If you keep getting robbed and ass raped, it makes sense to pretend you are too ethically superior to retaliate against those who harm you. Previously, while God was alive, there was this notion that God would avenge any injury done to his chosen people in ways that would beggar the imagination of the Marquis de Sade. Sadly, others might decide the chosen had killed God and must suffer accordingly. For this reason it might be safer to keep gassing on about your ethical responsibilities and how you are really worried about the last guy who ass raped you. The fact is, he forgot to take your wallet. Surely, you have an obligation to track him down and hand it to him? But, he might feel you are guilting him into butt fucking you once again- which really isn't the case. Ethics is...wicked hard!
What isn't hard is denouncing those who say nasty things about stuff you are in to. The thing is perfectly normal. Kenan Malik, however, thinks it very perverted indeed and probably involves two or more of History's orifices. He writes in the Guardian-
Denouncing critics of Israel as ‘un-Jews’ or antisemites is a perversion of history
Israel is a Jewish state. It is perfectly normal for Jews to express support or loyalty to it and to say that those Jews who attack it are not real Jews or are 'self-hating' Jews or shitty little virtue signalling shitheads or needle-dick Nazi cunts etc.
The story of Jewish suffering means there is a moral necessity to fight oppression everywhere
In which case the history of Muslim suffering means that it is morally necessary for Kenan- who is of Muslim heritage- to go fight Pakistan because it is oppressing kaffirs.
William Zuckerman was born in 1885 in the Pale of Settlement, that part of the Russian empire to which Jews were largely confined, a place of poverty and pogroms. His family managed to escape, emigrating to America in 1900.
They needed to escape only because they were Jews.
During the First World War, Zuckerman returned to Europe to work with a charity aiding American Jewish soldiers. Later, he settled in London, establishing the European bureau of Der Morgen zshurnal, an influential American Yiddish newspaper.
It was conservative and backed the Republican party. At the time, there were two streams within the affluent 'Reform' community. One stuck with the 1885 declaration according to which Jews were a religious group, not a nationality. Integration was their ideal. Another became pro-Zionist and accepted that, in Palestine, but not elsewhere, Jews were a nationality. In other words. an American Jew is just an American who may or may not attend a synagogue. But, Jews in Palestine, are Jewish by nationality even if they are atheists.
In 1948, having returned to America, he founded the Jewish Newsletter, just as the new state of Israel was born. Zuckerman’s columns were syndicated in dozens of Jewish newspapers and he became the New York correspondent of the British Jewish Chronicle.
I should explain, in the inter-war period Zuckerman & the Chronicle were, on balance, pro-Zionist and accepted that Jews in Palestine were a separate nationality. The Chronicle was initially opposed by the Jewish Guardian- published by aristocratic Jews whose 'League of British Jews' supported Jewish settlement in Palestine not so that a Jewish State could be established there but in the hope that East European Ashkenazi Zionists should turn into a loyal foot-soldier of the British Empire. The Great Depression put an end to this type of Imperialist thinking. The colonies would have to find some way to pay for themselves otherwise they would be granted independence whether or not they were economically viable or politically cohesive.
Zuckerman might have been embraced by the Jewish establishment
he was embraced by the American Council for Judaism which was set up in 1942 to oppose 'segregated' service for Jewish soldiers recruited in Palestine. I should explain that the most influential Jewish organizations, at least amongst the affluent and well educated were either anti Zionist or neutral on the issue. Thus, the American Jewish Committee was anti-Zionist until 1918, when it shifted to a neutral position until the 1967 Six-Day War. Similarly, the Central Conference of American Rabbis of the Reform movement declared itself officially neutral in 1937. One reason for this was that few believed the Zionists had the military capacity to protect themselves.
Zuckerman attracted the attention of the ACJ because in his reportage on the Warsaw uprising, he emphasized the Polish Jew's determination to stay and fight in Poland rather than escape to Palestine. In 1944, the ACJ protested against the formation of the 'Jewish Brigade' which, was so diabolically evil, it prevented nice Arab peeps from slitting hundreds of thousands of Jewish throats in 1948. I guess this is why Kenan Malik is getting so worked up about Zuckerman. Why does he neglect to mention the great Suckerman who insisted that Jews should chop off their own heads rather than selfishly saddle anti-Semites with that onerous responsibility? I suppose the answer is that Suckerman was gay. Many Muslim men are secretly homophobic even if their husbands are terribly queer.
as a model public figure but for one problem. He was critical of the policies of the newly created Jewish state, especially towards Palestinian refugees, hundreds of thousands of whom had fled or been driven out and were now barred from returning.
This is foolish. Rabbi Judah Magnes- one of the founders of the Hebrew University- was a much more eminent man. He was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and had been a pacifist during the Great War. Though a wealthy man, he was an admirer of the Bolsheviks and an effective ambassador to the Jewish Socialists of the Bund. He emerged as a leading proponent of the bi-national solution. More reprehensibly, he tried to get the US to apply economic sanctions to Israel as it fought for its life. Then, after the Hadassah medical convoy massacre, he backed down. He died soon after, with the cry 'traitor!' ringing in his ears. Yet he confessed to his son, he was glad Israel had been created. He had only opposed it because it did not seem feasible. Still, the fact remains, he resigned from the Jewish Relief committee because it wouldn't help Palestinians as well as Jews.
Einstein speaks thus of him with reference to the Hebrew University-
The bad thing about the business was that the good Felix Warburg, thanks to his financial authority ensured that the incapable Magnes was made director of the Institute, a failed American rabbi, who, through his dilettantish enterprises had become uncomfortable to his family in America, who very much hoped to dispatch him honorably to some exotic place. This ambitious and weak person surrounded himself with other morally inferior men, who did not allow any decent person to succeed there ... These people managed to poison the atmosphere there totally and to keep the level of the institution low
Something similar could be said of some of the other wealthy luminaries of the ACJ. Like the British Jewish aristocrat who thought all Jews should become devoted subjects of the King Emperor, the ACJ thought all Jews should follow the lead of the affluent Reform Jews of America for the greater glory of Uncle Sam. The ACJ's anti-Zionism cost it support and by the time it started advocating shifting the Sabbath to Sunday, it had lost any credibility whatsoever. Still, it wasn't till Israel won the Yom Kippur War that Zionism was embraced wholeheartedly by the American Jewish upper crust.
“The land now called Israel,” Zuckerman wrote,
he died a few years before the 6 day War.
“belongs to the Arab refugees no less than to any Israeli.”
That was Eisenhower's position. Ike pulled the rug from under the Anglo-French-Israeli Suez campaign. Americans suspected that France and Israel were working together to get the nuclear bomb. However, at this stage, no American General was thinking in terms of a bi-state solution. As the Brits had found, the Palestinians were not a politically cohesive or economically viable community.
Zuckerman’s advocacy for Palestinian refugees alarmed Israeli diplomats who successfully organised a behind-the-scenes campaign to prevent his work from being published in the Jewish press.
The ACJ was indeed doing a lot of damage to the Zionist cause in Washington back in the Fifties. Zuckerman was a good journalist but, to be frank, nobody greatly cared about displaced A-rabs. There were millions of Europeans who had things much worse.
“To have induced the Jewish Chronicle to dispense with the services of Mr Zuckerman is to have performed a real mitzvah,” rejoiced one official.
The Brits, like the French, were secretly working with the Israelis. Obviously, the British Jewish Chronicle could be pressured to drop Zuckerman so as to please the Tory establishment. Prime Minister Eden needed Israel's help to defeat Nasser and get back the Suez canal. But this involved the Israeli takeover of Gaza and Sinai.
The story of Zuckerman and his erasure
he dropped dead
is one of many told by Geoffrey Levin in his new book Our Palestine Question, on the forgotten history of Jewish dissent in America in the decades following the founding of Israel.
We aren't going to see any Muslim author writing a similar book about the slaughter of kaffirs in his country. On the other hand, Armenians have plenty of cash- right? Maybe, if I could pass myself off as a Turk, I could get some Kardashian cash by writing a book on the forgotten history of Muslims deploring the killing of dem big ass kaffirs.
It is one of several accounts that will be published this year exploring the history of American Jewish opposition to Zionism and support for the Palestinian cause.
That opposition was eye-wash. Initially, it was thought the Israelis would be slaughtered. Then it was feared that they would drag the US into a costly war. American Jews, like Jews elsewhere, put their country first. After '67, the majority realized you could be both 'America first' and 'Israel first'. Then came 9/11, when the Israelis watched gleefully as America killed 1.3 million Muslims and caused the displacement of tens of millions more. No doubt, in five years time- i.e. after Gaza has attained the peace of the grave- some Israeli asshole will be able to publish a book about Israeli dissenters who opposed NATO's second round of 'forever wars' against militant Islam.
These studies provide an essential backstory to one of the keenest debates today within Jewish communities: how to respond to the murderous Hamas attack on 7 October and to Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza.
There is no fucking debate. Israel is responding as best it can. It will probably continue to get arms and ammunition with or without a debate in Congress or the Senate.
For many Jews, the existential threat posed by Hamas gives Israel the right to take any measures necessary to eliminate the organisation.
Israel can only take the measures for which it has the means at its disposal. If it gets weaker, it can use ghastlier tactics. If it gets stronger, it can be more selective. But this is a matter of money and technology.
For others, whatever the horrors of the Hamas attack, the destruction of Gaza, the deaths of more than 25,000 people and the displacement of almost the entire population is unconscionable and cuts against the grain of Jewish ethical traditions.
Rabbi Magnes opposed the Great War- which is more than Mahatma Gandhi did. But then so did Bertrand Russell and various Quaker and other such nutters. Still, the fact is what Israel is doing is certainly in conformity with the Islamic ethical tradition- not to mention that of NATO- and consists of fucking up those who try to fuck with it- if there is a chance of doing so successfully.
This cleavage has led to fractious debates over what it is to be Jewish and the meaning of antisemitism.
There has been no debate. People who shout about this kind of thing are just shouting a bit louder.
In the US, both themes are visible in the fallout from the Claudine Gay debacle at Harvard University.
Gay was African American. Since some African American now express highly anti-Semitic views, her testimony could have been helpful. She fucked up.
Gay, as Harvard president, gave a calamitous performance in December at a congressional committee on antisemitism. She was subsequently forced to resign, after critics discovered plagiarism in her scholarly work.
Ivy League, for easily understandable reasons, would prefer to have charming, well-built, African American students- more particularly if they are as thick as shit and thus can be tutored in Grievance Studies- rather than bespectacled East Asians with peculiar accents.
In the wake of Gay’s resignation, and criticism of Harvard for failing its Jewish students, a taskforce into antisemitism was established, to be chaired by Derek Penslar, director of the university’s Center for Jewish Studies, and one of the most distinguished historians of Judaism.
Why is it wrong for Harvard to appoint a shitty taskforce to accomplish shit? Isn't that what Harvard alumni are supposed to do once they attain high office?
For many, though, Penslar is, as Zuckerman was to a previous generation, the wrong kind of Jew, too critical of Israel and insufficiently hostile to anti-Zionism.
The man is crazy. He says of Herzl- ' Zionism became a means by which he could expose his genitals—that is, his circumcised penis—by proclaiming attachment to the people who bore that mark, and who, thanks to Zionism, would do so with pride and dignity''. The problem here is that Muslims too are circumcised. It is not really the case that Herzl and Husseini were constantly exposing their dicks to each other.
Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who had chaired the committee that grilled Gay, denounced “his despicable antisemitic views”.
To be fair, he probably thinks her pretty fucking despicable.
Jonathan Greenblatt, of the Anti-Defamation League, accused him of “libel[ing] the Jewish state”.
If that's what gets you tenure, what else are you supposed to do?
Bill Ackman, the hedge fund manager who led the initial campaign against Gay, warned of Harvard continuing “on the path of darkness”.
but without actual darkies, otherwise the Asians will sue the pants off you.
In 2021, an essay in the Jewish magazine Tablet labelled Jews too critical of Israel or Zionism as “un-Jews”. Three years on, it is a description that seems to have found greater resonance.
We also now have un-feminists who think gangrape is cool provided it is done to Jews or people who look like they might be Jews or who are Muslims but hold Israeli citizenship.
Perhaps in no country is official ostracism of “un-Jews” more entrenched than in Germany. “To be a leftwing Jew in today’s Germany is to live in a state of permanent cognitive dissonance,” says Susan Neiman, a Jewish American philosopher and director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam for the past quarter of a century.
The AfD will come to power soon enough and Susie will have something worse than cognitive dissonance to worry about.
“German politicians and media talk incessantly about protecting Jews from antisemitism,”
not to mention German madchens from gang-rape.
but many who “criticise the Israeli government and the war on Gaza have been cancelled and certainly attacked. I’m an Israeli citizen and I’ve been accused of being a Hamas supporter, and even a Nazi, in mainstream media. Need I add that I am neither?”
Yes. Also say gang-rape aint cool.
Germany has proscribed many criticisms of Israel (such as describing its treatment of Palestinians as “apartheid”) and banned many expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. The main targets have been Muslims, but Jewish supporters of Palestinian rights have also been deplatformed and arrested.
Will the nuisance be curbed? No. But the rise of the AfD may scare these virtue signallers straight.
According to the researcher Emily Dische-Becker, almost a third of those cancelled in Germany for their supposed antisemitism have been Jews.
Useless ones- sure.
There is, as the Israeli-born architect and academic Eyal Weizman has acidly put it, a certain irony in “being lectured [on how to be properly Jewish] by the children and grandchildren of the perpetrators who murdered our families and who now dare to tell us that we are antisemitic”.
Hitler used irony to kill Jews- right? Weizman is right to be concerned. What if the Germans set up irony camps and send the Jews to them in cattle trucks?
For many supporters of Israel, the history of Jewish suffering, culminating in the Holocaust, has made necessary the defence of the nation and the maintenance of its security at any cost.
No. Support for Israel is predicated on Israel's ability to retaliate disproportionately. It is pointless to support any type of regime which lacks this capacity.
For the dissenters, it is precisely that history that creates the moral necessity to defend Palestinian rights.
I have frequently defended the right of peeps not get raped. Sadly, raped people seldom show any gratitude towards me. On the other hand, it is not morally necessary at all for me to defend the rights of dogs not to be incessantly sodomized by the neighbour's cat. Once I explained this to the beast in question, it became quite affectionate towards me.
What guided Jewish critics, particularly of Israeli policies towards Palestinian refugees, in the late 1940s and 1950s, was, as Levin shows, their attachment to Jewish traditions that reject discrimination or barbarism against any group.
Hilarious! American Jews, if they stayed American, were greatly attached to the American tradition of discriminating the fuck out of any darkies you hadn't fucking genocided already.
“Oppression has to be fought everywhere,” said Don Peretz, a researcher with the American Jewish Committee
strongly Zionist since '67
and an advocate for Palestinian refugees who, like Zuckerman, was targeted by Israeli officials.
pre-'67?
It is also what guides today’s critics such as Neiman. Germans, she suggests, “have forgotten the depth of the universalist tradition in Judaism, which goes back to the Bible”.
Neiman may not know that most Germans worship a Jewish carpenter's son and have added a New Testament to the Hebrew Bible.
The dismissal of such critical voices as “un-Jewish”, even antisemitic, also has deep roots. Contemporary campaigns against figures such as Penslar and Neiman echo those against Zuckerman and Peretz 70 years ago.
No. Back then it seemed inevitable that the Arabs would unite and slaughter the Jews. It was only after '67 that American Jews got behind Israel. But then so did the Evangelicals and the Pentagon. Israel can conquer land and then trade it for peace- but only if that's what the other side wants.
What makes all this particularly troubling, Neiman observes, is the upsurge in antisemitism in Germany
amongst Muslims
and elsewhere. Rather than policing Jewish intellectuals and activists, “insisting on unconditional loyalty to Israel” and “downplaying the suffering in Gaza”, what is needed, Nieman argues, is to support those individuals and organisations that are building forms of solidarity that can both challenge antisemitism and anti-Muslim bigotry, and promote justice in Palestine and Israel.
But all these worthless nutters have been doing nothing but supporting this and denouncing that and virtue signalling like crazy. They simply don't matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment