Dehumanizing Nature of False Accusations of Anti-Semitism

[seemslikeadream]

May 01, 2012
Not Disappointed
Horowitz, the New York Times and the Pitiable State of Israel’s Friends
by MICHAEL NEUMANN

A few days ago, the New York Times ran the following ad in its print edition:

After the usual thrill of seeing my name in print, my reaction was concern. This is the 21st century. These advertisers are either in their dotage, or running out of money. The whole production reeks of cheap. Terrible graphics, terrible fonts, terrible choice of medium; it seems to come with built-in smudge. The verdict may be harsh, but it’s quite sincere.

Ten years ago, this sort of thing might have been cause for alarm; now it reveals the pitiable state of Israel’s friends. As for the text, the hysteria is palpable. The tiny number of people who will take this seriously need help.

But what about the New York Times, which ran the ad? I sent them this:

To Whom It May Concern:

On or about April 23rd, you ran an ad on your op-ed page, A21. (I cannot give the date because I have seen only a scan of the ad, not its place in the paper.) The ad referred to ‘…Michael Neumann, of Trent University who has said that the “core” of Israel’s ideology is Nazism.’

It’s not just that I never said any such thing. (One online extract from my book was called “The Core of Zionism”, and can be found at http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/01/26/ ... f-zionism/. It never so much as mentions the Nazis.) It is also that I have repeatedly and explicitly distanced myself from any such comparisons.

Two examples:

“I intend to trace the ravages of ethnic nationalism, not by any means to make Zionists into Nazis. It is entirely unnecessary to take this false step, which would obscure rather than clarify the repellent aspects of Zionism.” http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/10/14/fearsome-words/

“In what follows I will from time to time compare the position of Jews to the position of Germans in the Nazi era and afterwards.

This is in no way an attempt to say that the Israelis either are Nazis, or are as bad as the Nazis. I have never at any time made such claims, and never will.” http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustPeaceUK/message/6960

So the statement in the ad is not only false; it contradicts my own publicly available pronouncements.

The Times is responsible for propagating this defamatory statement about me. It should acknowledge this state of affairs.

Michael Neumann

I was not disappointed to receive no response of any kind, and no doubt you would have thought me naïve to expect anything else. The only disappointing aspect of this is that we no longer expect the Times to give a shit about the truth.

Michael Neumann is a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. Professor Neumann’s views are not to be taken as those of his university. His book What’s Left: Radical Politics and the Radical Psyche is published by Broadview Press. He contributed the essay, “What is Anti-Semitism”, to CounterPunch’s book, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. His latest book is The Case Against Israel. He can be reached at: mneumann@trentu.ca

Slandering Critics of Israel
April 30, 2012

Even as some ex-officials in Israel question the “messianic” behavior of Prime Minister Netanyahu, his hard-line American supporters are escalating a propaganda war against U.S. academics who challenge Israel’s abuse of Palestinians. One ugly smear appeared on the New York Times’ editorial page, writes Lawrence Davidson.

By Lawrence Davidson

On April 24, the New York Times rented out part of its editorial page to the propaganda of right- wing Zionist David Horowitz, thereby taking the “newspaper of record” down into the gutter for the price of a quarter-page advertisement. The ad, which purported to be “a public service” by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, told the following libelous story:

“The Holocaust began with boycotts of Jewish stores and ended with death camps. The calls for a new Holocaust can be heard throughout the Middle East and Europe as well. In the wake of the murders of a rabbi and three children in Toulouse, it is time for the supporters of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel movement (BDS) to ask themselves what they did to contribute to the atmosphere of hate that spawned these and other murders of Jews.”

Photo of Nazi stormtrooper used in New York Times ad attacking critics of Israel.

What is wrong with this story?

1. The analogy of BDS with Nazi-led “boycotts of Jewish stores” is (no doubt purposely) misleading. The Boycott movement is directed against Israel as a racist state and the economic and social agents (Jewish and non-Jewish) who support it. The notion that the BDS boycotts lead to death camps is fantasy. Whatever the crazy logic of the Nazis on the one hand and David Horowitz on the other, the BDS movement is an effort to prevent persecution of innocent people and not to promote it.

2. The notion that the BDS movement either “calls for a new Holocaust” or is associated with those supposedly doing so is nonsense. In reality, it is the right-wing Israeli fanatics who are calling for, and actually carrying out, their own small-scale version of a holocaust against the Palestinians, who have been forced into ghettos and Bantustans and who suffer homelessness, cultural genocide and periodic pogroms.

Indeed, the same week Mr. Horowitz placed his ad, Israel launched 57 military raids into Palestinian territory resulting in multiple injuries and death, destroyed at least 13 Palestinian shelters while beginning construction on 20 illegal settler houses. Yet the perpetrators of these crimes persist in portraying themselves as victims because once, under completely different historical circumstances, their ancestors were victims. But that was in the past. In the present the Zionists are the culprits and BDS movement seeks to bring out this tragic and ironic fact.

3. It is a gross misrepresentation to accuse those supporting BDS of contributing to “the atmosphere of hate that spawned … murder of Jews.” The BDS campaign has nothing to do with this atmosphere, but the actions of the Israeli leadership has everything to do with it. With the Zionist persecution of the Palestinians ongoing, one does not need a boycott movement to explain the upswing of anger.

Some may unfortunately fail to make the proper distinction between political Zionists and Jews in general, just like Horowitz and his ilk fail to make the distinction between terrorists and Palestinians in general. Yet, if the Israeli leaders and their supporters want to know where this anger is coming from, they need look no further than their own behavior.

However, they refuse to look. Instead they attempt to confuse matters and shift the blame from fanatic Zionist settlers and racist Israeli politicians onto those who would publicly expose the viciousness of Israeli policies. That is one of the aims of the Horowitz ad in the New York Times and it pursues it in very specific ad hominem fashion, singling out 14 academics by name.

When in November 1938 the Nazis launched the pogroms which became known as Kristallnacht, they painted Jewish stars on the sites to be attacked. In a similar way, Horowitz seeks to identify and label those he wishes to be “publicly shamed and condemned.” What does that mean? Should they lose their jobs just like the Jews who were forced out of their occupations by the Nazis? Should they be segregated out and impoverished like Palestinians? Perhaps Mr. Horowitz would applaud physical attacks? Just how Nazi-like does he wish the situation to get?

William Thomson of the University of Michigan, one of 14 academics slandered by the Horowitz advertisement, notes that “groups and individuals will resort to unfounded character assassination and ad hominem attacks when reasoned discussion is beyond their abilities.” However, the country’s major national newspaper is not supposed to be an accomplice in such attacks. Yet, that is the case.

Ali Abunimah has pointed out that the New York Times has “advertising acceptability guidelines” which require advertisements to “comply with its (the NYT’s) standards of decency and dignity” and not be “misleading, inaccurate or fraudulent.” Horowitz’s offering is blatantly all of this.

Yet there it was, in the April 24 edition of the “paper of record.” Horowitz’s propaganda was placed on the editorial page and not identified as an ad. What are we to make of this? It seems clear that the editors actually believe that the piece meets their standards of acceptability. But is the Times also telling us that this libel is an acceptable editorial? The entire affair calls into question (not for the first time) the judgment of the people who run this famous newspaper.

David Horowitz probably wrote this propaganda piece not only to shift blame but also to scare people – to frighten those named and scare off others from getting involved in the BDS movement. Yet he may well have overstepped and made himself the subject of critical attention rather than those he rails against.

That is what happens when your message reflects a viewpoint that is ideologically driven and fanatical. Cast this viewpoint in a more normal light and it looks weird and distorted.

The 19th century British essayist William Hazlitt once remarked that prejudice can only be convincing when it can pass itself off as reason. This is Horowitz’s rather gross effort to do just that. But identifying those opposed to Israeli behavior with Nazis is wildly unreasonable. Hopefully, at this stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most Americans recognize this to be so.

[parel]

Who's afraid of BDS? Israel's assault on academic freedom
Randa Abdel-FattahABC RELIGION AND ETHICS 31 OCT 2013

By suing an Australian academic, Israel is trying to export its brand of oppression. For Israel is no stranger to dismantling human rights in order to stifle criticism of its racist policies.

Australians who care about academic freedom and freedom of speech should be very concerned by Israeli efforts to undermine values that remain fundamental to our democracy, and to demonise supporters of Palestinians and human rights.

I am one of 2000 Australian and international human rights advocates from some 60 countries who signed a pledge supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and offering to be a co-defendant in any legal action taken against Professor Jake Lynch from the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. On Tuesday, Shurat HaDin, an Israeli based law centre, filed a case in the Federal Court of Australia against Professor Lynch, claiming he has supported policies which are racist and discriminatory by his specific endorsement of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions and individuals representing them. Jake Lynch has refused collaboration with Hebrew University because of its support of the illegal occupation of Palestine and close connections with the Israeli armament industry.

There is nothing racist or anti-Semitic about BDS. Efforts to intimidate and defame its supporters are based on a concerted campaign of lies, bullying and deliberate distortions - a campaign directed from outside Australia. United States government cables leaked by Wikileaks show that Shurat HaDin takes direction from the Israeli government over which cases to pursue and relies on Israeli intelligence contacts for witnesses and evidence. While the case against Professor Lynch is to be adjudicated in an Australian court, this is clearly an external political attack on Australian democratic principles and freedoms. By attacking an Australian academic's right to free speech, to dissent and to support a political and human rights cause of his choice, Israel is exporting its brand of oppression into Australia. For Israel is no stranger to dismantling democratic principles and fundamental human rights in its effort to stifle criticism of its racist policies.

In March 2011, the Israeli Knesset passed a law authorising the Finance Minister to reduce state funding or support to an institution if it engages in an "activity that is contrary to the principles of the state." Relevantly, the activities include "rejecting the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state" and "commemorating Independence Day or the day of the establishment of the state as a day of mourning." Whether it is invoking the slur of anti-Semitism against anybody who dares to call Israel to account for its illegal occupation and apartheid practices, or accusing Jewish activists who support justice for Palestinians as "self-hating Jews," or punishing Palestinians and Israelis alike for commemorating the day they lost their land (the Nakba), Israel is a state that does not suffer criticism of its policies. It is a state that considers itself to be above scrutiny and which enjoys the right to act with impunity, given the tacit, sometimes explicit, approval of Western nations who are all too ready to condone its lawlessness and militarism.

So why is Israel so scared of BDS? After all, it is a military juggernaut and covertly nuclear state. Economically and militarily, the Palestinians do not stand a chance.

The occupation and apartheid machinery have, no doubt, accelerated. But the moral force that used to drive that process is eroding - and this is what Israel is scared about: delegitimation. Israel is rightly worried about the largely symbolic victories to be gained from BDS and the potential for this, over the long term, to erode Western support for Israel's intransigence and thereby to further isolate it from the family of democratic nations. From Lebanon in 2006, to Operation Cast Lead, to the Gaza Flotilla, to the siege on Gaza, to the bombing of Gaza in 2012, Israel has lost much of its credibility in the eyes of the international community. There is an undeniable shift in the balance of moral power.

Palestinians, by contrast, now occupy the moral high ground and, with the launch of BDS in 2005, they and their supporters have signalled that they will no longer trust in tired political games and a farcical "peace process," investing instead in a strategy that highlights their moral power, and trusting that justice will be delivered through the collective effort of global civil society.

It is precisely because of the power and effectiveness of BDS that Israel is worried and is willing to go to such lengths as to wage a kind of lawfare on an Australian academic who dared to refuse to host a visiting academic from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The predictable "anti-Semite" and "racist" slurs have been invoked in an attempt to make this an issue about so-called Israeli victimhood, ignoring what BDS is all about and pretending that it has somehow emerged out of thin air - and not because of over 60 years of oppression, brutality and apartheid.

The sheer ludicrousness of accusing supporters of BDS of racism is thrown into sharp relief when one considers that, in 1980, the United Nations passed a resolution urging "all academic and cultural institutions to terminate all links with South Africa." BDS takes inspiration from the boycotts and divestment initiatives applied to pressure South Africa to end apartheid. It was not racism for international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to support non-violent punitive measures and impose boycotts, including academic boycotts, on South Africa to end apartheid. And it is not racism for a similar model to be applied against Israel for its apartheid practices and continued violations of international law.

Indeed, there is something altogether ironic about an Israeli law centre playing the racism card. How can a state engaged in a racist, outmoded, ethno-religious colonial project founded on ethnic cleansing seriously claim that those who oppose its racism are racist? It is likely that, as the case against Professor Lynch progresses, the smears and distortions will escalate, but many Australians will see through the blatant tactics of intimidation and attacks on freedom of speech, recognising this lawsuit for what it is: a blatant attempt to stifle dissent and criticism of Israel under the pretence of racial discrimination.

Randa Abdel-Fattah is an award-winning author of eight novels. She practiced as a lawyer for ten years, and is now completing a PhD in the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University.

[seemslikeadream]

MJ Rosenberg owes Ali Abunimah an apology for false accusations of anti-Semitism
David Samel on October 22, 2013 198

While tirelessly working to promote the rights of his people, Palestinian-American activist and Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah has kept a wary eye open for anti-Semitism, and repeatedly made it clear that there is no room in the Palestinian rights movement for any attacks on Jewish people. For example, see his harsh criticism of Gilad Atzmon and Greta Berlin. Of course, this stance has not insulated him from the usual charges of anti-Semitism from the cadre of smear artists poised to attack. Their tactics range from willful distortions and misinterpretations of actual remarks to outright fabrication of quotes.

Ordinarily, such reflexive condemnations of “anti-Semitism” are not noteworthy. But recently, a new and surprising source of the most vitriolic and vacuous charges of anti-Jewish bigotry has emerged. MJ Rosenberg has come a long way since his early days as an AIPAC staffer, and while he still supports the existence of the Jewish State, has been a genuinely harsh critic of Israeli policies. He has authored a number of posts on Mondoweiss that offered a good deal of insight or at least inspired thoughtful discussion.

In a series of recent blog posts, Rosenberg unleashes a shocking stream of invective directed against Abunimah, including: “I believe that Ali Abunimah would be ecstatic if Israel was destroyed, blown off the face of the earth, along with every one of its people because, after all, the Jews in Palestine are, by definition, Zionists, even the kids.” “Ali Abunimah refers to Israelis as Zionists, [and] then he makes clear, over and over again, that Zionists are all bad people. Just go to his twitter feed and read the labels he uses for Zionists, like ‘invaders.’ So, by simple deduction, Abunimah hates all 6 or 7 million Jews of Israel, about half the Jews on the planet.” This is Alan Dershowitz on steroids.

Ali Abunimah
Ali Abunimah

What has incensed Rosenberg to the point of meltdown? He repeatedly cites Abunimah’s twitter feed, but does not quote any particular tweets and only gives details about two, where Ali suggests that it was anti-Semitic for Congressman Henry Waxman to consult specifically with Jewish House members on Syria, and that it is similarly anti-Semitic to subscribe to “Zionist dogma” that Jews must be physically separated from non-Jews. Since Rosenberg singles out these tweets, he presumably found them to be among the most offensive. However, even if one disagrees with these positions, are they really deserving of such an irate response? Moreover, if Rosenberg is going to attack Abunimah as bent on genocide of millions, don’t his readers deserve to see exactly what Ali wrote? In fact, Rosenberg makes it clear that his accusations are based not on what Ali wrote but on his “simple deduction” of Abunimah’s state of mind: “Yeah, yeah, I know he is careful to scream about Israelis or Zionists and not Jews, but he doesn’t fool me”; “I know anti-Semitism when I see it.”

This outburst is all the more inexplicable since Rosenberg himself has been publicly smeared by the odious Dershowitz for the relatively innocuous “offense” of using the term “Israel firster” to describe those who put Israel first. Dershowitz threatened to use his self-appointed bully pulpit to defeat Obama’s re-election if Media Matters did not fire Rosenberg, who actually resigned in response to the threat. Dershowitz, no stranger to ridiculously overheated prose, said this about Rosenberg: “He didn’t engage in careful, nuanced critiques of Israel, which is fine. He engaged in hyperbole, name-calling. He just hated, hated, hated, with a passion, almost an eroticized passion of anything associated with Israel. He was like a spurned lover — irrational.” What was Rosenberg trying to prove by smearing Abunimah in similar or even worse terms?

Rosenberg is a quintessential Liberal Zionist, one who believes that the creation and continued existence of the Jewish State has been a worthy project but that strenuous efforts should be made to mitigate its negative effects on Palestinians. Rosenberg seems sincerely critical of Israel’s movement in the opposite direction, being harsher than it has to be. Abunimah may exhibit little patience with LZ prescriptions of a kinder and gentler system of inequality. While I agree with Abunimah’s vision of one state with equal rights for all, I may be somewhat more tolerant of “Liberal Zionists” than he is, but after all, my family is full of them and his family was ethnically cleansed from their homeland by Zionists of all stripes.

But to infer that Abunimah is such a virulent anti-Semite that he would love to see millions of Israeli Jews exterminated is beyond preposterous. Abunimah has written a book detailing his view of one state in which every resident of the land between the river and the sea would enjoy full and equal rights of citizenship. Does Rosenberg truly believe that Abunimah devoted the time and energy to writing this book envisioning true peace and harmony between Jews and non-Jews only to camouflage his master plan for the Final Solution in the Middle East? Rosenberg apparently has felt the personal sting of Abunimah’s intolerance of Zionism in any form, but if he is going to advocate in favor of his own “right” to emigrate half-way around the world and assume a superior position to people who have lived there for many centuries, he should be more tolerant of criticism, especially from the victims of that ideology.

This is more than an issue of personal pique between two individuals, and should be seen in a larger context. Ultimately, all supporters of the concept of a Jewish State, including “Liberal Zionists,” are defending a system that inherently imposes ethno-religious privileges that would be impossible to tolerate in the United States or elsewhere. The only way a Liberal Zionist could rationalize this compromise of the rights of others is for a “greater good” of preventing a far worse calamity. True Liberal Zionists oppose the Occupation, but feel that Palestinian citizens of Israel are going to have to accept perpetual second-class citizenship because a Jewish State is necessary to protect not only Israeli Jews but also world Jewry. So in order to justify a Jewish State rather than a color/ethnicity/religion-blind state, the dangers to Jews posed by the world at large, and Arabs and Palestinians in particular, must be magnified. The Palestinian fight for freedom, justice and equality is thus often portrayed as a potential threat to the survival of the Jewish people, who live on the precipice of genocide. A more realistic evaluation of the threat of anti-Semitism would not give it precedence over conforming to the otherwise inviolable 21st century norm of equality for all.

Is there any anti-Semitism in the Palestinian rights movement? Surely there is. The movement is a reaction to many decades of appalling oppression perpetrated by a state that purports to be acting in the name of all Jews. Surely there were expressions of hatred directed against white people in apartheid South Africa and the Jim Crow south. Such reactions do not delegitimize (a rare appropriate use of that word) the universal struggles for freedom, justice and equality, nor do they justify the perpetuation of their denial. Kathleen Peratis may detect a “whiff” of anti-Semitism, but that is no reason to shun a movement dedicated to equal rights in any of these settings.

Ali Abunimah understands that expressions of anti-Semitism can be poisonous to his cause. But false accusations of anti-Semitism can be just as toxic, all the more so when leveled by someone like MJ Rosenberg rather than one of the usual knee-jerk blowhards. This is not merely a personal smear directed against someone wholly undeserving of it. It’s a gift bestowed upon not-so-liberal Zionists who can now quote the Israeli critic MJ as “authority” that Ali Abunimah, not to mention all he represents, is a raging anti-Semitic genocidal maniac. Rosenberg should take a step back and re-evaluate. He owes Abunimah and his readership an apology.

Ali Abunimah understands that expressions of anti-Semitism can be poisonous to his cause. But false accusations of anti-Semitism can be just as toxic, all the more so when leveled by someone like MJ Rosenberg rather than one of the usual knee-jerk blowhards.

[American Dream]

MJ Rosenberg owes Ali Abunimah an apology for false accusations of anti-Semitism

Thanks for posting the above.

[seemslikeadream]

Stephen Harper’s Criticizing-Israel-Is-Anti-Semitic screed is exploded on CBC
David Kattenburg on January 26, 2014


Stephen Harper’s cringe-provoking performance of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” at an Israeli state dinner last week (he plays piano better than he sings) received enormous media attention, certainly up here in Canada.

More germane to current debates were his comments about “the new anti-Semitism” before an august gathering of the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem — the first-ever address by a Canadian Prime Minister.

“We have witnessed, in recent years , the mutation of the old disease of anti-Semitism and the emergence of a new strain,” Canada’s 54 year-old Conservative Party leader — a staunch Zionist — told the rapt crowd. “We all know about the old anti-Semitism. It was crude and ignorant, and it led to the horrors of the death camps.”

“Of course,” Harper went on, “in many dark corners, it is still with us. But, in much of the western world, the old hatred has been translated into more sophisticated language for use in polite society. People who would never say they hate the Jews for their own failings or the problems of the world, instead declare their hatred of Israel and blame the only Jewish state for the problems of the Middle East.

“As once Jewish businesses were boycotted, some civil-society leaders today call for a boycott of Israel. On some campuses, intellectualized arguments against Israeli policies thinly mask the underlying realities, such as the shunning of Israeli academics and the harassment of Jewish students. Most disgracefully of all, some openly call Israel an apartheid state … It is nothing short of sickening.”

Well, this past Friday morning, Stephen Harper’s Criticizing-Israel-Is-Anti-Semitic screed came up for close scrutiny on CBC Radio’s flagship current affairs program, The Current.

A radio journalist and loyal CBC Radio listener myself, I was most amazed to hear Friday morning’s exchange between Joseph Ben-Ami, a former Stephen Harper aide, and Rima Berns-McGown, who teaches diaspora studies at the University of Toronto (“Muslim by choice, Jewish by descent,” her Twitter feed declares).

Trenchant analysis of what’s going on in Israel-Palestine is not something I’m accustomed to hearing on CBC Radio. Some of the most insightful commentary on Israeli behavior can certainly be heard on programs like The Sunday Edition and The Current, but reports on Israel’s occupation and growing Palestinian non-violent resistance are virtually absent from CBC’s half-hour evening news. The subject seems to be taboo.

Indeed, at the close of her Friday morning interview with Ben-Ami and Berns-McGown, The Current‘s stand-in host Pia Chatapati speaks of letting “the conversation begin.”

Berns-McGown’s comments about the criticism-of-Israel taboo are as full-throated a call for telling the truth as one can imagine. Her voice trembling at times, she had things to say I don’t recall ever being articulated over Canadian airwaves (time codes in brackets):

“[5:24]” I think it’s really problematic to equate the [state of Israel] with the Jewish people. I think that’s a really problematic and, one could argue, deeply antisemitic stand.”

[11:00] “If you’re critiquing the fact that Israel privileges one ethno-religious group, and discriminates against and actively, in some cases, oppresses another ethno-religious group (notably Palestinians, but not only Palestinians), and has used and continues to use expulsion and occupation and institutional marginalization to achieve those goals, those are very legitimate observations.”

[13:16] “[Israeli government] policies are fundamentally un-Judaic, because a central tenet of Judaism is that you do not do unto others what you do not want to have done to you. And many Jews, and a growing number particularly of young Jews, are separating themselves from self-identifying with being Jewish because they don’t want to be associated with this, precisely because establishment organizations conflate the idea of being Jewish with these policies.”

[19:12] “We desperately need to have a conversation about this. It’s only when you talk about these issues, and you’re not afraid to talk about them for fear of being smeared as a racist that you can actually talk it all out. Not talking about it is not doing Israel or Jews any favours. We need to lift the taboo and we need to stop exempting Israel from criticism.”

In response to the central argument of Israel supporters that everyone else commits horrid crimes, and that Israel gets singled out (anti-Semitically), Berns-McGown articulates the counter-position in succinct and compelling fashion:

[16:31] “Of course there are lots of states that do nasty things. But Israel purports to be a Western democracy. If you want to be in the club of Western democracies, you are going to be held accountable and expected to hold the standards that Western democracies hold, and criticism is not only fair game, but it’s essential … Israel behaves in ways, again, that many Jews and many Israelis see as un-Judaic and really problematic and not true to the core of what it means to be Jewish … Israel is actually being singled out for exemption from criticism by remarks like the Prime Minister’s.”

Go straight to the audio here.

[seemslikeadream]

JULY 09, 2014

Two Weights, Two Measures
The Israel Lobby and French Politics
by EVAN JONES
Pascal Boniface is a specialist in what the French call ‘geopolitics’. His output has been prodigious, traversing a wide variety of subjects. His latest book was published in May, titled: La France malade du conflit israélo-palestinien. For his literary efforts in this arena, Boniface has moved from respected commentator to being persona non grata in the mainstream media.

This story begins in 2001. Boniface was an adviser to the Parti Socialiste, with the PS then in a cohabitation government under RPR President Jacques Chirac and PS Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. In April 2001, he wrote an opinion for PS officials. The Party’s approach to Israel is based on realpolitik rather than on ethical principles, and it was time for a reappraisal.

Boniface published an article to the same effect in Le Monde in August 2001, which led to a response and rebuke by the then Israeli ambassador. Boniface then became fair game for the Israel lobby (my term – Boniface assiduously avoids it). Boniface was accused, via selective quotation, of urging the PS to cynically cater to the French Arab/Muslim community, more numerous than the Jewish community, to gain electoral advantage. As recently as January 2014, Alain Finkielkraut (rabble-rouser on the ‘Islamist’ problem in France) denounced Boniface on the same grounds.

The 1300 word 2001 note is reproduced in Boniface’s latest book. In a prefatory note to the reproduction, Boniface notes: “How many times have I not heard that one can’t move on the Middle East because of the ‘Jewish vote’ (sic) which of course does not exist but which nevertheless is largely taken on board by the elected of all sides.” Again, “It is not because there are more Arabs than Jews that it is necessary to condemn the Israeli Occupation; it is rather because the Occupation is illegal and illegitimate, contrary to universal principles and to the right of peoples to govern themselves.”

In the note itself, Boniface opines: “The intellectual terrorism that consists of accusing of anti-Semitism those who don’t accept the politics of Israeli governments (as opposed to the state of Israel), profitable in the short term, will prove to be disastrous in the end.” Paraphrasing Boniface: ‘… it will act to reinforce and expand an irritation with the French Jewish community, and increasingly isolate it at the national level.’ Boniface concludes:

“It is better to lose an election than to lose one’s soul. But in putting on the same level the government of Israel and the Palestinians, one risks simply to lose both. Does the support of Sharon [then Prime Minister] warrant a loss in 2002? It is high time that the PS … faces the reality of a situation more and more abnormal, more and more perceived as such, and which besides does not serve … the interests in the medium and long term of the Israeli people and of the French Jewish community.”

As Boniface highlights in 2014, “This note, alas, retains its topicality.”

Then comes 9/11 in September. There is the second Intifada in Palestine. Boniface wanted an internal debate in the PS, but is accused of anti-Semitism. The glib denunciation of terrorism brings with it a prohibition against the questioning of its causes.

Not content to be silenced, Boniface wrote a book in 2003, titled Est-il permis de critique Israël ?. Boniface was rejected by seven publishing houses before finding a publisher. In 2011, Boniface published a book titled Les Intellectuels Faussaires (The Counterfeit Intellectuals). In that book he called to account eight prominent individuals, not for their views (virulently pro-Israel, Neo-cons, Islamophobes) but because he claims, with evidence, that they persistently bend the truth. Yet they all regularly appear on the French mainstream media as expert commentators. The point here is that the 2011 book was rejected by fourteen publishers; add those who Boniface knew would be a waste of time approaching. Belatedly, Boniface found a willing small-scale publisher for Faussaires, and it has sold well in spite of a blackout in outlets that Boniface had expected some coverage.

Boniface also notes that Michel Bôle-Richard, recognized journalist at Le Monde, experienced a rejection for his manuscript Israël, le nouvel apartheid by ten publishing houses before he found a small-scale publisher in 2013. Boniface’s La France malade was rejected by the house that published his 2003 book. By default, it has been published by a small-scale Catholic press, Éditions Salvator. As Boniface notes, ‘this is symptomatic of the climate in France and precisely why this book had to be written’. It’s noteworthy that much of the non-mainstream media, including Marianne, Le Canard Enchainé and Mediapart, steers clear of the issue.

Boniface’s book is not about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Rather, it is about the parlous influence of the domestic Israel lobby on French politics and French society more broadly. Boniface claims that one can criticize any government in the world (one can even mercilessly attack the reigning French President), but not that of Israel.

After 2001, the PS was pressured to excommunicate him. Two regional presses ceased to publish his articles. There were attempts to discredit his organization – the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques – and to have him removed. He has been slurred as an anti-Semite.

At the peak of French Jewish organizations is the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France. CRIF’s formal dominant concern is the combating of anti-Semitism. At its annual dinner, its President cites the yearly total of recorded anti-Semitic incidents, berating the assembled political elite (‘the turn up of Ministers rivals that of the 14th July’) who don’t dare to reply.

There are indeed recurring anti-Semitic events, and there was a noticeable surge for several years in the early 2000s. Prime Minister Jospin was blamed for not keeping a lid on troublemakers (read Arab/Muslim) from the banlieues. The Socialists were ousted in 2002 and CRIF became a vocal advocate for and supporter of the new Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy’s domestic hard-line against civil disorder.

But Jospin was ‘guilty’ of more. One of the PS’s most ardent supporters of Israel, Jospin visited Israel and the Occupied Territories in 1999. Experiencing the latter first hand, his government’s policy towards Sharon-led Israel becomes less ardent. For CRIF, France’s less than a 100% plus pro-Israel stance puts French Jews at greater risk, so CRIF maintains as its imperative to influence both foreign and domestic policy. After the Merah murders of (amongst others) three Jewish children and an adult at a Toulouse school in 2012, CRIF was still laying blame on Jospin. As Boniface notes, CRIF perennially attempts to influence France’s policies but refrains from attempting to influence Israel’s policies.

When the publisher of Boniface’s 2003 book rejected the latest proposal (originally planned as a revised edition of the earlier book), the excuse was that it was over-laden with statistics. Statistics there are (helped by French infatuation with surveys and polling), and they ground Boniface’s cause.

Boniface highlights a change in attitudes after the 1960s. Anti-Semitism was still observably prevalent in the 1960s (would you accept Jews as in-laws?, a Jewish President?, etc.) but has since been consistently in decline. At the same time, popular support for Israel has experienced consistent decline. Until 1967, support for Israel, as the ‘underdog’, in France was high. Gradually attitudes have changed. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 is a turning point. Increasingly the manifestations of conflict – the intifadas, the failures at Camp David and later of Oslo – are blamed on Israel. Increasingly, the sympathy is more in favor of the occupied rather than the occupier.

In 2003, a European-wide survey produced the result that the greatest percentage of those surveyed thought that, of all countries, Israel was a threat to world peace – ahead of the US, Iran and North Korea, and so on. If the facts are ugly then bury them. There has been no subsequent comparable survey.

With anti-Semitism down and dislike for Israeli government policies up, the main agenda of CRIF has been to become a ‘second ambassador’ for Israel under cover of the supposed omnipresent pall of anti-Semitism in France. Other organizations like the Bureau national de vigilance contre l’anti-sémitisme (BNVCA) and the Union des étudiants juifs de France (UEJF) are part of the Israel cheer squad.

Boniface cites CRIF President Roger Cukierman in 2005: “Teachers have a demanding task to teach our children … the art of living together, the history of religions, of slavery, of anti-Semitism. A labor of truth is also essential to inscribe Zionism, this movement of emancipation, amongst the great epics of human history, and not as a repulsive fantasy.” And CRIF President Richard Prasquier in 2011: “Today Jews are attacked for their support of Israel, for Israel has become the ‘Jew’ amongst nations.” After 2008, following the ascendancy of Prasquier to the CRIF presidency, CRIF institutionalizes the organization of trips to Israel by French opinion leaders, and the reception in France of Israeli personalities.

Boniface finds it odious that anti-Semitism should be ‘instrumentalized’ to protect Israeli governments regardless of their actions. There is the blanket attempt at censorship of all events and materials that open Israel’s policies to examination.

Representative is a planned gathering in January 2011 at the prestigious École normale supérieure of 300 people to debate the ‘boycott’ question. Among the participants were the Israeli militant peacenik Nurit Peled, who lost her daughter in a suicide bombing, and the formidable Stéphane Hessel. The ENS’s director cancelled the booking under direct pressure. The higher education Minister and bureaucracy were also lobbied, in turn putting pressure on the ENS.

In February 2010, Sarkozy’s Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie issued a directive criminalizing those calling for a boycott of Israeli products. The formal reason given was that such a boycott militates against the freedom of commerce. The directive imposes a jail sentence and a heavy fine, and the Justice Minister instructed prosecutors that it is to be vigorously applied. Even the magistrature has criticized the directive, noting that its claimed dependence on a 2004 anti-discrimination law is inadmissible, and that it involves ‘a juridical assault of rare violence’ against a historic means of combating crimes of state. The directive remains in force under the Hollande Presidency.

The most striking reflection of the wholesale censorship agenda of the Israel lobby is the abuse of Jewish critics of Israel.

April 2010, under the banner Jcall.edu, a group of respected European Jews criticize the Occupation in defense of a more secure Israel, urging ‘two peoples, two states’ – they are attacked. March 2012, Jacob Cohen, Jewish critic of Israel, is physically menaced by the Ligue de défense juive (LDJ) during the launch of his book. November 2012, the mayoralty of the 19th arrondisement is attacked by the BNVCA for supporting an exhibition on the Negev Bedouins. Its sponsors, the Union juive française pour la paix (UJFP), are characterized as fronts for Palestinian propaganda. December 2012, Israeli Michel Warschawski is awarded the ‘prix des droits de l’homme de la République française’ – he is demonized. Other prominent Jewish intellectuals – Franco-Israeli Charles Enderlin, Rony Brauman, Edgar Morin, Esther Benbassa, members of the UJPF – are demonized.

July 2014, three young Jewish Israelis have been murdered. Charles Enderlin reports from Israel. The television channel France 2 mis-edits Enderlin’s reportage of ‘three young Israelis’ as ‘young colonists’. Widely respected for his sober reporting, Enderlin has been subsequently subject to a volley of abuse – thus: ‘it’s time to organise a commando to bump off this schmuck’.

April 2012, at the first Congress of friends of Israel. Israeli Ofer Bronchtein, President of the Forum international pour la paix, arrives as an official invitee. The LDJ attack him; the organisers, including CRIF, ask him to leave. Bronchtein later noted:

“If I had been attacked by anti-Semites in the street, numerous Jewish organisations would have quickly called for a demonstration at the Bastille. When it is fascist Jewish organisations that attack me, everybody remains silent …”

February 2013, Stéphane Hessel dies. Hessel’s life is an exemplar of courage and moral integrity; in his advanced years, this life was brought to our attention with the publication of his Indignez-vous ! in 2010. Hessel, part Jewish, was a strong critic of the Occupation and of the 2008-09 Gaza massacre. His death is met with bile from the lobby. CRIF labelled him a flawed thinker from whom they had little to learn and a doddery naïf giving comfort to the evil of others. A blogger on JssNews ranted: ‘Hessel! The guy who stinks the most. Not only his armpits but his inquisitorial fingers regarding the Jews of Israel.’ The LDJ celebrated – ‘Hessel the anti-Semite is dead! Champagne! [with multiple exclamation marks].’

Peculiarly in France, there is the LDJ. Its counterparts banned in Israel and the US (albeit not in Canada), the LDJ represents the strong-arm end of the Israel lobby. CRIF looks the other way. Boniface notes that it has been treated leniently to date by the authorities; is it necessary to wait for a death to confront its menace? On the recent murder of the three young Israelis, an LDJ tweet proffers: ‘The murders are all committed by the apostles of Islam. No Arabs, no murders! LDJ will respond rapidly and forcefully.’

As a de facto ambassador for Israel, the lobby has long attempted to influence French foreign policy. Boniface notes that in 1953 the new Israeli ambassador was met by Jewish representatives with the claim that ‘we are French citizens and you are the envoy of a foreign state’. That was then.

At successive annual dinners, CRIF has called for France to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s ‘eternal’ capital, and to incorporate Israel as a member state in the Francophonie (with the associated financial benefits and cultural leverage). On those fronts, CRIF has been unsuccessful. But it has had success on the broader front.

The turning point comes with President Chirac’s refusal to sanction the coalition of the willing in its criminal rush to invade Iraq in March 2003. The lobby is not amused. Now why would that be? In whose interests did the invasion and occupation occur? Chirac’s reluctance is met with a concerted strategy of the French lobby in combination with the US Israel lobby and US government officials to undermine the French position. Thus the ‘French bashing’ campaign – not generated spontaneously by the offended American masses after all. In his 2008 book, then CRIF President Roger Cukierman notes his gratitude for the power of the US lobby, and its capacity to even pressure the French leadership over Iraq.

Boniface claims that Chirac falls into line as early as May 2003. There is established high level links between France and Israel. After that … Sharon is welcomed to France in July 2005. France denies acknowledgement of the Hamas electoral victory in January 2006. France demurs on Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006 (in spite of the historic ties between Beirut and Paris). France remains ‘prudent’ regarding Israel’s Operation Cast Lead against Gaza in late 2008 and the murderous assault on the Turkish-led flotilla in May 2010. France did vote ‘yes’ to a Palestinian state at the UN in November 2012, but in general French foreign policy has become captive to Israeli imperatives, thanks in particular to the domestic lobby.

* * *

In February 2006 a young Jew Ilam Halimi is tortured and murdered. The shocking event becomes a cause célèbre in the media. Halimi’s killer was an anti-Semite. The killer’s hapless gang members receive various sentences, but parts of the Jewish community complain of their inadequacy, want a retrial and lobby the Élysée. The Halimi murder has since been memorialized with a school prize for the guarding against anti-Semitism, and several films are being produced. At about the same time an auto worker had been murdered for money (as was Halimi). The latter murder received only a couple of lines in the press.

Boniface produces summary statistics that highlight the violent underbelly in French society. A shocking count of conjugal murders, large-scale infanticide and rampant child abuse. Tens of thousands of attacks on police and public sector workers. A string of shocking gang attacks with death threats against members of the Asian and Turkish communities – those presumed to keep much liquid cash in their homes. Boniface notes that the anti-Semitic attacks (some misinterpreted in their character) need to be put into perspective.

And then there’s the Arab/Muslim communities. A survey was desirably undertaken in schools to combat racism. A student innocently notes that any tendency to display anti-Semitism is met with a huge apparatus of condemnation. (The 2002 Lellouche Law raised the penalties for racism and explicitly for anti-Semitism.) On the other hand, noted the student, tendencies to racist discrimination against blacks or Arabs are ignored or treated lightly.

There is, as Boniface expresses it, deux poids, deux mesures – two weights, two measures. It is widely felt and widely resented. TWTM could be the motif of Boniface’s book.

Arabs and blacks often refrain from reporting abuse or assaults with the prospect that the authorities will not pursue the complaint. Women wearing the veil are perennially harassed and physically attacked. A young pregnant woman is punched in the stomach; she loses her child. There is perennial use of the term ‘dirty Arab’. Arabs and blacks are perennially harassed by police because of their appearance and presumed ethnicity. Islamophobia escalates, with implicit support from CRIF and from pro-Israel celebrities such as Alain Finkielkraut. (Finkielkraut was recently beamed up to the celestial Académie française; his detractors were labelled anti-Semites.)

Salutary is the perennial humiliation experienced by Mustapha Kessous, journalist for Le Monde. Boniface notes that Kessous ‘possesses a perfect mastery of social conventions and of the French language’. Not sufficient it appears. On a cycle or in a car he is stopped by police who ask of him if he has stolen it. He visits a hospital but is asked, ‘where is the journalist’? He attends court and is taken to be the defendant, and so on.

In 2005, a Franco-Palestinian Salah Hamouri was arrested at a checkpoint and eventually indicted on a trumped up charge of involvement in the murder of a rabbi. In 2008 he took a ‘plea bargain’ and was given 7 years in jail. He was released in 2011 in the group exchange with the release of French IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. In France, Shalit is treated with reverence, though a voluntary enrolee of an occupying force. Hamouri’s plight has been treated with indifference. TWTM.

In March 2010, Said Bourarach, an Arab security guard at a shop in Bobigny, is murdered by a group of young men, Jewish and known to the police. They get off, meanwhile alleging that the murdered guard had thrown anti-Semitic insults. In December 2013, young Jews beat up an Arab waiter for having posted a quenelle (an anti-authority hand gesture ridiculously claimed to be replicating a Nazi stance and thus anti-Semite) on a social network. The event received no coverage.

TWTM. The media is partly responsible. The authorities in their manifest partisanry are partly responsible. The lobby is heavily responsible.

Boniface is, rightly, obsessed with the promise of universalism formally rooted in Republican France. He objects to the undermining of this imperative by those who defend indefensible policies of Israeli governments and who divert and distort politics in France towards that end.

For his pains, Boniface is denigrated and marginalized. Evidently, he declines to accept defeat. Hence La France malade …

[seemslikeadream]

THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE MADE TO CONTINUE PAYING FOR THE WEST’S GUILT COMPLEX OVER THE HOLOCAUST.

Israel’s Modus Operandi: Blackmail, Bribery, and Bullying
by William Hanna / July 22nd, 2014

On 26 November 1947, when it became apparent to Zionists and their supporters that the UN vote on the Partition of Palestine would be short of the required two thirds majority in the General Assembly, they filibustered for a postponement until after Thanksgiving thereby gaining time to threaten the loss of aid to nations such as Greece — which planned on voting against — into changing their votes. U.S. President Truman — also threatened with loss of Jewish support in the upcoming Presidential election — later noted that:

The facts were that not only were there pressure movements around the United Nations unlike anything that had been seen there before, but that the White House, too, was subjected to a constant barrage. I do not think I ever had as much pressure and propaganda aimed at the White House as I had in this instance. The persistence of a few of the extreme Zionist leaders — actuated by political motives and engaging in political threats — disturbed and annoyed me.

On 29 November 1947 the UN voted for a modified Partition Plan — despite Arab opposition on grounds that it violated UN charter principles of national self-determination — recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States with a Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. The resolution’s adoption prompted the 1947–48 conflict including atrocities by Zionist terror gangs whose genocidal brutality was responsible for the murder of thousands of unarmed Palestinian civilians and the forced exodus of more than 700,000 others. At the time, the consensus of opinion was that Israel’s contentious creation had been permitted as a conscious and wilful act of Holocaust compensation which included toleration of its crimes against humanity. Since then, Israel has steadfastly adhered to that successful tactic of blackmail, bribery, and bullying to suppress and silence — with accusations of anti-Semitism/Holocaust denial — any criticism of its blatant human rights violations and arrogant disregard for international Law.

The fear of being branded an anti-Semite is now a universal phobia which Zionist Apartheid Israel reinforces with Gestapo-style vigilance that has permeated through universities, corporate media outlets, and parliaments. This is most evident in the United States where the American Israel Public Affairs committee (AIPAC) is active on college campuses with a Political Leadership Development Program of pro-Israel activities including reports on faculty members, students, and college organisations critical of Israeli policies. The “miscreants” — exposed in AIPAC’s College Guide and the pro-Israel Campus Watch — are then subject to harassment, suspension, or even dismissal.

AIPAC’s lobbying of the U.S. government includes provision of in-depth policy position papers focusing on Israel’s illusionary strategic importance to the United States. The Congressional Record is monitored daily and comprehensive records are kept of all members’ speeches, informal comments, constituent correspondence, and voting patterns on Israel-related issues. AIPAC itself estimates that more than half of Congress and Senate members (who place Israeli interests above those of their own country) can always be relied upon for unflinching support. Every year some 70 to 90 of them are rewarded with “AIPAC-funded” junkets to Israel. The irony behind AIPAC’s erosion of American democracy is that it is in effect financed ($3 billion annual U.S. aid to Israel) by American taxpayers of whom 50 million are living below the poverty line with 47 million of them receiving food stamps.

The insidious cancer of AIPAC is also being spread (with more free junkets) by “Friends of Israel” groups in most European parliaments; by the Australian Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC); and by the recently formed South African Israel Public Affairs Committee (SAIPAC) which will endeavour to silence criticism by a people already familiar with the iniquities of Apartheid.

Furthermore, the mainstream corporate media — apart from being mostly owned or influenced by friends of Israel — is also fettered by the fear of offending the Zionist lobby which insists that even the term Apartheid Israel is anti-Semitic. This media stranglehold is tightened even further by Zionist media watch organisations such as Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and Britain’s BBC Watch, who waste no time in vilifying any negative reports on Israel.

Despite being a nation in a profound existential crisis, Chutzpah Israel continues claiming to be a Jewish social democracy with exemplary ethical values. Such claims serve as a smokescreen for the endless lying, cheating, stealing, and murdering while ensuring a lack of accountability for its heinous crimes by undermining the process of Western democratic governance. Instead of unconditionally condemning Israel for its latest assault on the Gazan Palestinians, Western leaders confirm they have been bought to betray the moral values of their constituents by mealy-mouthing the false premise of “Israel’s right to defend itself” with its overwhelming military might. Presumably therefore, Palestinians — who are occupied, persecuted, and blockaded in open prisons (without a single tank, warplane or warship) — are not allowed to resist and defend themselves.

Israel has no such right (God-given or otherwise) because for over sixty years it has been the aggressor with a genocidal brutality matching that of the Nazis. Zionism’s goal of creating a “Greater Israel” requires the “Final Solution” expulsion of non-Jews even if it means that — as was recently enunciated by the Israeli Interior Minister — “Gaza should be bombed into the Middle Ages.” During WW2, innumerable lives and resources were expended to defeat Nazism. Yet today, nothing is done while an even more insidious form of evil slowly destroys the concept of democratic governance and what little is left of human decency.

The time has come for the “Silent Majority” to finally give voice to their outrage — without demonstrations or violence — by repeatedly emailing their elected representatives. Lowlife politicians who have their inbox regularly swamped with thousands of emails will quickly realise that ignoring the will of the majority to serve minority Zionist and corporate interests alone, will not be enough to get them reelected. THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE MADE TO CONTINUE PAYING FOR THE WEST’S GUILT COMPLEX OVER THE HOLOCAUST.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Man, this just got reported by a bunch of people but come on. This is just going on in too many threads.

We don't all get along. Yet we're all still here. So sick of suspending, warning, banning, my sweet fuck, let's not do any of that crap in 2015.

My dad is really racist, we made peace. I can talk to him now, we still agree on a lot. We're both learning there's turns not worth taking: fuck it, we're both going to die. Actually die. Really die.

It's so hard to write much about these meta-RI interpersonal things, because I hate to pronounce policy -- I love to spew invective and maybe even speculate on occasion, surely -- and perhaps also because this is so ridiculous.

Also, not going to close the thread. I'd like to minimize that crap in 2015, too.

[brekin]

Man, this just got reported by a bunch of people but come on. This is just going on in too many threads.

We don't all get along. Yet we're all still here. So sick of suspending, warning, banning, my sweet fuck, let's not do any of that crap in 2015.

My dad is really racist, we made peace. I can talk to him now, we still agree on a lot. We're both learning there's turns not worth taking: fuck it, we're both going to die. Actually die. Really die.

It's so hard to write much about these meta-RI interpersonal things, because I hate to pronounce policy -- I love to spew invective and maybe even speculate on occasion, surely -- and perhaps also because this is so ridiculous.

Also, not going to close the thread. I'd like to minimize that crap in 2015, too.

Word. Walk this way.

[BrandonD]

Man, this just got reported by a bunch of people but come on. This is just going on in too many threads.

We don't all get along. Yet we're all still here. So sick of suspending, warning, banning, my sweet fuck, let's not do any of that crap in 2015.

My dad is really racist, we made peace. I can talk to him now, we still agree on a lot. We're both learning there's turns not worth taking: fuck it, we're both going to die. Actually die. Really die.

It's so hard to write much about these meta-RI interpersonal things, because I hate to pronounce policy -- I love to spew invective and maybe even speculate on occasion, surely -- and perhaps also because this is so ridiculous.

Also, not going to close the thread. I'd like to minimize that crap in 2015, too.

High-5 to Rex, thanks for helping to make this place one of my favorite spots on the interwebs.

[seemslikeadream]

two points...when a thread is bumped the time stamp on the last post is changed ...I didn't not post a new reply to this thread....second it was bumped because ...as long as solace is allowed and continues to post these vicious personal attacks against members of RI this OP...well I should be able to bump it

maybe a "bunch of people" are OK with solace's continuing to label other RI members fucking anti-semites ..I am not

this is an on going problem because solace will not stop slandering RI members...if he and AD would stop ..I would be able to stop defending myself and other victims ..if a "bunch of people" are ok with slander since it's not directed at them ...well that's not my problem

[Searcher08]

Personally, I am really surprised that Solace is still around after that.

I think it is important to remember that Solace's comments have been whole-heartedly endorsed by American Dream on multiple occasions, in fact he comments about them being full of great insight.
I do not regard a person being a Hasbara activist as being either a 'disinformationalist' or as an 'Intel' operative, and I want to make it clear that I regard neither Solace or American Dream as either of those things.
I think Hasbara is much more of an issue in the world than the Far Right - and look on it as fundamentally an activity that seeks to 'jam' discourse except along certain Israel-friendly lines and does so by creating division, smearing, name-calling, guilt by association, negative framing and many other very subtle not quite but nearly trolling activities.
There are also people who seek to set the terms of debate form what is acceptable within progressive space and Bill Weinberg is a great example of this - and for example 9/11 Truth is no part of it.

[BrandonD]

two points...when a thread is bumped the time stamp on the last post is changed ...I didn't not post a new reply to this thread....second it was bumped because ...as long as solace is allowed and continues to post these vicious personal attacks against members of RI this OP...well I should be able to bump it

maybe a "bunch of people" are OK with solace's continuing to label other RI members fucking anti-semites ..I am not

this is an on going problem because solace will not stop slandering RI members...if he and AD would stop ..I would be able to stop defending myself and other victims ..if a "bunch of people" are ok with slander since it's not directed at them ...well that's not my problem

Wow, if someone can make a comment like that and receive no serious repercussions for it - that is indeed disturbing.

[Sounder]

This may be an attempt to dehumanize, but really other things are more reasonable to feel than that.

I feel in turn amused, sad, offended and a few other things, but mostly the effect is one of bemused irony at being called a racist by someone that dedicates their life to the support of a one 'race' state.

[Nordic]

This may be an attempt to dehumanize, but really other things are more reasonable to feel than that.

I feel in turn amused, sad, offended and a few other things, but mostly the effect is one of bemused irony at being called a racist by someone that dedicates their life to the support of a one 'race' state.

That's because they're the "chosen" people. Which is racist in itself.

Similar to the phrase "God bless America" which literally means that the rest of the world can go to hell.

I prefer Tiny Tim's "God bless us, every one".