BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism

Subject: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,New York City
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 01:52 PM

The courageous Spanish leftist, Pilar Rahola, has stepped up to the fore in combatting the surging anti-Semitism on the political left.

Here's a link to an article about her.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 02:14 PM

Don't you think it's important to distinguish between anti-Semitism and an anti-Israeli bias? The former is bigotry; the latter stems from political sources.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: michaelr
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 03:16 PM

There he goes again, making the same old tired attempt that's been debunked here several times before. Yawn...

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Wolfgang
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 03:35 PM

pdc,
'anti-Israeli bias'?
Bias: 'an unreasoned distortion of judgement, a prejudice'
Israeli: '(an) inhabitant(s) of Israel'

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 05:04 PM

Right, Wolfgang, the "i" crept in there -- it should have read anti-Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 06:52 PM

And remember, one in five Israeli citizens are Palestinian Arabs.

It's true enough there are Jew haters who take advantage of the way the Government of Israel behaves to try to stir up antagonism against Jews. And there are people who let themselves be trapped into that way of thinking.

It is rather analogous to the way that in the past, Jew haters would use people's resentment against economic oppression by focusing on the minority of exploiters who were Jewish, diverting attention from the ones who weren't Jewish. "The socialism of fools" was one way of summing it up.

But being opposed to the oppression which has resulted from the way the Zionist project has developed is not anti-semitic in itself, and many of the most articulate and dedicated opponents of this oppression are Jews.

Moreover it's worth noting that some of the most enthuisiastic "pro-Zionists", especially among the American "Christian" fundamentalist right have many anti-semitic aspects, looking forward with relish to a future in which the Jewish people will perish, apart from a minority who become "Christians".

Here is a piece by Jewish Israeli writer Uri Avnery which I think is worth reading - Manufacturing Anti-Semites

"Sharon's propaganda agents are pouring oil on the flames. Accusing all critics of his policy of being anti-Semites, they brand large communities with this mark. Many good people, who feel no hatred at all towards the Jews, but who detest the persecution of the Palestinians, are now called anti-Semites. Thus the sting is taken out of this word, giving it something approaching respectability."

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 08:23 PM

McGrath, I think you overreach in your arguments. Citing some Israelis or Jews who oppose government policy does not prove Israel wrong, any more than, say, Noam Chomsky's rants prove the evil of the United States. Open societies allow for dissent, thank God.

The "Zionist project" is not a term I am familiar with...where did you get it? It does seem suspiciously like a code term to me.

Finally, as to Christian fundamentalists having anti-Semitic aspects, I suspect that many may. But the belief that Jews who do not embrace Christ will perish or go to Hell does not make one anti-Semitic. Those fundamentalists believe that all folks who do not so believe are doomed...Hindu, athiest, Muslim or whatever.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 08:44 PM

Citing some Israelis or Jews who oppose government policy does not prove Israel wrong, any more than, say, Noam Chomsky's rants prove the evil of the United States.

I would say what it proves is that some people who oppose the government of Israel are not anti-Semites.

The "Zionist project" is not a term I am familiar with...where did you get it? It does seem suspiciously like a code term to me.

Is this question code for "McGrath of Harlow is an anti-Semite"?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 10:20 PM

Aren't some Arabs Semites racially too?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 11:13 PM

CarolC, your response to my posting is quite interesting. First, while my statement may "prove" that some people who oppose the government of of Israel are not anti-Semites, that, of course was not the point. The logical extension to your inference is that some such people 'are' anti-Semites. Second, I do not impute anti-Semitism to McGrath, but the use of those particular words is unfortunate. It may be that he has picked up that term from some other source that is playing with the anti-Semitic term, "Zionist agenda."

Guest,Guest-yes, Arabs are Semites. The term "anti-Semite", however, refers specifically to anti-Jewish, and has for over a hundred years. We have had this discussion at Mudcat before. Any other use of the term is (putting it in the best light) disingenuous!

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 01:42 AM

John,
         The fact that something has a history of over a hundred
years doesn't make it either appropriate or true, after all, if age
were any criterion that old farrago of lies ' The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion' is probably around it's centenary now.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: michaelr
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 02:08 AM

Yes, we have indeed had this discussion before, so let's not have it again, shall we? Refer to this thread instead.

And Carol, please be more cautious with your syntax; they're just looking to get you in trouble again!

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 03:35 AM

The phrase The Zionist Project used by McGrath is correct. It was first formulated by Theodor Herzl in his book Der Judenstaat : Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage. - Leipzig & Wien, 1896 (The Jewish State : an attempt for a modern solution of the Jewish Question). You'll find there the outlines of a projected Jewish State in Palestine with some interesting remarks about the role of the actual inhabitants.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Pied Piper
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 05:27 AM

Here
A link to a translation of the book.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 06:51 AM

Thanks, Wilfred, for pointing out that "the Zionist project" is a perfectly valid exression, with roots in Zionist writing.

It just means the goal of establishing and maintaining a homeland for Jews in Palestine - I used the expression rather than "Zionism" because that word can carry an implication that it is a much more united and coherent ideology than it ever has been.

People who share that goal can disagree very radically indeed about all kinds of things, such as the territory involved, or the rights of the other people who live there and have lived there.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,New York City
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 08:23 AM

There he goes again, making the same old tired attempt that's been debunked here several times before. Yawn...

Maybe it's been debunked to the satisfaction of michaelr, but I give more weight to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. than to michaelr.

You can read what Dr. King had to say on the subjrct of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism at this link.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 09:06 AM

The problem is that that both "Zionism" and "anti-Zionism" cover such a wide range of views.

There's a great difference between a "Zionist" who believes in extending the state of Israel to cover the whole of Eretz Israel and expelling the non-Jews who live there, and a Zionist who accepts that both Jews and Palestinians have every bit as much right as each other to live there.

And there is a great difference between an "anti-Zionist" who believes that the Jews of Israel should be expelled from the same territory, and one who accepts that both Palestinians and Jews have every bit as much right as each other to live there.

For that reason I think that critics of Israel do well to avoid using the term, but take a bit longer and spell out what they actually. believe. And the same goes for the word Zionist.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 11:35 AM

CarolC, your response to my posting is quite interesting. First, while my statement may "prove" that some people who oppose the government of of Israel are not anti-Semites, that, of course was not the point.

I was not suggesting that your statement proved anything. I was suggesting that the fact that some Israelis and some Jews oppose the policies of the government of Israel does prove that not all people who do so are anti-Semites.

The logical extension to your inference is that some such people 'are' anti-Semites.

Of course some are. That's hardly a debatable issue. However, the article that was linked to in the opening post to this thread may give some people the impression that all people who oppose the government of Israel are anti-Semites, and that most certainly is not the case.

Second, I do not impute anti-Semitism to McGrath

Glad to hear it.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 12:04 PM

I found all of the links here to outside sites interesting and not boring (noone is forced here to read threads he finds boring, BTW). I nearly always love to read Avnery, for instance, even if I don't agree, for the clarity of his thoughts and argumentation. It was also interesting to read that the phrase 'Zionist project' was not used anywhere by Herzl in his famous book. And it was interesting to read, for instance, that Spain has a somewhat similar discussion to a discussion in Germany thought both countries' recent history of anti-semitism is quite dissimilar.

The radical left and the radical right in Germany have very few fields of politics where they agree closely. One of these fields is Israel/Palestine. That often comes as a surprise to some of my more radical friends when they learn that they completely agree on that field with some publication from the far right. It is often instructive to leave away the source (or even change it) and look for their reactions when they find they have agreed with someone they usually never agree with.

One of the differences, however, is that I know of noone on the left who would not oppose being called anti-semite whereas some people on the right would be proud to be called so. On the left, you don't dislike people you dislike types of politics. The accusation in the target article that for some (let us agree we never speak about 'all', only about 'some') of the Spanish left what on the surface is dislike of Israel's politics is in depth based upon dislike of the Jews is hardly palatable for those accused so.

In the target article, this comes over for me as a kind of unfair accusation, since (1) no examples are named or cited and (2) the underlying motives are targeted instead of what is actually said. It is extremely difficult to fight against the argument that deep in you some irrational hatred or whatever is the basis for your open political position. You say 'No, I'm not, for instance, anti-semitic." It could mean that you just do not want to (or cannot) admit your hidden motives. It makes you look a loser both ways. If Rahola has not more of an argumentation than in that short article I'd say it is a weak argument.

...some people who oppose the government of Israel are not anti-Semites (Carol)

I know of noone here who comes even remotely close to disagreeing with that statement. I remember an awful thread (Anti-Semitism, started by the Dreadful Guest) in which this phrase and paraphrases of it have been repeated about two dozen times without anyone disagreeing. It is always amazing to me when an undisputed statement is repeated all over and then I start myself asking why, but I don't want to argue hidden motives.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 12:32 PM

It is always amazing to me when an undisputed statement is repeated all over and then I start myself asking why, but I don't want to argue hidden motives.

And yet you seem to be implying hidden motives. You wouldn't have any "hidden motives" of your own, would you, Wolfgang? Of course you wouldn't.

I did a search on the name "Pilar Rahola", and in one of the sites that turned up, I found this language: "hysterical pro-Palestinianism". I wonder what that site's motives are.

Innuendo is an amazingly powerful thing, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 01:34 PM

"As the father of modern Zionism, Herzl consolidated the various strands of Zionism already in existence into a modern, organized, political movement. Convening the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, in August 1897, Herzl brought the Zionist project to the forefront of Jewish and world attention. In his diary, Herzl wrote: "In Basle, I created the Jewish State."

From the Anti-defamation League's website. I think that fairly conclusively proves that it's not an anti-semitic expression.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 01:53 PM

One intriguing might-have-been is to consider what would have hapened if there had been no war in 1948, and if the partition of Palestine had been accepted by all parties, with no flight/expulsion of refugees. Israel would have developed as a state more or less equally made up of Jews and Arabs, and, for all that, it would still have been a Jewish homeland. And I think most people who wish well for both peoples must profoundly wish that this had been what happened.

And yet the argument which is raised against any right of return by Palestinians to the land which they and their families fled is that this would imply the destruction of Israel, and of the Jewish homeland.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,New York City
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 03:02 PM

the article that was linked to in the opening post to this thread may give some people the impression that all people who oppose the government of Israel are anti-Semites, and that most certainly is not the case.

I've read and reread the article and I certainly do not get that impression. Rahola's argument is that there is anti-Semitism on the left that is being disguised as anti-Zionism. That, I would agree, is undeniable. And that is nothing new. As pointed out in another link, Dr. Martin Luther King had expressed similar observations in 1968.

Rahola has not said, as CarolC implies, that everyone who disagrees with Israeli government policy is anti-Semitic. Israel itself is not a politically monolithic society. There is a huge amount of diversity in Israeli public opinion as well as among Jewish Zionists in the diaspora. I, myself, am a member of Peace Now, support the two state solution and was rooting for Amram Mitzna's Labor Party in the recent Israeli election.

Rahola, BTW, has been an advocate for the Palestinian people for many years. She is an honest leftist who stands up for human rights and fights prejudice on all fronts.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 03:21 PM

Rahola has not said, as CarolC implies, that everyone who disagrees with Israeli government policy is anti-Semitic.

I didn't imply that, nor did I state it. What I said, and what I still believe, is that some people who read that article will get that impression. I have no idea whether or not it was Rahola's intention for them to do so. And my only reason for making that observation was to try to clarify for John Hindsill what I percieved to be McGrath of Harlow's reason for posting the link to the article from Uri Avnery.

The reality in the United States, regardless of what Wolfgang might choose to believe about it, is that there are many people who do believe that all people who oppose the government of Israel are anti-Semites. In my oppinion, this belief distorts the debate in a way that helps no-one.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 03:23 PM

But of course, it is not an article by Rahola, it is an article about her. I can't see any recognition in it that opposition to the policies of Israel can be anything other than disguised anti-semitism. No doubt, in an article by her, that qualification would be made.

Perhaps the assumption is that this is so obvious that it doesn't need stating, but it does seem to be an accusation that is in fact quite often thrown at people who are critical of Israel.

I think that anyone who is critical of Israel should actually be especially aware of and hostile to anti-semitism. Not just because it is vile (which is the main reason), but also because it helps generate and strengthen the kind of extremist anti-Arab distortion of Zionism I mentioned.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 08:53 PM

Guest,guest-"Just because something has been around..." You have an in-apt analogy here. 'anti-Semite (tic)' has an agreed upon definition, so that one can be speaking to others about the same thing. "The Protocols" are a salacious, slanderous fiction perpetrated during Czarist times, and given wide circulation in the USA by industrialist Henry Ford in the 1920s and '30s. That book is only 'true' to a Jew-hater!!!

Now I have read postings that Herzl used the term 'Zionist project' in his early works, and I have read here that he did not use that term. Whether he did or not does not much matter, because the context in which he would have used it (had he used it) would have been much different from the perjorative way that term is now used.

A few questions to ponder:

1) Why, of all the countries that were established in the Middle East by the League of Nations or the United Nations...Saudi Arabia,
(Trans)Jordan, Syria, Iraq, etc,...only Israel has to justify its existance?

2) Why do not Jews remaining in Arab countries not have participatory rights, nor the ability to freely emigrate from those countries?

3) Why, during the 20 years that Jordan controlled the so-called West Bank and Jerusalem, was there no great clamor for a Palestinean State there?

4) Why, during the the 20 years that Jordan controlled Jerusalem, were Jews forbidden from visiting and worshipping at Holy sites there?

5) Why did the government of Jordan kill thousands of Palestineans and expell the Palestinean leadership during what came to be known as "Black September"? And why was there no great world outcry against it?

Your answers to these questions, as you think about them, should be most instructive to yourselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 09:36 PM

And this question should be most instructive to you, John Hindsill, as you think about it:

Why should the Palestinians (the people whose homes have been, for generations, within the boundaries of what is now called Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories), be punished by the government of Israel fot the wrongs committed against them (the Palestinians) by other countries? And why should the Palestinians be punished by the government of Israel for wrongs committed against Jews by Jordan?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 11:25 PM

How very Jewish of you, CarolC, to answer a question with a question. The Palestineans are not being 'punished' as you are wont to put it for wrongs against them (the Palestineans) by other countries [whatever those might be], nor for wrongs committed against Jews in Jordan, and you know it. Your turn to answer directly. But I really meant for those to be introspective questions, so introspect away.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jul 03 - 01:28 AM

How very Jewish of you, CarolC, to answer a question with a question.

It occurred to me after I posted those questions that someone might make such a comparison. And I choose to take it as a compliment.

The Palestineans are not being 'punished' as you are wont to put it for wrongs against them (the Palestineans) by other countries [whatever those might be], nor for wrongs committed against Jews in Jordan, and you know it.

If the content of your questions has nothing to do with how the Palestinians are being treated by the Israeli government, why did you ask them in this discussion? If they are a separate issue, why aren't we discussing them as a separate issue?

My opinion is that they are completely separate issues, and have no place in a discussion about how the Israeli government is treating the Palestinians. I do have answers to your questions, but I have very little on-line time available to me before I leave for Michigan, and I don't have time to hunt up all of the links and sources that I would need in order to properly answer your questions. Plus, if I did post the links, Wolfgang would criticize me for posting too many links. I'll have to leave this discussion in the capable hands of others for the time being.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jul 03 - 06:45 AM

Actually it's fair to say that the Palestinians are being punished for wrongs done to the Jews by the Germans and other fellow-Europeans.

One of the most sickening things about how injustice and cruelty works is that it is contagious, it get passed on. Treat people badly enough and it twists the way they treat other people. It's happened to the Jews of Israel, and it's happened to the Palestinians. Not to all of them, but to enough to make it desperately hard to imagine a just and peaceful end to it.

The one thing we should always remember when commenting on what people do in these circumstances is that there is no reason to believe that we would behave any better, or as well, if it was us in the situation.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 09 Jul 03 - 09:11 AM

Nobody woke up one morning and suddenly determined how they could screw the Palestineans, but that is sort of the implication you make when you ignore the history of the region.

You can use all the cliches you wish in postings, and you can even try to make a moral equivalence between the sides, but in the long run they do not advance your arguments.

CarolC, whether for business, or pleasure, or both, have a safe trip to Michigan.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Pied Piper
Date: 09 Jul 03 - 09:22 AM

In the Bible it says "you reap what you sow", but in truth, it is the other way round, people sow what they reap, the evil done to them they do to others.

And so it goes on.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Jul 03 - 10:01 AM

In her own words: In favor of Israel

This is the piece (and there is an interview as well) that contains the words "pro-Palestinian hysteria" (which Carol quotes as 'hysterical pro-Palestinianism').

Rahola in her own words is way too much one-sided for my taste and the reliance on one single explanation, deeply rooted European Judeophobia, smells too much of explanations like 'collective unconscious' which I dislike.

In an interview she states that a minority among left intellectuals may be different, but she seems to think (and imply) that anti-semitism is the root of the opinions for a majority. I can't follow her here.

John, your questions are interesting and of course on-topic in a discussion starting with an article about Rahola and her opinions. Rahola is known for having asked similar (or even the same) questions so I fail to see how re-asking these questions can be considered off-topic.

My explanation for that is an extension of the well known phenomenon that some dead persons are closer to us than others (trivially so for friends and relations). If a small plane with two people in it crashes in my home town this accident will make page 1 and a plane crash killing 150 in the Andes will make last page as "other news from abroad". By extension, Europa and North America feels nearer to us and therefore the same amount of dead people in an accident, a crime in New York gets more coverage than in Kinshasa. Unfair perhaps, but that's how we are.

Not as well known, but I think also reliably observable, is the tendency to report deaths/injuries and injustices more often if the perpetrator is 'one of us' (in the broadest sense). An Indian killed in a car accident in Kalkutta may be noticed over here if run over by a German tourist, otherwise not. The bias is not only to report a death with greater probability if the dead person is 'one of us' but also if the one responsible for the death is 'one of us'.

So, 50 Vietnamese killed by Americans had/have more chances to make page 1 in Germany than 50 Vietnamese killed by Vietnamese. Not fair, but a consequence of the tendency of humans to be more interested in members of the 'ingroup' whether as victims or as perpetrators. Looking at it this way and counting Israel to the 'ingroup', it is no wonder that the pattern of reporting victims is as you describe (imply): Arabs killing Arabs are not as interesting/reportable as Americans or Israeli killing Arabs.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jul 03 - 10:40 AM

I'm not ignoring the history of the region, John Hindsill. I can answer the questions you posed by making direct connections to the history of the region. But my opposition to the government of Israel is because of it's treatment of the Palestinians. Nothing more, nothing less. And people's opposition to the government of Israel is the subject of this thread.

At any rate, as I said, I don't have time to properly address your questions right now, so I'll have to leave it for another time, perhaps.

CarolC, whether for business, or pleasure, or both, have a safe trip to Michigan.

Thanks :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,New York City
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 07:53 AM

Fiamma Nirenstein of Italy is another eminent leftist who has written about the emergence of anti-Semitism in the guise of anti-Zionism.

You can read her fascinating article at this link.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 10:07 AM

"If you're prejudiced against Israel, then, you're against the Jews. This doesn't mean criticizing Israel and its policies is forbidden. However, very little of what we hear about Israel has to do with lucid criticism."

I'm reminded of another quote, which I've posted before: "As far as criticism is concerned, we don't resent that, unless it is absolutely biased - as it usually is." John Vorster, Prime Minuster of South Africa in Apartheid times.

If it's really true that for Fiamma Nirenstein "very little of what we hear about Israel has to do with lucid criticism" I think she must be reading the wrong critics. There's been a great deal of lucid, factual and cogent criticism of Israel published, much of it by Israelis and Jews.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 10:52 AM

John, your questions are interesting and of course on-topic in a discussion starting with an article about Rahola and her opinions. Rahola is known for having asked similar (or even the same) questions so I fail to see how re-asking these questions can be considered off-topic.

Using these criteria, the questions would be on topic if they were being addressed to Pilar Rahola, or if Pilar Rahola's opinions about the questions or their answers were being discussed. However, John was asking us for the answers to the questions and he said that our answers would be instructive to us. So that would mean that each of us should decide whether or not they are on topic. And with the inclusion of the qualifier "my opinion is", my response was perfectly correct.

I still don't have time to do the research to fully answer the questions, but I will say that I see no purpose in asking such questions and saying that the answers would be instructive to the answerer other than to try to show the person being asked that they have a bias or prejudice against Jews. I could be wrong about this, but it doesn't (to me) seem to leave any possibility that some people might have different information about the history and dynamics of the region than what the questioner is working with.

And as I said before, I don't see any legitimacy in connecting the policies of the Israeli government (past and present) with regard to the Palestinians, and the wrongs committed against Palestinians (or against Jews) by the governments of other countries such as Jordan, unless the questioner believes in collective punishment (ie: they're all Arabs, so each is guilty of what is done by all the others). To me that is no different than saying that Jews in Europe should be punished for what the government of Israel does to the Palestinians. My opinion is that both of these premises are wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 11:22 PM

Actually I was not looking for anyone to directly answer those questions for my benefit, but for the ponderer's own benefit, introspection as it were.

However, I find CarolC's rationale as expressed in her last posting to be a way to avoid answering those questions to herself. These are not trick questions. Nothing in my questions implicates "punishment", collective nor individual; what is implied is that so long as Arabs held down and mistreated refugee Palestineans no one gave a sweet damn about it. The Arab world had 19 years to set-up a Palestinean state...Iraq didn't call for it; Saudi Arabia didn't mediate it; Egypt didn't advocate for it. When Palestineans tried to wrest a homeland from Jordan, nearly 20000 were killed. There was no hue and cry in the Arab world, nor much in the Western world either. Palestinean power did not suit Arab plans then. No! The Arab world wanted the dismantling of Jewish Israel. And truth be told, that is what they still want. When Israel gained control of the "West Bank", then the Arab world wanted a Palestinean State...and when offered it, radical Palestineans negotiate by the 2nd Intifada.

It is also interesting that CarolC does not find the history of the area to be legitimate in assessing actions in the present. That does not strike me as the action of someone seeking truth, as nothing happens in a vacuum.

PS - when I use the term Arab or Arab World it is meant to reflect Arab leadership, not every Arab.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: musicmick
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 01:46 AM

John, you are barking up a dead tree. The anti-Zionists are not interested in the hisrical basis of the war. Their position is rational if one accepts the Arab position that the state of Israel is an illegal state. Anyone who knows the facts of the last eighty years knows that this assertion is the be-all and end-all of the war. The legitamacy of a Palastian state has never been denied by any Israeli government. The bone of contention is, and has always been, the recognition of the Jewish state. Your anti-Zionists don't want to admit this but the various terrorist groups make no bones about it.
If and when the Arab world accepts the state of Israel, the war will end, the Palestinians will have their state and we can all go on to whatever the next world crisis will be. Shalom to all.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on
From: Teribus
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 07:06 AM

PP,

The quotation from the Book of Hosea is:

"They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."

MGoH,

"Actually it's fair to say that the Palestinians are being punished for wrongs done to the Jews by the Germans and other fellow-Europeans."

Actually it is not fair so say that.

Since the riots of 1920, orchestrated on the lies and fabrications of Yasser Arafat's uncle and mentor, Muhammed Amin al-Husseini, it would be fair to say that the Palestinian people have, and are, being punished for putting their faith in liars. Totally unprincipled leaders, who hold out the promise to their people of what they know they cannot deliver. Who maintain the farce for personal gain at the price of the suffering of their own people.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 08:50 AM

Actually, John, I have posted extensively in this forum about the history of the region. I have even been chastized by Wolfgang for posting too many links while doing so. A search of my posting history would bring up many of the answers to your questions already posted by me.

Trying to place responsibility for the displaced Palestinians onto the countries surrounding Israel/Palestine instead of onto Israel itself is an obfuscation and a rationalization for unacceptable behavior on the part of Israel. The displaced Palestinians are Israel's responsibility and problem first and foremost. Any mistreatment of the displaced Palestinians by the countries to which they fled in terror from the Europeans who were slaughtering them and chasing them from their homes was/is despicable. But it would never have happened if they hadn't been chased from their homes in the first place.

The treatment that Jews fleeing from the Nazis experienced from some countries who wouldn't let them in during WWII was despicable, but it doesn't in any way free the Nazis from responsibility for what they did. You will tell me that what happened to the Palestinians during the Nakba is in no way comparable to what happened to Jews during WWII. This is true. But the comparison I've made here is appropriate because it addresses specific situations that are comparable in each event rather than the entire event. The European Jews were fleeing for their lives. The Palestinians were also fleeing for their lives. Had they not been, they would have stayed in their homes.

My interest in the plight of the Palestinians in Israel/Palestine, and my responsibility (my complicity) in this matter is direct and material since it is my tax dollars that are making Israel's mistreatment of them possible. I have a responsibility to speak up and not be silent on this issue as long as this mistreatment continues. I have not been inconsistant about speaking up when I have a responsibility to do so. I have spoken up about the despicable and sometimes criminal behavior of my own government in other countries whenever I have become aware of this misbehavior, and also about it when it happens here. I will not be silent and complicit about these things. And as long as several billions of US tax dollars go to Israel every year to make it possiblit for Israel to do what it's doing, I have a right and a responsibility to speak up about it. And so do you if you live in the US.

I still don't have time to hunt up my old links and find new ones for you, but if you really think it's important to read what my answers to your questions are, you can take the time to search my posting history and find many of the answers to those questions for yourself. Believe me, I have already spent many, many hours doing the research, and posting it here.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 09:21 AM

By the way, I didn't really know much about the situation in the Middle East until March of 2002. For my whole life I just accepted whatever I was told about it by my government and by my friends who had an interest in the region. And because of that, I bought into the stereotypes about Palestinians and Arabs that are ingrained in the culture of the area in which I grew up, which, as you noticed, was as Jewish as it was anything else, and I asked no questions.

In March of 2002, all of that changed for me. I lost my innocence about Israel/Palestine when I saw, on my television, a Palestinian man, sitting on the floor in his livingroom next to the decaying bodies of his sister and her husband. They had been killed by Israeli soldiers and they had been lying there for two or three days. They were beginning to subside into shapeless masses right there on the man's livingroom floor. He couldn't leave his apartment because Israeli snipers were randomly shooting at people in the streets of the city in which this man lived. I also saw women and old men being shot at by snipers in the streets of this city.

As long as I live, I will never forget the look on that man's face as he sat, bewildered and scared, on his livingroom floor next to the decomposing bodies of his sister and brother-in-law. My stomach twists itself into knots every time I even think about it. I will not be silent while my tax dollars are paying for these crimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 09:54 AM

CarolC - With regard to you paragraph 2 above, we fundamentally disagree. Palestineans need not have been displaced from their homes as you put it. In most cases, not all, they chose what they thought was a temporary (until Israel was crushed) situation.

Regarding your mantra of "the unacceptable behavior" of Israel towards Palestineans, Palestinean citizens of Israel were (and are) treated light years better than their brethern under Arab control (perfectly, no; better, yes). And Palestineans coming under Israeli control after 1967 were also treated better by the Jewish state than by Jordan. Of course Palestineans are now treated as an enemy because there is a 'defacto' war by them against Jewish Israel. Therefore, I cannot believe that you really believe your statement.

Jews had had a presence in the land from Biblical times, through the Crusades, through the Ottomans and through the British mandate. And from the late 19th century, groups as the Zionists, were negotiating for a Jewish homeland where there had always been Jews. Interestingly, the British offered Herzl (part of) Uganda for a Jewish state; it was not accepted for obvious reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 09:59 AM

So one picture has made you anti-Israeli! What about pictures of Pizza Parlors blown up by suicide murderers?! What a piece of work!

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,delurker
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 10:32 AM

"By the way, I didn't really know much about the situation in the Middle East until March of 2002. For my whole life I just accepted whatever I was told about it by my government and by my friends who had an interest in the region. And because of that, I bought into the stereotypes about Palestinians and Arabs that are ingrained in the culture of the area in which I grew up, which, as you noticed, was as Jewish as it was anything else, and I asked no questions.

In March of 2002, all of that changed for me. I lost my innocence about Israel/Palestine when I saw, on my television, a Palestinian man, sitting on the floor in his livingroom next to the decaying bodies of his sister and her husband."

So, CarolC, your awakening to the situation occurred in March 2002 when you supposedly saw what you describe on television. I've just spent the past hour searching the archives of all the major television news services and could find no archive of such a report in March 2002.

Those of us who have followed your thousands of postings on this subject will no doubt recall, that it was about that time, on April 1, 2002, that you posted the following:

"So it was only a few weeks ago that I was told that it's ok for me to not be Jewish because I'm a cute little Shiksa. (A word that I understand is used as a perjorative.) Now, this was told to me by someone I consider to be a friend. Still, if the shoe was on the other
foot, and it was a Gentile who said something like "it's ok for you not to be a Gentile because your're cute when you dance the Hora around the campfire", I guess you would consider that anti-Semitism. But it seems that calling me a cute little Shiksa is acceptible."

We recall that it was your claim of *reverse anti-Semitism* that set you off on your crusade.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 11:19 AM

First of all, John, I'm not anti-Israel. The fact that you put that label on me proves that you are working with stereotypes of people who criticize the government of Israel, or in denial about the possibility that a person could be critical of the Israeli government and not be and anti-Israel. I have no problem with Israel existing within the pre-67 borders. It's Israeli expansionism that I have a problem with, and the treatment of Palestinian Israelis within Israel.

Secondly, you are working with incorrect information about the history of Israel. You have bought into the mythos of Israel that is taught to Israelis and those of us here in the US. The people I get my information from, by the way, are Jewish themselves. And many of them are people who are/were prominent Israelis and Israeli government officials. If you did some research of your own instead of buying into the propaganda hype, you would come away from the experience with a whole different perspective than the one you have. That is, unless you refuse to see Palestinians as human beings.

CarolC - With regard to you paragraph 2 above, we fundamentally disagree. Palestineans need not have been displaced from their homes as you put it. In most cases, not all, they chose what they thought was a temporary (until Israel was crushed) situation.

This is entirely incorrect. It is vicious propaganda. It's like saying that the European Jews "chose" to leave their homes in Europe. The displaced Palestinians were fleeing for their lives. They may have thought they would only have to leave temporarily, but they didn't "choose" to leave, unless you consider choosing life over death to be a real choice.

Regarding your mantra of "the unacceptable behavior" of Israel towards Palestineans, Palestinean citizens of Israel were (and are) treated light years better than their brethern under Arab control (perfectly, no; better, yes).

In some cases this is correct, and in some, it is not. But correct or no, if it is wrong, it is wrong, no matter who does it and to what degree. If it is wrong, you can't justify it by saying that someone else is doing it too.

And Palestineans coming under Israeli control after 1967 were also treated better by the Jewish state than by Jordan. Of course Palestineans are now treated as an enemy because there is a 'defacto' war by them against Jewish Israel. Therefore, I cannot believe that you really believe your statement.

Again, in some cases this is correct and in some it is not. And again, if the behavior is wrong, it is wrong, and you can't justify it by saying it's ok because Jordan is doing it too.

Jews had had a presence in the land from Biblical times, through the Crusades, through the Ottomans and through the British mandate. And from the late 19th century, groups as the Zionists, were negotiating for a Jewish homeland where there had always been Jews.

Yes. This is true. And many of those Palestinian Jews are just as pissed off at the Europeans as the Palestinian Muslims and Christians. They all got along just fine until the Europeans showed up. That's when things started turning hateful.

Interestingly, the British offered Herzl (part of) Uganda for a Jewish state; it was not accepted for obvious reasons.

I'm aware of that. And just as interestingly, the British promised the Palestinians a homeland in Palestine.

So one picture has made you anti-Israeli! What about pictures of Pizza Parlors blown up by suicide murderers?! What a piece of work!

I abhore the pictures of Israelis being blown up by suicide bombers. And I blame the government of Israel for their deaths. But I have been seeing those pictures for years, and I have been angry about that for years. What I didn't ever see before was the devastation being wreaked upon the Palestinians by the Israeli government. There have been vastly greater numbers of Palestinians killed by Israelis than the other way around, and the amount of devastation that the Palestinians have experienced at the hands of the Israeli government makes the suicide bombings in pizza parlors look like a picnic. That is, unless you place greater value on the lives of Israeli Jews than you do on the lives of Palestinians.

I was shocked when I saw that man on my television. But I was ignorant of the real situation over there when I saw that. I didn't start getting angry with the government of Israel until I started doing some research, and finding out what's really been going on over there. Again, most of my information comes from Jews, many of them Israelis, and many of those, government officials. If you are Jewish, you should be angry about what the government of Israel is doing in your name.

We recall that it was your claim of *reverse anti-Semitism* that set you off on your crusade.

Hardly, delurker. It was the information I was getting about what the government of Israel is and has been doing to the Palestinians that set me off. Any signs of anger you saw in my posts back then was symptomatic of the shock and outrage I was experiencing as I was in the process of discovering just how thoroughly I had been lied to and misled. I'm not shocked any more. Just angry and deeply saddened.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 11:35 AM

Good bye, dear friends - I'm quitting all threads about anti- ...isms in the Near East. They don't bring anything as long as questions of right or wrong are discussed, mostly by journalists (look at this thread.
Didn't you notice the only everlasting law in the world:

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 11:38 AM

(continued, pressed the wrong key)
THE SWORD REIGNETH? What is won by the sword, will be taken away by the sword. And when the hawks are cring "war", and the doves are chirping "peace", guess who will win?

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Teribus
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 11:44 AM

Guest delurker,

Run your same search for 3rd April, 2002 - that's the date Carol said she saw the pictures and coverage of the story - reporting same here on the 'cat on 4th April.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 12:34 PM

Back from how Palestinians are treated in and by various countries in the Middle East to the theme of the thread, leftist anti-semitism in Europe:
I found Fiamma Nirenstein's article much more interesting than Rahola's. Of course, it had weak parts too, in my eyes, and I was not surprised at all that it was McGrath who found what I too consider a weak part in her argumentation.

I liked it more (1) for a much more personal perspective and (2) because it did not pin down the anti-semitism to a kind of mystic hate of Jews in the European soul but tried to argue other sources for that feeling. "A true German has a natural inborn dislike for the (ways of the) Jews" was heard and read over here from at least the 1880s on. That mystic argumentation with the German soul doesn't sound much better if we insert 'Spanish' or 'European' instead of 'German' and if the argument comes from a totally different point of view and serves a completely different purpose.

If there is anti-Semitism in Europe (and there is, in the Right, in the Left and elsewhere) it is counter-productive to explain it by an archaic hate of Jews (for that comes close to declare it unavoidable). Nirenstein has hinted at other explanations and she is to be commended in my eyes for a much better level of analysis than Rahola.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 08:05 PM

CarolC - Are you being purposely dense? I have in no way sought to justify anything Israel has done because Jordan or the Arab world was worse. I am only pointing out your hypocracy in stating that you are reacting soley to Israel's treatment of Palestineans, but you don't react to Arab/Arab treatment. That pretty much sounds like "anti-Israel" to me.   

Yes, Carol, I am Jewish and have lived through WWII and through the entire life of Israel (altho' I was grade school in 1948). I actually only came to think more about the Israel/Palestine question after the Yom Kippur War.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: toadfrog
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 12:27 AM

Oh, phooey! Nothing Carol has said is antisemetic. Or even anti-Israel.

I, for one, am getting to be violently anti-troll. Who is GUEST New Yorker anyway, and what the hell is he doing on a folk music site?

I don't believe there are very many Americans who are anti-Israel. But there is just some limit to what is tolerable. I myself used to be a fervent admirer of Israel. To me, Sabras were heros. They stood not only for Jewish resilience in the face of adversity, but for social justice, equality. Not any more. The occupation has corrupted Israel. Keeping a people in subservience corrupts. Degrading another people to peons, condemned to to do the dirty work forever, corrupts. And the conduct of the Israeli Right, who have been in control for quite some time, is such that any fool could plainly see would engender hatred and bring disaster on its own people. The settlement policy is not only a violation of international law, it is a crime against humanity. What does it mean to disposess people, inch by inch, of the land on which their ancestors have lived for at least 2000 years? Is it "ethnic cleansing"? And it isn't only wrong, it's psychologicaly idiotic. Gee! If you are going to run a people off their land and let them go starve in come corner or cranny, you should at least do at all at once. Not make it into a process of slow torture, drive them to madness, and smugly point out to the world how crazy they are.

I really hope Israel will abide. But how to save it from the Israelis? How save the world from guys who think like GUEST New Yorker? It's almost as mind-numbing a task as saving America from GWM.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,Nip Tucker
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 04:38 PM

Someone who calls himself toadfrog said, "I, for one, am getting to be violently anti-troll. Who is GUEST New Yorker anyway, and what the hell is he doing on a folk music site?"

I say, who is toadfrog anyway and why does he think it's up to him to decide who is allowed to be on Mudcat?

All Guest New York City has done is point to articles that support his POV. Same thing that CarolC has done. It would seem that a "troll" to the toadfrogs and michaelrs of this world is anyone who supports Israel. I have to agree that when toadfrog and michaelr smear people they disagree with as "trolls," they are not much different than Joe McCarthy.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 04:56 PM

I suppose toadfrog might be drawing a distinction between people who pretty well only seem to post to these kinds of threads, and those who post a fair bit about music and other stuff as well.

When you click on the name at the top of a post (even a GUEST name), you get a page linking to all previous posts.

Omar Khayyám/Edward Fitzgerald was remarkably prescient about this sort of development:

The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all they Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all they Tears wash out a Word of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,Strick
Date: 19 Jul 03 - 12:14 AM

I'm afraid I agree with CarolC. Most people in the US have rooted for the Israelis, recognizing some justice in establishing a homeland for the Jews and rooting for them as underdogs in their struggle for existance. Over a quarter of all our foreign aid goes to Israel alone.

Being pro-Israeli doesn't mean you have to agree with every policy, however. The growing violence, particularly the the disproportionate responses from the Israeli side seem only to provoke more viloence. What's the death toll, two or three Palestinians for every Israeli killed? Innocents dead on both sides? This is a vendetta not a rational path to peace. Short of killing all Palestinians it will accomplish nothing.

Israel needs more moderate leaders brave enough to work toward peace, not more violence, not more revenge.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: michaelr
Date: 19 Jul 03 - 04:10 PM

Hey "Guest" Nitfucker, I posted to this thread twice, neither post contains the word "troll", and to compare me to McCarthy is laughable, but it clearly shows that you are doing the smearing.

Cheerd,
Michael

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,New York City
Date: 19 Jul 03 - 04:21 PM

Michaelr obviously has no memory of his posting history. Perhaps he should check his message of 15 July 03 12:07 AM in this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: toadfrog
Date: 19 Jul 03 - 08:14 PM

Well, GUEST New York City, you are a troll, anyway you slice it, so the epithet is appropriate. This is a website dedicated to folk music. The theory is, we also have the luxury of talking politics among ourselves. It is not intended as a dumping ground for everyone who wants to make political propaganda. I have followed McGrath's advice and checked your postings. You appear to be completely indifferent to music, and interested only in yelling about how awful those Palestinians are. You don't belong here. I see no reason anyone should treat you with respect.

Very likely "left-wing antisemitism" is a problem in Spain. I'll take your word for that. I assume you are an American, and thus aware that this problem does not exist in the United States, or in Britain. Not a problem, that is, unless one equates the disquiet many of us feel with the criminal misconduct of the present Israeli government and many of its more militant supporters with antisemitism. If you do equate the two, you are simply disingenuous, and I really see no reason to respect you. If there are any antisemites on Mudcat, they are very well concealed. Occasionally trolls do show up and make antisemetic remarks. I have no more regard for them than for you. You should go away.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,New York City
Date: 19 Jul 03 - 08:33 PM

You appear to be completely indifferent to music, and interested only in yelling about how awful those Palestinians are. You don't belong here. I see no reason anyone should treat you with respect.

toadfrog, you are a liar. If you've checked my postings, you'll have seen that I have, indeed, posted about music.

I became active on this issue when I saw what happened in my neighborhood on September 11, 2001. One of the people killed that day was Jeff Hardy, a bass player I've played music with over many years.

You say this is a website dedicated to folk music. It used to be. However, it has changed over time and Max has removed the headline that Mudcat is a "folk and blues magazine."

Unless Max decides that posting is only by members with cookies, you are not the one to dictate who can, or cannot, post here.

And if you think that anti-Semitism does not exist in America, you are deluded.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: musicmick
Date: 20 Jul 03 - 05:42 PM

I just read the article by Pilar Rahola. She has saved me a lot of typing. I couldn't have said it better. It has saddened me that the Left has joined the Right in the age-old game of Hate-the-Hebe. I fear that the Liberal support for Jews and for Israel (the only Middle East state with women's rights, strong organized labor, free elections, free press and independent opposition parties) was based on the view of the Jew as a victim. Sort of a "The only good Jew is a gassed Jew" thing. Anti-Semitism is as ingrained in European, Christian culture (we did, in fact, kill Jesus.) as white supremacy.
One can not live in this society without being infected by both biases. Those who deny their suceptability to these influences are doomed to perpetuate them.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,New York City
Date: 20 Jul 03 - 05:59 PM

I agree with you, Musicmic. Pilar Rahola makes an excellent case. I've often wondered why today's leftists pick on Israel and ignore far worse human rights abuses by many other regimes.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz's has writtem an artcile on the subject. You can read it at this link.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Jul 03 - 09:38 PM

"women's rights, strong organized labor, free elections, free press and independent opposition parties" - South Africa in Apartheid times had all those things, it could be claimed. But somehow it didn't make it a regime worth admiring.

There are significant differences, true enough. South Africa's "democracy" was founded on denying Black people residential and voting rights, and setting up notional Bantustans. In Israel ethnic cleansing has been the key to ensuring that within the boundaries of Israel Palestinians are always in a minority.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Strick
Date: 20 Jul 03 - 09:58 PM

"I've often wondered why today's leftists pick on Israel and ignore far worse human rights abuses by many other regimes."

Because we expect Israel to be righteous? As the state of the ethical, moral God, for Israel to take the ethical and moral high ground? Israel is not just another state after all.

As a minor aside, the US takes a heck of a beating internationally for supporting Israel. No one's trying to withdraw support, but if we're paying so many of their bills, is it so wrong to expect them to live more closely to both our ideals?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,New York City
Date: 20 Jul 03 - 10:30 PM

In Israel ethnic cleansing has been the key to ensuring that within the boundaries of Israel Palestinians are always in a minority.

Ethnic cleansing?

Yes, in 1948, when the United Nations partitioned Palestine into two states: one Jewish (Israel) and the other Arab, the Israelis accepted the partition and the Arabs did not. Some Arabs (they weren't called Palestinians then, the Jews were then called Palestinians) were driven from what became Israel. Many times more left on their own accord at the encouragement of the surrounding Arab states who promised to drive the Jews into the sea. Approximately 725,000 Arabs left Israel in 1948.

Hundreds of thousands of other Arabs stayed in what became Israel. They have always enjoyed more human and democratic rights than the citizens of any Arab country. Since the beginning of Israel's statehood, for example, there have been Arab members of the Israeli Knesset and Arabic has equal status with Hebrew as an official language of the State.

Ethnic cleansing?

How about the 850,000 Jews who were driven out of surrounding Arab countries, who were forced to leave behind their property and money, at the time of Israel's statehood?

The difference in the two situations is that the Jews who were driven out of Arab countries were absorbed by Israel while the Arab refugees just continued to receive promises that the other Arab countries would drive the Jews into the sea.

The other Arab countries failed in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 to drive the Jews into the sea.

Realizing that Israel was here to stay, Egypt and, eventually, Jordan, made peace with Israel.

BTW, what we now consider to be the Palestinian territories, the West Bank and Gaza, were captured by Israel in the 1967 war. From 1948 until 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt. The Arabs could have easily created a Palestinian state in those areas. They had no desire to do so and when Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel, they washed their hands of the territories and the Palestinians.

Ethnic cleansing? A loaded propaganda term that fools gullible people with no knowledge of the actual history.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: musicmick
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 03:54 AM

Guest from New York City,

They dont care about history or balance. Their minds are set and they reject anything that challenges their position, out of hand. It is time that Jews realize that we are never going to get a fair deal from the Gentile world. They stood by when we were oppressed, when we were driven from our homes, when we were slaughtered through the centuries. They turned their backs when we pled for sanctuary. When they, finally, permitted us a homeland in the midst of our enemies, they ignored their own treaties and left us alone when we were attacked by the majority of the Arab world. Their position has not changed. They insist that we capitulate to terrorists, even to the point of self destruction. If we defend ourselves, they call us terrorists. There is no way that these bigots-in-denial will ever employ empathy toward the Jews. Their sympathies will always be with the underdog and, in fact, the Palestinians fit that bill to a historical T. (The Palestinians have always been the low men on the Arab totem pole. They have provided cheap labor for their more propertied brethren for centuries. Their lot is, in no small way, attributable to their lack of a homeland just as the Jews have suffered from their homeless status).
So, my NYC friend, dont expect a fair shake on any issue involving Israel. We will not convince them with history or reality. all we can do is call them what they are, refute their lies and one sided reports, and strive to maintain our own humanity in these horrible times. We must never become the evil we contest. Our enemies may desire our extinction but we must not desire theirs. They will define us but we must not accept their defination. One day, the fighting will end and we must be prepared for a just and merciful peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 09:09 AM

If there had been no war in 1948 Israel, or if after that the refugees had been allowed to return home, Israel would be equally made up of Jews and non-Jews.

Today the suggestion that the refugees and their families should be allowed to return home is treated by Israel as a threat to its very existence, and as a totally unrealistic demand which indicates that those expressing it are not serious in wishing peace.

And obviously the same right of return should apply for Jews driven out from other countries. All countries in the region have been damaged by the loss of refugees in this insane process.

True enough, you can't turn back history and put it back on the right tracks, and it may be that an acceptance of the "ethnic cleansing" as something which cannot be significantly undone now is necessary. But it that "democracy" in the wake of this kind of thing is a very qualified sort of democracy, as it would have been in South Africa if the whole apartheid scenario of separate development and Bantustans had been carried out more thoroughly and consistently.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,beano
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 12:16 PM

Toadfrog, I just noticed this. New York City may well not be from there,(a few hundred miles North actually) and may be obsessed with this topic, discussing it under different names and in the past taking different points of view to stir it up, but he's not a troll. This is no longer a folk music site exclusively and that's just fine. By the way, his folk music credentials are first rate.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 10:04 PM

I think this is one of those occasions when I agree with toadfrog (the "oh phooey" post, anyway).

Musicmic, who is the "we" as in "we killed Jesus"? If you mean the Jews, that was all part of a myth invented by the early Christian church in order to secure Christianity's survival (and, from 315 AD, its adoption as the established church) in the Roman empire. Christians have libelled Jews on this matter ever since, and on other pretexts too, notoriously with the blood libel. The logic of the scriptures (there is little history to go on) is that the Romans killed Jesus hence the Roman punishment of crucifixion. (Victims of Jewish justice were stoned.) Not that it should matter after all this time who killed one alleged Jewish insurrectionist out of the thousands who were butchered.

"Rants" seems a brainless way to describe Chomsky's arguments. Even where I disagree with him (as with his tending, in my view, to a simplistic blame-the-Serbs view of the Balkans, and his more exotic theories about transformational grammar) I still marvel at his scholarship and lucid style.

So I started out somewhat prejudiced against John Hirdsill. A judgment more than born out by his feeble whining about the Zionist project. First he tells us he's not familiar with the phrase, and a few posts later he blandly presumes to tell us what is meant by its present-day use. Has bogotry got no shame?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 12:21 AM

Not necessarily needing to defend my use of the word "rants", I will anyway. When I consider the totality of the political writings of Chomsky that I have read, I consider them "rants'. I feel the same way about Robert Scheer, and I felt that way (on the other side) about Meir Kahane. Brainless on my part, maybe. But you haven't given me a reason to change my opinion with that 'ad hominim' attack.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: musicmick
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 01:15 AM

Chaver Fionn,

Of course the Jewish king and the Jewish establishment killed Jesus.
The Romans couldn't have cared less what the Jews believed or didn't believe as long as they posed no threat to Roman soviernty. It does not help our cause to deny the role our ancesters played in the conviction and execution of their God. This is not to suggest that we should still be paying for that little indiscretion. I mean, one would think that exile, dispertion, persecution, slaughter and slander would have been sufficiant punishment. Gee, some people are never satisfied. Well, I, for one, refuse to accept the judgement of those, who are our sworn enemies. I, no longer, care why they hate us.
I dont even care that they don't really know why they hate us. I will not give up my life or the lives of my family to satisfy the transient social agendas of the extreme Right, the extreme left or the extreme center. My solace is that we have survived for thousands of years and we will continue to do so. Y'aseh shalom.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 11:10 AM

I haven't had time to read all of the posts since my last one, but I have to say that the impression I get from some of the posts is that if people who aren't Jewish try to deny Jews the opportunity to be as oppressive toward another people as other groups of people have been, that's an act of anti-Semitism. "We've been oppressed, so now it's our turn to oppress someone else, and if you don't like it, you're an anti-Semite."

By that standard, as a woman, a member of THE most oppressed group of people in the world since the beginning of time, I guess that means I can start oppressing people too. And if you don't like it, you're a misogynist. Misogyny is still very much alive and active in the world, so anything I do in response to it is ok, no matter how many people I have to oppress and/or kill.

Hey Strick. Good to see you here.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 11:30 AM

So, my NYC friend, dont expect a fair shake on any issue involving Israel. We will not convince them with history or reality. all we can do is call them what they are, refute their lies and one sided reports, and strive to maintain our own humanity in these horrible times.

Musicmic, I have already documented the falsity of the "history" you cling to. And my sources are Jewish and in many cases, Israeli Jews. You can't make a case that they are anti-Semitic.

And you can't strive to maintain a humanity that you are trying so vigorously to discard. Inextricably tied to your humanity is your recognition of the humanity of others, something I don't see you being particularly willing to do.

We must never become the evil we contest.

It's too late. It's already happened. Now the best you can do is to admit that you are no better than any of the rest of us, make your apologies, and strive to do better. As humans, that's the best any of us can do. We're all culpable, and none of us has clean hands. Not even you.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 12:00 PM

CarolC - Are you being purposely dense? I have in no way sought to justify anything Israel has done because Jordan or the Arab world was worse. I am only pointing out your hypocracy in stating that you are reacting soley to Israel's treatment of Palestineans, but you don't react to Arab/Arab treatment. That pretty much sounds like "anti-Israel" to me.

I think you're the one who is being purposely dense, John. What I said is that as long as my tax dollars are making it possible for Israel to do what it's doing, I will not be silent about it. If Israel wants to do these things with money that doesn't come from the US, and if our politicians aren't elected on the basis of their willingness to support what Israel is doing, and if people don't keep starting threads here in the Mudcat trying to justify what Israel is doing, I'll be happy to retire from all discussion of the Middle East except for threads dealing with the subject of what the US government is doing there.

If anyone is guilty of hypocracy, it's you. You said:

What about pictures of Pizza Parlors blown up by suicide murderers?! What a piece of work!

You seem to only care about the deaths of Israeli Jews. I see no moral outrage coming from you about the thousands of deaths of Palestinians at the hands of the government of Israel, as opposed to the hundreds of Jews killed by Palestinians.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 08:29 PM

Of course nothing, Musicmic. The God angle was slipped in following the crucifixion. Until then Jesus had been followed as a descendent in the royal bloodline, with an ancestry going back to Abraham, through David. And going back through.... not Mary but Joseph, with whom Jesus was unrelated according to anyone who thinks he was the son of God.

You're right that the Romans at that time didn't give a toss about which gods got worshipped. (Christianity was the first truly intolerant creed, which was specifically why the Roman empire later found it so useful to embrace: see for instance "Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire" by Gibbon, chapters 15 & 16.) But they gave short shrift to countless thousands who got in their way, and especially to anyone who looked like being a focal point for insurrection.

Remember that the new church had to establish itself under that Roman occupancy. Developing the cult of Jesus, King of the Jews, would not have been a good bet. Jesus, son of God, was always likely to play better with the occupying forces. Look at the story of the last supper. The first recorded mention of it came some 30 years after the event, and not from anyone who was there, but in a letter attributed to Paul. Paul had spent the years since the supper in the company of apostles, including Peter, proselytising Christianity. Yet not a single eye-witness disciple had ever thought to mention the bread-and-wine ritual. Paul eventually heard about it not from any one of them, but directly from God, in a vision!

If you don't know the bible, Musicmic, take my word: it may be tosh, but it's calculated tosh. And so far as the new testament goes, anti-semeticism and misogyny are part of the calculation. Read the synoptic gospels - or at least Luke - on the Ciaphas/Pilate stuff and the stereotyping couldn't be plainer: the Romans are sweet reason and the Jews are a baying, vengeful lynch mob.

It's just fortunate that wherever they ran up again history, the writers didn't bother doing their homework, and their yarns quickly unravel. Thus there is no historical reason that could have taken Mary and Joseph from home to Bethlehem; no such Roman custom as that whereby Barabbas was released from detention, etc, etc......

-----------------------------------

John Hindsill, thanks so much for that learned critique of Chomsky's works, or at least those unspecified ones that you've read. Beats me how I ever saw them any other way.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: John Hindsill
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 09:41 PM

You win, Fionn, Chomsky writes lucid prose and scholarship, and you admire his prose and scholarship. Therefore, I now admire his prose and scholarship. You've convinced me. I believe in Chomsky and his acolyte, Fionn. In your dreams!

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: musicmick
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 01:15 AM

Cher Fionn,

It is of little importance whether or not the Jews killed Christ. We deal with the realities of the present. The Christian perception is that the Jews are guilty of deicide and it is that perception that has defined Christian-Jewish attitudes for centuries. Our responsabilities, as Jews, are to establish our homeland (no people, including the Palestinians, can ever be secure in diaspora), defend ourselves from those who would destroy us (and their appologists), keep to our ethic of moral behavior (in spite of the self rightious bleatings of the deluded bigots) and never allow ourselves to be defined by our enemies. That there are those who deny us the right of self defence, is no surprise. That so many of our "friends" on the left find fault in a mono-racial state, only when that state is Jewish (I have yet to hear anyone call for a multicultural state in the Muslim world) is a disappointment to me, as it must be to other left wing Jews. After all, weren't we such an important and involved participant in liberal causes? Well, we though we were safe and secure in Germany, too, until the swaztika hit the fan.
Fortunately, in spite of the objections of the "tax paying" American pro-Palestinians (maybe, they'll like that term better than anti-Semites), we have managed to prevail without a single American soldier standing beside us. We will continue to prevail because, as we say b'eretz, "ein brerah" ("There is no choice.")

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 09:38 AM

Rapaire, there's much in my own posts at Mudcat to show that I'm against religion in all its guises, and in particular I'm hostile to any state constitution that (de jure or de facto) that favours any religion(s) over others. That goes for Ireland, the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia and everywhere else. But I could hardly claim to be a lone voice. You must be living in a bubble if you've never heard such arguments.

Anyway, if it doesn't matter who killed Jesus, I don't know why you took me up on it, and your cries of "mea culpa" begin to ring hollow.

As you say you're Jewish, I'd be interested to hear your views (maybe CarolC's too, and those of anyone else who could be bothered) on where God was while 1.5 million Jewish children were being murdered in the Holocaust? Was it punishment for past sins by the chosen race, or did God take up a non-interventionist stance after that business with Noah and the flood? Or was he distracted by events on other planets?

Coming back nearer the heart of the thread, Prof Huber Lock (Washington University, Seattle) has made some interesting points about anti-semitism among American blacks. Has that caused any kind of interest or reaction?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 10:08 AM

"I have yet to hear anyone call for a multicultural state in the Muslim world"

There are a number of states with Muslim majorities and non-Muslim minorities, as well as states where it is the other way round. And there are a lot of people who welcome this and are working to help us get along better.

The sooner we get a world where there are Jewish communities throughout the Middle East in places like Morocco and Iraq and the Yemen, the better.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 10:56 AM

Wow, musicmic, you addressed your post to Fionn, but all of your snide asides look like they're aimed at me. I would just like to point out that self-righteous bigotry must be in the eye of the beholder, because you sure look like a self-righteous bigot to me.

Israel may not have had US soldiers fighting with them, but it has had many, many BILLIONS of dollars of US taxpayer money, without which it would not have been able to accomplish anywhere near as much destruction as it has. As you say, you will "continue to prevail" because equality and/or survival is not at all what any of this is about. It's all about SUPREMACY. And it doesn't matter how many innocent people, Palestinians or Israeli Jews, have to be killed in order for you and the extremists in the Israeli government to accomplish this. And it is this policy of supremacy at all costs that is responsible for the deaths of so many innocent Jews in Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Their blood is on your hands and on the hands of the Israeli government.

Your arguments would have a little more credibility if the tactics being employed by the government of Israel were accomplishing the goals they say they are meant to accomplish. But the fact that they are accomplishing the EXACT opposite of what we are told they are intened to accomplish proves the lies inherent in them.

I will not call for the establishment of any sort of state in the Middle East, multicultural or otherwise, in Muslim countries, Israel, or anywhere else. What I do call for is for the US to stop meddling in the affairs of other countries and get to work cleaning up it's own act. I am not "pro-Palestinian". I am "pro-Humanity". Anything less is bigotry.

Fionn, God was not involved in the killing of innocent Jewish children, or of any other innocents anywhere in the world ever. It was MEN who did that. They made the decisions, and they did the deeds. Same as today. The same impulses that caused the slaughter of innocent Jewish children by German MEN during WWII are what is causing the slaughter of innocent Palestinian children by Israeli MEN in the Palestinian Occupied Territories now. Same hatred, same evil.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 11:03 AM

CarolC,

In your last paragraph, you conveniently neglect to mention the slaughter of innocent Israeli children by Palestinian men, women and CHILDREN who are sent to their death, by Palestinian men, to commit mass murder via suicide bombing and other forms of terrorism.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: mg
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 11:14 AM

and MEN from America, Canada, Australia, Philipines, USSR faced down those MEN from here and there, as they are doing this very day, with WOMEN also..and live with their nightmares every day and every night..mg

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 11:17 AM

I don't need to mention it GUEST, because so many other people on this thread and the other threads about Israel/Palestine do such a fine job of mentioning it for me. Although if you want to use the term "mass murder" to describe what the suicide bombers do to innocent Israeli children, then by comparison, what the Israeli soldiers and settlers are doing to innocent Palestinians must be described as GENOCIDE.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 11:20 AM

True enough, Mary Garvey, and my uncle Harly was one of them. Only he died doing it, so he doesn't have to live with any memories.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 07:57 AM

It was MEN who did that. They made the decisions, and they did the deeds (Carol)

Picture of concentration camp Ravensbrück wardens sitting in the dock in 1946/47

Hermine Ryan, sentenced to life imprisonment as most brutal KZ warden in Ravensbrück and Majdanek

From the eyewitness testimony of Dieter Ambach about Ryan (my translation): One day in October 1943 a father tried to smuggle his son in his rucksack into the camp. Hermine Ryan saw that the rucksack moved and hit it with the whip. Until only a whimper came from the rucksack. Then she drew the bleeding boy by his hairs out of the rucksack and threw him on the open lorry to the other children. Departure to the gas chamber.

Several decades ago we still thought women could not run a marathon, drive a train and all that. Now most of us know that women can do everything as good (or as bad) as men.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 08:32 AM

First of all, Wolfgang, it is correct in the English language to use the word 'men' or 'man' to refer to both men and women together. For instance the English version of the Bible says "God created Man". Also our Bill of Rights says "All men are created equal". Supposedly these are both meant to refer to both men and women.

But you're right. There are women who are capable of such things. It's terrible, isn't it? But the fact remains that men make the decisions to go to war and men make up the vast majority of the forces who make such things possible. Left to their own devices, most women, especially mothers, wouldn't take the world in such a destructive direction.

There is an organization of Israeli women who are protesting the paternalistic and warlike nature of the societal structure of Israel. They don't like what the men are doing with their country. I can't find the link to it just now, but if and when I do, I'll post it here.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 11:55 AM

First of all, Wolfgang, it is correct in the English language to use the word 'men' or 'man' to refer to both men and women together.

I know that, Carol, and all your examples but we also both know that you did not use the word MEN in the bit I cited in that sense. So why mention it?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 02:04 PM

Well, I read it as meaning human beings - as against human beings ofg some particular group, such as Palestinians or Israelis or Germans. You might be right in your surmise, or you might be wrong, Wolfgang, but that's not the ame as "knowing".

I know the suggestion keeps on coming up that "man" has to mean male human being, but it's etymologically unsound. Doesn't mensch have the same inclusive meaning in German (including Yiddish)?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 02:34 PM

but we also both know that you did not use the word MEN in the bit I cited in that sense

Actually, Wolfgang, although you think you can read my mind, your track record in that regard is less than perfect ;-)

I think my intention was for it to be read both ways: refering to human beings in general as well as men in particular. I think each meaning is applicable in its own way.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 03:06 PM

Carol,

the only other post in this thread you have used the word 'men' it clearly only did refer to males.
The only time I have found here you did refer to all 'men' in the other sense of the word you did use the word 'humans'.
With the repeatedly capitalised MEN in that post I still think it was hard to read it any other way.

But you are the expert on your thoughts and so, assuming that you are sincere and not trying to make a cheap point, I apologise for misreading your post.

McGrath, 'Mensch' can't be read to mean only males. However, 'Mensch' is closely related to 'Mann' (man, male) and so our language, like most others, is unfair to females. The most unfair bit, perhaps, is our word 'man' ('one' with the meaning like in 'One cannot live forever'). 'Man' in that sense is abundant in German. Modern PC German here has 'frau'. As a small compensation for unfairness, there are rare situations in the German language where you have to refer to a man as 'she'.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 09:21 PM

CarolC, you're on a loser. There's nothing to choose between men and women. Where women have had power there has been no evidence that they would use it more ethically than men. Sometimes the reverse. Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir and, above all, Margaret Thatcher come to mind. But women sometimes exert their baleful influence less overtly, as witness Madams Milosovic, Ceausescu, Marcos and Mugabe (the present one, in the last case).

And never mind marathons, I can see the day coming when women are competing on equal terms at CHESS! (Even though this requires brainpower*G*)

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 09:58 PM

Good examples, Fionn. But in the cases of Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir and, Margaret Thatcher, who was really making the decisions with regard to whether or not to go to war (or otherwise show contempt for human life); the women or their military advisors?

As I admitted before, there certainly are spectacular examples of women who had or have little or no regard for human life. But if we were to talk in percentages, I think we could safely say that almost all wars were and/or are started and executed by men.

Anyway, if they can start them I guess they can stop them too. Right?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: mg
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 10:25 PM

Who is to say their military advisors were male? People who go to war at least in my experience have the highest regard for human life. They want to preserve it from things too horrible to describe. There are far worse things than war, and if situations are bad enough, sometimes there are no apparent alternatives. A refusal to acknowledge those things, and a holier than thou righteousness can lead to more of those unspeakable conditions. There are people so evil and so ruthless that nothing else will work on them but superior, overwhelming force. But by all means try talking things over with them first. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 08:41 AM

That was my point Wolfgang - mensch is inclusive, and I'd argue that the same is true of analogous terms in Emnglish. Not "manly", but definitely "manlike" (in relation to apes for exmple), and the word man itself, except where the context clearly inducates it only refers to males.

This is drift, but drift ain't such a bad thing in a thread where sticking to closely to the original topic tends to gives rise to bad blood.

I think in working over the past we risk forgetting the truth, which is that pretty well everyone who has posted here would wish to see a future in which the various peoples involved will live alongside each other in peace and tolerance - even if we disagree about the precise details of how we can imagine this coming about, or even what it might look like in terms of politcal borders and so forth. And that is not an attitude which is compatable with anti-semitism or any kind of sectarian or racial antagonism (which are not the same as hostility towards particular policies).

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 09:18 AM

Mary Garvey, I know you have a distinguished military background, but I think you trust the people who make those kinds of decisions a little too much. First of all, how many female generals are there at the top levels of the Pentagon (the levels that advise the president on whether or not to wage war)? How many female generals have there been who were actually in charge of running the war? I don't remember any. How many were there especially back during the time periods when those women were the figureheads for their respective countries? I'm guessing probably none now, and none then.

Most wars are for the purpose of conquest and/or enrichment. That's all. Sometimes people respond to acts of agression by fighting back, but as often as not, these people are called guerrilla fighters and/or terrorists. I'm sure this reality is very difficult for you to face. You don't want to think that the hell you and many other good, brave, and dedicated people went through was for anything other than the highest principles. But the reality is not as you think it is (or was). As hard as it is to admit these things, if you keep rationalizing for these people, you just help to perpetuate the horrors they commit.

This is what Smedley Darlington Butler had to say about it. Butler, "one of the most decorated soldiers in the history of the Marine Corps and recipient of two Medals of Honor and the Distinguished Service Medal, became unspeakably disillusioned with his accomplishments. His service record reads like an itinerary of all the "peacekeeping" and "humanitarian interventions" Wilson's enlightened and honourable foreign policy brought to a benighted world.

After his retirement in 1931, Butler wrote, "I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

"I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

"Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.""

And here's a history of some of those "humanitarian interventions". It doesn't look like the people we were ostensibly there to help were actually helped. In fact, it looks to me like they and their society were raped and pillaged by us, and left out in the sun to rot.

Some prior "humanitarian interventions" in the history of the US

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 09:28 AM

There are far worse things than war I'd question that, when you add in all the things that goes along with war, and allthe things that come out of war. For example, when copuntig the cost of the First World War, as well as the slaughtere in the trenches, you really need to add in the rise of Nazism and Fascism, with all that that brought in its wake.

At most it could be argued that in particular circunstances it can appear that the alternative to a particular war might be even worse. And looking back, there are precious few wars where even that can really be claimed.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 09:29 AM

So, CarolC, let me try to understand your use of the word "men." When you blame "MEN" for military actions, you're actually blaming men and women collectively, but when you blame "men," it's just the male of the species?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 09:37 AM

Not exactly, GUEST. My use of the capital letters in that post was more a result of the mood I was in when I posted than the meaning I was trying to convey in my post.

However, in the first instance I'm saying, in response to Fionn's question about why God let certain things happen, that it has nothing to do with "God". It's humans who create the reality we experience here.

In the second instance, I'm saying that war is more a product of the male mind than of the female mind, generally speaking.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 01:14 PM

My suspicion is that it is more the product of a will to power that is characteristic of the ruling group within a society, and that it wouldn't actually make a great deal of difference if the ruling group were female rather than male. Margaret Thatcher was not that untypical.

I get the impression that women who make it top positions of power tend to behave in a very similar way to men, and to have similar priorities. Of course that could be that society is skewed by a long and continuing history of male dominance, and that if that can be effectively changed this will no longer be the case. But I think that if we don't want that kind of world, we need to find ways of opposing the arrogance of power in itself, rather than assuming that if we could achieve an end to male dominance it would automatically change things that much.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 02:02 PM

Here's what I'm wondering, McGrath. If women tended to see fighting and warfare as a way of solving problems, don't you think we would have used that as a way of gaining power from men, or at least removing ourselves from servitude and second-class citizenship a long, long time ago?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 04:31 PM

Arguable, but there are counter arguments.

Wars don't happen because blokes are going round raring for a fight, they happen because the people running things decide that a war is the best way of achieving their ends, and the people put in uniform obey orders and fight. On the occasion when the people in charge are women, they have seemed just as willing to resort to war, and when the people are uniform they have seemed to be just as ready to obey orders.

In general oppressed groups within society don't win equality by waging war. The minority who have seen this as appropriate have always included women.

I'd like to believe that a society in which there was no oppression of women would necessarily be a more peaceful and less oppressive society. I hope it is true - but I've got a sneaking feeling that it might not be.

In any case, it doesn't make any difference. Even if there was reason to believe that an end to oppression would increase the dangers of violence and so forth, it'd still be necessary to try to end the oppression.

Thought experiment - imagine a society in which women are in charge and men are subjugated. Would it be right to oppose a "male rights" movement on the grounds that males were claimed to be more prone to violence? Even if that were actually true? (Myself, I might see that as a good reason for not joining a "male rights" movement, but that is another matter.)

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: GUEST,who cares?
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 06:29 PM

Why does it take these two so long to find these tiresome one-issue deliberately devisive threads? Or should I count my blessings that they're never in at the beginning?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 09:28 PM

I don't know, GUEST, and I don't care.

Anyway, McGrath, I'm not married to the idea. Just throwing around some possibilities.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 09:50 PM

P.S. I'm going off-line for a while so I can't continue this discussion anyway, even though I still find it interesting. But on the subject of the differences between men and women, I'm a believer in reincarnation, so I consider that I've had both male and female lifetimes. And also lifetimes as a member of many different ethnic groups, "races", religions, and nationalities. I don't think any patterns are embedded in the consciousness of a person or a soul. But I think the biological imperitive of motherhood causes a different set of priorities in individuals who have that biological makeup. But I could be wrong. (Although I don't think I am ;-)

Ta for now, all.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 07:43 AM

P.P.S. One last little factoid on the subject of men and women before I have to go of-line...

Ninety-something percent of all violent crime is committed by men. So men use violence more than women (by a huge percentage) even when they're not in positions of power.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 09:25 AM

True enough, and it is quite possible that there are inbuilt tendencies towards violence that are more prevalent in men than in women. But statistics can be misleading, because there are other factors as well as genetics.

For example, if statistics showed that in a particular society members of a particular ethnic group had a relatively greater tendency to commit some offence, or that some nation appears to have a history of aggressive war, it is not valid to assume a genetic explanation.

And modern war isn't so much about people wanting to be violent, but more about people willing to order other people to do things which have violent results. Storming into battle with a fixed bayonet or a blazing gun might appeal to some kind of atavistic blood-lust, but you don't need that to issue orders. And it is clear enough that army training methods are capable of producing women who are capable of acting as efficient and lethal military personnel.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 10:46 AM

mary garvey, what a profoundly wise thought. Undermined in only one trivial detail. Most nations don't happen to have "superior, overwhelming force" at their disposal (maybe they didn't build their wealth on the back of slave labour or something) and the one that does, has not got the slightest interest in good or bad. Only in being the one with most toys at the end of the game.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: toadfrog
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 05:57 PM

Oh, gee Fionn! I don't know what you and Ms. Garvey are arguing about, and don't particularly care. Very likely I agree with you and not with Mary. But "maybe they didn't build their wealth on the backs of slave labor"?!!! That is truly gratuitous. It is not enlightening. It does not make any particular point. It serves no purpose but to make the other party angry. It lowers my opinion of you.

You often say say stuff like that. It gives the impression that you are mean-spirited and inclined to take cheap shots. Is that the reputation you are aiming for?

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 29 Jul 03 - 06:40 PM

Not gratuitous at all toadfrog. We live in a world recently dominated by Britain, now dominated by the US, both of which got rich by behaviour we would now regard as criminal. If these countries were moving heaven and earth to restore some balance in the world, fine, but they're trying (successfully in the USA's case) to maintain their ill-gotten advantage. In the circumstances, gloating about "superior overwhelming force" was a crassly unilateral take on a global concern.

Subject: RE: BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism
From: Teribus
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 04:48 AM

Fionn, states above:

"We live in a world recently dominated by Britain, now dominated by the US, both of which got rich by behaviour we would now regard as criminal." If these countries were moving heaven and earth to restore some balance in the world, fine, but they're trying (successfully in the USA's case) to maintain their ill-gotten advantage."

The phrase, "both of which got rich by behaviour we would now regard as criminal" The "we would now" part is important, at the time they got rich of course it was not regarded as being criminal.

"If these countries were moving heaven and earth to restore some balance in the world, fine, but they're trying (successfully in the USA's case) to maintain their ill-gotten advantage."

Slavery was mentioned, greatest slave traders in the world were the Arabs, the foremost western nation in the fight to abolish the slave trade was Britain. Fionn would like to depict the period of the British Empire as totally evil, an Empire built on conquest and repression. There were of course elements of each, but predominantly, the British Empire was formed on trade, not conquest. If what Fionn would like us to believe was true - I would dearly love to hear what the explanation of how the Commonwealth came into being - it is the second largest international organisation of countries in the world, second only to the United Nations. Unlike the the United Nations, there are no members with special status, everybody has an equal voice. Currently there is a waiting list of countries whose histories have absolutely no connection with Britain, or it's empire, applying for membership.

Fionn also forgets the massive contribution the United States of America has made throughout the world in defending freedom and in alleviating suffering - The Marshal Plan, instigated towards the end of hostilities of the Second World War, basically rebuilt the world - but Fionn gives them no credit for it. Obviously that undeniable truth does not suit his/her arguement, or line of reasoning.