Anti-Imperialism & Anti-Humanist Rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon

[Searcher08]

I haven't called for the de-platforming of anyone either. Furthermore, nobody has.
The authors of the OP wrote a letter (a) stating their reasons for refusing to share a platform with Atzmon (whose right to speak they do not contest); and (b) urging others to do likewise, as a matter of conviction. They reject what he says. And he rejects what they say. As do you. FTM. It's called "disagreement," I believe.

I don't accept your characterization of disagreement. Seriously, I just re-read this again and the above paragraph reads as positively Orwellian to me.

Here is a metaphor
if I said, "I am all in favour of you (c2w) having free speech at the Online Palestinian Forum", but at the same time was relentlessly PM-ing the board owner, the ISP and the local MP with an aim of getting you thrown out of it - that isn't a 'disagreement' and for someone to charcacterise me as receiving 'five minutes of hate' when called on it is not really accurate, is it?

Nothing in the paragraph you wrote suggests that the Irish aren't real people

Nothing I have see Atzmon write indicates he thinks that Jewish people are not 'real people'.
If I said IrishAmericanCatholics are not a real 'people', that is entirely different.
The actual diaspora - like my cousins in Perth in Australia who have Aussie kids - do not have a desire for a mid 1950s rural Ireland where the only priorities are keeping in the good books of your priest, your dad and your pub landlord... which is e.g. the value system the people who blew up Omagh. It's when some of these people see themselves as entitled to an Ireland that exists only in their head and that anyone who disagrees with them is a sell-out to Church, Paternal authority and 'the real Mother Ireland' and deserves to be dis-assembled bodily with extreme prejudice, that one needs to look at what is "Irishness".

Now I also see that there is the 'culture, scmulture' - who gives a stuff really. Cultures are like bumholes, we were all issued one at birth. BFD. I agree. It's where one culture sees itself as better than another, or starts buying it's own self-perpetuating mythology that the issues start and where these states start getting connected to guns and domination and resource contention that bad stuff happens.

, or that they're lesser people than the non-Irish

Would these would be the same people who 40 years ago peppered every conversation

"Did you meet Sarah. She's a lovely girl, not Catholic, great sense of humour. We had a great evening with her and Steven, though he's not a Catholic, Presbyterian I think..."

Because THEN that was standard.There was the story of a Rabbi who was stopped by a gang in Belfast -
They shouted at him "What foot do ye kick with"? ( a simple question not relating to one's podiatric preference for ball sports...
"Are you Protestant or Catholic?!"
The Rabbi replied
"Oi Veh! I'm Jewish!"
The crowd went silent in bafflement, till one bright spark shouted out
"Are ye a Protestant Jew, or a Catholic Jew?"

, or that all Irish (simply as a function of "Irishness") have vile and anti-social tendencies that are anathema to all right-thinking humanists, or -- in short -- accuses them of doing anything worse than drinking green beer and expressing their pride in their heritage in conventionally romanticized, somewhat exaggerated terms.

So I wouldn't call it poisonous.

I would and did and do.
Your gentle characterisation is softly pulling the blinds down, down over 'The Field', down over 'Gangs of New York',down over the unhealed trauma of The Famine. Your history has family exterminated by people whose leader's book is now sold by the leading UK left newspaper. My family history has ancient branches of the tree that lay at the side of the road and slowly died from starvation, actually not just from starvation but from a neglect as much as hunger.

Imagine not even being worth hating.

If I ask questions like "How could the Irish have allowed that to happen?" or "What ACTUALLY caused the Famine?" or "What is it in Irishness that is about fucking itself over?" or "Why a couple of generations after the Famine did 35,000 Irish volunteers die in the British Army fighting Germans in WW 1, including btw two uncles of my mum??"

If someone objected to your use of the word "Micks," or called it a caricature, or whatever, I suppose....Well. I don't know. I'd have to hear the objection before I could really say. But I'm not offended by it. And nor would I be by an equivalent characterization of most other racial/ethnic/gender/gender-preference/nationality-specific groups.

Most other??? Rather begs the question which ones are not and why?
What about "Beastly Bogtrotting Bumpkins"?

In an equivalent context, I guess I should probably add. Because context does inform meaning, after all. That's just a fact of life.

Yup

And there just wouldn't really a whole lot of point to being sensitive to how meaningfully offensive something was or wasn't, if it....Well. If it didn't include being sensitive to how meaningfully offensive it was or wasn't.

Just as there is no point in talking about being aware whether something is a tautology or not, if
if it doesnt include being aware of whether something is a tautology or not...

There is a lot to context, obviously. And some people might have higher requirements for it at times than others. And different characterizations of it too. For example at the start of this thread I expressed something which lacked context for the person reading it. My context was quite different and (unintentionally) did not respect theirs. Clash of context.
Now at this part of the thread, I'm aware that my own major issues around Atzmon are the way he is treated and characterised by people such as Greenstein and his proxyby copypasta,AD, and what I see as the Moebius Strip logic / apologia for his approach. It is like the people whose pit bull is attempting to gnaw the leg of a postman saying "Oh he's just being boisterous!" or "Come ON, that's what doggies DO to postmen!".

Because unlike the finer points (or even not so fine points) of Judaism, a field of which I knoa natheeenk, [as an aside, apart from having a Compuserve friendship for a while with a Nu Yawk Rabbi who showed me how surprisingly similar were some of the exercises in Kabballah and Castaneda's mythic "Toltec tradition"], I am acutely aware of the gap between the profession of values vs what is happening in 'meat space'; very attuned antenna regarding when there is bad stuff going on that people are conceptualising, rationalising, obfurscating and confabulating. And pretzel logic for appartachiks-in-training like Greenstein deserves to be pointed out. Because there is no looking in the mirror happening. None.
I have a high personal value on fairness and am anti-bullying and sort for that in the world - and this thread. What I see on the thread has been a blowing smoke over this issue.

As regards the issues of exceptionalism that Atzmon highlights, the arguement is either guilt by associationor variations of saying he is an 'essentialist' - which strikes me as the sort of word Greenstein would like. As it's sounds impressive but doesn't mean jackshit.
Perhaps I'm wrong. But anecdotally, one thing I have noticed that seems to get up both the Zionists and the AZZ's - is saying to them -
"You know, I think you are just an ordinary person. Like me. You are no different. You are just the same as everyone else. We are all in this together."
because the sudden look of abject horror and new found interest in shoe gazing that I have consistently seen when this happens - is to me what Atzmon on on about. And what deserves looking at.

Similarly, the most worked up in 'Defamation' that the generally amiable Mr Foxman got - was when talking about Messrs Walt and Meersheimer having the 'sheer audacity' to suggest that The Lobby wasn't necessarily always doing stuff in the best interest of Israel.
Outraged doesn't come close.He was apoplectic with being told what to do - which I found very funny as that is basically what he does all the time AFAICS

It shows up when people who say they are all for truth and justice and collect antis (anti-X,Y,Z)
like Green Shield Stamp books but when it comes to their own area, they give themselves a free pass... then when someone comes along and questions (among other things) this 'free pass giving' thing and what THAT is all about - and for his 'sheer audacity' has a gang pile on on him. Your response to TG has the flavour of 'Aww shucks, boys will be boys'.

It is like the Guardian Online Bookshop, where you are allowed to buy Mein Kampf, but not Gilad Atzmon.

Bizarro World indeed.

[compared2what?]

Israel was founded in accordance with the UN's partition plan...

I'm only one minute and 44 seconds into the above. But I strongly suspect that you either think -- or just wish to suggest -- that I intended the above as a defense of Israel, or a political rationalization of it, or something.

Because from what I've seen so far, that video's totally representative of all the views I've often expressed here, not a contradiction of them.

Which leads me to believe that you think -- or just wish to suggest -- that I was using the above as something other than a fact that illustrated my point, which was:

If you can't keep the distinction between religious conviction and a political fact straight while opposing Israel's crimes, that's (a) a consequential error; (b) not one that Israel itself makes; and (c) one that they use religious PR to provoke in others.

The line you quoted was offered purely as an example illustrating (b). It had no additional implications. And it still doesn't.
___________________

ON EDIT: Yep.

(By which I mean: Having now watched it through, I have nothing to add. It agrees with me and I with it, as far as I can see.)

[compared2what?]

I haven't called for the de-platforming of anyone either. Furthermore, nobody has.
The authors of the OP wrote a letter (a) stating their reasons for refusing to share a platform with Atzmon (whose right to speak they do not contest); and (b) urging others to do likewise, as a matter of conviction. They reject what he says. And he rejects what they say. As do you. FTM. It's called "disagreement," I believe.

I don't accept your characterization of disagreement. Seriously, I just re-read this again and the above paragraph reads as positively Orwellian to me.

Here is a metaphor
if I said, "I am all in favour of you (c2w) having free speech at the Online Palestinian Forum", but at the same time was relentlessly PM-ing the board owner, the ISP and the local MP with an aim of getting you thrown out of it - that isn't a 'disagreement' and for someone to charcacterise me as receiving 'five minutes of hate' when called on it is not really accurate, is it?

Let's skip the metaphor, since we're dealing with a real instance of what either could be called "de-platforming" or could be called "disagreement." Like I said: They refused to share a platform with him, and urged others to do likewise. So if that's what you mean happened when you say he was de-platformed, then I agree that he was de-platformed. That's not really all that crucial to me.

I was just trying to say that he was de-platformed over a clearly articulated political conflict, by political activists, for explicitly stated political reasons, over which disagreement.has been expressed in the strongest possible terms on both sides.

The aftermath of that has definitely included some of what a fair-minded person might call ad hominem (and not political) argument. But since it's been on both sides, and the playing field is -- afaik -- both reasonably level and platform-free, I assumed that it:

(a) wasn't what you'd meant by de-platforming;
(b) might or might not be what you'd meant by bullying vendetta;
(c) didn't matter whether or not you'd meant it by Stalinist purging, since nothing that had happened was one.

In short:

De-platforming? -- Sure!
Bullying vendetta? -- If you like! And you're not blind to its not having been unilateral!
Stalinist purging! -- I don't see it!

^^If you can live with something close to that, we got no quarrel there.

[compared2what?]

Nothing in the paragraph you wrote suggests that the Irish aren't real people

Nothing I have see Atzmon write indicates he thinks that Jewish people are not 'real people'.

Then we are in disagreement on that point...

If I said IrishAmericanCatholics are not a real 'people', that is entirely different.

...but agreement on that one!

The actual diaspora - like my cousins in Perth in Australia who have Aussie kids - do not have a desire for a mid 1950s rural Ireland where the only priorities are keeping in the good books of your priest, your dad and your pub landlord... which is e.g. the value system the people who blew up Omagh. It's when some of these people see themselves as entitled to an Ireland that exists only in their head and that anyone who disagrees with them is a sell-out to Church, Paternal authority and 'the real Mother Ireland' and deserves to be dis-assembled bodily with extreme prejudice, that one needs to look at what is "Irishness".

Irrational fanaticism is a problem, no matter who it afflicts. Not always the same problem, or a problem of the same caliber, or a problem that amounts to a threat to others as well as a blight to self. Of course.But it's always some kind of damn problem.

Now I also see that there is the 'culture, scmulture' - who gives a stuff really. Cultures are like bumholes, we were all issued one at birth. BFD. I agree. It's where one culture sees itself as better than another, or starts buying it's own self-perpetuating mythology that the issues start and where these states start getting connected to guns and domination and resource contention that bad stuff happens.

I think I agree. But either way, I'd like to add that if/when genocide enters the picture, you're no longer really dealing with just a sick culture, or an arrogant culture, or a prejudiced culture, but with a criminal culture. Which is not to say that it mightn't also be culturally sick, arrogant, and prejudiced. Obviously, to some degree, it almost has to be. My point is just that genocide isn't a problem that's responsive to witheringly harsh cultural critique. Because it's not really a cultural problem, at least as a principal matter. It creates them, for sure. And, theoretically, it might have been created by them, too.

But if so, whatever else they may or may not be, they're definitely not "the biggest or most urgent or realest problem that either you and/or that culture got going on." Because that's genocide. And it just can't hurt to bear that in mind, really. I feel.

, or that they're lesser people than the non-Irish

Would these would be the same people who 40 years ago peppered every conversation

"Did you meet Sarah. She's a lovely girl, not Catholic, great sense of humour. We had a great evening with her and Steven, though he's not a Catholic, Presbyterian I think..."

Because THEN that was standard.There was the story of a Rabbi who was stopped by a gang in Belfast -
They shouted at him "What foot do ye kick with"? ( a simple question not relating to one's podiatric preference for ball sports...
"Are you Protestant or Catholic?!"
The Rabbi replied
"Oi Veh! I'm Jewish!"
The crowd went silent in bafflement, till one bright spark shouted out
"Are ye a Protestant Jew, or a Catholic Jew?"

, or that all Irish (simply as a function of "Irishness") have vile and anti-social tendencies that are anathema to all right-thinking humanists, or -- in short -- accuses them of doing anything worse than drinking green beer and expressing their pride in their heritage in conventionally romanticized, somewhat exaggerated terms.

So I wouldn't call it poisonous.

I would and did and do.
Your gentle characterisation is softly pulling the blinds down, down over 'The Field', down over 'Gangs of New York',down over the unhealed trauma of The Famine. Your history has family exterminated by people whose leader's book is now sold by the leading UK left newspaper. My family history has ancient branches of the tree that lay at the side of the road and slowly died from starvation, actually not just from starvation but from a neglect as much as hunger.

Imagine not even being worth hating.

I don't have to. But [longstorywhocaresaboutme]. I really just meant: I feel for you and am so sorry (in the condoling sense of the word) that such grief and horror and pain and darkness has ever touched your life. Or any lives in, near, around or overlapping with it. Or any lives. Period.

Now please excuse me for just one moment. I have to go punch some grief and horror and pain and darkness right in its punk-ass ugly face, if I can.

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_______________

Okay, I'm back! Oh, fine, fine. I don't really want to talk about it, though. Do you mind if I start a fresh post, though? This one's making me feel a little self-conscious, all of a sudden. For some reason.

Great. See you there.

[compared2what?]

, or that all Irish (simply as a function of "Irishness") have vile and anti-social tendencies that are anathema to all right-thinking humanists, or -- in short -- accuses them of doing anything worse than drinking green beer and expressing their pride in their heritage in conventionally romanticized, somewhat exaggerated terms.

So I wouldn't call it poisonous.

I would and did and do.
Your gentle characterisation is softly pulling the blinds down, down over 'The Field', down over 'Gangs of New York',down over the unhealed trauma of The Famine. Your history has family exterminated by people whose leader's book is now sold by the leading UK left newspaper. My family history has ancient branches of the tree that lay at the side of the road and slowly died from starvation, actually not just from starvation but from a neglect as much as hunger.

Imagine not even being worth hating.

Again, I'm sorry (in the "I apologize" sense) for not having seen it before I drew the blinds. Though what you wrote doesn't evoke those associations in me, I'm not blind to what I'm looking at when I do see them. And/or something that looks enough like them for a very slow person to recognize when she sees it. Thanks for adding to the notes on identification in my field-guide.

If I ask questions like "How could the Irish have allowed that to happen?" or "What ACTUALLY caused the Famine?" or "What is it in Irishness that is about fucking itself over?" or "Why a couple of generations after the Famine did 35,000 Irish volunteers die in the British Army fighting Germans in WW 1, including btw two uncles of my mum??"

...?

I'm guessing here. But if the reason the "If" at the beginning of that sentence is just loitering around, consulting its watch and looking exasperated is that the "it's out of my feelings about what I just told you, not out of poisonous hatred for the Irish" it had a date with is so incredibly late that it's beginning to wonder whether it got stood up?

I understand.

That's not what Atzmon's doing at all, in my estimation. But let's say, for the sake of argument, that he's just doing it in a way that so closely and minutely resembles poisonous hatred in every particular that even poisonous hatred's own mother (Spoiler:Alan Dershowitz can't tell the replica from the original, but yet -- ANNOYINGLY -- amusing sitcom hijinks based on that premise couldn't freely ensue. Because...

...Searcher! Wake up!...

...neither could a considerable number of good-faith others of whom nothing worse was known (or could reasonably be suspected) than that they really just couldn't distinguish poisonous hatred from poisonous hatred's identical cousin, through no fault or failure of their own.

The applicability of that hypothetical to reality obviously rises or falls according to whether the last condition obtains or not. And that's a judgment call. So make it however you see it.

But speaking only for myself, if I thought it did obtain, I'd say he was obligated by the lives that were on the line to stop altering the status quo for the worse for no greater benefit than the converted could gain by being preached to. And if I thought that there was no such thing as good-faith people whose no-fault response to what looked exactly like poisonous hatred in their eyes was perfectly understandable -- except (maybe!) in fairy tales -- I'd get drunk. Because I'd be so disoriented already that it could only be an improvement.

If that's any help.

If someone objected to your use of the word "Micks," or called it a caricature, or whatever, I suppose....Well. I don't know. I'd have to hear the objection before I could really say. But I'm not offended by it. And nor would I be by an equivalent characterization of most other racial/ethnic/gender/gender-preference/nationality-specific groups.

Most other??? Rather begs the question which ones are not and why?
What about "Beastly Bogtrotting Bumpkins"?

I was actually trying to err in the other direction. But you're right. It's equally fucked this way.

Um....Withdrawn?

In an equivalent context, I guess I should probably add. Because context does inform meaning, after all. That's just a fact of life.

Yup

And there just wouldn't really a whole lot of point to being sensitive to how meaningfully offensive something was or wasn't, if it....Well. If it didn't include being sensitive to how meaningfully offensive it was or wasn't.

Just as there is no point in talking about being aware whether something is a tautology or not, if
if it doesnt include being aware of whether something is a tautology or not...

Please try to remember that I might be hypothetically drunk already.

There is a lot to context, obviously. And some people might have higher requirements for it at times than others. And different characterizations of it too. For example at the start of this thread I expressed something which lacked context for the person reading it. My context was quite different and (unintentionally) did not respect theirs. Clash of context.
Now at this part of the thread, I'm aware that my own major issues around Atzmon are the way he is treated and characterised by people such as Greenstein and his proxyby copypasta,AD, and what I see as the Moebius Strip logic / apologia for his approach. It is like the people whose pit bull is attempting to gnaw the leg of a postman saying "Oh he's just being boisterous!" or "Come ON, that's what doggies DO to postmen!".

Because unlike the finer points (or even not so fine points) of Judaism, a field of which I knoa natheeenk,

OMG. I never realized how much he looks like John C. Reilly. Or maybe the other way around.

[as an aside, apart from having a Compuserve friendship for a while with a Nu Yawk Rabbi who showed me how surprisingly similar were some of the exercises in Kabballah and Castaneda's mythic "Toltec tradition"], I am acutely aware of the gap between the profession of values vs what is happening in 'meat space'; very attuned antenna regarding when there is bad stuff going on that people are conceptualising, rationalising, obfurscating and confabulating. And pretzel logic for appartachiks-in-training like Greenstein deserves to be pointed out. Because there is no looking in the mirror happening. None.
I have a high personal value on fairness and am anti-bullying and sort for that in the world - and this thread. What I see on the thread has been a blowing smoke over this issue.

As regards the issues of exceptionalism that Atzmon highlights, the arguement is either guilt by associationor variations of saying he is an 'essentialist' - which strikes me as the sort of word Greenstein would like. As it's sounds impressive but doesn't mean jackshit.
Perhaps I'm wrong. But anecdotally, one thing I have noticed that seems to get up both the Zionists and the AZZ's - is saying to them -
"You know, I think you are just an ordinary person. Like me. You are no different. You are just the same as everyone else. We are all in this together."
because the sudden look of abject horror and new found interest in shoe gazing that I have consistently seen when this happens - is to me what Atzmon on on about. And what deserves looking at.

I couldn't agree with you more. But I myself have not seen that consistently. I've consistently seen the exact same movement away from it that I see on this thread and in the larger online response to him.

Where should I be looking? That I'm not looking?

Similarly, the most worked up in 'Defamation' that the generally amiable Mr Foxman got - was when talking about Messrs Walt and Meersheimer having the 'sheer audacity' to suggest that The Lobby wasn't necessarily always doing stuff in the best interest of Israel.
Outraged doesn't come close.He was apoplectic with being told what to do - which I found very funny as that is basically what he does all the time AFAICS

Well. Way to go, Defamation (the aim and goal of which was to examine what kind of stuff Abe Foxman was made out of, and not to provoke life-and-death-stakes soul-searching among Jews, Israelis, zionists and others, with a view to correcting the error of their ways)!

That's what I say.

It shows up when people who say they are all for truth and justice and collect antis (anti-X,Y,Z)
like Green Shield Stamp books but when it comes to their own area, they give themselves a free pass... then when someone comes along and questions (among other things) this 'free pass giving' thing and what THAT is all about - and for his 'sheer audacity' has a gang pile on on him. Your response to TG has the flavour of 'Aww shucks, boys will be boys'.

It is like the Guardian Online Bookshop, where you are allowed to buy Mein Kampf, but not Gilad Atzmon.

I don't mean anything that should sound like that, though. I just really don't see what he's doing that isn't pretty standard-issue fare for activists having political disagreements, with or without de-platforming fully en suite.

Unless we've settled that one already, could you explain it to me again? Please?

ON EDIT: ^^"He" being "Tony Greenstein," not "the reader's choice of Hitler or Atzmon." though technically that is what I seem to have said.

Bizarro World indeed.

ON EDIT: You can say that again.

[compared2what?]

Zionism didn't -- and still doesn't -- actually hang its hat on religious imperatives. And Israel was founded in accordance with the UN's partition plan, and not with religious law.

In short: It isn't -- and never has been -- Israeli policy to stake everything -- or even much at all -- on playing the Holy-Land card. In fact, they mostly just use it to beguile the minds of Christians, for PR purposes. After all, the Law of Return itself is premised on Leage-of-Nations mandate/U.N.-Partition-Plan-compatible grounds, not on anything as intangible as religious commandment.

No, zionists are opportunistic, supremacist, self-serving and utterly devoid of principle. Religion, morality, truth and even reality are all things that they believe they have the right to shape to suit their own purposes, whenever they want.

I've never known a single person of whom all that could fairly be said. Or unfairly be said. So we differ there. But since I don't see why disagreement would then be necessary, too, I don't disagree.

When it was convenient to do so, Israel billed itself as a "socialist state" and utilized socialist slogans to recruit colonists to cultivate Arab land in collective agricultural units called kibbutzes. Kibbutzes tended to be located in sparsely-populated areas where there were few remaining Palestinians.

In 1967, Israel invaded areas that were heavily populated by Palestinians, including the West Bank. Unlike the 'kibbutzniks', many of whom actually believed in socialist principles, those capable of setting up racist Jewish settlements surrounded by the indigenous population would face stiff opposition. The most extreme Jewish fanatics were ideal for this purpose, if only their numbers could be increased.

The groundwork was laid with the proclamation that Israel's conquest was a 'miracle'. Extremist disciples of Rabbi Abraham Kook were subsidized and otherwise nurtured by the state; with state support, they were encouraged to set up schools to indoctrinate a new generation into the teachings of the extremist Rabbi Kook into the belief that ethnic cleansing and even genocide were commanded by God, and that the indigenous population of Palestinians are animals. The state allowed the students in these yeshivas to combine their military service with their studies. As a result, within a decade, the these armed fanatics had come to dominate the religious settler movement, which has continued to grow rapidly, especially after the Likud victory in 1977, when they were provided with generous housing subsidies and tax breaks. During the same period, especially from the late 1970s onward, zionist propaganda targeted synagogues abroad with a message that portrayed Israel as a holy project:

True enough. The state asks not what it can do for its religion, but what its religion can do for it, IOW.

That's my point, which I'm not making because it makes me feel good or bad to think of it in those terms, or because those are terms I could or couldn't stand behind myself, or anything like that. Those just are the terms.

Arguably a rather large percentage of American Jews may be called religious Zionists. Many, if not most Jewish congregations in America pray for the State of Israel and refer to it as “Reishit Shmichat Geulateinu” or the “beginning of our redemption.” This prayer, as well as others, reflect the view that the Jewish State has value not only culturally or politically, but religiously as well. The religious interpretation of Jewish sovereignty is also unmistakably evident in the focus on the State of Israel in sermons and synagogue activities and in the religiously oriented celebrations of Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day) and Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day).

...

Much of American Jewry relates to the modern Jewish nation state as something “holy.”

I don't think that's true. Or even possible. Maybe ever. But definitely not now. Moot point, though. Because they do relate to it as something not genocidal. And that's where the problem is. So it's a minor boon that it's also easier to address it that way head-on, as well as likelier to be more effective and less likely to be alienating to fence-sitters.

Conditioned as Americans are to view religion and state as inherently separate domains, it may seem strange for American Jewry to view the Israeli Knesset (parliament) as a religiously important body. Yet this is the only possible interpretation one could give to the prayers and verses found in the prayer books of most Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jews across the country. Link

No, it really, really isn't.

I have absolutely no idea what making such a very unlikely claim on so very slight a pretext could possibly avail anyone that was valuable enough to be worth incurring the losses associated with obscuring a truth pertinent to genocide.

And I really mean none. At all. There's no motivation of any kind, religious or otherwise, that would make that trade-off any less self-indulgent, that I can think of.

....

Except maybe a direct order to do so from God.

I wouldn't know.

"All over the world, Jews who are true to the Torah are outraged by this ongoing Zionist ploy, in which the Zionists attempt to create the impression that the holy Torah is behind their hard-line, nationalistic goals," said Rabbi Leopold Klein, a spokesman for True Torah Jews.

"It is crucial at this time to clarify the Torah's true position on this matter, as well as review the past sixty years in the history of Sephardic Jewry and the Shas Party.

"Judaism is a faith and the Torah is at the core of that faith; Zionism is a political movement that is inherently anti-Torah and, consequently, anti-Judaism. Since its inception, Zionism has brought untold pain and suffering upon Jews all across the globe. Cruel-heartedly, Zionist leaders uprooted thousands of Jews from their native countries, converting them away from Judaism and the Torah. In particular, the Zionists uprooted and almost completely assimilated the traditional Yemenite, Moroccan, Iraqi, and Algerian Sephardic Jewish communities; the Zionists leaders then exploited these immigrants as slave-laborers under sub-human conditions to help develop the State of Israel.

"Even the minority of Sephardic Jews who succeeded in clinging to Judaism were soon successfully brainwashed with Zionist ideals. Today, these religious Sephardic Jews continue to be exploited – much like their brethren several decades ago – to promote the Zionist agenda. With cunning manipulation, the Zionist leaders make sure that the blame for political offenses is continually placed on the 'religious parties' rather than on the actual culprits, the Zionist leaders themselves.

"In this manner, the Zionist leaders attempt to cloak their political agenda in a veil of 'religious' and 'Torah' objectives. As a result of this deception and mockery of the Torah and the Jewish faith, individuals all across the globe may view the holy Torah, as well as Torah-true Jewry, as politically extreme and against peace. Link

Book Review
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel

By Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky. London:Pluto Press,1999, 176 pp.List: $18.95; AET: $16.00
Reviewed by Allan C. Brownfeld

In recent years there has been a dramatic growth of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel which has manifested itself in vigorous opposition to the peace process and has played a key role, as well, in the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the murder of 29 Muslims at prayer by the American-born fundamentalist, Baruch Goldstein.

Few outside of Israel have been properly informed about the extent of the fundamentalist movement or the theology upon which it is based. American Jews, in particular, seem unaware of the narrow ethnocentrism which is promoted by the movement’s leading rabbis, or of the traditional Jewish sources they are able to call upon in drawing clear distinctions between the moral obligations owed to Jews and non-Jews.

In an important new book, Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel, Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinksy provide a thorough assessment of this phenomenon in modern Israel. The authors trace the history and development of Jewish fundamentalism, examining the various strains, and identify the messianic tendency which they believe to be the most dangerous.

Israel Shahak, an Israeli and a Holocaust survivor, is a retired professor at the Hebrew University and a leading human rights activist. Norton Mezvinsky is a professor of history at Central Connecticut State University who has written and lectured extensively on the modern Middle East.

The authors point out that “…the adherents of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel oppose equality for all citizens, especially non-Jews.” The respected Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling, citing evidence from a study conducted by other scholars, declared: “The value of the [Jewish] religion, at least in its Orthodox and nationalistic form that prevails in Israel, cannot be squared with democratic values. No other variable—neither nationality, nor attitudes about security, nor social or economic values, nor ethnic descent and education—so influences the attitudes of [Israeli] Jews against democratic values as does religiousity.”

What particularly concerns the authors is the total contempt which Jewish fundamentalists show toward non-Jews. Rabbi Kook the Elder, the revered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism, said, “The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”

Rabbi Kook’s entire teaching, which is followed devoutly by, among others, those who have led the settler movement on the occupied West Bank, is based upon the Lurianic Cabbala, the school of Jewish mysticism that dominated Judaism from the late16th to the early 19th century. “One of the basic tenets of the Lurianic Cabbala,” the authors write, “is the absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body over the non-Jewish soul and body. According to the Lurianic Cabbala, the world was created solely for the sake of Jews; the existence of non-Jews was subsidiary. If an influential Christian bishop or Islamic scholar argued that the difference between the superior souls of non-Jews and the inferior souls of Jews was greater than the difference between the human soul and souls of cattle, he would incur the wrath of all and be viewed as an anti-Semite by most Jewish scholars regardless of whatever less meaningful, positive statements he included.”

The scholarly authors of books about Jewish mysticism and the Lurianic Cabbala, such as Gershon Scholem, have, the authors charge, “willfully omitted reference to such ideas. These authors are supreme hypocrites. They are analogous to many authors of books on Stalin and Stalinism. Until recently, people who read only the books written by Stalinists could not know about Stalin’s crimes and would have false notions of the Stalinist regimes and their real ideologies.”

According to the ideologies which underlie Gush Emunim, the militant West Bank settlers group, and Hasidism, non-Jews have “satanic souls” Shahak and Mezvinsky note that “the role of Satan, whose earthly embodiment according to the Cabbala is every non-Jew, has been minimized or not mentioned by authors who have not written about the Cabbala in Hebrew. Such authors, therefore, have not conveyed to readers accurate accounts of general NRP (National Religious Party) or its hardcore Gush Emunim politics.”

Common to both the Talmud and Halacha, Orthodox religious law, is a differentiation between Jews and non-Jews. The late, highly revered Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the “Lubovitcher Rebbe” who headed the Chabad movement and wielded great influence in Israel as well as in the U.S., explained that, “The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: ‘Let us differentiate.’ Thus, we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of ‘let us differentiate’ between totally different species. This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world…A non-Jew’s entire reality is only vanity. It is written, ‘And the strangers shall guard and feed your flocks’ (Isaiah 61:5). The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews…”

Rabbi Schneerson always supported Israeli wars and opposed any retreat. In 1974 he strongly opposed the Israeli withdrawal from the Suez area. He promised Israel divine favors if it persisted in occupying the land. After his death, thousands of his Israeli followers played an important role in the election victory of Binyamin Netanyahu. Among the religious settlers in the occupied territories, the Chabad Hassids constitute one of the most extreme groups. Baruch Goldstein, the mass murderer of Palestinians, was one of them.

Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, who wrote a chapter of a book in praise of Goldstein and what he did, is another member of this group. An immigrant to Israel from the U.S., Rabbi Ginsburgh speaks freely of Jews’ genetic-based, spiritual superiority over non-Jews. “If you saw two people drowning, a Jew and a non-Jew, the Torah says you save the Jewish life first,” Ginsburgh states. “If every simple cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, is a part of God, then every strand of DNA is part of God. Therefore, something is special about Jewish DNA…If a Jew needs a liver, can you take the liver of an innocent non-Jew passing by to save him? The Torah would probably permit that. Jewish life has an infinite value.”

Shahak and Mezvinsky point out that, “Changing the words ‘Jewish’ to ‘German’ or ‘Aryan’ and ‘non-Jewish’ to ‘Jewish’ turns the Ginsburgh position into the doctrine that made Auschwitz possible in the past. To a considerable extent the German Nazi success depended upon that ideology and upon its implications of being widely known early. Disregarding even on a limited scale the potential effects of messianic, Lubavitch and other ideologies could prove to be calamitous…The similarities between the Jewish political messianic trend and German Nazism are glaring. The Gentiles are for the messianists what the Jews were for the Nazis. The hatred of Western culture with its rational and democratic elements is common to both movements…The ideology…is both eschatological and messianic. It resembles in this respect prior Jewish religious doctrines as well as similar trends in Christianity and Islam. This ideology assumes the imminent coming of the Messiah and asserts that the Jews, aided by God, will thereafter triumph over the non-Jews and rule over them forever.”

Members of Gush Emunim argue that “what appears to be confiscation of Arab-owned land for subsequent settlement by Jews is in reality not an act of stealing but one of sanctification. From their perspective the land is redeemed by being transferred from the satanic to the divine sphere…the Gush Emunim rabbis assert that this one messianic sect has to handle and lead the ass-like Jews, who have been corrupted by satanic Western culture, with its rationality and democracy and who refuse to renounce their beastly habits and embrace the true faith. To further the process, the use of force is permitted wherever necessary.”

The Jewish fundamentalists believe that God gave all of the Land of Israel (including present-day Lebanon and other areas) to the Jews and that Arabs living in Israel are viewed as thieves. Rabbi Israel Ariel, a fundamentalist leader, published an atlas that designated all lands that were Jewish and needed to be liberated. This included all areas west and south of the Euphrates River extending through most of Syria, much of Iraq, and present-day Kuwait.

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, another spokesman, said, “We must live in this land even at the price of war. Moreover, even if there is peace, we must instigate wars of liberation in order to conquer it [the land].”

Mordechai Nisan, a lecturer at the Hebrew University, expressed this view in an official publication of the World Zionist Organization. Relying on Maimonides, he said that a non-Jew permitted to reside in the land of Israel “must accept paying a tax and suffering the humiliation of servitude.” He said that non-Jews must not be appointed to any office or position of power over Jews.

When it comes to Baruch Goldstein’s murder of 29 Palestinians at prayer, fundamentalists refuse to acknowledge that such an act constitutes “murder” because, according to the Halacha, “the killing by a Jew of a non-Jew under any circumstances is not regarded as murder. It may be prohibited for other reasons, especially when it causes danger for Jews.” When asked if he was sorry about the murdered Arabs, militant Rabbi Moshe Levenger declared: “I am sorry not only about dead Arabs but about dead flies.”

For the fundamentalists, Goldstein became a hero. Military guards transported his coffin to Kiryat Arba through Palestinian villages. Rabbi Dov Lior in a eulogy stated that, “Goldstein was full of love for fellow human beings. He dedicated himself to helping others.” Authors Shahak and Mezvinsky write that, “The terms ‘human beings’ and ‘others’ in the Halacha refer solely to Jews.”

Although messianic fundamentalists constitute a relatively small portion of the Israeli population, their political influence has been growing. If they have contempt for non-Jews, their hatred for Jews who oppose their views is even greater.

The murder of Yitzhak Rabin, the authors show, is one in a long line of murders of Jews who followed a path different from that ordained by rabbinic authorities. They cite case after case, from the Middle Ages until the 19th century.

One typical example was the assassination by poison of Rabbi Avraham Cohen in Lemberg, Austria on Sept. 6, 1848.

Assuming his rabbinical position in 1844, Cohen initiated changes in Jewish life. His most important initiative was his attempt to abolish taxes on kosher meat and sabbath candles which Lemberg’s Jews paid to Austrian authorities. These taxes were burdensome for poor Jews but were a source of income for many Orthodox Jewish notables.

The Austrian authorities accepted Cohen’s request and abolished the taxes in March 1848. The five Jewish notables of the town began a total struggle against Rabbi Cohen. Critics argued that the “law of the pursuer” applied to the rabbi. One placard said: “He is one of those Jewish sinners for which the Talmud says their blood is permitted” (that is, every Jew can and should kill them). On Sept. 6, a Jewish assassin successfully entered the rabbi’s home unseen, went to the kitchen and put arsenic poison in a pot of soup that was cooking. Both Rabbi Cohen and his small daughter died. The Hassids and their leaders did not attend the funeral, but celebrated.

It was precisely the same Talmudic laws that caused Rabbi Cohen’s death which were used to murder Yitzhak Rabin. Yigal Amir, Rabin’s assassin, cited the “law of the pursuer” (din rodef) and the “Law of the informer” (din moser). The first law commands every Jew to kill or to wound severely any Jew who is perceived as intending to kill another Jew. According to halachic commentaries, it is not necessary to see such a person pursuing a Jewish victim. It is enough if rabbinic authorities, or even competent scholars, announce that the law of the pursuer applies. The second law commands every Jew to kill or wound severely any Jew who, without a decision of a competent rabbinic authority, has informed non-Jews about Jewish affairs or has given them information about Jewish property or who has delivered Jewish persons or property to their rule or authority.

The authors write: “The land of Israel has been and still is considered by all religious Jews as being the exclusive property of the Jews. Granting Palestinians authority over any part of this land could be interpreted as informing. Some religious Jews interpreted the relations that developed between Rabin and the Palestinian Authority as causing harm to the Jewish settlers. In this sense, Rabin had informed.”

For the future, the authors fear the growth of such fundamentalism just as the prospects for peace have dramatically improved. They note that, “It should not be forgotten that democracy and the rule of law were brought into Judaism from the outside. Before the advent of the modern state, Jewish communities were mostly ruled by rabbis who employed arbitrary and cruel methods as bad as those employed by totalitarian regimes. The dearest wish of the current Jewish fundamentalists is to restore this state of affairs.”

This book should be a wake-up call to many Americans, particularly Jewish supporters of Israel who are not aware of the nature of the fundamentalism which is growing strong in that country. This fundamentalism is increasing in influence as a result of Israel’s electoral system, which bestows power to minority parties far beyond their representation in the population. The authors declare: “We believe that awareness is the necessary first step in opposition.” Professors Shahak and Mezvinsky have done a notable service for men and women of goodwill of all religious traditions by pointing to the ideological roadblocks to genuine peace which must be overcome. Link

Okay. Thanks.

[Sweet Tooth]

I propose we come up with a name for a new Internet Law (kind of like Godwin's Law about using Hitler in an argument) that declares any discussion that passes a certain number of pages full of posts becomes totally irrelevant to anyone except those participants who are making it such a huge, unwieldy mess.

Any suggestions?

[AlicetheKurious]

Another brief summary of 60 some pages.

Atzmonis a tool of forces larger than himself, but likes to pretend he's a shocking breath of fresh air by regurgitating centuries of Jew-hate in the guise of a new spin.

In other words, he serves to debase Palestinian liberation activation wherever he goes by aligning it explicitly with holocaust deniers and racists.

The usual, predictable cadre of posters here on the forum, who have spent the better part of a decade using code-speak and conspiracy memes as a cover for their true feelings about the Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy to take over everything as well as various shades of blood-libel and holocaust revisionism, have found in Atzmon a spirit guide that allows them to use his language as a new format to reinforce what they already thought they knew but could only talk around due to the board rules.

None of them have the balls to say outright what they think, for fear they'll lose access to their posting privileges here, when they should really be looking for outlets where they might not be so constrained.

Alice has made a complete fool of herself by attempting to school a Jewish intellectual on Jewish law, and in the process shown she's not below just about anything to avoid simply conceding the smallest point of her fanaticism.

It's all pretty much business as usual.

Quite right. On all counts.

This thread has been very illuminating, also terribly disappointing.

Stimulist, I'm afraid your last sentence sums up my own conclusions, exactly. As for the rest, it illustrates why I am terribly disappointed.

One reason why this thread is so unnecessarily long, is that for a while, it was plagued by AD's endless and repetitive copy-pastes. For this, he was actually congratulated by barracuda, who complemented AD's "effective" method of "debate" by adding his own brand of vicious and totally baseless attacks against me and others, interspersed with total irrelevancies. That pretty much sums up most of his poisonous 'contribution' to the discussion.

Alice has made a complete fool of herself by attempting to school a Jewish intellectual on Jewish law, and in the process shown she's not below just about anything to avoid simply conceding the smallest point of her fanaticism.

Wrong on all counts. I did not attempt to school a Jewish intellectual on Jewish law. In case you hadn't noticed, "Compared2What?" is a user name, just like "AlicetheKurious" -- as anonymous posters here, if challenged on a statement of fact that we've made, the respectful thing to do is to cite authoritative sources and provide links. This is what I did, many times. In contrast, this is what c2w refused to do, while repeating over and over that I am "wrong", that these are 'malicious lies' and advising me to "live with it", etc. I consider this to be disrespectful and an insult to my intelligence.

As for c2w, I suggest a careful re-reading of at least the past 10 pages or so, for those who can stand it, to see how any thoughtful, relevant discussion of Atzmon's main arguments are buried in empty verbiage, diversionary rhetoric, ad hominem fallacies and surrounded by a fog of sophistry that advances neither our knowledge, nor our understanding of Atzmon's analysis nor of anything else.

Now, I'll admit that trying to deal with these tactics has been exhausting and frustrating for me. Still, I tried, to the best of my ability, mainly because I hate to see the use of such tactics unopposed and unexposed. I repeat: they are disrespectful and an insult to others' intelligence.

But evidently, very few others here are insulted. Which brings me to this:

None of them have the balls to say outright what they think, for fear they'll lose access to their posting privileges here, when they should really be looking for outlets where they might not be so constrained.

No. I have never been less than completely straightforward about my views throughout my years of posting. I challenge you to find one shred of evidence that I have ever been dishonest, in any way. Neither have I ever backed away from a challenge to defend them with documented facts and sound logic. Furthermore, I have never failed to clearly admit that I was wrong when presented with sound evidence that refutes mine. Ever.

The reason for this is simple, and it goes to the heart of why I participate here. Not to engage in endless, vacuous, wasteful squabbles where anything goes, but to engage in thoughtful exchanges that increase my own knowledge and that help me to develop my ideas by exposing them to intelligent, informed criticism. You'd be surprised at how hard I work to make my contributions as accurate and informative as possible, first because I want others to benefit from their participation here as much as I do, but more importantly, because I'm hoping to elicit responses from astute people whose critical thinking skills I respect.

I've stuck with this thread this long because I refused to admit to myself that facts and logic can be defeated by the kind of dishonest tactics that have been used in this thread; that so few here, where the level of intelligence is surely higher than average, would be capable of distinguishing between debate and verbal abuse, and between sound reason and pretty much every logical fallacy there is. Every word of this thread will stay available to prove that it's outrageous, and frightening, but it's also true.

As a result, I no longer feel that it's such a 'privilege' to post here, therefore there's nothing to fear 'losing'. What made it seem like a privilege is no longer there, at least right now.

[Sounder]

Alice wrote...

As for c2w, I suggest a careful re-reading of at least the past 10 pages or so, for those who can stand it, to see how any thoughtful, relevant discussion of Atzmon's main arguments are buried in empty verbiage, diversionary rhetoric, ad hominem fallacies and surrounded by a fog of sophistry that advances neither our knowledge, nor our understanding of Atzmon's analysis nor of anything else.

With reluctance, this is what I see also. After seeing C2W? change the words in what I wrote and using this trigger bait as one way of keeping rhetoric focused on (alleged personal) trivia in preference to dealing with substantive issues, I conclude along with Gilad (I imagine) that many of you folk are scared of your shadow. (Especially AD, he is a real scardy-cat wimp.)

Alice wrote…

that so few here, where the level of intelligence is surely higher than average, would be capable of distinguishing between debate and verbal abuse, and between sound reason and pretty much every logical fallacy there is. Every word of this thread will stay available to prove that it's outrageous, and frightening, but it's also true.

Shadow is the action in the words. The more one tries to hide it, the more it shows.

No worries Alice, the subtleties are not lost on many readers of this board, despite their silence.

I mean, who wants to attack an R.I. institution such as AD?

[Searcher08]

Well here we are at post number 1000.
It has certainly been an interesting journey so far...

One of the things I have been aware of is actually how HARD this can be.

I think it is really easy to ascribe a lack of good will when good will IS present,
just as one can ascribe good will to a person when it actually is NOT there. Add to that operating in a medium which filters so much of the communication bandwidth...

MIT have got a research project which was set up to investigate mega-debates taking place within an online messageboard format. It turns out that if you wanted to design a format to slow can, confuse, lose track, get noisey etc, a forum is a great way to do that.... they even designed software for dealing with it.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

If we are discussing saxophone, I like John Zorn's playing a lot better.

[barracuda]

One reason why this thread is so unnecessarily long, is that for a while, it was plagued by AD's endless and repetitive copy-pastes.

Dishonest. Any reader who cares to make the effort might take a census of American Dream's copy-pastes versus your own and find that their number is very nearly equal. I keep in mind as well that it is American Dream's thread, and thus in keeping with his method of posting to various other, lengthy threads he has started such as "Economic Aspects of Love" or the "TIDS" thread. He's not actually doing anything here much different than what he usually does, but you're still complaining.

Oh, I know - your copy-paste is infinitely more worthwhile, informative, and just plain more work than his, not to mention accompanied by your always riveting elucidations and contexturalisations.

For this, he was actually congratulated by barracuda,

You're still miffed about that, huh? Still footnoting it, even thirty pages later, that I committed the unforgivable sin of thanking AD? Well you just go ahead and hang on to that one, kid. It's a real keeper, and a nice insight into the kind of things that you focus on.

who complemented AD's "effective" method of "debate" by adding his own brand of vicious and totally baseless attacks against me and others, interspersed with total irrelevancies. That pretty much sums up most of his poisonous 'contribution' to the discussion.

Amazing, isn't it, how my gnat-like commentaries here have helped to tear the veil off your pious poses.

I did not attempt to school a Jewish intellectual on Jewish law.

That's what I'd call it.

In case you hadn't noticed, "Compared2What?" is a user name, just like "AlicetheKurious"

What is this little factoid supposed to demonstrate? That you aren't real people with real backgrounds and histories? You spend roughly 70% of your time here trading on your Egyptian back-story and closeness to the Arab world, but somehow when it comes to dealing with the reality of compared2what?'s Jew-hood, now we're all just anonymous posters, blank slates whose opinions are nothing if not buttressed by citations, preferably citations which don't happen to conflict with your own well-known authoritativeness on all things Jewish. It apparently never occurs to you that the heinous crap you bandy about here about devious Jews attempting to rule the planet, or your attempts to spread the blame for the atrocities in Gaza over huge swaths of the Jewish population of the world, or your equivocations regarding the historicity of the holocaust (to mention a mere few examples out of the vastness of your stock-in-trade), might actually be felt on a personal level by a Jewish poster here on the board. This is the kind of crap I used to expect from Hugh, not Alice.

I've mentioned this before - I know c2w in real life. She would never trade on this information, but huge swaths of her family died as a direct result of the anti-Semitism which you proffer as non-existent. I apologize to her now for even pointing this out. I know she wouldn't want me to, and she'll probably be mad at me for saying that.

I consider this to be disrespectful and an insult to my intelligence.

You've had ample opportunities to make a good faith effort at understanding the particulars of the disagreement in question here. You won't budge. You're a fanatic. It's not some kind of a secret.

...empty verbiage, diversionary rhetoric, ad hominem fallacies and surrounded by a fog of sophistry...

Now, I'll admit that trying to deal with these tactics has been exhausting and frustrating for me. Still, I tried, to the best of my ability, mainly because I hate to see the use of such tactics unopposed and unexposed.

Don't be so pompous. What you hate is to suffer under the tiniest possible appearance that your opinion might not be the only viable route to understanding the situation.

[barracuda]

If we are discussing saxophone, I like John Zorn's playing a lot better.

In this context, I'm beginning to lean towards Boots Randolph.

[vanlose kid]

heya b, 'sup?



*

[barracuda]

Hey, man, you know - same ol', same ol'.