Saturday, December 23, 2017

Antisemitic anti-Zionism and the Racist Left

Michael Lumish

{Also published at the Elder of Ziyon, Jews Down Under, The Jewish PressVlaamse Vrienden Van Israel and Listy z naszego sadu.}

The western-left is the most racist political movement in the West today outside of political Islam.

The categories of contemporary progressive-left racism include:

1) Anti-White Racism

2) Antisemitic Anti-Zionism

and

3) Humanitarian Racism

While left-leaning politicos in the United States are searching for Nazis and Klansmen and White Supremacists and White Nationalists and the "Alt-Right" - whatever that is, exactly - hiding beneath every bed, they remain childishly oblivious to the toxic and divisive racism that is eating its way through the core of their own political movement.

Up until about the election of Barack Obama - who I voted for in 2008 - the United States made highly significant strides in ethnic relations over many decades, which was a major factor in Obama's electoral success.

Since then, the United States is regressing on issues of race even as the inheritors of the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. urinate on that legacy while calling it "social justice."

There has not been this much racial discord in the United States since 1968 and it is largely due to the fact that the progressive-left has beat it into the heads of poor "black" kids that they are oppressed and that poor "white" kids are the oppressors.

What kind of social results did they expect would emerge from incessant left-leaning racial hatred in the United States?


Anti-White Racism

Although nobody on the left ever wants to discuss it, the most prominent form of publically acceptable racism in the United States, today, is anti-white racism.

Hundreds of articles and other forms of media have been published in left-leaning venues decrying how horrible and racist and brutal - yet, somehow, fragile - "white" people are.

As an American Jew - and since the word "white" has become a racist perjorative - I am not even certain that I know what a "white" person is. I do know that I am constantly mistaken for one despite the fact that my ancestry, along with almost all non-converted Jews, goes to the Levant.

The fundamental point, of course, is that people do not get to pick-and-choose who it is acceptable to be racist towards. Either you oppose racism or you do not. If you claim that certain ethnicities, for historical and socio-economic reasons around power relations, are incapable of racism then - guess what? - you are being racist.

That is, you are holding some groups of people to different ethical standards based on their ethnic background.

Excuse me, but that is the very definition of racism.

Western-left identity politics is both racist and noxious because it indoctrinates young people into a political point of view which places individuals upon an ethnic and gendered Hierarchy of Victimhood wherein one's political significance, if not one's humanity, itself, depends upon where one falls within the hierarchy.

Contemporary left identity politics, therefore, in distinction from old-timey interest group politics, is the most prominent racist and illiberal political movement in the United States today.

It is what I call "identity politics overreach."

It is also one significant reason, among others, that Donald J. Trump happily sits in the Oval Office.


Antisemitic Anti-Zionism

This one, naturally, is my favorite.

One of the astonishing things about antisemitism is that, like an ideological virus, it has the ability to mutate according to the changing nature of its political environment. If in previous generations antisemitism was justified by notions such as the Jews killed Jesus or the Jews killed Mohammad or the Jews invented capitalism or the Jews invented socialism or the Jews represented an inferior and parasitic race, today we are to understand that the Jews are inhumane to the allegedly indigenous "Palestinian" population.

kIf you were to question your average U.S. Democrat they would likely agree that the historical persecution of the Jewish people was entirely unjustified. The western-left despises Nazism and racism and fascism, even as they unthinkingly embrace certain aspects of it. They would absolutely agree that the European persecution of the Jews was a great injustice in the past, even as they also embrace the western-left antisemitic anti-Zionism of the present.

Unfortunately, polling data also shows that a majority of self-identified "liberal Democrats" favor the Palestinians-Arabs over the Jews of Israel by a plurality of 40 percent over 33 percent.

In other words, in the imaginations of "liberal Democrats" - by which they actually mean "progressives" or, as some would say, the "regressive left" - every previous generation the Jews were innocent and did not deserve harassment or persecution... except for this one.

By some mysterious happenstance the Jewish people, today, both Israeli and diaspora, are, in fact, guilty. We were not in the past, but we are today.

Thus, who can really blame "Palestinians" if they perpetually seek to murder Jews in the very heartland of the tiny Jewish nation?

If the international community despises the Jewish State of Israel it is, therefore, because of the Jews, themselves, who generally insist upon supporting the allegedly racist, militaristic state of Israel. What this suggests, within the western-left mind, about the morality of diaspora Jewry which supports Israel is not very pretty.


Humanitarian Racism

In Manfred Gerstenfeld's introduction to Behind The Humanitarian Mask: The Nordic Countries, Israel, and the Jews, which is a scholarly compilation of articles published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, Gerstenfeld writes:
Behind the Nordic countries’ righteous appearance and oft-proclaimed concern for human rights often lurk darker attitudes. This volume’s main purpose is to lift their humanitarian mask as far as Israel and Jews are concerned. This disguise hides many ugly characteristics, including the financing of demonizers of Israel, a false morality, invented moral superiority, and “humanitarian racism.”
The condescension and imperial superiority of contemporary leftists toward those of non-European descent, with the exception of Jews, is unfathomable. The progressive-left, as a group, treats all non-Europeans, other than Jews, like little children in need of a pat on the head and a chocolate chip cookie.

It is, at least in my estimation, the current iteration of nineteenth-century western imperial notions of "white man's burden" and it takes the form of holding non-Europeans to the ethical standards of inferiors.

In this way, European historical guilt around issues of race trump feminism, and even regular human decency, in how much of the guilt-riddent "white" middle-class judge people who in an earlier generation they would have called "our little brown brothers."

Until the western-left moves beyond anti-white racism, antisemitic anti-Zionism, and humanitarian racism, it will remain riddled with hypocrisy and acting in cross-purposes toward its own supposed values.

It is very sad that over fifty years after Martin Luther King, Jr's famous I Have A Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. that the western-left has flung King's admonitions into the gutter.

The most important thing that King stood for was this:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!
Martin Luther King, Jr. stood for anti-racism.

The contemporary left does not.

31 comments:

  1. New Film Beautifully Showcases Jerusalem
    Archaeology to Rebut Historical Revisionism
    :

    by Johanna Markind, 2017/12/22


    www.algemeiner.com/2017/12/22/new-film-beautifully-showcases-jerusalem-archaeology-to-rebut-historical-revisionism/

    ==========================================
    NEW: Shmuley Boteach said:

    “The dispute [between Israel and Arabs] is not about land: it is historical, geographic, political, [and] psychological and, perhaps most importantly, religious.

    It is unacceptable to the Palestinians that Jews should rule over Muslims, or have a state on what they consider Islamic territory.”

    SOURCE: Jewish Organizations’ Disgraceful Rejection of Trump’s Jerusalem Recognition by Shmuley Boteach, 2017/12/13

    www.algemeiner.com/2017/12/13/jewish-organizations-disgraceful-rejection-of-trumps-jerusalem-recognition/

    ==========================================

    Classic pro-Israel short article by non-Jewish philosopher:

    http://factsandlogic.org/archive/outstanding_hoffer.html

    ==========================================

    Non-Jewish writer praises Jews and criticizes Muslims:

    All European Life Died In Auschwitz
    by Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez


    www.torahohr.net/Articles/SpanishPaper.pdf_1193932666.pdf

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "All European Life Died In Auschwitz
      by Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez"

      Is not true. I don't recall where it originated though.

      Delete
  2. Why do many nations attempt to take the Land of Israel, especially Jerusalem, away from Jews?

    The answers are found in the Jewish Bible, known as the Tanach in Hebrew and the “O.T.” (Only Testament) in English:

    [1] In the Biblical Book of Joshua (chapter 23, verses 12 to 13), G_d Himself warns that intermarriage with non-Jews will cause the Jews to fail in their attempt to conquer the Land of Israel.

    Even worse, G_d also warns that intermarriage with non-Jews will cause the Jews to be pushed-out-of the Land of Israel.

    [2] In the Biblical Book of Jeremiah (end of chapter 17), the prophet warn that Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem depends on Jews observing Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath.

    [3] The Biblical Book of Tehillim [Psalms in English] (chapter 105, last 2 verses) teaches that G_d gave the Land of Israel to Jews because He wants Jews to carefully obey His commandments [chukav].

    How intermarriage harms
    Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel
    :


    http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-joshua-chapter-23-verse-12.html

    How Shabbat-desecration harms
    Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem:


    https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/12/guest-post-jeremiah-chapter-17.html

    Simon and Garfunkel sung that:

    “The words of the prophets are written
    on the subway wall and tenement halls.”

    Now the words of the prophets are
    written on written on this blog!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just heard a report on Fox News that there are thinner Xmas crowds in the Holy Land this year due to Trump's Jerusalem announcement. Get that? It's not the threats of violence, but the recognition of Israel's capital. And Fox is supposed to be the right wing news outlet!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Or the fact that 30 years ago Bethlehem was 80% Christian and since then the PLO has driven most of them out so the Christians are about 5% of the population there.

      Delete
    2. Bethlehem was King David's native town. He must have been a Palestinian.

      Delete
    3. I was in Bethlehem on November 7th,with a Christian Arab, he gave me more positive figures than quoted, he gave me 40%. Another Israeli Christian Arab gave me similar figures in Nazareth where Christians are being offered money for their property they can't refuse.

      Delete
  4. Good news for space exploration addicts:

    http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2017/12/make-space-great-again.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews+%28from+NY+to+Israel+Sultan+Reveals+The+Stories+Behind+the+News%29

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Obama had reimagined NASA as an “Earth Improvement Agency” that would push Global Warming and Muslim self-esteem."

      Yes, and you can just imagine how happy they were in Houston!

      Delete
  5. It's not the whole left, Mike. And it's not just the left. Check out www dot unz dot com for some right-side ugly. And that's just one of many examples.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Randall, I understand that it is not the entire left and I expect virtually nothing from the right-wing, to begin with.

      I guess that I am just tired of the left constantly pointing the trembling finger of blame at the right when they are so accepting of the racism within their own midst.

      Delete
  6. Randall Kohn: If what you say is true, then:

    Can you name even ONE Leftist country in Europe [or anywhere else] which is solidly pro-Israel, and votes in favor of Israel in the United Nations Organization?

    Can you name even ONE Leftist newspaper which is strongly pro-Israel?

    RIDDLE: What do you call a Leftist who learns from mistakes?

    ANSWER: An EX-Leftist!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Comparing the right-wing, ala SPLC, as equal or worse than the left, is a tired, lazy argument offered to obscure the actual hate in their midst.

      Hard to find one (leftist) university that is solidly pro-Israel either.

      Delete
    2. ///////////////////////////////////////////////
      Czech Prez: Europe Is ‘Jeopardised by a Culture of Hatred Incompatible with Ours’, Israel a ‘Heroic Model for Us’
      .
      .
      .
      Miloš Zeman is a former leader of Czech Social Democratic Party and considered something of a left-wing populist, but has maintained a robust stance against mass immigration and multiculturalism throughout his time in office.
      .
      .
      .
      President Zeman, a strong supporter of Israel and one of the few European heads of state to back U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to officially recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — and blast “the cowardly European Union” for its decision to support “a pro-Palestinian terrorist movement” instead — said he would be urging incoming prime minister Andrej Babiš to follow the U.S. premier’s lead by moving the Czech embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

      Zeman has also been a strong supporter of the Czech parliament’s moves to introduce a kind of Second Amendment for its citizens — in the teeth of fierce opposition from the EU establishment — noting that “the level of international crime is growing because of Islamic terrorism” in a speech to the intergovernmental Council of Europe.
      .
      .
      .
      President Zeman has been a fierce critic of the European Union’s institutional stance on mass migration, describing the migrant crisis as “an organised invasion and not a spontaneous movement of refugees”.
      ///////////////////////////////////////////////

      Delete
    3. Oldschool, no one here called the right "equal or worse than the left." And there's nothing lazy or tired about telling the truth.

      Delete
    4. What is old and tired is the comparison. Said nothing about the truth. Why even make the comparison, especially absent the context that the right wing numbers are a fraction of what is on the left wing. That is truth! Mr. Cohen provided the context with respect to the faulty comparison. Can you answer him?

      Delete
    5. Didn't make comparisons. I just stated the obvious. And as for who outnumbers whom, no one really is in position to have a good idea - not even Mr. Cohen.

      Beside, there is no left. All sides of the spectrum have sold out to big corporations. There's no ideology goin' on, just power and money

      Delete
    6. Simply bringing up that there is also antisemitism on the right is surely a comparison.

      Answer Cohen's questions then. His point is much more persuasive than pointing a finger at the handful of neo-Nazis standing on the corner.

      Ahh, the corporate bogeyman. What do you prefer? So antisemitism on the left is corporate policy?

      To say there is no leftist ideology is laughable.

      Delete
  7. Put it to you this way. Thank God Israel came into being when it did because if they tried 20 years later let alone today it wouldn't happen

    ReplyDelete
  8. The progressive-left is crawling with racist anti-racists. Were it not so tragic it would be pretty hysterical.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hey look at this- French Tax Ministry has a department that just investigates Jews.

    http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-secret-french-tax-department-for-jews-immigrants-to-israel-1001217455

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. “On March 7 [of 1936 CE] he [Adolph Hitler] ordered
      troops to march into the Rhineland and occupy it.

      Surprisingly, French military forces did not retaliate.

      Hitler had taken possession of the region without firing a single shot.”

      SOURCE: Mein Kampf: Hitler’s Blueprint for Aryan Supremacy (page 69) by Duane Damon, year 2003 CE, Lucent Books, Michigan, ISBN10: 1560068000 www.gale.com

      Delete
    2. A ban on renting apartments to Jews on France’s Cote d’Azur reportedly has not been changed since it was enacted under the World War II-era Vichy government.

      The law requires that applicants for certain apartments attest that they are:

      “French, non-Jews, and not married to a Jew, in the legal sense currently in effect.”

      The newspaper Nice-Matin, which discovered the law, reported that Jews who wish to buy an apartment in Nice must pay an extra $1,000 to $10,000 in notary fees to get around these articles, and that such arrangements are probably in effect in other towns in France as well.

      SOURCE:
      The Jewish Herald, 2007 March 9, article on page 8, The Jewish Herald, 1689 48th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11204, www.jewishherald.com

      Delete
    3. French more accepting of infidelity than people in other countries
      (article for Pew Research by Richard Wike 2014/1/14):


      Only 47% of French people agreed that marital infidelity is unacceptable.

      This percentage was the lower than all other nations studied.

      SOURCE: www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/french-more-accepting-of-infidelity-than-people-in-other-countries/

      Delete
    4. “Like many Americans with dreams of Paris who confront Paris, they have found that they are living in a grouchy, heavily over-administered country, where everyone is socialized to be negative in the first instance, and where the small details of life are made as wrenchingly difficult as possible…”

      SOURCE: The View from a Bridge
      by Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker magazine, 2014 December 8, page 45

      Delete
    5. ===================================
      How French Police Handle Anti-Jewish Attacks
      ===================================

      Judge after judge told him [Sammy Ghozlan,
      a 72-year-old retired Paris police commissioner]:

      “There is no anti-Semitism charge applicable unless someone dies.”

      SOURCE:
      New Dangers for the Jews of Paris by Marie Brenner,
      Vanity Fair magazine, August 2015, page 114

      ===================================
      France's Relentless Hostility to the Jewish State :
      www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7442/france-hostility-israel
      ===================================
      In France, Anti-Semitism Is a Hatred That Cannot Be Named:
      https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2017/07/in-france-anti-semitism-is-a-hatred-that-cannot-be-named/
      ===================================
      http://5tjt.com/french-ambassador-to-us-outrages-jewish-expats-over-post-paris-attack-message/

      www.algemeiner.com/2016/07/17/french-antisemitism-can-no-longer-be-hidden/

      Delete
  10. Rabbi Yisroel Reisman [an Orthodox Rabbi] spoke out against those Jews who plan their vacations for locations like:
    Switzerland, FRANCE or Italy where the people hate Jews.

    [He said:] "It would be better to visit the Land of Israel to benefit from its holiness and help our brothers economically."

    SOURCE: Flatbush Jewish Journal, 2010/6/17, page 32

    ReplyDelete
  11. A good article of interest:

    http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/252293/josh-meyer-gets-an-echo-chamber-beat-down

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So, it's about Obama's political alliance with Hezbollah in pursuit of the Iran Deal.

      What slays me is that there are still so many diaspora Jews who think that Obama was a good president.

      He wasn't.

      Certainly he was not in terms of Israel and the Middle East.

      At the end of the day, Obama believed that the reason Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East, and elsewhere, seek to murder Jews is because the Jews have it coming for being mean to the "Palestinians."

      Well, I think that it may be time to become extra-special mean to Hamas.

      Given that this is my own blog, I will put it in blunt terms.

      Israel should wipe those motherfuckers from the face of the planet.

      Delete
  12. It's an obvious claim that used to be quite out in the open.

    ReplyDelete