Fiamma Nirenstein is an Italian journalist who announced that she is leaving politics and making aliyah to Israel.
This piece was written in 2003, but I was entirely unaware of it until yesterday. Nirenstein was way ahead of the curve.
A Tip "O the Kippa to the FresnoZionist.
A brief excerpt:
The Left blessed the Jews as the victim "par excellence," always a great partner in the struggle for the rights of the weak against the wicked. In return for being coddled, published, filmed, considered artists, intellectuals and moral judges, Jews, even during the Soviet anti-Semitic persecutions, gave the Left moral support and invited it to cry with them at Holocaust memorials. Today the game is clearly over. The left has proved itself the real cradle of contemporary anti-Semitism.
When I speak about anti-Semitism, I'm not speaking of legitimate criticism of the State of Israel. I am speaking of pure anti-Semitism: Criminalization, stereotypes, specific and generic lies which have fluctuated between lies about the Jews (conspiring, blood thirsty, dominating the world) to lies about Israel (conspiring, ruthlessly violent) starting most widely since the beginning of the second Intifada in September 2000, and becoming more and more ferocious since Operation Chomat Magen ("Defensive Shield"), when the IDF reentered Palestinian cities in response to terrorism.
The basic idea of anti-Semitism, today as always, is that Jews have a perverted soul that makes them unfit, as a morally inferior people, to be regular members of the human family. Today, this Untermensch ideology has shifted to the Jewish state: A separate, unequal, basically evil stranger whose national existence is slowly but surely emptied and deprived of justification. Israel, as the classic evil Jew, according to contemporary anti-Semitism, doesn't have a birthright, but exists with its "original sin" perpetrated against the Palestinians. Israel's heroic history has become a history of arrogance.
Nowadays, its narrative focuses much more on Deir Yassin massacre than on the creation and defense of Kibbutz Degania; it focuses more and more the suffering of the Palestinian refugees than on the surprise of seeing five armies in 1948 denying Israel's right to exist just after being established by the United Nations; much more on the Jewish underground resistance organizations, the Lechi and the Irgun, than on the heroic battle along the way to Jerusalem. The caricature of the evil Jew is transformed to the caricature of the evil state. And now the traditional hook-nosed Jew bears a gun and kills Arab children with pleasure.
It's long, but one of the best things I have seen, and a decade later still rings true. This should be standard reading for any Obama supporter.
ReplyDeleteI also recommend Karsh's latest piece for these same people, where he discusses Israel's Arabs.
http://www.meforum.org/3423/israel-arabs-deprived-radicalized
FWIW, most of these people need to be shaken from their ignorance. Those that demonize defenders of Israel are likely lost.
Comments on:
ReplyDeletehttp://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2013/01/18/white-house-confronting-sort-of-egyptian-presidents-frothing-hatred-of-jews-reveals-its-deeper-policy-thinking/
Comment by Diane:
"'the world never really wanted a Jewish state to begin with …'"
"I agree with all but the above from Michael Dar’s analysis.
"I do not think the world went along with the Palestine=David, Israel=Goliath narrative out of malice (well, at least not the West). I think the West went along with it because the West is thoroughly ignorant about the mechanics/politics of tribal societies, and too lazy to educate itself properly. The nation-state is a Western concept; the tribal societies of the Middle East (and Africa !!) don’t correspond to it, but Western-educated leaders of these societies know how to talk-the-talk so the West will give them what they want: money, weapons, humanitarian aid, and above all, respect and recognition."
Comment by Pnina in reply to Diane:
"That it is certainly true for the common people who get all their disinformation from the media. Western leaders, however, get their information from various sources, including intelligence and Israeli reports (with evidence, not just claims). I just don’t believe that of all the people in power there isn’t even a single one who understands what’s going on here, that aaaaaaaaaalll of them, except perhaps Canadian Harper, have the exact same opinion. No, this is not a matter of everyone coming to the exact same opinion — that it’s all Israel’s fault — it’s not at all a matter of an agreed opinion, but of an agreed policy. It’s not their opinion, but rather their policy that it’s all Israel’s fault."
^
This.
Comment by ladeeda:
Delete"...Obama reminds me of my ultra-left professors in social work school, who taught us (in a nutshell) that power is bad, and all those who have power are bad. So, the automatic default labels were: White = evil; Brown = virtuous. First World = to be tamed; Third World = to be elevated. Rich = greedy/exploitative; Poor = robbed/exploited. And so on and so forth.
"We were told to “fight the system from within” – that is, to conduct our own individual mini-revolutions to subvert the status quo of whatever institution we work in. Why? Because we needed to “take back the power in the name of anti-oppressive social work”.
"We studied Edward Said, and watched films showing Israelis celebrating Independence in 1948 – black and white footage with ominous background music making Jews marching with the Israeli flag look like goose-stepping Nazis. ..."
^
This.
There are two main sources of the current Western racist war on Israel and the Jewish people.
Delete1. The members of the U.S. "establishment" (the State Department, members of the CIA, U.S. executive administrations, the financier and industrialist, ethnically West European, Protestant Christian and Catholic Christian, racist anti-Jewish, most wealthy social class of the U.S. -- the owners of the U.S. mass media, etc.) and the members of the governing class of, and the "culturally elite" class of, West European countries (England, France, Germany).
2. The Soviet Union and the legacy of the Soviet (Naziesque genocidally anti-Jewish) "Anti-Zionist" propaganda campaigns toward the Left in the West.
And, now, those two factions are combined together -- mixed together with each other.
The remedy:
The leaders of the government of Israel telling the facts of the history and current reality of the situation that Israel is in.
1:
DeleteThe Secret War Against the Jews, by John Loftus and Mark Aarons
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_secret_war_against_the_Jews.html?id=trU7nY-T-4EC
"The authors demonstrate that numerous Western countries, especially the United States and Great Britain, have conducted repeated and willful spying missions on Palestine* and later Israel over many decades. While on the surface these two countries and others profess to be ardent allies of Israel, they work, in fact, through their intelligence services to betray Israel's secrets to the Arabs. ..."
America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History, by John Loftus
http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Nazi-Secret-Insiders-History/dp/1936296047
"Fully revised and expanded, this stirring account reveals how the U.S. government permitted the illegal entry of Nazis into North America in the years following World War II. This extraordinary investigation exposes the secret section of the State Department that began, starting in 1948 and unbeknownst to Congress and the public until recently, to hire members of the puppet wartime government of Byelorussia—a region of the Soviet Union occupied by Nazi Germany. ..."
John Loftus was a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Justice Department who had above Top Secret security clearance in the U.S. government.
The Arab Lobby, by Lee Smith
http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/44096/the-arab-lobby/
"...Mitchell Bard's [book] describes how this Arab lobby — from U.S. foreign service officers, oil companies, Christian anti-Zionists, and Ivy League universities to Gulf Arab states, Arab-American activists and Islamist ideologues — exercises its influence in U.S. politics. ..."
"...AIPAC is a grassroots organization funded by U.S. citizens that represents the broad sentiment of Christians and Jews who are interested in one issue—protecting and promoting the [supposed] U.S.-Israel relationship. The Arab lobby, by comparison, has little organic U.S. backing and divides its efforts between two causes — oil and Palestine. ..."
"...The real power [of the Arab lobby] is in the hands of the Arab lobby's oil sector, the role of which is to keep the Arab oil producers happy by ensuring that Americans stay addicted to oil, that the defense industry keeps its production lines open, and that the image of Arab states stays polished. ..."
Big Oil Underwrites Anti-Israel Conference, by Cliff Kincaid
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/big-oil-underwrites-anti-israel-conference
Johann von Leers and Walt/Mearsheimer, by Clemens Heni
http://clemensheni.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/johann-von-leers-and-waltmearsheimer/
"Most people think that the book 'Israel Lobby' by Stephen Walt and John J. Mearsheimer was published in 2007 -- at the same time in the US and in Germany, by the way. Well, the first edition of that book was rather published in 1940 -- by leading National Socialist anti-Semitic publicist Prof. Dr. Johann von Leers. Von Leers published 'Kräfte hinter Roosevelt' ('Forces behind Roosevelt') in Berlin in 1940. ..."
1 (continued):
DeleteOriana Fallaci, On Antisemitism - I Find It Shameful - Shameful Attacks on Israel, 2002
http://www.oerby.dk/sider/Oriana%20Fallaci.htm
"I find it shameful that in Italy there should be a procession of individuals dressed as suicide bombers who spew vile abuse at Israel, hold up photographs of Israeli leaders on whose foreheads they have drawn the swastika, incite people to hate the Jews.
"And who, in order to see Jews once again in the extermination camps, in the gas chambers, in the ovens of Dachau and Mauthausen and Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen et cetera, would sell their own mother to a harem.
"I find it shameful that the Catholic Church should permit a bishop, one with lodgings in the Vatican no less, a saintly man who was found in Jerusalem with an arsenal of arms and explosives hidden in the secret compartments of his sacred Mercedes, to participate in that procession and plant himself in front of a microphone to thank in the name of God the suicide bombers who massacre the Jews in pizzerias and supermarkets. To call them 'martyrs who go to their deaths as to a party'.
"I find it shameful that in France, the France of Liberty-Equality-Fraternity, they burn synagogues, terrorise Jews, profane their cemeteries. I find it shameful that the youth of Holland and Germany and Denmark flaunt the kaffiah just as Mussolini's avant-garde used to flaunt the club and the fascist badge. ..."
"I find it shameful (we're back in Italy) that state-run television stations contribute to the resurgent anti-Semitism, crying only over Palestinian deaths while playing down Israeli deaths, glossing over them in unwilling tones.
"I find it shameful that in their debates they host with much deference the scoundrels with turban or kaffiah who yesterday sang hymns to the slaughter at New York and today sing hymns to the slaughters at Jerusalem, at Haifa, at Netanya, at Tel Aviv. I find it shameful that the press does the same, that it is indignant because Israeli tanks surround the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, that it is not indignant because inside that same church two hundred Palestinian terrorists well armed with machine guns and munitions and explosives (among them are various leaders of Hamas and Al-Aqsa) are not unwelcome guests of the monks (who then accept bottles of mineral water and jars of honey from the soldiers of those tanks). I find it shameful that, in giving the number of Israelis killed since the beginning of the Second Intifada (four hundred and twelve) [at the time of the writing of this article; over one thousand by the year 2006], a noted daily newspaper found it appropriate to underline in capital letters that more people are killed in their traffic accidents. (Six hundred a year).
"I find it shameful that the Roman Observer, the newspaper of the Pope--a Pope who not long ago left in the Wailing Wall a letter of apology for the Jews--accuses of extermination a people who were exterminated in the millions by Christians. By Europeans. I find it shameful that this newspaper denies to the survivors of that people (survivors who still have numbers tattooed on their arms) the right to react, to defend themselves, to not be exterminated again. I find it shameful that in the name of Jesus Christ (a Jew without whom they would all be unemployed), the priests of our parishes or Social Centres or whatever they are flirt with the assassins of those in Jerusalem who cannot go to eat a pizza or buy some eggs without being blown up."
...
(continued)
(from continued)
Delete"I find it shameful that almost all of the left, the left that twenty years ago permitted one of its union processionals to deposit a coffin (as a Mafioso warning) in front of the synagogue of Rome, forgets the contribution made by the Jews to the fight against fascism. Made by Carlo and Nello Rossini, for example, by Leone Ginzburg, by Umberto Terracini, by Leo Valiani, by Emilio Sereni, by women like my friend Anna Maria Enriques Agnoletti who was shot at Florence on June 12, 1944, by seventy-five of the three-hundred-thirty-five people killed at the Fosse Ardeatine, by the infinite others killed under torture or in combat or before firing squads. (The companions, the teachers, of my infancy and my youth.) I find it shameful that in part through the fault of the left--or rather, primarily through the fault of the left (think of the left that inaugurates its congresses applauding the representative of the PLO, leader in Italy of the Palestinians who want the destruction of Israel)--Jews in Italian cities are once again afraid. And in French cities and Dutch cities and Danish cities and German cities, it is the same. I find it shameful that Jews tremble at the passage of the scoundrels dressed like suicide bombers just as they trembled during Krystallnacht, the night in which Hitler gave free rein to the Hunt of the Jews. I find it shameful that in obedience to the stupid, vile, dishonest, and for them extremely advantageous fashion of Political Correctness, the usual opportunists - or better the usual parasites - exploit the word Peace.
...
"I find it shameful and see in all this the rise of a new fascism, a new Nazism. A fascism, a Nazism, that much more grim and revolting because it is conducted and nourished by those who hypocritically pose as do-gooders, progressives, communists, pacifists, Catholics or rather Christians, and who have the gall to label a warmonger anyone like me who screams the truth. ..."
----
Anti-Semitism 2.0, by Mudar Zahran
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/1979/anti-semitism-20
"The concept of the ‘evil Jew’ has made a well-disguised comeback: Criticizing Israel and Zionists, is now deemed a legitimate option to cursing Jews and Judaism. Not only is it open, socially acceptable and legal, but it can actually bring prosperity and popularity. This new form of anti-Semitism 2.0 is well-covered-up, harder to trace and poses a much deeper danger to the modern way of life of the civilized world than the earlier crude form of it, as it slowly and gradually works on delegitimizing Jews to the point where it eventually becomes acceptable to target Jews, first verbally, then physically -- all done in a cosmopolitan style where the anti-Semites are well-groomed speakers and headline writers in jackets and ties; and not just Arab, but American and European, from ‘sanitized’ news coverage of the most bloodthirsty radicals, to charges against Israel in which facts are distorted, selectively omitted or simply untrue, as in former President Jimmy Carter's book on Israel.
"Why would a Palestinian be writing this? The answer is simple: The Palestinians have been used as fuel for the new form of anti-Semitism; this has hurt the Palestinians and exposed them to unprecedented and purposely media-ignored abuse by Arab governments, including some of those who claim love for the Palestinians, yet in fact only bear hatred to Jews. This has resulted in Palestinian cries for justice, equality, freedom and even basic human rights being ignored while the world getting consumed with delegitimizing Israel from either ignorance or malice.
"Worse, just as the old form of anti-Semitism has proven itself a threat as poisonous to its supporters, as it was to the Jews, the new form of anti-Semitism 2.0 could prove itself the same -- all the more likely as we see the world tolerating Iran's nuclear ambitions not necessarily out of love for the Mullah's regime, but instead because of mental fixation against Israel. ..."