BS: Pilar Rahola on leftist anti-Semitism

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.