Karin Friedemann: Do Jewish sensitivities matter at this time?

My wife has some scathing comments here about Jewish sensitivities in the context of the Israeli War on Gaza.

I do not agree with all the assessments of Jewish culture and history, but she grew up in a much more Jewish environment than I, and our formerly Israeli friend Gilad Atzmon agrees more with her than with me. So who am I to argue?

[Update: Here is the paragraph that bothered me a little.

The Jewish state is the ultimate threat to humanity and our notion of humanism. Christianity, Islam and humanism came along with an attempt to amend Jewish tribal fundamentalism and to replace it with universal ethics. Enlightenment, liberalism and emancipation allowed Jews to redeem themselves from their ancient tribal supremacist traits. Since the mid 19th century, many Jews had been breaking out of their cultural and tribal chain. Tragically enough, Zionism managed to pull many Jews back in. Currently, Israel and Zionism are the only collective voice available for Jews.

Christianity from outside or from inside resolves the crisis associated with the destruction of the 2nd Temple.

Islam strips off the Hellenistic ritualistic mumbo-jumbo associated with Christianity to restore Jesus' pure message of piety and righteousness.

Rabbinic Judaism develops after Islam in response to the need for a holy law to govern reconstructed trade networks of the Middle Ages. Islam was originally much less tribal than Christianity, but Christianity caught up as a result of the bloodshed associated with the Reformation. In terms of ethics Judaism did not get much beyond caveat emptor in dealing with non-Jews until Jews became secularized and began to read Kant. Zionism replaced Kant with a sort of gutter Nietzscheanism and provided a focus for Jews that have a need for mobilization.

Karin responds:

That was simply Gilad's quote. He was making the point that if you are done with being a Jew, you can choose to become a Christian, Muslim, or humanist. The point you made earlier: don't call yourself a Jew.

In that case, I have no problem, and by quoting Gilad Karin was implicitly alluding to my belief that Marlene Dietrich had the right approach to German Nazi or Zionist politics. When the German Nazis took power, she decided that if the Nazis were the definers of what being German means, then she as a decent human being would no longer be German and would (eventually) serve the Allied cause.

Likewise, Jews have to acknowledge that outside of the small circle of Neturei Karta, Zionists define what being Jewish means. Thus Jews, who want to be decent human beings, have no choice but to renounce being Jewish and serve the anti-Zionist struggle (right now).]
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