Tuesday, November 19, 2013

The Social Construction of Hatred

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under and the Times of Israel.}

The social construction of hatred toward the Jewish people by the Islamic world and the western-left should, at this point in human history, be axiomatic.

In the Arab-Muslim world they scream bloody murder on a daily basis that the Jewish minority is evil and must be destroyed.  Western "liberals" either do not care or believe that the Jews deserve whatever beating that we get for allegedly being mean to Palestinian-Arabs.  Ayatollahs and imams throughout the Middle East shake their fists in the air and tell their people that the tiny Jewish minority are vile in the sight of Allah and that it is a spiritual blessing to murder Jews.  In the mean time, western progressives tell one another that the Jews of the Middle East are racist, imperialistic, colonialist, apartheid, war-mongers and thereby justify an ancient Arab-Muslim culture of violence toward the Jewish people.

This, of course, is nothing new.  What led to the various persecutions and pogroms and expulsions of the Jewish people throughout European and Arabic history was the defamation of the Jew.  My father's side of the family was slaughtered in the town of Medzhybizh, in the western Ukraine during Operation Barbarossa in July of 1941, precisely because of the incessant defamation of Jewish people in western Europe.  They were forced into road building, along with the Christian population of the small town, to aid the Nazi advance into the Soviet Union and when the roadways were completed they were made to dig ditches just outside of town at the point of a rifle.  When the ditches were completed the estimated 3,000 Jews of Medzhybizh were lined up in those ditches and shot dead by the Einsatzgruppen, professional Jew murderers.

This is a brief video of the last old Jew of my family town.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGqn9lefLH0

Since the end of World War II the primary sources of genocidal anti-Semitism have been the Arab-Muslim world and the United Nations, within which the Arab and Muslim governments have huge influence due to the simple fact of numbers.  As anyone who follows the long Arab war against the Jews knows, the United Nations is an enemy of the Jewish people and of the Jewish State.  The United Nations has 193 member states and yet an exceedingly disproportionate number of its resolutions represent hostility toward Israel despite the fact that Israel has a far better human rights record than does any other country throughout its entire region.

In the beginning of this year the United Nations compiled a report entitled,"Children in Israeli Military Detention," which claims that, "It is understood that in no other country are children systematically tried by juvenile military courts that, by definition, fall short of providing the necessary guarantees to ensure respect for their rights."

The UN also claims that "Ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized. This conclusion is based on the repeated allegations about such treatment over the past 10 years and the volume, consistency and persistence of these allegations."

These conclusions reflect another UN report from June of this year, addressed by scholar Phyllis Chesler in a Times of Israel piece entitled, UNICEF’s Blood Libel Against Israel, which suggests that Israel tortures Arab children.

Chesler writes:
UNICEF has not released a similar report which focuses on the systematic use of Palestinian children as human shields by Palestinian jihadists; on the increase in honor killings of Palestinian daughters by their Palestinian families on the West Bank and in Gaza; or on the sophisticated indoctrination of Palestinian children by Palestinian adults into becoming suicide killers.

In the more than fifty UNICEF reports on the “state of Palestine,” it blames Israel for whatever harm comes to Palestinian children. And, when UNICEF does look at the horrifying war raging in Syria, these reports do not register psychologically with a global community eager to believe that Israel is the worst country in the world.
Chesler clearly understands what most of us understand and that is the simple fact that when it comes to Israel the United Nations is simply not to be trusted.   We all know that the UN spends far more time and energy kicking the hell out of the Jewish State than it does addressing the far worse human rights violations that we see throughout Africa and the rest of Asia.  In fact, the main business of the UN seems to be ripping down the Jewish State of Israel and it does so out of Arab-Muslim Koranically-based loathing for Jews.

Thus, I do not believe for one minute that this UN report is either honest or fair.  And even if I am wrong, and that Israel is as morally heinous as the report claims, how can any fair-minded person trust such claims when the Sudan and the Congo and China and Turkey - in its occupation of Cyprus - get a free pass?

And this brings me to my central point.

Why is Michael Lerner, of Tikkun Daily, publishing Jew Haters like David Harris-Gershon?

In a recent piece for both Daily Kos and Tikkun Daily, Harris-Gershon spreads hatred toward his fellow Jews by citing the first UN report above which simply cannot be trusted.  Even if the UN report is accurate, which I highly doubt, given the fact of UN malice toward Israel why would this man cite it in a malicious manner that could very easily incite violence toward his own people?  He must know that the UN is hostile to Israel and yet he uses a UN report as a club with which to beat the Jewish people and to create hatred toward them.

And that, finally, is the point.

Harris-Gershon writes:
While this report found the IDF's practice of awaking children at night, blindfolding them and escorting them, unaccompanied, to interrogation centers most troubling, it also highlighted Israeli soldiers' practice of binding children and holding them to be of concern.

The children who were cuffed and detained on Friday were, according to an Israeli military spokesperson, suspected of preparing to alight a tire, and that the children were detained to "prevent mayhem." However, witnesses say that Israeli troops' presence at the weekly protest is what sparked clashes, and that soldiers began rounding up children after stun grenades were thrown toward them.
He draws this conclusion from a report by the Palestinian-Arab Ma'an News Agency.

It might be that this report is accurate, but I have to wonder why Harris-Gershon gives such credence to a "news agency" that is absolutely hostile toward his own people and then uses a report from that "news agency" to cite a United Nations report that spreads the blood-libel against Jews?

The bottom line is that people like Michael Lerner and David Harris-Gershon are constructing hatred toward their fellow Jews and they do so, with hideous irony, in the name of social justice and human rights.  The truth, of course, is that neither Lerner, nor Harris-Gershon, are the least bit interested in social justice.  If they were they would also be interested in social justice for the Jewish people, but instead they spread hatred toward their own.


17 comments:

  1. It gets 'better,' actually. I didn't see the original comment, but in another Tikkun thread, it seems to appear that this post was David's 'response' to the murder of Eden Atias. Look at the title, and the timing. Yet another 'blame the Jews firster'...

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  2. As I tried to say there, at Tikkun, but the comment did not survive, what about the parents that let their young kids enter harm's way? No concern for the children at the hands of their elders that abuse them in violation of international law.

    As to UN bias, it's theater, but some there can see through the performances.

    http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2013/11/14/un-general-assembly-passes-9-resolutions-condemning-israel-0-on-assad/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. School, they delete contrary opinions there?

      Delete
    2. I had a few comments go through, but this last one was zapped at the moment I clicked to publish it.

      No big deal. I think the influence of such people is overrated and the times are changing.

      What I find most fault with is not that they put forth people who demand to be heard as if their vitriol and discrimination they practice against Jews is a right, but that they seem wholly afraid to allow another side to be presented alongside.

      Perhaps the juxtaposition will expose the ones that are unreasonable or ignorant.

      Too many people, even among the activists, lack basic knowledge of history and the facts, yet seem to believe their knowledge is complete and that additional information must be rejected as tainted, particularly if it may support the demonized. It extends beyond this matter, but overall in politics.

      The notion of solidarity, like the halo effect, contributes to the myopia, and makes the most ignorant susceptible to gross manipulation that feeds bias.

      Of course, to intentionally use information to reinforce or incite discrimination against a group of people is insidious. So is using a discriminatory double standard of treatment that requires only one out of all to adhere to impossible norms of behavior while others, perhaps themselves, do not observe even minimal norms.

      Bringing down Israel and Jews brings down the Western culture that many of these critics are a part of, and ultimately themselves, but they are too ignorant to see what is so obvious.

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    3. For example, how many of these people know the Nazi connection and continued affiliation of not just the Palestinian leaders, but many Arab leaders, and how it has filtered to the Arab street?

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    4. Barry Rubin has a new book coming out on this topic.

      Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East

      Fun for the whole family.

      Should make for a terrific stocking stuffer!

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    5. Check out this video as well:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_abGQY-1qoM

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  3. When faux Nazis like David H-G hate you you're on the right track. Whatever dysfunction he's working out in public, who really cares? They're just another flavor of Nazi it dresses like a Soviet and sounds like Hamas but it's the same old Nazi underneath.

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  4. Still not sure how their commenting works, but I appear to have been 'temp-banned' a couple of times, before a few days later having my posts go through again.

    I do appear to be 100% completely unable to comment on MJ Rosenberg's posts, though, as well as on Michael Lerner's.

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  5. “We [Israel] possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are 22 targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.” I consider it all hopeless at this point. . . Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.” - Martin van Creveld, Zionist Jew

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    Replies
    1. Of course this is a 100% made up lie.

      Delete
    2. Regardless of whether or not that quote is an actual quote of something that was actually said by someone:

      Who is Who in German trade with Iran?, by Matthias Küntzel

      "A dossier on the branch offices and agencies of German companies in Iran"

      Ahmadinejad's Bank, by Matthias Küntzel

      "Germany has to make up its mind about calling a halt to the activties of Hamburg-based EIH bank"

      Iran crossing the nuclear threshold as Israel is condemned, by Tom Wilson

      "Iran is passing the point of nuclear no return as we speak. And yet all the international community want is to speak about Israel"

      Italy's new leader: an orgy of Judeophobic vulgarities of Europe's old anti-Semitic hatred

      Daniel Bernard, French Diplomat: "All the current troubles in the world are because of that shitty little country Israel."

      More documentation:

      - philosemitism.blogspot.com

      - philosemitismeblog.blogspot.com

      - www.israelwhat.com (Norway, Israel and the Jews)

      ----

      (continued)

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    3. (from continued)

      Iranian Antisemitism: Stepchild of German National Socialism, by Matthias Küntzel

      ----

      What Iranian Leaders Really Say about Doing Away with Israel - A Refutation of the Campaign to Excuse Ahmadinejad’s Incitement to Genocide

      Iranian political leaders:

      "Iran’s position, which was first expressed by the Imam [Khomeini] and stated several times by those responsible, is that the cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region."

      "The foundation of the Islamic regime is opposition to Israel and the perpetual subject of Iran is the elimination of Israel from the region."

      "It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region."

      "We declare explicitly that we will not be satisfied with anything less than the complete obliteration of the Zionist regime from the political map of the world."

      -- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran

      "The blind enemies should see that the wish of these people is the death of America and Israel."

      -- Ayatollah Janati

      "With God’s help the time has come for the Zionist regime’s death sentence."

      -- General Yahya Rahim Safavi

      "Among the Jews there have always been those who killed God’s prophets and who opposed justice and righteousness. Historically, there are many accusations against the Jews. For example, it was said that they were the source for such deadly diseases as the plague and typhus. This is because the Jews are very filthy people. For a time people also said that they poisoned water wells belonging to Christians and thus killed them."

      -- Mohammad-Ali Ramin

      Text on banners and signs in Iran:

      "Israel must be uprooted and wiped off history"

      -- the inscription on a Shahab 3 missile on a military parade in Tehran, September 22, 2003 [photograph]

      "Israel should be wiped off the face of the world"

      -- Text on banner on Basij housing building, and on a bus at a military rally in Iran in November 2006 [photographs]

      "Down with Israel" [English language] [photograph]
      "Death to Israel" [Persian language] [photograph]

      -- Text on a banner

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    4. Vergognosi gli attacchi a Israele (Shameful Attacks on Israel), by Oriana Fallaci

      "...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

      "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.

      "Such bias against Israel cannot be 'accidental' or merely 'unfortunate.' No other nation has received the amount of scrutinizing, criticism, coverage, demonization and delegitimization. In fact the question to be asked is not whether there is bias against Israel; but rather why there is bias against Israel ..."

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