printThe bash-Israel business is booming again. I give you the former CIA operative Michael Scheuer:
My long-held position in opposition to foreign aid, in general, and to Israel, in particular, is no different to Scheuer’s. The same goes for my position in opposition to war with Iran.
I’m aligned ideologically with this man’s non-interventionism. Having said that, Scheuer hates Israel. As I said in “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn,” he believes “poor, little America has been ‘Jewed’ into its foreign-policy follies.”
Scheuer’s hatred for “Israel” and AIPAC (The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) has led him to erroneously conflate the existential realities that confront regular Israelis with the mission of AIPAC (whatever that may be). That’s unforgivable. Most Israelis (and most American Jews) have never heard of AIPAC and the neocons. They just want to live out their lives without being pelted with Qassam rockets from Gaza (where many of them once grew export-quality flowers and vegetables. Gaza now hothouses Jihadis, oops, freedom fighters).
Damn: the stupid Jews are always building things. Why can’t they throw stones like the Egyptians on the studio screen flickering behind Mr. Scheuer. (His host ought to have juxtaposed images of Tel Aviv and Cairo for better effect.) Scheuer, naturally, has never bemoaned the Muslim lobby and the billions we throw at countries who return us the favor with bombs.
“Lobby,” writes a Times Literary Supplement reader in a letter-to-the-editor, “is attached, these days, in a derogatory way, almost exclusively to Jews and their characteristic, so some like to think, habit of seeking/buying/cajoling favors—such as not being murdered—by dubious tricks.” (TLS January 14, 2011)
UPDATE: My own writing is passionately patriotic, but never partisan. I’m pro-Israel, if highly critical of that country. I opposed Israel’s latest attempt to level Lebanon with the same logic and loyalty to principle with which I fought the American war against the Iraqis (starting on Sept 19, 2002). In certain rightist circles, however, a robotic anti-Israel stance is de rigueur.
Thus, over the years—and in the course of writing distinctly patriotic columns such as my latest—I have been both subtly and openly assailed for being a fifth columnist; a person with dual loyalties, a “binational.” I’ve realized that the people who levy such scurrilous accusations against me of all people will never see my work or my words and the flak I’ve taken for unpopular position, which where in the interest of my countrymen, but not its pols and pundits. All they see is a Jew and the attendant stereotypes that attach. For example, in the fact that I’ve lived on three continents, such individuals see a confirmation of the stereotype of a shiftless Jew.
F-ck ’em.
The fulminating Scheuer later went up against Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. During this particular Fox Business segment, Scheuer referred to Shmuley with contempt as “that fellow.” It’s fair to say that the rabbi, with whom I vehemently disagreed, came out on top. Why? Because the rabbi treated his interlocutor with respect. As George Will once wrote, “manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related—as a foundation is related to a house—to the word civilization.”
In anti-Semitic circles, Freud has very sinister connotations. Certainly not much store should be put on his theories about human nature. However, I’ve read Freud’s original works, and see him as an immensely creative and imaginative writer. When Freud was once quizzed about his incessant cigar smoking, he humorously chose to sidestep what was, according to the very theory he invented, a manifestation of his own oral fixation. He replied: “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
And sometimes, anti-Semitism is just anti-Semitism.
Anti-Semitism is SOMETIMES overblown. Washington DC has been flooded in controversy because thin-skinned billionaire owner Daniel Snyder and his legal team used this in a ridiculous lawsuit against an obscure alternative “City Paper”:
http://www.extremeskins.com/showthread.php?343919-Dan-Snyder-s-Anti-Semitic-Card-Apparently-these-public-figures-are-all-Jews
because they had a cartoon depicting Snyder as the Devil. This prompted media anti-Semites like John Feinstein to bash Snyder:
http://www.feinsteinonthebrink.com/index.php?id=717436819717680623
Snyder retreated from anti-Semitism accusations to the “you are attacking my wife who has breast cancer” card:
http://www.tbd.com/blogs/tbd-facts-machine/2011/02/dan-snyder-lawsuit-what-about-his-wife–8152.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/04/AR2011020406580.html?hpid=top&sid=ST2011020202710
So sometimes a litigious billionaire is just a litigious billionaire!
That off my chest on idiotic accusations of anti-Semitism: … YOU ARE PERFECTLY CORRECT ON SCHEUER. Yes, Scheuer cites Thomas Jefferson and correctly attacks the ideology of William Kristol and the AIPAC neoconservatives – but he seems to have a bug up his butt on Israel itself far beyond the views that you and I agree with him on. Scheuer starts with correct non-interventionist ideas and then takes them to the erroneous conclusion that a nation of 5.5 million Jews occupying 8500 square miles is the dangerous scourge of mankind and the US in particular coupled with AIPAC (equals Jews and Israel???) as some sort of 21st Century “Elders of Zion” conspiracy against the world.
You are right again Ilana. I think “anti-Semitism” is a sanitized PC term. Arabs are a Semitic people too, as you know. Anti-Semites are too cowardly to say what they really mean … that they are anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. In keeping with your recent style (lines from old movies) of expressing a (mine in this case) sentiment on events in the Middle East; “Get ready little lady … hell is comin’ to breakfast.”
Do not despair. There are many who stand with Judah and Israel.
Our only faint hope is that the truth-leaking of the internet will reveal the schemes of our Human Farmers as the absurdities they are.
The flash-mob phenomenon that is sweeping the region raises hopes in the heart of freedom-lovers everywhere. It causes regimes to over-play their authoritarian hand, effecting their own demise.
The problem is, we do not know whether these uprisings are due to a quest for freedom or are simply provoked by intelligence agencies in order to consolidate power. We do not know whether the movements will be co-opted, redirected, subsumed, crushed. Certainly the co-option attempt continues with the Tea Party movement, but is thwarted by it being a leaderless intellectual movement. We can only hope, and make it clear that our government’s actions are done without our consent.
The stereotyping is a rehash of the same old ploy, to keep people thinking ‘inside the frame’ of the officially sanctioned range of world-views. Keep the teams fighting each other, rah-rah, go team. Loners not welcome. F-ck ’em should be in large type.
Thanks, Ilana.
Bravo, Ilana! Well said.
As a far-right nationalist, I’ve had plenty of unfortunate encounters with fanatical anti-Semites, and I’m now convinced that there’s no reasoning with them. They are rotten to the core, driven by mad animosity directed against an ethnic group that they have decided to heap all blame on. It’s completely unfair, counter-productive, and above all else, evil. I refuse to deal with evil people. As soon as I hear someone ranting about the Jewish lobby, ZOG, or Khazars, I immediately shut them out. There is no other option.
And never forget, you’ve done more for this country and civilization than any of these Jew-hating keyboard commandos can ever hope to accomplish.
The real problem with many things related, is the overuse, and misuse, of the antisemitism label. Abe Foxman whines antisemitism whenever anything doesn’t go his way, thereby “poisoning the well” for when it truly does apply. Most people are just desensitized regarding it because of this. This is unfortunate, as there are times when it truly does apply, but the whiners got what they wanted at the time. Ultimately, however, the losers are the Jewish people as a whole.
Ilana,
I was reading a face book entry by William N. Grigg the other day. http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=164469056933780&id=671701239.
He believes that Israel was the creation of evil men through the UN and Zionist movements.
I sent him links to the charters of Hamas and PLO. I asked him to read them. I don’t believe he did. He believes the nation of Israel purposely persecutes the “Palestinians”. That Gaza is a prison camp.
The thing that disturbed me the most was the picture of Will in a Kaffeyah of the “Palestinian” colors. It made my stomach turn.
I wonder how a man who considers himself to be a “christian” can hold that, somehow, Jews in the Middle east are occupying “Palestinian” land.
I guess I really don’t understand certain aspects of “libertarian” thought.
MJ – some people are amateur idiots. And then there is someone like Abe Foxman who is a PROFESSIONAL idiot. Basically a leftist who sees AntiSemitism every time some Christian puts up a creche or something. I’m almost surprised he did not get involved in the Daniel Snyder case (see above).
Nevertheless, one can go beyond “non-interventionism” and cross over into the Israel is the Focal Point of Evil argument. I hadn’t seen Grigg do it but we get glimpses from Pat Buchanan from time to time and others like David Kramer and Paul Craig Roberts at the Lew Rockwell site seem to revel in this Israel bashing. Scheuer seems to get into this realm for time to time. Somewhat inconsistent with non-interventionism – it would be like coming out with an opinion on the Polish-Belarus border or whether Alsace-Lorraine should be German or French. While the plight of Sudanese, Darfur, Zimbabwe, Afrikaners, Tibetans, North Koreans, etc. are not our business to these non-interventionist, the Palestinians are often the exception to the rule and somehow are elevated to the greatest victims of injustice in history…. It is the inconsistent double standard that is the reason for the accusations of Anti-Israel/Anti-Semitism.
Stephen: I am not in any way disagreeing with you, but only giving my opinion on your points. Mr. Grigg is very good in research; that said, Mr. Grigg sometimes follows the wrong research information. As for Christians and Jews, by 115CE,the Roman Church had moved Jesus from Judah to become part of the Greek/Roman pantheon. In 1500 Europe, the Christian Reform movement moved Jesus to another version of Allah. Today, only a few Christians think in terms of Jesus the Jewish Rabbi. (Though they may acknowledge it in a literal sense.) Therefore it is easy to be a Christian and not recognize the Jewish people he belonged to. Mr. Grigg lists himself as a Christian Individualist, not libertarian. I notice that a lot of “Alternate Right” writers have this attitude as well. The fact that there are a lot of liberal Jews, ignores- that there are a lot of liberal Germans, Irish (except Teddie, I mean), Russians and British; but, our noble writers never talk about those, do they?