Haim Saban and Duddy Kravitz

The Way They Were

by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)

 

On Aug 31, 2008 CALEV BEN-DAVID writes in Analyze This: Ninja turtle mogul Saban rallies around Obama from the Jerusalem Post that Haim Saban will strongly back Barack Obama during the presidential campaign.

Saban is the largest individual campaign donor of either party during the past decade, to the tune of some $13 million - an amount that doesn't include the millions more he is credited with securing for his preferred candidates as a fund-raising schnorrer par excellence.

The primary beneficiaries of that largesse have been the Clintons, with whom he is personally close. He was a key backer of Hillary Clinton's race for the White House, and when that bid fizzled last spring, there was concern in Democratic circles that a dispirited Saban might not so enthusiastically shift his largesse to Obama - especially since the candidate has decided to eschew any public campaign financing, and rely only on private donations.

Those worries have now been answered, according to Saban himself in an interview just published in the magazine Portfolio. Any earlier concerns he might have on the depth of Obama's commitment to Israel, he said, were largely answered by the candidate's speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in which he spoke of the past political bonds between Jews and African-Americans in the civil rights movement.

"Him being aware of that, acknowledging that, shows that he may have a visceral commitment, as opposed to a logical or strategic one," said Saban. "That visceral affinity was a question mark for a lot of people. Well, it's no longer a question mark for me."

Saban is fond of describing himself as "right-wing crazy" when it comes to security issues, in particular when it comes to Israel. He's no such thing, of course, except perhaps in the trendy Left Hollywood circles in which he moves.

Saban's use of the term "visceral commitment" indicates that he expects Obama will support Israel despite the inherent injustice of Zionism and despite the history of and the continued perpetration by Zionists of atrocities against Palestinians and the Arab population. 

In Saban's opinion Obama has managed to prove his credentials as a genuine shabbesgoy.

Saban, who believes that Jews have the right to plunder and to kill non-Jews with impunity, has no genuine commitment to African-Americans and to the civil rights movement except for the benefit that the associated hagiography and mythography provides to Zionism and the State of Israel.

While Jews often do not distinguish among non-Jews, for the most part only the minority of Jews associated with Eastern European radicalism were genuinely committed to the concept of equal civil rights for African Americans.

Mordecai Richler describes far more typical Jewish attitudes at the time period of major civil rights activism in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, which first appeared in 1959.

On p.236 after Duddy carelessly has caused a severe injury to his non-Jewish friend and employee Virgil, a fairly typical Montreal Jewish businessman tells Duddy:

"Listen here, my young Mr. Kravitz, you want to be a saint? Go to Israel and plant oranges on a kibbutz. I'll give you the fare with pleasure. Only I know you and I know two weeks after you landed you'd be scheming to corner the schmaltz herring market or something. We're two of a kind, you know. Listen, listen here. My attitude even to my oldest and dearest customer is this," he said, making a throat-cutting gesture. "If I thought he'd be good for half a cent more a ton I'd squeeze it out of him. A plague on all the goyim, that's my motto. The more money I make the better care I take of my own, the more I'm able to contribute to our hospital, the building of Israel, and other worthy causes. So a goy is crippled and you think you're to blame. Given the chance he would have crippled you," He souted, "or thrown you into a furnace like six million others. You think I didn't lose relatives? I lost relatives."

"Jeez," Duddy said. "Wait a minute. Virgie is no Nazi."

"You're sure?"

"He's my firend."

"They're all Nazis. You scrape down deep enough and you'll see. Up to here, Duggy," he said, repreating his throat-cutting gesture. "That's how I like to get them. Have another."

In 1959 most not only did most N. American Jews seem to have been moving away from this sort of traditional E. European bigotry, racism and prejudice, but Richler was himself also an example of this trend. Because Zionists realized early on that Jewish particularism was the main source of strength for Zionism and the State of Israel, they worked hard to reverse the direction of development of the N. American Jewish community. By 2008 evidence of success of this Zionist project is everywhere.

[Thanks to Philip Weiss for pointing the Jerusalem Post article out in Once Called a 'Schwarze,' Saban's for Obama.]

 

Sphere: Related Content