Friday, February 20, 2015

Anti-Israel mentality in Democrats and others

by oldschooltwentysix

A view held by most at this site is that an anti-Israel mentality has occupied a disproportionate space in the Democratic Party, especially among progressive activists and filtered down to those that follow Democratic politics. Others scoff at the notion. It is just the fringe, they say, not the "mainstream" Democrats.

Here is more fodder in the matter. Back in 2003, current State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf wrote a college honors thesis entitled, The Religious Right in American Support for Israel. According to her former professor, it was about how conservative evangelical support for Israel complicates U.S. foreign policy.

The theme about how evangelicals really don't care about Israel is a tired one that loyal progressives like to trot out whenever pro-Israel Christians enter the fray. As if these people did not think that Israel and America are siblings in shared values. Or that Israel is good for American security and profits the world. These people are not killing Jews, either, or creating so much of the violence we see today, despite their "ulterior" motives.

We should not forget that they are social conservatives, however, which to many Democrats translates into bad people. They are despised by some, even more than Netanyahu!

Can one be more mainstream Democrat than Ms. Harf? If only the evangelicals would tell the truth about their intentions, then Israel would have less support and U.S. foreign policy toward Israel would be less complicated. The argument that this is just a fringe seems weakened.

But there is more concerning the anti-Israel mentality. Harf has a journalistic background, too. She wrote for the Indiana Daily Student and then became a media spokesperson for the CIA before the State Department, and says her training has helped her to deal with the press.

Often there is a confluence in the anti-Israel mentality between progressive Democrats and journalists. This is not surprising. They run in the same circles, along with many in academia. And it allows an opportunity to include the video of Matti Friedman's excellent speech in the UK to BICOM on January 26. The text is here.

How well Friedman describes those journalists and others, like Ms. Harf, that have been informed in such a way that they stress jobs for Jew hating terrorists and believe if only Israel would go away, so would most all these problems.

Ironically, while evangelicals pray for the end of Israel, others actually work to bring that end.



A surreal mentality that uses Israel, the only Jewish state, as the fulcrum of an immoral world is immoral itself, especially when one considers the treatment of the Jewish people by the non-Jewish world, and that Israel is among the best places in treating minorities. The disparate treatment in other contexts would be called illegal discrimination. Until this mentality is repudiated, there will be little actual progress. These purveyors will keep making the same mistakes, driven by their prejudice, then wonder why hate and violence persists.

18 comments:

  1. I have to say, I very much find this assumption that Evangelicals have nefarious alternative motives in their support of Israel to say more about the accuser than the accused.

    The main reason that most Evangelicals support Israel is not out of some anti-Semitic apocalyptic scenario wherein Jesus will return and show the Catholic church and Adolp Hitler how Jews ought to be dealt with, but out of the fact that most of their scripture is our scripture.

    They also tend to believe in Genesis 12:3

    I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you."

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    1. Well the "so called progressives" with this get to slam the two groups they target most with this crap.

      It seems to me many "so called progressives" are all for religious tolerance to the extreme, EXCEPT Judaism and Christianity

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    2. Michael,

      Many evangelicals also happen to believe in the shared democratic values between the U.S. and Israel. Many of them like Israel's pluck, enterprise, and resilience against their enemies. The portrayal of these people as nothing but one-dimensional religious morons does say more about the people making those assumptions than about socially conservative Christians.

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    3. Indeed, Jeff.

      Personally, I would like to see outreach to the Evangelical community.

      We need not agree with them on everything in order to work with them.

      We might even be a mild force for reform within their community... but, even if not, it is important to recognize who our friends are and who they decidedly are not

      Furthermore, today's young Evangelicals are not the same as the generation that arrived with the Moral Majority and the rest of that crew.

      They tend to be more liberal, now, than they once were and more concerned about the environment and, generally, from what I have read, are less intolerant of gay people.

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  2. It has become part of the mainstream Democratic Party. Unless Obama is no longer mainstream within the party.

    Obama by extension of his staff have called Bibi "chickenshit" and worse. Obama goes out of his way to delegitamize Bibi. Furthermore he is sending his campaign managers and taxpayer's dollars to the V15 to undermine Bibi in the upcoming elections.

    Watching the downward slide of a particular "progressive site" for Democrats I would like to quote to you from the diary the staff of DK/DSKF (Hunter). As it was placed by the staff, this diary and the comments are surely seen by them (and sadly accept the views unless otherwqise noted. And they haven't noted any, including)

    Talking about Bibi

    Yes - he is very good a killing babies. (13+ / 0-)

    Does that very well. Can't think of anything else.

    by Pablo Bocanegra on Fri Feb 20, 2015 at 02:48:22 PM EST

    A reply which has stood there for quite a while

    How else are they suppose to make... (1+ / 3-)

    Passover matzos?

    #strongsarcasm

    If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

    by HairyTrueMan on Fri Feb 20, 2015 at 03:12:52 PM EST

    Like the strong sarcasm tag is supposed to excuse crap like that.

    And this has stayed open for viewing for at least 4 hours now

    When crap like that is accepted, what can you expect from democrats?

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    1. Pablo Bocanegra expressed the blood-libel, while the second guy was probably pointing it out.

      On dkos they love to talk about how Israeli Jews love to kill babies.

      It's the most vile form of racism imaginable because it results in violence against a traditionally oppressed minority.

      The Left today is not anti-racist.

      On the contrary, the contemporary Left is the most racist movement in the West today outside of political Islam.

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    2. Seems like the second comment you highlight is a clumsy attempt to call attention to the disgustingness of the first.

      It's instructive in that some, but not many, are willing to maybe hide the second more blatant instance, while the first blood libel comment is met with wild cheers and applause.

      Btw, there have been 21 diaries tagged Israel on Daily Kos over the past five days. That's more than four a day.

      Over that same period of time, there were 24 diaries tagged elections, 6 tagged United States and 8 tagged Democrats, on an American blog which purportedly exists to elect Democrats.

      Those numbers are quite instructive, too.

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    3. This was pretty much the first thing that I wrote here that got a fair amount of attention.

      Israel 1242 - Tibet 18

      This is from the spring of 2010.

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    4. From the piece linked to above.

      "A basic tag search of the Daily Kos blog reveals that between Feb 21, 2009 and today there were a grand total of 18 essays on the topic of Tibet. That is a total of 18 essays over the period of about 13 months on a left political blog with over 200,000 registered users. During that exact same period of time, however, there were 1242 diaries on the subject of Israel."

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    5. And the updated score, for those curious, is 13,925 to 219. I'll let youze guess which is which.

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    6. Less concerned about the regulars of Daily Kos, who try to outdo one another in the public setting. They are ignorant and past the point of change. They remind me of Roger Waters.

      The ones who deserve scrutiny are those that help shape the narratives, like the Harfs, the journalists, the professors, who need to check their bias at the door or be called out for it.

      To see how high up this mentality may reside, it cannot credibly be said that it is not mainstream and has no effect on antisemitism. It can be argued further that it is racist and constitutes discrimination.

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  3. On the one hand, I read a good point the other day about how the 'artists' boycotting Israel are basically the same fogies who've been reminding us repeatedly for the past ten years that they still hate Israel, and don't seem to be gaining any new followers.

    Does the same apply to those coming up through the ranks of the Democratic Party, like Ms. Harf? Or is it fair to hope with some reason that this administration is an aberration?

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    1. I hope it is an aberration due to Obama. The left and Obama's actions convince me more and more that he is a true enemy of Israel and a Islamic sympathizer, if not a Muslim himself (and lying about it as is acceptable to lie to your enemies under the Koran).

      Obama also bowed to the leader of Saudi Arabia (As the leader of Saudi Arabia is the keeper of mecca, it is Islamic tradition to bow before him)

      The fact that I VOTED for Obama fills me with shame these days.

      I hope the DNC sees the error of it's ways and never puts forth another Israeli hater like Obama ever again!

      If they do my choices are a party whose social values more align with Judaism, but hates us, or a ruthless party who accepts us!

      Talk about lose/lose. It is almost a FEATURE that this is happening to discourage more people from voting and keeping the corrupt dual party machine going!

      I would LOVE a parliamentary system to replace our current model as it closer represents the will of the people!

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  4. Marie Harf wrote a thesis on how support from conservatives complicate foreign policy by supporting a strong democratic Israel. How trendy.
    It used to be conservatives and oil interests that used to complain about those darned liberals and their support for Israel complicating matters.
    Taking that into consideration she could have written a much more interesting paper. But this is what happens when institutions give up teaching how to think and get into the business of ideological training.

    P.S. Matti Friedman's speech draws the best and most complete picture I've heard and read about this phenomenon in which Ms. Harf has been a long time participant.

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    1. Another excellent piece that paints a good picture is this piece by Natan Sharansky, Post-Liberal Europe and its Jewish Problem.

      http://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2014/09/post-liberal-europe-and-its-jewish-problem/

      Friedman's Mizrahi Nation gives good insight into Israel, stuff most actually do not know. It's something I suggest to some progressives.

      http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2014/06/mizrahi-nation/

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  5. Obama has expanded the profoundly anti Jewish and anti Israel narrative of the left and expanded it to include anyone on the edges of Islam, Persia and the Arab world. If your country or your society, clan, nation, group, faith or whatnot is confronted by the above three things anywhere then Obama is against you, against your existence, against your identity, against your continued survival. The New New Left is essentially indistinguishable from militant violent Islam.

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  6. Of course it's not an aberration. Look at your universities in the States. Where do you imagine the next generation of Democrat activists, candidates, journalists etc will be coming from? There is a set pattern now.
    As Matti Friedman suggests, it is not really about political realities, it is a psychological mind-set. Marie Harf, however awful or ridiculous she is, is not an aberration. She is the mainstream product of an ideological sausage factory.
    The ' artists ' who are noisily boycotting Israel have been peddling their obsessional hate for some time, but they will influence the next generation of 'artists' to do the same. And so on.
    Here in Europe the universities are the same. They will produce our new leftwing political class. And our media personnel. Etc
    And it will all continue. Nothing will stop it. Not the odd shooting here or there. Excuses will be made. The victims will be blamed.
    Reading the coverage of President Obama's summit on ' violent extremism' this week, one could conclude that we are through the looking glass. Maybe Obama and Kerry and their various mouthpieces understand that they are talking rubbish, but maybe they really don't. Isis need job opportunities. And the most serious problem is discrimination within America. Even Vox are a little concerned, apparently.

    You keep talking as if the Republicans are so 'unliberal'. But they are not the people siding with a political ideology that throws gay people off the top of tall buildings. Or that forces women to be second class beings. Or that beheads and crucifies minorities. Or that is currently enslaving people. One could go on and on.
    Maybe from now on it is difficult to have a 'political home' but I would not wish to be a self- identified ' liberal'. The word 'liberal' has become Orwellian. The left are dancing with the devil. They are staggeringly unpleasant. And completely sure that they are the moral guardians of our time.

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