Siding With The Oppressor

Mike L.

The One Law for All Campaign (pdf) was launched on 10 December 2008, International Human Rights Day, to call on the UK Government to recognise that Sharia and religious courts are arbitrary and discriminatory against women and children in particular and that citizenship and human rights are non-negotiable. The Campaign aims to end Sharia and all religious courts on the basis that they work against, and not for, equality and human rights.

For further information contact: One Law for All BM Box 2387 London WC1N 3XX, UK onelawforall@gmail.com www.onelawforall.org.uk

This organization is new to me, but English politics is hardly my strong suit.

They have put out a 62 page pamphlet entitled Siding With the Oppressor: The Pro-Islamist Left. (pdf)

Here is the one page introduction:

Siding with the Oppressor: The Pro-Islamist Left has been written as a companion volume to Enemies not Allies: The Far-Right to highlight some of the individuals and groups on the Left that defend Islamism.

Whilst this report focuses on the most conspicuous examples of the proIslamist Left in Britain – namely Stop the War Coalition, Respect Party, Unite Against Fascism and individuals such as Ken Livingstone and George Galloway – inferences and implications will assist the reader when scrutinising other organisations of a similar nature.

This damning report exposes their agenda and methods, including the use of accusations of racism and Islamophobia and their conflation of Muslim with Islamist in order to defend Islamism (which they see as anti-imperialist force) and Islam (which they view as an oppressed religion) rather than out of any real concern for prejudice against Muslims or the rights of ‘Muslims’ who are incidentally the first victims of Islamism. Challenging this perspective is especially important given its wide acceptance as ‘progressive’ in mainstream society.

Like the far-Right which ‘despises’ multiculturalism yet benefits from its idea of difference to scapegoat the ‘other’ and promote its own form of white identity politics, the pro-Islamist Left also uses multiculturalism to side with the oppressor by viewing the ‘Muslim community’ and ‘Muslim world’ as homogeneous entities thereby ignoring and silencing dissenters. This politics of betrayal sides with the Islamic far-Right and the oppressor.

Any principled point of view must oppose all forms of fascism, including Islamic fascism and side with the countless people, many of whom are Muslim, who are fighting and challenging Islamism here in Europe as well as the Middle East, North Africa and across the world.

I have actually yet to read this pamphlet, which I just now became aware of, but it certainly looks interesting and I very much intend to do so within the coming days.

I just want to give you guys a heads-up because this looks like exceedingly pertinent work.  The point is, of course, that the progressive-left as a movement, when it is not ignoring the rise of political Islam entirely, tends to side with it as we see in the case of someone like George Galloway.

I say this, as any regular reader here would know, not as a right-wing critic of the left, but as a liberal critic of the progressive movement.

{A hearty Tip 'O the Kippa to James Bloodworth of The Independent.}

Say Hello to David Werdiger

Mike L.

I received a very welcome heads-up from our friend Shirl in Oz pointing to this article by Mr. Werdiger entitled Lies, Damned Lies, and Body Counts, published in the Times of Israel.

I would publish it here, but I generally make it a habit not to publish other people's work without permission.  Every so often I will publish a piece by the FresnoZionist, but he gave me general permission to do so a few years ago.

In any case, the above link goes to a very good article that I would recommend for you guys and many thanks to Shirl for pointing it out.

Here is a brief excerpt:

What’s with the media’s bizarre obsession with body counts as a cruel metric of an awful conflict? Perhaps the reporters are spending too much time on rotation for the sports pages where everything comes down to numbers?

Man United 2 – Liverpool 1

Miami Heat 103 – Chicago Bulls 94

Israel 6 – Palestinians 161

The most complex battles are reduced to numbers: 1500 Israeli strikes vs 1400 Palestinian missiles. Operation Cast Lead is summarized not by its purpose, rather described as an operation “in which 1400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died”. And so on, and so forth. A complex battle in a long war, reduced to a pithy scoreline: projectile vs projectile, life vs life.

General Choomin: Anti-Zionist

Mike L.

Every once in awhile it is not a bad idea to try to actually engage the enemies of the Jewish people in discussion so that others can see who they are.  I have decided to open Israel Thrives to such an engagement with the person who goes under the moniker "General Choomin."

The question that I have asked General Choomin is the following:

Given the fact that Jewish people are among the most persecuted people within recorded history - and given the fact that Jews suffered under the boot of Arab-Muslim imperialism as slaves and dhimmis for thirteen centuries - do you believe that we should be allowed a state on our historical homeland?

Oldschooltwentysix adds the following questions:

If you identify as anti-Zionist, what is the basis for such identification? In other words, how do you define Zionism? Do you believe that Zionism is racism?

If you deny Jewish external self-determination as established internationally by Israel, do you similarly deny it in any other case?

Do you dispute the legitimacy of the San Remo Convention and League of Nations concerning Palestine?

Now, I have called General Choomin an anti-Semitic anti-Zionist and he has objected to what he terms "scurrilous accusations."  The word "scurrilous," of course, means, "Making or spreading scandalous claims about someone with the intention of damaging their reputation: 'a scurrilous attack'."

Having been the target of scurrilous accusations, myself, I can certainly understand why anyone would object, but the question is whether or not the accusations are true?  I have said that General Choomin is an "anti-Semitic anti-Zionist." I would suggest that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic on its face, as I wrote in this 2008 essay for My Left Wing entitled, Is Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitic?, because it denies to the Jewish people - and only the Jewish people - what it freely accepts for everyone else, i.e., self-determination and self-defense.

It is clearly bigoted against Jews to suggest that after 2,000 years of persecutions and pogroms and expulsions, all leading to that rockin' good time that we had in the middle of the twentieth century in Germany and Poland and the Middle East, that Jews have no rights to a secure homeland on Jewish soil.  That much should be entirely obvious to any fair-minded person, yet General Choomin says this in is his Daily Kos profile:

Zionism doesn't equal racism. It surpasses it since it is a fascist idealogy. It's a idea that promotes perpetual hatred towards the other from within and from without. Zionisms goal was to make the anti-semite it's best friend to create a state. Thus it continues to do so with terror against leftists or other Semites.

I will not expect General Choomin to answer my question, above, because he has already answered it and his answer is "no."   General Choomin claims that not only was the movement for Jewish self-determination and self-defense racist, but fascist, as well.  This makes pretty much the entirety of world Jewry "racist" and "fascist" for seeking to defend ourselves against both racism and fascism.

{How's that for a kick in the head?}

In other words, when the Jews of Germany and the Jews of the Pale of Settlement and the Jews throughout the Middle East, sought to end their own oppression through migration to the Land of Israel, they were "racist" and "fascist" for wanting to do so in the imagination of anti-Semitic anti-Zionists like General Choomin.

It's a hateful, perverse, and sick view, but it is the view that General Choomin holds and the reason that he holds it is because of decades of Arab and Soviet propaganda that told the world that "Zionism is racism."

One of the difficulties in running a highly contentious political blog such as this one is whether or not to ban people who hold outrageously toxic views.  In the United States someone who holds an outrageously toxic view might, for example, be opposed to fair and equal treatment of women in the workplace.  Such a view would be considered entirely unacceptable - left, right, and center - within the American polity.  But, at worst, such a view, if adopted, would mean discrimination against women in the workplace.

What we are talking about, on the other hand, is the outright genocide of the Jewish people and, apparently, the outright genocide of the Jewish people within living memory fazes General Choomin not at all.  As a "progressive" he simply doesn't care.  And what's worse is that he claims that the very movement to save the Jews from persecution is, in and of itself, racist and fascist.  This would be something akin to a liberal claiming that the movement for black liberation in the United States was racist and fascist.

In other words, the efforts of our families to save themselves from persecution and murder was, according to General Choomin, immoral.

Note, of course, that General Choomin conceives of himself as a man of the left, which explains his presence on Daily Kos.  The current movement against the Jewish people - anti-Semitic anti-Zionism / BDS - is primarily a movement on the left.  It is on the international left where, Islamism aside, the greatest enemies of the Jewish people are to be found in today's political landscape.

I will permit General Choomin to participate here despite the fact that it goes against my general policy of not providing a platform for anti-Semitic anti-Zionists because I do not believe for one second that he can mount a fair argument as to why it is that the Jews do not deserve self-determination and self-defense.  My assumption, if he cares to argue the point, is that he will suggest that the Jews in the Middle East, in 1948, ethnically cleansed the local Arabs from their lands and have oppressed them ever since.

That, in its most concise form, is the general argument against the movement for justice for the Jewish people.  The truth, of course, as General Choomin may or may not know, is that the Jewish people of the Middle East suffered under the boot of Arab-Muslim imperialism for thirteen centuries before we regained our freedom with the fall of the Ottoman Empire.  After we regained our freedom - with the help of a little something that I like to refer to as World War I - the Arab world immediately launched a war against us that continues to this very day.

The Jews of the Middle East remain a people under siege, but have done a remarkable job in building a thriving and democratic society under conditions of persecution and violence.

I am very sorry that Jewish success in the Middle East displeases the General Choomins of the world, but I think that we can learn to live with it.

We have no choice, now do we?

A Question for General Choomin

Mike L.

The person who goes under the moniker "General Choomin" was booted off Daily Kos apparently for racism toward Jews.  Although I was a Daily Kos regular for a number of years, I do not actually recall him.  I know that he has a reputation for harassing Jewish people and supporters of Israel and I know that he has come on to this site for the purpose of doing so, but I have nonetheless decided to give this gentleman a second chance.

A fresh start, as it were.

But if General Choomin - who is apparently an anti-Semitic anti-Zionist - wants to participate here, then he needs to answer the following question:

Given the fact that Jewish people are among the most persecuted people within recorded history - and given the fact that Jews suffered under the boot of Arab-Muslim imperialism as slaves and dhimmis for thirteen centuries - do you believe that we should be allowed a state on our historical homeland?

Anyone who knows this blog with any degree of actual familiarity knows that my father's side of the family was slaughtered by the Nazis in the Ukraine during Operation Barbarossa during World War II.  They were not soldiers.  They were merchants and farmers and they were lined up and shot dead, along with about 3,000 other Jews in the town of Medzhybizh for no other reason than that they happened to be Jewish.

So I want General Choomin to answer the question above.

My immediate family was saved because my grandfather had the foresight to seek residency in the United States during the early 1920s, but it is only Israel that is devoted to securing the freedom and security and developing culture of the Jewish people.

I therefore invite General Choomin for a chat.

My only requirement is that he be respectful and not indulge in anti-Zionist hate speech.

Egypt is a Holy Mess

Mike L.

{Cross-posted at the Times of Israel.}

The snippets below were originally written and published by Reuters and the Jerusalem Post staff:

Youths hurl firebombs and rocks while storming building; 16 dead, nearly 800 hurt since anti-Morsi protests began; president refuses to bow to pressure for his resignation. 

Four Egyptian ministers resigned from the government on Monday, a cabinet official said, a day after protesters poured onto streets to demand President Mohamed Morsi resign.

"Four ministers presented their resignations today," said the official, who asked not to be named. He gave no reason but the state news agency had earlier said the ministers were considering resigning in sympathy with the protesters...

Egypt is a holy mess.  It's a wreck.

By all accounts they have enough financial resources to last them until a quarter past next Tuesday.  What bothers me most, however, is that the United States could have thrown its weight behind the secular reformers, thus potentially avoiding this catastrophe, but did not.  Instead the Obama administration backed the anti-American, misogynistic, brutally homophobic, and genocidally anti-Semitic Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that is unapologetically associated with the Nazis and, yet, still supported by the American administration.

How it is that the Obama administration decided to back the very worst actors on the world scene today remains a mystery.

How it is that the mainstream media closed their eyes to the story is perhaps less of a mystery.  We all wanted Obama to succeed.  Certainly I did and quite obviously they did.  But he hasn't and for so much of the media to just turn away their eyes is disgraceful and a disservice to the American people, not to mention the world community.  It also explains why so many American Jews would support an American president that supports political Islam.  They didn't quite get it, because the American media refused to discuss it, because we all wanted Obama to succeed even as his foreign policy had all the sophistication of thirteen year old boys playing RISK.

By far the bloodiest incident of Sunday's mammoth and mostly peaceful protests against the Brotherhood and President Mohamed Morsi, it began after dark and continued for hours, with guards inside firing on youths hurling fire bombs and rocks.

The "mostly peaceful" hurling of fire bombs!

Another thing that we need to consider is just why it is that the western progressive-left, in general, hailed the so-called "Arab Spring" as a good thing - as the great upwelling of Arab democracy - when actually it was the rise of political Islam.  I suppose it was understandable why they were so foolish at the time - because they were hopeful and optimistic - but what I cannot quite understand is why they absolutely refuse to admit it to, now?

Is it simply a matter of saving face?

For months I sat in the Commonwealth Club's Middle East Forum and listened to people sing the praises of these Facebook youths - or whatever - who were engaged in a righteous, democratic battle for freedom and liberty, but that was all a lie and, yet, the western left still will not admit that they were backing a political movement that is fascistic in nature.

And now we are seeing a secular backlash against that fascist movement.  Obama supported the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood is an anti-American fascist organization and now huge numbers of Egyptians are rising up to say "NO."

The last time that Secretary of State Clinton was in Cairo they threw shoes at her motorcade.

Has that fact gotten through the skulls of the American left?

I doubt it.

Letter From Israel

  elinor        אלינור   

                                                                                                                        

Leaving Home

When I finally decided to cut my ties in the USA and make aliyah, I went through stuff that current immigrants don’t ever have to do.  From what I understand, they are handed their teudat zehut—their Israeli ID cards—and indications as to where to live, whom to contact, how to reach the various Ministries, banks, health funds and so on before they even reach Israel.  It was not thus at the end of the 80s.  It was tough. (Apologies to those who came before me.  You had it worse, by and large, but I can only speak from my experience.)

The first challenge was to get myself to the nearest Israeli consulate so that someone could assess whether or not I was aliyah material.  My daughter assured me that if I were alive, Jewish and breathing, I’d qualify.  Not so easy, pardner.  When I finally located the right office, I was hot, weary of the heavy traffic and anxious about the parking space I had found, which was not clearly marked YES, YOU CAN DEFINITELY PARK HERE.

The man who was to interview me introduced himself as Col. Blahblah Levy.  He was not wearing a uniform, or a kippa.  I mistakenly took that as a good sign, which turned to instant dismay when he began to question me closely on my connection to my ‘religious community’.  I didn’t have one, I couldn’t fake one and I was beginning to panic.  I prayed for the appearance of my daughter, who said she’d meet me there.

After many, many long minutes of my fumbling and flunking answers, my dear daughter opened the door.  Shaaalom! she sang, and Col. Levy levitated.  Who is this chavera?  My daughter.  And she speaks Hebrew?  (As in: How could the child of one so Jewishly ignorant be so…Israeli?)  Yes she does, and she did.  In excellent Hebrew she explained that ‘our rabbi’ was the senior rabbi of the biggest synagogue back in Montreal; that my whole entire family attended that synagogue regularly and perhaps even that I was confirmed there with the requisite choir of angels.  I didn’t understand a thing except the Colonel’s face, which was beatific.  When she told him she had already made aliyah, I thought he was going to faint with pleasure. 

The truth was that the rabbi’s daughter and mine were friends, had attended some classes together at university and shared an interest in Yiddish, taught there for the first time as an academic course.  And yes, her father was the senior rabbi. Not exactly the whole truth but very near it.  You could even say close.

I passed with any colours you’d care to name.  I left my passport with the secretary who was to take care of the necessary visa and other information; she promised to have it back to me by mail, along with my free airline ticket, within a few days.

You know what happened, don’t you.  The ticket arrived; the passport didn’t.  And no one could find it, not the Consulate, not the Post Office and not my postperson, who was very concerned.  I had to travel again to the Big Heat to acquire a laisser passer with a visa in it; return to my flat, get my baggage, travel back the next day to the airport and fly to New York City.  Also, I missed having the company of others who were making aliyah on the flight I was supposed to take; I had to travel alone, by myself, at night—oh, get over it, you’re a grownup. 

Arriving at JFK in the early morning, I dragged my gigantic suitcase (no wheels) with much of my worldly goods—you could do that, in those days—into the designated El Al waiting room.  Never in my life have I seen such a room.  It could have passed for Monaco, but it was completely, totally, resoundingly empty.  Just me and my suitcase, and hours and hours to wait.  At least I had two good books in my handbag and with not a single chair in the room, my case to sit on.  There have been worse situations:  Guantanamo, for example.

Heavily into Book #1 and freezing from the excessively enthusiastic air conditioning, I didn’t notice the couple coming into the barn until they Hallooooo’d me across the space.  Are you travelling to Israel? he hooted.  Yes I am!  Wonderful—is there anywhere to sit down?  Not in this barn, what time is it?  Almost four.  I had been turning pages with not much attention to content but endlessly assessing, instead, the likelihood that I was completely  crazy.  What I was doing gave new meaning to the expression ‘change of life’.  

They approached me; I struggled my case toward them and we soon made a tiny knot of warmth in the middle of the freezer we were in.  When they found out that I’d been there for hours, the Mrs told the Mr to go out and find some hot coffee for this poor woman before she ends her journey right here.  Obligingly, he did just that.  I am still grateful.

After my teeth stopped clattering I introduced myself, as did they.  Your family name is the same as that of my late aunt’s former husband I said, making the opening move in the grand game of International Jewish Geography.  Really, what was his first name?  Dave, I said, drawing on a memory that might have preceded my fifth birthday.  OH MY GOD, he said, That’s my uncle David!  Was your aunt named Dora?  Yes she was.  Never let it be said that playing IJG is a waste of time.  Is he still alive?  Yes, he’s in his 90s.  Oh dear, there was still a chance that he was someone else’s rotten lousy husband, but definitely not my concern.  He wouldn’t live forever.

As often happens, when others filled the room and the flight was called, I parted from my almost-used-to-be relatives and never saw them again.

When I arrived in Israel in the middle of the night, I was taken to a small empty room, overheated variety.  Nice change from JFK but feeling mighty like the KGB would soon arrive.  I waited awhile until a young woman came in with a big smile.  I kicked my new Israeli IQ into gear and established for myself, from the evidence of her modest clothing—much too warm for August—and her hair covering, that she was religiously observant.  Answering questions in the middle of the night was uphill, but it was OK until she realised my birth date was Tisha b’Av, one of the holiest and most tragic days in the Jewish calendar.  She actually physically recoiled from me and I covered my mouth against my looming laughter.  Madam, I said, there are only 365 days in the year and people are born on Tisha b’Av just as on any other day.  I’m sure you’re right, she muttered, accelerating her stamping and paper shuffling and ‘sign here and here and here’—moving me out of there ASAP.

I took a sherut—a community taxi—from the airport to my daughter’s flat in Jerusalem.  Unloading in front of her apartment building I heard a young mother call to a very small child who was crying fiercely: DIE, MOMMY.  Holy cow, what on earth is that?  Well, it was Hebrew for Enough, sweet child. 

Did I have a lot to learn.

cross posted Geoffff's Joint