknowledge, and seriously discuss, the rise of the Jihad throughout the Muslim Middle East, and another way is through their justifying bigotry against their own people, yet another is in the fact that they always play defense.

The Jewish people is the only community within the progressive-left coalition that is constantly under attack by elements within that very coalition. Jews who care about Israel and who wish to engage in progressive politics on the grassroots / netroots are constantly being smacked around by anti-Semitic anti-Zionists who revel in whipping up hatred toward the Jewish people via whipping up hatred against the Jewish state... in the name of "human rights," naturally.

Thus progressive Jews are constantly put on the defensive, but one cannot win any contest if one only plays defense. The problem is that within progressive-left venues it takes considerable cajones to take the fight to the bastards. If enemies of the Jewish people include anti-Semitic anti-Zionists (of the type crawling around places like Daily Kos or the Huffington Post or the UK Guardian) and if radical Islam represents the most serious physical threat to the Jewish people and the Jewish state, progressive-left Jews are prohibited from criticizing those elements by the progressive movement, itself.

One cannot discuss the genocidal nature of radical Islam on progressive-left venues because to do so marks one as an "Islamophobe" within that movement. Therefore progressive-left Jews have a choice. They can stand with their fellow Jews in the face of the rise of radical Islam, which is the most significant geo-political happening since the fall of the Soviet Union, or they can stick their heads in the sand and pretend, along with Barack Obama, that the rise of radical Islam is really the wondrous up-welling of democracy throughout the Middle East and, thus, a good thing.

Sadly, they mainly do the latter and thereby take themselves out of the conversation almost entirely. Any Jewish person who criticizes radical Islam on a place like Daily Kos will quickly find himself either banned or ridiculed into silence. This is the price, but not the only one, that Jews must pay if they wish to participate.

In other words, it is OK within progressive-left circles for radical Islamists to spit hatred at Jews from the mosques, but if I mention this on a place like Daily Kos they accuse me of being a racist rather than face the truth about the degree and meaning of Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism and blood-thirsty xenophobia. And if progressive-left Jews censor themselves on radical Islam, they are likewise bullied and ridiculed into silence about the presence of anti-Semitic anti-Zionists within progressive-left venues.

They are free to point out traditional forms of anti-Semitism when they arise, because the progressive-left fancies itself (all evidence to the contrary) as anti-racist, but they may not discuss the fact that anti-Semitism has taken a place within the progressive movement under the veil of anti-Zionism. Any Jewish person who insists upon having that conversation will not last very long. The best that they are allowed to do is react to the hatred that gets spread toward Israel, but they are not allowed to initiate conversations about the welcoming of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism as part of the larger progressive coalition without facing considerable hostility and censure.

If they wish to be relevant, progressive-left Jews will need to find the backbone necessary to stand the hell up. If they cannot manage that then they cannot be counted upon to represent Jewish concerns and will, furthermore, have little of interest to say on the Long Arab War against the Jews.

Yishai Fleisher

Mike L.

Here is one of those evil "settlers" who rip Sacred Palestinian Olive Groves from the good earth with their bare fangs.

It's a rather lengthy interview at 45 minutes, but well worth the listen.

This is one of the people being demonized and debased and demeaned (and other things starting with the letter "d") by many of his fellow Jews.

This is clearly a bad, bad man, as anyone can plainly see.

Twain (Updated)

If you cannot be civil then you cannot be here.

That's really the bottom line, I am afraid.

Update:

It has come to my attention that someone thinks that the above graphic represents an actual, physical threat.

What horrendous mierda.

Of course, it is not a threat.

Nonetheless, if a person cannot be civil, here, then they are not welcome.

Period. End of story.

Almost all the pro-Israel blogs screen comments before posting, but I have no intention whatsoever to allow any bad actors to force me to do so.

The Failures of Progressive-Left Zionism: The Settlers

Mike L.

(Cross-Posted at Geoffff's Joint, Bar and Grill.)

Progressive-left Jewish Zionists are failing the Jewish people.

If the first way in which progressive-left Zionism is failing is in its ostrich-like reluctance to acknowledge, and seriously discuss, the rise of the Jihad throughout the Muslim Middle East, another way is through their justifying bigotry against their own people.

Progressive-left Jews are encouraging hatred toward their fellow Jews.  Jews who dare to live in Judea and Samaria are targets not only of Palestinian terrorists, but of progressive-left diaspora Jews who spit hatred at those people.  What is most galling, perhaps, is that these "settlers" are living under exceedingly difficult circumstances, while their Jewish persecutors usually live in clean, safe apartments and houses in Europe, Australia, and North America.  Those of us who live in the United States need not worry that a crazed Jihadi will sneak into our 3 month old baby daughter's room and chop off her head.  Yet, progressive-left diaspora Jews feel free to malign these people.

If Israel is the Jew among nations then the settlers are the Jew among Jews. I think that it is a disgrace and I've written about this before in a 2010 piece entitled, Liberal Jewish Suckers:

I personally do not care whether Jews live there or not. I am not in favor of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Nor do I oppose Jewish settlements in the West Bank. For that matter, I also do not oppose Episcopalians living in Skokie, Illinois, nor Rastafarians living in Kathmandu, Nepal, nor Ethiopians living in Walla Walla, Washington. What we are being told, though, is that Jews living, and thus building, in the West Bank is an impediment to the peace process. This is nonsense. How can the mere presence of Jews in the West Bank prevent Mahmoud Abbas from sitting across the table from Benjamin Netanyahu? All they need to do is agree on Israel's final borders, and thus the borders of the forthcoming Palestinian state, and then those Jews who live in the newly formed state of Palestine will be living under Palestinian rule. Presumably many will leave under those conditions because, or so I guess, most would prefer not to live under Palestinian sovereignty. But should that not be up to them?

Of course, it should. The problem is that when Barack Obama demanded "total settlement freeze" then Mahmoud Abbas was put into the position in which he could demand nothing less, thus ruining any potential there may have been for a negotiated peace. Now, this is, of course, terrible enough, but what compounds the problem is progressive-left Jewish hatred toward those very people who Abbas and Obama do not want living, and thus building, on historically Jewish land.

To my mind there are few things in this world more revolting than Jews who whip up hatred toward other Jews. I do not like it when anti-Semitic Jewish Israel Haters, the Finkelsteins of the world, spit poison and hatred at the Jewish state of Israel and I do not like it when progressive-left diaspora Jews spit poison and hatred at the so-called "settlers." It creates bigotry and it justifies violence against us. It gets used by anti-Semites to justify the very hatred that necessitated the creation of the Jewish state to begin with.

Why must any future state of Palestine be Judenrein? Israel does not demand that their Palestinian population pack up and move out, yet not only does Abbas and the PA insist upon the dismantling of Jewish settlements in their areas of jurisdiction, but even liberal American Jews do so. This is not only a form of unjust bigotry, it is, itself, an impediment to the peace process. Let me be clear. It is not Jewish settlements in the West Bank that are an impediment to the peace process, but the insistence that Jews must not be allowed to live, and thus build, in the West Bank that is the impediment to the peace process.

In this way progressive-left diaspora Jews, who complain bitterly about Jews building housing for themselves in Judea, end up justifying the conflict. If the very idea of Jews building housing for themselves in Judea is so horrendous, and if diaspora Jews whine and bitch and moan about it, how can we blame the Palestinians for refusing to accept Jewish people on that land?

I know that some will say that it's not about Jews, per se, but about Israeli nationals. This is nonsense. Does anyone honestly think that anyone else would care if those people were Muslim? Of course, not. The problem here is not that they are Israelis, but that they are Jews.

Pretending otherwise fools no one.