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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
Richard Silverstein posted an interesting item in his blog yesterday. (See below.)
Ultimately unsourced claims have long constituted a major aspect of Zionist news reporting and history writing.
In 1959 Walid Khalidi published a paper that accused the Jabotinskian Zionist "historian" Joseph Schechtman of fabricating the "Arab evacuation story" in two 1949 pamphlets.
The Mufti and the Fuehrer: The rise and fall of Haj Amin el-Husseini (1965) by Schechtman is the endpoint of practically all citation chains claiming Amin el-Husseini was a Nazi and architect of the Final Solution.
Sometimes the citation chains seem to be circular as is the case with some of the assertions which Dore Gold makes in Hatred's Kingdom and which seem to lead back to other writings by Dore Gold through a sequence of intermediate references.
In a 2003 press release, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Ambassador the United States stated the following after Gold testified before Congress:
"I have become aware of the latest diatribes made by Dore Gold, former Israeli Ambassador the United Nations, about Saudi Arabia before the House International Relations Subcommittees on the Middle East and Central Asia. It should be known that Dore Gold is not an expert on Saudi society, faith or culture. He is simply hatred's scribe.
"Dore Gold seeks to instill fear and animosity among friends and allies. While others are working to eliminate incitement and promote peace, Dore Gold works to perpetuate hate and conflict. He has opposed virtually every major peace initiative over the past two decades.
"Dore Gold has carried on a campaign of lies, and unsubstantiated accusations. His goal is to malign the Saudi government and drive a wedge between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Ironically, this is the very same objective shared by Osama bin Laden.
"Thoughtful people should become aware of his objective. And it is time that he abandoned his evil path and joined the majority of peace-seeking individuals on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide as they search for a just and comprehensive peace."
In A History of Israel by Howard Sachar makes claims with no logical connection to the documentation he provides (e.g., violent Palestinian rejection of the 1947 Partition Plan). Subsequent citations of Sachar almost never note the discrepancy but only refer to Sachar's unsubstantiated assertions.
The claims described by Silverstein below probably have a good chance of becoming the endpoints in citation chains that will be found in the works of future Zionist "history" writers.
JTA Falsely Accuses 20% of Jerusalem Arabs of Involvement With Terror
JTA's Leslie Susser writes this in his latest report on the internal "danger" East Jerusalem Palestinains pose to the Israeli state in the aftermath of the Merkaz HaRav attack:
"…20 percent of Jerusalem's 220,000 Palestinians have been involved directly or indirectly in terrorism, according to Israeli police sources."
You'll notice there is no verifiable source for this charge and so no way to document it. I've just e mailed JTA's editor asking him to do so. But if it were true it would mean that 45,000 Arab residents of Jerusalem have been involved in terrorism. Sorry, but I don't see any way this could be possible unless you come up with some pretty wild and far-fetched standard for implicating someone with involvement with terror.
Doing some web research it appears that another right-wing Israeli news site quoted Israel's interior minister saying something far different:
Arab residents of Jerusalem have been involved in at least 20 percent of terrorist attacks against Israelis, Dichter said Saturday.
This too is an unquantified, unverified charge but at least the claim is far different and it comes from a specific Israeli official.
This is a perfect example of the Israel coverage we've come to expect of JTA. The only thing I can't tell is whether this story is the result of a reporter's error or an editor's error. Or is it possibly willful incitement against Palestinians? Will JTA publish a correction? Just when is the mashiach scheduled to arrive??
NOTE: An Israeli journalist I trust has just written asking me to suspend judgement on Susser till I know more about what happened in this instance. So I will say it is possible that Susser is not at fault but an editor made a mistake in editing his story. At any rate, we'll see if JTA responds to my e mail asking for clarification.
7 comments:
The question then becomes: Who was involved in the other 80 percent of the attacks against Israelis? It would be the Israelis themselves, because that is what they do.
Just checking quickly, of three authors you mention whom I have on my shelves and following up two citations for each based on cited authors also on my shelves, haphazardly selected:
1. Sachar's earlier "Europe Leaves the Middle East" citing Walter Laqueur, and John and David Kimche
2. Pryce-Jones "Closed Circle" citing Ian Young, and J B Kelly, and
3. Dore Gold's "Hatred's Kingdom" citing Rohan Gunaratna, and Hamid Algar
...I found all six citations correctly sourced and exactly relevant.
Hardly scientific, but not irrelevant.
One citation I have spent years trying to track down which you or your readers might assist with is which Hadith collection, exact citation please, contains the reference Mohammed is said to have made distinguishing the greater and lesser jihad.
Always vaguely referenced at best.
Thanks
I was not claiming that Pryce-Jones, Gold, or Sachar cite or quote improperly.
I am asserting that tracing statements of "fact" from these authors through a citation chain to the primary source ends in a pure fabrication.
For example, all of the authors cite Schechtman directly or indirectly. In later articles of texts, Gold cites the authors that footnote him apparently in order to make Gold's original claim more credible.
Sachar does something rather more subtle. In the second edition of A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time on page 298 in the second paragraph, he discusses the "initial Arab response to the Partition Resolution." Without references he describes detailed instances of violence in Aleppo and in Aden outside of Palestine. Then he discusses much more vaguely violence within Palestine. It is just shoddy scholarship, which plants a claim that becomes much more material with each succeeding link in a citation chain.
As for the question about greater and lesser jihad, I am not a hadith expert. My expertise lies in Jewish studies.
Neverthess, I am engaging in a sort of isnad analysis with citation chains, and I am aware that the greater and lesser jihad ahadith (I believe there are two or three) are questionable.
The more important issue lies in the nature of a legitimate jihad.
In general the rules regulating jihad in Islam are practically identical to those of milhemet mitzvah in Judaism.
If some Muslims want to explain the concepts of Jihad via reference to lesser and greater Jihad (which have analogues in Jewish concepts and law), it is hard to see anything wrong with such a procedure, and it probably does less violence to the understanding of the texts within Islam than a lot of commentaries on yefet toar (beautiful captive) Deuteronomy 21:10-11 do within Judaism.
Not sure why the 'nature of a legitimate jihad' is important, since the practice rarely measures up (?) to the theory.
The main thing wrong with elevating the greater (personal effort) jihad concept is that all the key texts and jurists have held overwhelmingly to the lesser (war) jihad understanding. Thus the lesser jihad advocacy is an exercise in taqqiyya, pure and simple.
So yes, it does do major violence to the texts of Islam.
But your reference to Deuteronomy is interesting, and I would like to hear more from you on that.
And perhaps on the way in which the Ashkenazi Jews from the late eighteenth century on escaped from a slavish and submissive adherence to ritual and revelation, and tried to accomodate themselves to a Gentile world in a way that still escapes many if not most Muslims.
Thanks
Not sure why the 'nature of a legitimate jihad' is important, since the practice rarely measures up (?) to the theory.
Respected Muslim Muftis have only very rarely recognized any Muslim-non-Muslim conflict as meeting the requirements of a legitimate jihad, in which a Muslim male might be required to participate.
An obligation is hardly an obligation at all when a person is for almost all intents and purposes not obligated to perform it.
In contrast resisting temptations to transgressions is a struggle (jihad) in which a religious person must engage every day.
The main thing wrong with elevating the greater (personal effort) jihad concept is that all the key texts and jurists have held overwhelmingly to the lesser (war) jihad understanding. Thus the lesser jihad advocacy is an exercise in taqqiyya, pure and simple.
The vast majority of Muslim scholars have not been jurisprudents, and most ulama have generally worried more about communal ethics than about legalism.
The crack about taqiyya betrays your attempt to incite Islamophobia.
I know all the tricks of Jew-baiting or Muslim-baiting. A lot of Jew baiters like to refer to the Kol Nidre prayer.
It shows the total lack of imagination of Jewish racists that they so slavishly follow the Jew-baiting script when they try to foment hatred against Muslims.
Under Jewish law, Jews may dissemble in exactly the same way and under the same circumstances as Muslims.
The more important issue then becomes identifying the group, whose members are more likely to lie under oath.
I discuss the activities of Jewish racists to incite Islamophobia in some detail in The AJC Attacks.
So yes, it does do major violence to the texts of Islam.
Only for the guy that is cherry-picking texts to confirm his prejudices.
But your reference to Deuteronomy is interesting, and I would like to hear more from you on that.
Jewish commentators and Jurisprudents generally read the text before and after the passage literally but read that specific passage allegorically. One cannot help wondering about the reason.
And perhaps on the way in which the Ashkenazi Jews from the late eighteenth century on escaped from a slavish and submissive adherence to ritual and revelation, and tried to accommodate themselves to a Gentile world in a way that still escapes many if not most Muslims.
Yeah, right.
You are just parroting the usual racist Jewish claim that Jews are superior to Muslims.
Take a look at Harvard: Jews Better Than Muslims.
Wisse Kokht Kugl mit Khazershmaltz! and Jewish, Zionist War Against Salvation are also relevant.
My questions and comments are sincere and without guile. I am neither Muslim, Jewish nor Christian. They are based on work by Samuel Ettinger and Raphael Patai.
The latter's excellent chapter on Jewish self-hatred in "The Jewish Mind" might be read with benefit.
But for me to then be implicitly or explicitly labeled as "Inciting Islamophobia - Jew-baiting - Muslim-baiting - Jewish racist - cherrypicking texts to confirm his prejudices... "
Wow!
It has been a long time since I saw a reference to Samuel Ettinger. As I vaguely remember he focused almost exclusively on aspects of Jewish history or culture.
He may have written or edited an article on child-rearing. It might have connected him to the type of questionable sociological nonsense that Patai wrote, but on the whole no one takes Patai's sociology seriously while the type of Jewish exceptionalist history that Ettinger wrote has little value.
I have both Society, Culture, and Change in the Middle East and The Arab Mindwhich were written by Patai. I do not remember any mention of taqiyya or kitman in either book.
You are finding this material elsewhere and googling the term gives a fairly strong hint from where you are coming.
Here are some discussions of The Arab Mind:
'Its best use is as a doorstop',
Misreading 'The Arab Mind' and
The Arab Mind.
To judge the last piece it is worthwhile to note that Tamara Cofman Wittes works at the Brookings Institution Saban Center, where there is strong pressure to excuse or cover up Jewish bigotry and racism.
As for the influence of The Arab Mind on Neocons, Jacob Heilbrunn indicates that Neocons constitute a Jewish special interest in They knew they were right.
Like other books by PataiThe Arab Mind is most commonly found in Jewish book stores.
It is precisely the type of book that a Jewish racist would use to make decisions about interrogation in Iraq, and we know now that Pentagon Neocons were heavily involved in questions of interrogation.
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