Posts
since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
1. On Using the Holocaust to Attack Jews By: Walter Reich
This is a very disturbing article.
First, let it be said that Anti-Semites do not "need" the Holocaust to attack Jews. They do it very well with or without it.
Next, what exactly does Reich mean when he uses the word "Jews" in his title?
On the one hand, we have been counseled to separate Israel from Jews - any attack on Israel must not extend to the Jews in general. We are told this by Zionist apologist and polemicists all the time.
The Arabs are disparaged for making the definitive link between Jews and Israel. We are told that there is legitimate criticism of Israel - but here Reich, not putatively an Israeli spokesman, but whose former perch at the Holocaust Museum seemingly gives him the right - and obligation - to decide who can say what about the Holocaust.
In this sense, what would Reich say to Avraham Burg, whose new book does just what he seems to be excoriating? Is Burg from this standpoint a "Jew" or an "Anti-Semite"? What are we allowed to say about a culture - that of contemporary Israel - which has made the Holocaust a central part of its identity and its campaign for world legitimacy and recognition? If Israel has decided to play the Holocaust "card," what is left for its critics but to address that issue, as Burg skillfully does?
For Reich this is a world that hates Jews. It is not a world, in spite of his double-talk about "legitimate" criticism of Israel, that can legitimately criticize any Israeli actions and assess those actions in light of Israel's own stated rational for its status as a nation.
The paradox here is that it has been people like Reich who have shamelessly promoted the idea that Israel has been sanctified by the Holocaust, as if that horrible tragedy was in some way recompensed by the founding of a nation-state. Aside from its horrifying theological implications, this idea leads the a discursive hegemony where only "Jews" - and here we are forced to accept Reich's definition of what a "Jew" is - can discuss the matter. All those who seek to talk about it are "Anti-Semites."
But, as Avraham Burg has masterfully argued, the world has indeed learned the lessons of the Holocaust - learned them, in fact, too well. Israel is judged against the standard that it has itself created: Never again! So when Israel skirts that line of "Never Again!" when it comes to its persecution of non-Jews, the world takes notice. All silence in the face of evil and injustice must be condemned - period! Israel does not get a free pass, as Reich would wish.
Again, we are within the realm of PILPUL as Reich sets up a false linkage between Anti-Semites and critics of Israeli military actions. Just like the recent PILPUL over HAMAS - where Israeli HASBARAH forced critics of its Gaza operation to acquiesce to being HAMAS supporters - this Holocaust PILPUL makes all critics of Israel into Holocaust deniers and Anti-Semites.
PILPUL is a wondrous thing.
DS
[Joachim’s comment: I have discussed some issues addressed by David in Conflating Jews and Zionists. I discuss pilpul in David Shasha Calls Obsession Propaganda.]
2. On Ward Three Morality By: David Brooks
I must say that I was completely astounded by the audacity and mean-spiritedness of this piece.
America has always had income disparities, but has never had such vulgar cheerleading for class inequalities.
While the 1930s and 40s led many Ashkenazim to become Communists and radicals, since the time of the execrable reactionary Ronald Reagan - the architect of our current economic misery - many Jews, freed of the taint of Anti-Semitism, have now become insufferably "White" and priggishly smug and elitist.
And while I do not contest the grain of truth in the description of Liberals presented here, the caricature has been deployed in the most obnoxious and cynical manner in order to applaud the truly toxic behaviors of the lazy rich in the post-Reagan and post-Bush world.
Giving the middle finger to the poor is something that was once not permissible in American society - the change from Hoover to FDR made that point quite well, but today we have a parasite-economy that has collapsed leaving those who have raped American coffers with plenty of dough, while they laugh - Brooks with them - at those who continue to suffer.
That Brooks is an Ashkenazi Jew makes a great deal of sense. That Anti-Semitism is on the rise also makes a great deal of sense, given the pathetic morality of Jews like Brooks and their vain apologia for the immoral behavior of the thieves and charlatans who have led us to where we are at the moment.
Ashkenazim never seem to learn from history.
DS
3. On Iranian Jews Hurt by One of Their Own By: Rebecca Spence
It should be noted that the "old way" of doing business involved ethics and principled behavior rather than expediency and closed-door secrecy. And it accepted Jewish principles as the foundation of a life worth living. The "old ways" were not the problem.
What we have today is the adoption of all the illnesses of the West and of the larger non-Sephardic community where it is kill or be killed.
Assimilation is not always such a good thing and we must sometime look backwards in order to look forward.
DS
[Joachim’s note: I am not sure that I can do justice to the history in a short paragraph, for I consider the interactions of Iran with the USA far more complex than usually depicted, but the US overthrew Mossadegh (or assisted the British in overthrowing him or let the Iranian regime collapse in the face of British intransigence over nationalization of the Iranian petroleum industry) in part because he planned to apply developmentalist models to the Iranian economy and to use Iranian oil wealth to modernize. The Shah and the Shah’s associates cut a deal to partner with Western interests to loot Iranian wealth while relatively little was spent on improving the lot of Iranians -- something like the later scenario in Chile. Eventually the Shah invested a lot in strengthening Iran militarily sometimes at cross purposes with American or Zionist goals, but on the whole certain wealthy, politically powerful and non-Zionist Americans have been quite happy when Arabs, Iranians or Turks buy US weapons. In the process of the Shah’s military buildup many Iranian Jews became involved in profiteering associated with the looting of Iranian wealth especially when Western Jews were on the American or British side of the equation. The younger generation of Iranian Jews generally does not understand the ambivalent role that some of their parents and grandparents played in the Iranian economy and society under the Shah.]
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