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Indybay Feature

Zionist menu: Red Herring of "left anti-semitism" only $125!

by Aaron S.
For some fake-left Jews and self-hating gentiles, so-called "left anti-semitism" is worthy of more attention than any of the real oppressions that wreak havoc on most of the world's people.
While thousands of Arabs and Muslims are being held in detention or otherwise abused by the pro-Israel U.S. government, while millions of people of African or indigenous American ancestry in the U.S. are either in prison or under the control of the criminal "justice" system, while Jews constitute one of the most powerful, most privileged and least oppressed ethnic groups in the United States, a group of so-called "progressives" has organized an expensive three-day conference to deal with "Anti-Semitism and The Left"!

A quick reading of the conference schedule is enough to turn the stomach of any genuine anti-racist activist. And why would anti-Jewish bigots (and there are some, most of whom don't even pretend to be leftists) have to bother doing anything when Jews and their "allies" put out such whining, self-indulgent crap, the purpose of which is to undermine criticism of "left" Zionism.

The conference, by the way, is being held at the Oakland Marriott and costs $275, but "only" $125 for low income participants! What a bargain! Actually, they should be paying Blacks, Latinos, etc., $275 each for attending the conference and providing a left cover for these Zionists.

I don't want to give these characters free publicity, but I feel it's necessary to put in the address of their web site, http://www.facingachallenge.com/, so people can check it out for themselves.

By the way, there's a rumor that this conference will soon be followed by a similar one dealing with anti-Episcopalism and the left.
by Mike (stepbystpefarm <a> mtdata.com)
I'm afraid you may be missing the point, not understanding why progressive "Zionists" might be concerned with "Anti-Semitism and the Left". You are mistakenly imagining that they are seeking "left cover", that they are concerned with being protected form the "left".

NO ---- their problem is that as "progressives" they are concenred about the same issues as the "left" -- do not want a polarization to come about so that they will be used against causes whihc they favor. That's the point. IF there is total polarization and they are forced to choose between their progressive causes and tribal solidarity they will choose their tribe. They know that whichever of their progressives causes get linked to "anti-Zionism" will be subject to they themsleves being used against it (that's the price which the opponents of that p[rogressive cause will be able to extract).
by gehrig
The false assumption in the original post is that anyone who identifies antisemitism within the progressive movement isn't a progressive, is a "fake-left Jew" or a "self-hating gentile." He starts with an _a priori_ assumption that anyone who considers such a subject worth considering for a weekend is simply an outside agitator (hence his derisive "so-called 'progressives'") trying to damage the progressive movement.

There's a name for that: it's called a "blind spot."

These people are asking an honest question: how can the progressive movement possibly gain by ignoring prejudice in its midst, prejudice of any kind, when that prejudice occurs? This conference sounds like a good idea. Maybe even an overdue one.

http://www.facingachallenge.com/porupus.htm

@%<
by Balistoides conspicillum
gehrig said:
>These people are asking an honest question:
>how can the progressive movement possibly
>gain by ignoring prejudice in its midst, prejudice
>of any kind, when that prejudice occurs?

Conveniently, such a question just happens to play into the aims and interests of the Israeli right. The question presupposes that this "prejudice in its midst" actually exists on some meaningful level, one of such magnitude as to justify much handwringing and gnashing of teeth.

Oh, and let's not forget: The conference does NOT appear to be about prejudice on the left; it is about a narrowly defined, carefully constructed definition of "anti-semitism." It's a construction which views 'opposition to the policies of the State of Israel' as anti-jewish. Such a position is, of course, irrational, requiring the creation of terminology such as "self-hating jew" to rationalize away the inconvenient inconsistencies of the millions of clearsighted jews who recognize and point out oppression when they see it.

Funny, when I oppose US policy, nobody attacks me as being anti-christian.
by gehrig
clownfish: "Conveniently, such a question just happens to play into the aims and interests of the Israeli right."

Ah, so the progressive movement needs to live in fear of what the neighbors will think, and should compromise its own principles accordingly. Got it. Thanks. Let's just pretend to be perfect, because anything less than that will "play into the hands" of our enemies.

A movement that has honestly searched its heart and addressed a difficult issue honestly is a _stronger_ movement, not a weaker one. And as long as you're lockstepped into shouting down that search with the "don't listen, it's just a right-wing Israeli Zi-i-i-ionist plot," you demonstrate the very problem that the conference is trying to address, and you perpetuate the weakness.

Clownfish: "The conference does NOT appear to be about prejudice on the left; it is about a narrowly defined, carefully constructed definition of "anti-semitism." etc etc etc"

Decide for yourself, folks. Take a look and see whether clownfish is reading from the wrong cue cards.

http://www.facingachallenge.com/schedual.htm

@%<
by Aaron S.
Mike writes:
<p>
<i>IF there is total polarization and they are forced to choose between their progressive causes and tribal solidarity they will choose their tribe.</i>
<p>
Anyone who places tribal solidarity above "progressive" causes shouldn't be trusted by "progressives". But if such tribalism can perhaps be excused when the tribe involved is a powerless oppressed group like the U'wa of Colombia, it is totally unacceptable when the "tribe" includes a large minority of the rulers of the world.
by Balistoides conspicillum
I hear zionists shouting about anti-semitism all the fucking time. But whenever they do, it's is ALWAYS in reference to something that turns out to be valid criticism of Israeli government policy.

What I, personally, rarely encounter is actual anti-jewish sentiments from anyone. And when I do, it's not from leftists.

Admittedly, I encounter racist statements on a frequent basis. And if the zionists want to know more about these then all they need to do is look in the mirror.

Sorry, gehrig. I don't mean to egg you on. On many issues you are clearsighted. But on this one, something in your brain is making you delusional.

<|;-P

by sick of it
Let me guess... "Jews OUGHT to be hated" is trying to stir up shit. I'm sure whoever it is couldn't possibly be jewish??? Don't you have some tombstones somewhere to deface?


Jury convicts Claremont professor in staged hate crime case

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

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

(08-18) 18:05 PDT POMONA, Calif. (AP) --

A Claremont McKenna College psychology professor was convicted Wednesday of falsely reporting her car was vandalized and spray-painted with racist and anti-Semitic slurs while she was speaking at a campus forum on racial tolerance.

Kerri Dunn, 39, of Redlands was convicted of one misdemeanor count of filing a false police report and two felony counts of attempted insurance fraud. She faces up to 31/2 years in prison when she is sentenced Sept. 17.

Her attorney, Gary S. Lincenberg, issued a statement saying Dunn would appeal the attempted insurance fraud convictions.

The professor claimed her car was spray-painted and its tires slashed March 9. The report prompted college officials to cancel classes at Claremont's five undergraduate campuses the next day as thousands of students took part in demonstrations calling for tolerance.

Dunn called her insurance company that day to report the vandalism.

She became a suspect after two witnesses reported seeing her vandalizing her car. Investigators also said she gave them conflicting reports about what happened.


by JA

BC: "Sorry, gehrig. I don't mean to egg you on. On many issues you are clearsighted. But on this one, something in your brain is making you delusional."

JA: That's called "being too close to home" for ole gerhig -- and threatening *his* sense and arrogation of white privilege: this time, for him personally, Jewish instead of Christian.


(Other than that, I wonder *when* is ole gassy gerhig -- professional Zionist propagandist -- *ever* "clearsighted?)
by JA

"The conference, by the way, is being held at the posh Oakland Marriott and costs $275, but "only" $125 for low income participants!"

Funny/ironic: If anti-Semitism is *SO DRASTICALLY PREVALENT* -- ON THE *LEFT*!! -- AND JEWS ARE BEING SO OPPRESSED -- IN THE UNITED STATES!!! -- then why are the conference organizers charging all those counterculture, ragtag leftists 'only' ***$275.00***!! -- **$125.00** for "low income" leftists -- to attend!? At that price, it's a bargain!: the organizers are practically *giving* away the tickets!!

(Yeah, the "low income" people can fork over their grocery money for a week or two in order to attend this conference.)

The conference couldn't get the same people/institutions who sponsor ROUNDTRIP PLANE TICKETS TO ISRAEL, for almost every Jewish-American youth and almost every American politician (who are typically 'anti-Semite-baited' or 'threatened' into going, if they are not Jewish) who wants to go there, to also sponsor free conference tickets for poor, ragtag leftists and low-income people to attend?

Or, are the conference organizers actually trying to keep regular, more independent-minded, common sense, critically questioning people from getting in -- all those people whose "anti-Semitism" the conference presenters want to "unlearn" -- or to carefully and financially limit what people can afford to get in at all?

I wonder if most of the people who *could* personally afford to fork over the *sizeable* conference fee are *MORE* (on the right hand 'balance') or *less* (on the left hand 'balance') likely to be politically conservative? -- especially on Israel/Zionism.

OOO!! MY RIGHT HAND IS GETTING PRETTY HEAVY!!
by Mike (stepbystepfartm <a> mtdata.com)
It does NOT matter. I am willing to accept as VALID (honest) criticism of "tribalism" (one of the ways humans organize themselves) form those who are consistently opposed -- who say things such as "tribalism interferes with people idenitfying by economic class".

Take a look at what you are saying. You think the tribalism of the Uwa is OK because they do not NOW control any of their their tribal territory (just like the Jews did not a hundred years ago). Now maybe the Uwa manage to hold themsleves together through time, to EVENTUALLY regain control of some of ther tribal territory -- after all, it took the Jews almost 2000 years of never giving up, 2000 years of repeating "Eym ishkachake Yerusalayim" and "Hashannah haba'a b'rushalayim". You are saying that at THAT point their tribalism becomes "bad"?

Look -- you may well favor some OTHER form of human organization, the "clan" or the "nation state" or the "class" or maybe even "one world, no smaller grouping of humanity, we all live by the same cultural rules". I am willing to respect your different preference as honest -- IF it is honest. But anybody who tires to argue "tribalism is wrong if it's the Jews being tribal but OK for other people" --- well do I not have reason to conclude that is simply "anti-semitism"?

Yes I understand where the problem lies for "progressives" -- that this IS a problem, that the tribalism of the Jews interferes with getting the Jews to identify primarily with "progressivism" instead of their OWN interests. Which is presumably the intended topic of the conference, how to deal with the reality that IF the Jews are forced to choose between themsleves and "progressivism" that "progressivism" will lose.

I agree -- the "progressives" should not trust the Jews to support them if "progressivism" turns against Jewish interests. But that is true of EVERYBODY. If the "progressives" expect to be able to trust those people whose interests they attack they are fools. The only people a cause can trust, push come to shove, is those that are in the fight FOR THEMSELVES (their OWN interests).
by gehrig
clownfish: "I hear zionists shouting about anti-semitism all the fucking time. But whenever they do, it's is ALWAYS in reference to something that turns out to be valid criticism of Israeli government policy."

Wendy Campbell's year of posting Holocaust denial URLs and other antisemitics at SF-IMC wasn't about Israel. It was about her antisemitism. And it was about how people like nessie and you are willing to turn a blind eye to that antisemitism, or pretend it's not existent, as you do here, for purely political reasons.

I don't claim that a significant minority of progressives are antisemites. But I _do_ claim that too many progressives are willing to turn a blind eye to antisemitism like Wendy's when they find it politically expedient, and a significant minority of progressives are willing to shoot the messenger out of political expediency when the topic comes up.

And that's what happened here in this thread: Aaron came out swinging with bogus shit about "fake-left Jews" and "so-called 'progressives'" because he found that easier to do than ask the question, is the progressive movement really vulnerable to antisemitism after all? Is it possible that this whole business _isn't_ just something you can conveniently blame on Thuh Zi-i-i-ionists after all?

Only a few months ago, the Holocaust denial organization IHR put an ad in The Nation selling their Holocaust denial materials under the guise of mere "anti-Zionist history."

So here's my question: what is it about the progressive rhetoric against Israel that made Nazi apologists like the IHR feel the progressive movement might be fertile ground for their propaganda? What progressive flowers attracted that bee?

Here's another one I spotted on IMC-Idaho only a couple of days ago: http://www.folkandfaith.com. It's a white separatist site. But look how they've picked up little bits of progressive rhetoric. Look how often they repeat their slogan "beyond left and right" as a way to reach out to the left. Look at how they tout their "anti-imperialism" and "anti-globalism" and their celebration of "biodiversity." And then, once again, ask yourself: what progressive flowers attracted _that_ bee?

You can pretend it's a non-issue and remain in denial. At the top of your lungs, if you like. As long as you remain in denial, though, you're part of the problem, not part of the solution.

@%<
by Balistoides conspicillum
I think that you are mistaking run-of-the-mill anti-semites who are adopting left rhetoric as being actual leftists. These aren't the same at all.

Leftists should and usually do recognize when the racist shitheads are trying to use our language to "bring us in" but why they do so is beyond me. As soon as any "thinking" person realizes what a group like that is really about, they're going to run from it.

Thanks for pointing out two or three examples of what you are talking about. Are there a lot more? Or can I now save my $125 to buy food instead?

peace with justice
by gehrig
mike: "I agree -- the "progressives" should not trust the Jews to support them if "progressivism" turns against Jewish interests."

And this is a key point. If the progressive movement's agenda becomes so unfairly hostile to Israel that it drives out all but the most anti-Zionist Jews -- that is, if it sets up a dogmatic dichotomy that Zionism (unlike any other national liberation movement) is irreconcilable with progressivism, and that "true" progressives must call for Israel's political destruction -- then it won't be the fault of the Jews that they have been driven out; it will be the fault of the progressive movement's agenda.

A lot of people would like to sweep this issue under the rug, or call it a Zionist red herring. Which is why this conference has already performed a useful service to the progressive community by getting this issue out on the table, and showing that it _won't_ be swept under the rug.

The alternative, of course, is to say, "Oh, we progressives are perfect, our movement is perfect, and anyone who says otherwise, and dares suggest we have any flaws at all on the antisemitism issue, must be working for _Them._" This is the nessie approach.

@%<
by gehrig
clownfish: "I think that you are mistaking run-of-the-mill anti-semites who are adopting left rhetoric as being actual leftists. These aren't the same at all."

No, I quite clearly identified Wendy Campbell as an antisemite, and the Folk and Faith site as white separatist. (Stormfront's anti-Zionist site "No War for Israel" is another example; it tried but failed to look lefty, even at one point including an Indymedia banner.)

What I asked was, what's going on in the nature of progressive anti-Zionist rhetoric that these guys are finding attractive enough to take the effort to make a play for the progressives? They aren't making a play to infiltrate the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America. They are trying to infiltrate the progressives.

And the progressive movement should ask itself, honestly, what flowers are attracting those bees? What are these guys seeing in your rhetoric that you aren't? And isn't it a coincidence that it's the same thing Jews are also seeing?

In other words, isn't it possible that it's not the Jewish left that has the blind spot, but the progressive agenda -- or at least those who would keep an honest examination of internal antisemitism off the progressive agenda?

@%<
by Know your enemy
JA is of course the mentally disturbed Joseph Anderson whose Afro-Nazi bigotry (not to mention extreme sense of self-importance) are all over the Indymedia network and legion in the Bay Area. What he needs most of all is a lobotomy if not to be put to sleep. In any case, he is well known for his self-confessed Anti-Jewish racism (he recently denounced Daniel Pipes not as a zionist or right-winger but as a "typical Jew racist") and for his hanging out with Pro-nazi types such as Jeff Blankfort, Joe Webb and others who recently painted swasticas on a Berkeley liquor store. Their followers also have physically attacked Jewish students on the Berkeley campus, thrown rocks at Hillel etc. Of course, when confronted by all this they will say like the Nazi above "Sick of It" (Wendy Klanbell?) that it is really JEWS "staging the attacks just like the zionists did in Nazi Germany".
by gehrig
You know, "Know," that sort of shit doesn't help anybody.

If you have evidence of JA saying something antisemitic, post a link. True, he was booted off SF-IMC for spamming, and I'm still waiting for him to apologize for accusing me here on Indybay of making a racist comment I didn't make -- not that I ever expect him to actually apologize, he's like nessie in that sense -- but I haven't seen a pattern of his saying anything overtly antisemitic, and anono-slander just looks lame.

@%<
by Aaron S.
Why wouldn't Aryan (or White Gentile) Supremacists try to pass themselves off as "progressives" or "leftists"? Haven't Jewish Supremacists been doing it rather successfully for a very long time?

Each of these two currents builds their pretense of leftism or whatever they call it on opposition to the oppression perpetrated by the other! Quite a symbiotic relationship, I'd say!

Real leftists oppose both oppression OF Jews and oppression BY Jews. It just so happens that, in the contemporary world (since around 1945), there's little of the former and quite a lot of the latter.
by Aaron S.
I wasn't implying that Aryan/White Supremacists or Jewish Supremacists in general try to pass themselves off as progressives or leftists. I was referring only to what are sometimes called the "National Socialist" currents within those movements, although that specific term has fallen out of favor, especially with Jews.
by GENUINE anti-racist
"Real leftists oppose both oppression OF Jews and oppression BY Jews. It just so happens that, in the contemporary world (since around 1945), there's little of the former and quite a lot of the latter."

What a blatantly racist anti-Jewish comment. Of course, the vast amounts of oppression that Jews suffered in the Soviet Union and in the Islamic countries after 1945 was directly perpetrated by leftists and/or Islamicists of Aaron's ilk. And now they deny that most of it even occured just as they and fellow vermin such as Wendy Klanbell deny the Nazi holocaust. To these cretins, all Jews are evil and all evil is commited by Jews.
by gehrig
Aaron S. [the usual fall-back position, the Nazi analogy]

* rolling eyes * Gee, I thought you had more of a clue than that.

Aaron S.: "Real leftists oppose both oppression OF Jews and oppression BY Jews."

But real leftists _don't_ say, "If you don't oppose oppression by Jews _exactly_ the way _I_ say you should, then I'll insult you by calling you a 'fake-left Jew' and a 'so-called "progressive' and comparing you to Nazis, chuckle chuckle snort chuckle." That's worse than useless.

There are plenty of Jews out there who are working to end the oppression of the Palestinians. I've frequently posted the links to groups like B'Tselem, Courage to Refuse, ACRI, Gush Shalom. But they apparently don't pass your purity test, so you'll lump them in with Ariel Sharon because you find that more politically expedient and less likely to damage your stereotype of the Zionist as being only right-wing and expansionist.

You'll deny that they're progressive, and are actively trying to better the life of the Palestinians (which is sure as shit more than you can say about Chairman Arafat) because they don't pass the Aaron S. Single-Issue Litmus Test.

What Mike said above makes a lot of sense. Want to splinter the progressive movement? Invent lots of single-issue litmus tests. And if someone you could have otherwise worked with is chased out by one of your litmus tests, then don't blame them, blame your litmus test.

And want to make sure that the progressive left _never_ resolves the antisemitism issue? Scream "ZI-I-I-I-IONIST PLOT!!!" at the top of your
lungs every time anyone tries to honestly address the issue.

Or are you saying that people like Wendy Campbell should be left unchallenged when they use anti-Zionism as a vehicle for their antisemitism? Are you suggesting that I was wrong to call Wendy what she is, because your logic precludes the possibility that antisemitism could _ever_ be commented on, and that the Jews have somehow given up their right to call it as they see it when Wendy goes goosestepping by?

@%<
by arab lover
If you go back to the original post by Aron and then look at all the REACTIONS from the rest it is quite amusing. Original post STANDS fools!
by J Anderson

I'm unduly, humbly honored to be publicly associated with Jeffrey Blankfort. Thanks for the props!

(By the way, anti-racist, anti-war, human rights activist Jeffrey Blankfort is *Jewish*! Probably more Jewish than you are.

...Now was that "anti-Semitic" for you to call him a Nazi?)
by JA

gehrig: "You know, "Know," [JA's usual Nazi dreck, "Know your enemy", Aug. 21, at 9:04 AM] that sort of shit doesn't help anybody. If you have evidence of JA saying something antisemitic, post a link. ...I haven't seen a pattern of his saying anything overtly antisemitic, and anono-slander just looks lame."

Why, thank you, gehrig! That was mighty -- and surprisingly -- decent of you!

Who says that there isn't at least a smidgen of good in a majority of people!? I appreciate that you defended me against wildly false, "looney tunes" accusations of anti-Semitism, just as I would defend you against "looney tunes" invectives of anti-Semitism.


gehrig: "I'm still waiting for him to apologize for accusing me here on Indybay of making a racist comment"

You'll have to refesh my memory. I'm certainly willing to consider a reciprocal gesture!


gehrig: "not that I ever expect him to actually apologize, he's like nessie in that sense..."

No, *NESSIE* is just an arrogant *asshole*!

I just occasionally have to *play* one on sf-imc! Hahaha!


[ Now why can't you Zionists start making meaningful gestures -- well, more than gestures -- towards the Palestinians? You Zionists know you done wrong! Being Jewish doesn't give you a pass on oppressing others.

Why, I heard *Israeli* historian Tom Segev (and others) say in Berkeley that now no Israeli Jew seriously denies anymore that Palestinians were wrongly dispossessed of their homes and villages by force. (Just like Americans have long since stopped denying it about Native Americans.) The evidence, even from the Israeli, formerly secret (except, of course, from the Palestinian experience), govt archives is just too abundant.

But, now, Segev says, most Israelis just say, "Well, that was then... Nothing we can do about it now." Amazing how the human mind can infinitely fall back on rationalizations, huh? (I bet just like the non-Jewish Germans of the Nazi era.)

I know you Zionists are worried that after all Israel has brutally done to the Palestinians, what might the Palestinians do to Israelis? (It's called "consciouness -- or subconsciousness -- of guilt".) But you know what, even after being brutally oppressed, most people just want to pick up the pieces and get on with their lives. Maybe they want a little more public truth in the meantime.]


gehrig: "True, he was booted off SF-IMC for spamming..."

Hardly! I've got numerous posts up there now! -- right under their noses!!

I was "officially" booted, but not *actually* booted! (It's kinda like when the high school librarian wouldn't let you eat in the school library: if you're hungry, all s/he does is force you to *sneak*! And you just work not to get caught!

Besides my local library and friends' IP addresses, I've got three different IP addresses at my own personal disposal!

sf.indymedia was spammed for more or less probably for the same fundamental reason that you might have found *NESSIE* [I just wanted him to be sure and see his name here] -- an arrogant *asshole* -- with whom I've been in an sf.indymedia 'blood feud' -- who thinks he has a right to run a public sight by imperious fiat! You know, just like most right-wing people are arrogant assholes, unfortunately so are a few left-wing people. And in some ham-handed STALINIST manner, he deletes the most casual, oblique complaint against any of "the editors". And just like STALIN, he started losing mental awareness between his would-be friends and his enemies.

In the long run, I get more sleep. (I'm not generally up way into the late or middle of the night anymore -- like I am now! -- largely the only time I have left from my work days and busy evenings -- responding on indymedia.) And in a short run, I post to sf.indymedia whenever I want to anyway.

I tried to make a civil approach to *NESSIE*, via posts, via email, and via telephone, even via third parties who knew him (who were Jewish at that; I was even going to go through Jeff Perlstein at Media Alliance), but *NESSIE*, the arrogant white asshole with the big ego wasn't having it. So, *LET HIM* spend all afternoon/evening/night clearing spam!

It's like when Churchill reportedly saw what happened when Hitler bombed London the first time: Churchill, it is said, looked up at the buildings on fire and the smoke and sky and just said, "Bloody amateur!" And later, the Allies started sending those 500-, 800-, 1000-plane raids -- that went on for *miles* and *miles* -- over Nazi Germany!

So, when *NESSIE* wants to be an *asshole*, I say, "Bloody amateur!"

Anyway, thanks again, gehrig!
by JA

True progressives/leftists have no trouble exposing and isolating anti-Semites (or more correctly put, anti-Jewish racists -- and who *don't* even call themselves leftists, but are there for other purposes) within our ranks. I've prominently done both in my life. Just as we have no trouble exposing anti-Palestinian racists (like fake/poser Jewish "liberals/progressives/leftists").

True progressives don't need fake/poser "progressives/leftists" -- and their contrived PR conferences, who's real target is the commercial mass media -- making loud, hyperbolic, splashy and cynically diversionary accusations about anti-Semites in our midst. And we don't have to actually go beat up the anti-Semites in our midst in order to deal with and politically isolate them. We've even asked such people to leave. However, not everyone knows who they are. But we have no police powers to go handcuff them to some railing while we go demonstrate.

As Blankfort, Finkelstein, Brenner, etc., Aaron and other *JEWS* have said, one of the world's real problems today is not substantially who's actually oppressing Jews en masse, but who Jews (Zionists) themselves are actually oppressing en masse, while other Jews turn their heads.

[ --And turn their heads, don't want to see, or make excuses, like the non-Jewish, Nazi-era, German citizens -- who at least had the excuse -- unlike the Western Jews of today -- of risking or often being fired from their jobs and banned from employment, or beaten up on the streets, or imprisoned, or killed by the Nazis for speaking up for the Jews -- and *still* Germans never gave Hitler a majority in the German paliament!: Hitler had to dissolve it using dictatorial power (and no doubt then employing the Nazi version of the Patriot/Anti-Terrorism Act and its emergency decrees)!]

But, again, the total ***IRONY*** of political/nationalist ZIONISTS complaining about racism ("anti-Semitism") against Jews!
A few months ago JA and I had an exchange where he rambled "do I smell Jewish chicken soup here?". Unfortunately the search feature on this site isn't turning up the thread but once the glitch is gone it should. In my book, gehrig, that remark registers as anti-Semitic.
by gehrig
Apparently, the de facto rule is, as long as nobody's actually putting Jews in to gas chambers, then it's not antisemitism.

Golly, that's comforting.

@%<
by JA

The very few known or evident anti-Semites among (I didn't say in) Bay Area progressives or the left are not "putting Jews in to gas chambers" -- in fact, they aren't even oppressing Jews, because they don't have that power or means. So, then, what gehrig: I (we progressives/leftists) shouldn't have called them anti-Semitic and exposed them for what they are?
by gehrig
I'd love to believe you, JA, but my experience is a different one. Look at what it finally took to get nessie to finally see that Wendy Campbell was an antisemite. If I had left it up to you guys, she'd still be posting there. I had to swim upstream against wave after wave of "oh, gehrig's only calling Campbell an antisemite because she's criticizing Israel, whatta typical Zionist thing to do," -- and not just from nessie -- even as her antisemitism was as plain as the noses on Mt. Rushmore.

And it wasn't just nessie who accused me of working for the Mossad; you did it too, JA, all because I was pointing out what should have been obvious -- what _was_ obvious to anyone except certain progressives, which is that Wendy was an antisemite, trafficing in antisemitic stereotypes and posting URLs for antisemitic hate sites, but was being given a free pass because she used the word "Zionist" instead of "Jew."

And let there be a conference put together to address exactly that kind of thing, and folks like you can be counted on to do everything possible to rip it to pieces. Why? Because if nobody's marching Jews into gas chambers, then there's no such thing as antisemitism, and if you think otherwise, then Aaron S. will call you "a fake-left Jew" or a "self-hating gentile."

@%<
by gehrig
An interesting book review from today's Haaretz on this very subject.

--------

Are these demons old or new?

There is still no cut- and-dried answer to the question of whether we are looking at the same anti-Semitism from which Jews have suffered throughout generations, or a new brand.

By Tsilla Hershco

"Beshem Ha'akher: Hirhurim Al Antishemiut Shebapetakh" ("Au nom de l'autre: Reflexions sur l'antisemitisme qui vient") by Alain Finkielkraut, translated from the French by Shlomit Haran, Shalem, 36 pages, NIS 34.50

Anti-Semitism in Europe, and France in particular, is a hot topic that never seems to leave the headlines. Scores, if not hundreds, of broadcasts and media reports in Israel and around the world have poked and probed the issue from every possible angle. French President Jacque Chirac is adamant that France, the first country to grant the Jews equal rights, is not anti-Semitic, and French officials claim that anti-Semitism is on the decline. But a report published at the end of March by the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna, a body funded by the European Union, points to a worrying rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Europe. According to this report, the greatest increase has been in France - a rise of 503 percent from 2001 to 2002 ("EU anti-Semitism report called `misleading,'" Haaretz, April 1).

This report has provoked a great hue and cry among the Jewish communities in Europe because the authors refrained from naming the Muslims in Europe and France as the chief perpetrators of anti-Semitic crimes. The 2003 report of Tel Aviv University's Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism and Racism also lays the blame on Muslim groups ("Study: EU loathe to admit Muslims are prime source of anti-Semitism," Haaretz, April 19).

With all the debate going on, there is still no cut-and-dried answer to the question of whether we are looking at the same anti-Semitism from which Jews have suffered throughout the generations, or a new brand that has recently emerged, with other causes and characteristics. Is the current wave of anti-Semitism exacerbated by opposition to Israel's policy toward the Palestinians or are anti-Israel policies the outcome of anti-Semitism?

Alain Finkielkraut, one of France's leading intellectuals, offers a brilliant and fascinating analysis of this issue. In his essay, he aims his barbs at the French intellectual elite, "the do-gooders," as the chief culprit in this new round of anti-Semitism. As a philosopher who takes a sober-eyed view of reality, Finkielkraut is aware of the anti-Semitic violence in France today, but he rejects the widespread notion among the Jews that the "old demons" of the Nazi regime have awoken. According to Finkielkraut, these acts have nothing to do with letting down our guard and being less vigilant in our efforts to prevent another Holocaust. The very opposite is true.

Both the United States and Europe are committed to memorializing the Holocaust. But Finkielkraut says that their way of internalizing the lessons of the Holocaust is completely different. The U.S., which perceives the Holocaust as a denial of the basic doctrines and principles of the American people, employs an active policy of fighting its enemies from without. Europe, on the other hand, is fighting the ghosts of its nightmarish past, full of remorse and guilt feelings for crimes that took place on its soil. It responds with obsessive fear and aggressive sloganeering to any racist or fascist incidents that threaten it from within.

Blinkered world

As an example of the way Europe is wrestling with the demons of its past, Finkielkraut cites the demonstrations of May 1, 2002, when masses of Frenchmen went out to the streets to protest the victory of Jean Marie Le Pen in the first round of presidential elections on April 21, 2002. This rally in support of the republic was a euphoric, unifying event for the people of France. They patted themselves on the back for triumphing over the "monsters of the past" and felt that they had made up for the indifference and hatred that engendered one of the darkest eras in the history of Europe.

But Finkielkraut is not a partner to this smug, self-righteous euphoria. From his point of view the evils of anti-Semitism are right there in the protesters' camp. These are the people who accuse the Jews of persecuting "the Other." These are the ones who bear a grudge against the Jews for not joining the festival of breast- beating and building their national home on the ruins of the Other.

Finkielkraut lashes out at the genteel souls in France who worship their religion of anti-racism with such uncompromising fervor and intensity that they are blind to the complexity of the war between the Israelis and the Palestinians. He quotes the American philosopher Michael Walzer, who distinguishes between four wars in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a Palestinian war to destroy and replace the State of Israel, a Palestinian war to establish a state alongside Israel, an Israeli war to defend the state, and an Israeli war for Greater Israel.

According to Finkielkraut, the blinkered world of the new anti-Semites has room for only two prototypes: the Nazi and the victim. They are not prepared to see the Palestinians as the enemy of Israel, with whom it is possible to reach some kind of compromise. They insist that the Palestinians are the Other and Israel is a racist state. From their perspective, anything connected to racism has no right to exist and must disappear. Apart from Finkielkraut's criticism of the blindness and one-sidedness of the anti-Semites, he points up the absurdity of their cause. He exposes the paradox of those who support progress and globalization, but side with the Palestinians and justify even their most appalling and monstrous acts.

To challenge the intellectual elite in this way takes a lot of integrity and courage, considering the French intelligentsia's tremendous influence on public opinion. Finkielkraut's book kicked off a furor in France. He was lambasted for walking out on the left and called paranoid for interpreting France's legitimate criticism of Israeli policy as anti-Semitism. Worst of all, he has been accused of the sin of "communal separatism," a serious allegation that implies dual loyalty and betrayal of the French Republic.

Toward the end of his essay, Finkielkraut reexamines his thesis and asks whether anti-Semitism today might anyway be a vestige of the past. "Could it be connected to the ancient censure of the Jew because of his origins, his otherness, his national egotism, his membership in a closed fraternity - censure that has taken on a new life since the trauma of Nazism and found a modern voice?" In the end, he rejects this hypothesis and concludes that the antipathies of the past and present should not be confused. The violence against the Jews of France today, he says, is not a resurgence of the anti-Semitism of old.

`Do-gooder' instincts

But between the lines, Finkielkraut does seem to imply that the State of Israel and the Jews are still the Other among the nations of the world. Reading this slim volume, I found myself wondering whether the perpetrators of the new anti-Semitism are indeed motivated by their "do-gooder" instincts. Maybe it is the anti-Semitism of old, trying to blacken the Jews and show that they are no better than their Nazi killers. Internal records of the French foreign office, which I was granted special permission to view, seem to reinforce this.

Despite clear evidence of the collaboration of the Vichy government in the extermination of French Jewry, employees of the French foreign office saw nothing wrong with drawing an analogy between the Jewish victims and their Nazi executioners. One of them even said that while the Jews were in the Diaspora, they tried to appear ethical and humane, but now that they had a state of their own, they were as adept at using force as the Germans - and had the same mentality.

In these internal documents of the Quai d'Orsay, I found remarks that attributed grievances against the Jews and the State of Israel to the common belief that the Jews killed Jesus. So it seems that this idea of penitence for ancient sins that is so central in Finkielkraut's thesis was already around back then. The French officials bore a grudge against the Israeli victors for refusing to play the traditional role of victim assigned to them by history. Half a century ago, they were already displaying that unholy trinity of opposition to Zionism, traditional anti-Semitic rhetoric and exploiting the Holocaust to badmouth Israel.

Pouring through thousands of Quai d'Orsay documents, I found not a single rebuke from the foreign minister. There were no requests to show more sensitivity in matters related to the Holocaust and no instructions to tone down the anti-Semitic language, as if it were part of the lingo in the French foreign office.

Shlomit Haran has done a fine, professional job of translating Finkielkraut's essay into Hebrew, but she runs into problems with certain philosophical-literary concepts. The word "martyre," for example, is rendered as "yisurim" (suffering), whereas the term in French has religious connotations related to the crucifixion of Jesus. Another example is her translation of the word "Lieu," which is capitalized in the original. Hence the reference is to a holy place - such as the Holy Land - and not just "a place," as Haran puts it.

Finkielkraut shows us what he believes is the new face of anti-Semitism in France. His book helps us understand its origins, motives and distinguishing features. And yet it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there is nothing new under the sun: Anti-Semitism may wear any number of masks, but it continues to seep in and poison people's minds.

Dr. Tsilla Hershco's book "Those Who Walk in Darkness Will See the Light: The Jewish French Resistance during the Holocaust and the Creation of Israel - 1940-1949" was published (in Hebrew) by Cherikover.


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Cross-Reference:

A PERSONAL REPORT-BACK FROM THE OAKLAND "ANTI-SEMITISM" CONFERENCE
- by Joseph Anderson

http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/08/1692778.php
"would that it were", by gehrig, Monday, Aug. 23, at 5:44 AM: "I'd love to believe you, JA, but my experience is a different one. ...Wendy Campbell was an antisemite. If I had left it up to you guys, she'd still be posting there. I had to swim upstream..."


If you only knew, gehrig. ...If you only knew.

And since you're *not* in the pro-Palestinian human rights and liberation movement -- since you're on the *wrong* side of what Martin Luther King called "the arc of moral history" -- you don't.

Progressives/leftists in the movement were *wayyy* ahead of you. *Lonnng* before you read anything in indymedia.

We don't need "Conferences".


Let me modify a statement of mine from "Point of information!", by JA, Sunday, Aug. 22, 5:21 AM:

True progressives don't need fake or poser "progressives/leftists" (how can someone be 'nonracist' at home, but racist abroad?) -- conservatives -- or other Zionists -- and their contrived so-called 'anti-Semitism' conferences -- "the paranoia of the oppressor" -- whose real target is to obliterate criticism of Israel/Zionism and thus obliterate support for Palestinian human rights and liberation.
by gehrig
And again you fall back into your two fundamental errors.

First, the idea that, as long as Jews aren't being marched into gas chambers, therefore Jews have no moral right whatsoever to point out any antisemitism when they see it, and that it was therefore wrong to call Wendy Campbell what she is -- a Jew-hating wretch. Racism is always a matter of degrees, but antisemitism apparently is allowed to have only two forms -- if it's not "gas chambers and mass graves," then it's "non-existent and you're a whiny Zionist liar if you point any out." Have I had to face the same level of discrimination as African Americans? No, I haven't. Does that mean that I am somehow magically stripped of my right to protest when someone launches into antisemitic rhetoric, as Wendy Campbell did and others have done on the IMCs? Only a fool would argue that -- or else someone who wants to cling to the specialness of his victimhood status, as Zionists are so often claimed to do.

I don't claim, and have never claimed, that Jews are the only ones to ever suffer persecution, or that anti-Jewish persecution is somehow more important or larger than other kinds. But that doesn't mean it should be ignored completely, which all too often seems to be the prescription of "progressives" like you.

And your other mistake, which is a more frequent one on the IMCs, is to repeat the caricature of Zionism as inherently racist, and therefore extrapolate from a false premise a false conclusion, which is that Zionism and progressivism are inherently irreconcilable, and that therefore you have to ignore -- as you continue to ignore -- the existence of groups like Gush Shalom and Peace Now and Courage to Refuse. Given a choice between learning about them -- active, progressive groups intent on doing good, and opposed to racism in Israel and the West Bank -- you prefer to repeat your bumpersticker equation that no Zionist can be anything but a right-wing extremist. Reality is beckoning you; will you listen?

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by Jeffrey Blankfort (posted by JA)

This [gehrig's] comment is typical of those Jews who would have us believe that the history of Jews for the past 2000, 3000, 4000 years, depending on who is making the point, has been nothing but unmitigated suffering which was only relieved by the ascendancy of Zionism and the creation of Israel which, unfortunately required the expulsion of the Palestinians from their land in 1948 and the continued confiscation of their land up to the present moment.

As the late Israeli professor and Nazi Holocaust survivor Israel Shahak pointed out, "I don't think the Jews have suffered any more or any less than many other persecuted or minority nations. We have suffered like many other peoples have suffered...There were some periods when we suffered more..there were periods when we suffered much less......"

Any looking at the position of Jews in the US (as well as in other Western societies) would have a hard time denying the incredible political and economic power that it's organized factions wield over its governing institutions and the media, even without considering the tiny percentage of Jews in the national population. The fact that some people are anti-Jewish for one reason ot another [ANTI-SEMITISM] DOES NOT [AUTOMATICALLY] TRANSLATE INTO *OPPRESSION* OF JEWS unless those people are in a position to act on it and desire to do so. THERE IS NOT THE SLIGHTEST EVIDENCE OF THIS [OPPRESSION OF JEWS TODAY] IN US SOCIETY. [(caps, by JA.)]

Now, of course, that foregoing statement is considered a classic example of anti-Semitism (or, self-hatred in my case) when it comes from one of Israel's critics, such as myself, but not when it comes from one of Israel's supporters such as JJ Goldberg, editor of the Jewish national weekly, Forward (http://www.forward.com) whose book, "Jewish Power" should be required reading for the paranoids who will be gathering at the Oakland Marriot this weekend to complain about "anti-Semitism on the left."

I will add to their "evidence" of such by repeating a statement made to me in 1988 by a Native American leader (who, for his safety and reputation, will go unnamed) after the so-called left and peace organizations, Marxist and non-Marxist, of the Bay Area refused to issue a statement condemning Israeli occupation during the first year of the first Intifada. What he said rings true today: "The problem with the movement is that there are too many liberal Zionists." To which, I add, Amen!
by Jeffrey Blankfort (posted by JA)
Rochel Auerbach, Santa Cruz: "As a Jewish woman I can say that Jews are the most oppressed race in the world. I'm insulted that some people refuse to acknowledge this fact."

suggest that Rachel Auerbach get herself a new therapist or better yet, a new pair of glasses and take a look at the world as it is. Or, perhaps, she is experimenting with satire. The notion that Jews are the most oppressed people in the world is ludicrous. Obsessed with their own "victimization", maybe, which is used as an excuse to dispossess the Palestinians of their native land, and to intimidate and punish and politician who dares speak a critical word about Israel. As a Jew of now more than 70 years, I am tired of that crap and have just seen it again in Dispossessed Palestine with my own eyes.
by Joseph Anderson

Again, the irony of a *ZIONIST*(!!!) complaining about anti-Jewish racism!!!

ZIONISM -- THE 'RACIALIZED' CHAUVINISTIC IDEOLOGY OF A POLITICALLY SELF-DEFINED, RELIGIO-ETHNICALLY SEMI-THEOCRATIC JEWISH STATE.

THIS, IN WHICH 20% OF THE REMAINING POPULATION IN THE ISRAELI STATE ITSELF IS *NON-JEWISH* -- AND THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION IN THE 'ANNEXED' STATE IS *NON-JEWISH*!!!

(By comparison, Blacks are *12%* of the U.S. population and only *7%* of the California population.)

THIS, A STATE WHICH IS TOTALLY **FIXATED** ON -- EVEN 'ARTIFICIALLY' -- ONLY BY GOVT INTERVENTION (THE ACTIVE, CONTINUAL IMPORTATION OF 1,000'S OF "JEWS") -- MAINTAINING A 'RACIALLY' DEMOGRAPHIC MAJORITY OF JEWS.

THIS 'RACIAL' -- AND *RACIST* -- FIXATION ON A JEWISH DEMOGRAPHIC MAJORITY -- ON "THE JEWISH 'CHARACTER' OF THE STATE" THAT WAS ONCE OVERWHELMINGLY PALESTINIAN -- IN ISRAEL IS REMINISCENT OF THE ONCE ANTI-SEMITIC FIXATION AND PARANOIA THAT THERE WOULD BE "TOO MANY JEWS" IN AMERICAN CITIES (LIKE NEW YORK), UNIVERSITIES, INSTITUTIONS, AND NEIGHBORHOODS.

(This is reminiscent of what many white Californians were paranoid about: "too many Asians" in, and losing "the traditional [read, of course, white] character" of, its universities.)

THIS IS *EXACTLY* WHAT THE *NAZIS* WERE FIXATED, PRE-OCCUPIED WITH, AND PARANOID ABOUT: "TOO MANY JEWS" IN GERMANY.

NOW, THIS IS *EXACTLY* WHAT THE *ZIONISTS* ARE FIXATED, PRE-OCCUPIED WITH, AND PARANOID ABOUT: "TOO MANY PALESTINIANS" IN ISRAEL-PALESTINE.

OF COURSE, "THE TRADITIONAL CHARACTER" OF PALESTINE -- BEFORE ZIONISM'S SEMI-GENOCIDAL ETHNIC CLEANSING -- WAS *PALESTINIAN* !!!

THIS IS WHY POLITICAL/NATIONALIST ZIONISM -- ISRAEL'S STATE IDEOLOGY -- IS -- BY *DEFINITION* -- *RACISM*!:

THE POLITICAL, LEGAL, OR INSTITUTIONAL PRIVILEGING OF ONE GROUP/CLASS OF PEOPLE OVER ANOTHER BASED ON ETHNICITY OR RACE -- AND MAINTAINED OR ENFORCED BY THE STATE.

*ZIONISM* MEETS THE VERY DEFINITION OF *RACISM*!
by JA
You speak of Wendy.

Why didn't you [or for that matter, Naomi Klein] complain/condemn when ALLL those Zionist Jews on indymedia made the most -- often unspeakably -- vicious verbal attacks against Rachel Corrie -- even in her hometown of Seattle where her parents, relatives, and friends could see it -- when she was purposely run over and crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer?

Or, does "never again" mean only for Jews?
by Watching closely
Notice once again how Joseph Anderson continues to make excuses for Wendy "Klanbell"-a BLATANT NAZI SYMPATHIZER AND HOLOCAUST DENIER-and close friend of him and Jeffrey Blankfort. And most likely Klanbell's close friends the Jew-haters Joe Webb ("Uncle Sam"), Israel Shamir etc. This speaks volumes of the depths of Anderson's own Nazism and Anti-Semitism.
by Closely Watching
Of course, he has no evidence that everyone attacking Corrie was Jewish-or even that the majority were. This slip is quite revealing of JA's knee-jerk hatred for Jews as such.
The only thing slipping are the gears in your brain.
by gehrig
Wow, four JA replies in a row, none of them particularly good at addressing what I said. I used to think nessie had gone off the deep end when he repied _three_ times in a row.

I most certainly did condemn those who mocked the death of Rachel Corrie -- and some of that mockery was quite cruel and hateful -- and I expressed my sympathies for Rachel's parents. But folks like you were too caught up in the group adrenaline to notice that. You were too busy shouting how much you hate Zi-i-i-ionists.

And, as later investigation turned up -- including the tape recording of the incident -- I was right to say that the cry of "Murder!" was premature.

@%<
by gehrig
closely: "Of course, he has no evidence that everyone attacking Corrie was Jewish-or even that the majority were."

Yet JA clearly identified them as, not Zionists, but Zionist Jews.

I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it, JA, but you might want to be more careful how you put things in the future.

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by JA

gehrig: "Wow, four JA replies in a row, none of them particularly good at addressing what I said. I used to think nessie had gone off the deep end when he repied _three_ times in a row."

So, *strange*, gehrig!: because your screeds have *ALWAYS* been pithy!

Blankfort's and my replies, not clear: Uh-huh....

I'll let the non-arch-hardcore-Zionist readers be the judge.


gehrig: "Yet JA clearly identified them as, not Zionists, but Zionist Jews."

Oh, I forgot, *NO* Jews are Zionists!! Israel is filled with Zionist Gentiles!! And *NO* Zionist Jews [Ooops! That's *anti-Semitic* to call any Jews Zionists, isn't it, gehrig? That's as racist as saying, "Black Democrats"!] ever said so much as 'a discouraging word' -- all over the indymedias -- about Rachel Corrie. Right, gehrig?

Okay, time for a *real* lunch!

Bye, for now!
by gehrig watch
The pot calling the kettle black. (No racial pun intended.) A prime example of one of gehrig's "pithy" screeds (see above):

haaretz book review
by gehrig, Monday, Aug. 23, 2004 at 9:07 AM.

gehrig, couldn't you have just provided the title, the publication, a brief reference summary (like, "Here's a book review about..."), and the URL link? You didn't have to be so condescending, and feel that we poor, mentally inferior readers were so helpless to even click on a URL, that you had to copy & paste the entire lengthy article.
by gehrig
Wow, that one's a real stretch, isn't it. Look all around you in Indybay and you'll see the texts of all sorts of articles posted. But when _I_ do it, suddenly some anony-mouse tries to portray it as an act of condescension, an indication that I think Indybay readers are mentally inferior, and so on. Go figure.

@%<
by gehrig watch
You were the one complaining about JA and Blankfort, "gehrig". Or should I say, "hypocrite". Besides, without the URL, how do we know that you didn't alter or omit some of the publication's text to suit your own purposes? It's called providing appropriate documentation or authentification. That's what a URL is: authentification.
by gehrig
You poor thing, you're trying _so_ hard to score a point and you're not getting anywhere.

My complaint was quite plainly spelled out -- JA fired out four consecutive posts, all sequential replies to my single post. Read it again, if you're unclear. My complaint wasn't about the length of his stuff. Why didn't he wait until he had his thoughts together enough to make a single coherent post? Even the infamously scrambleheaded rantmonster nessie has kept it down to three sequential posts at most (although, typically, under different nyms). Sorry if this point escaped you. Happy to help.

And, given the paper, the title of the book being reviewed, and the title of the reviewer -- all information I provided in my post -- if you can't find the original, you must be pretty darn new to the net. Or else grasping at straws, looking for some point -- any point -- any point at all -- to attack me.

@%<
by gehrig watch
"JA fired out four consecutive posts"

So what? I didn't know you were the post police! The arbiter of 'how many sequential posts'. How many times have you posted in one single day, in one single hour, in a whole bunch of different threads! Just one of your lengthy screeds equals four or five of most everyone else's, and yours aren't even logically coherent much of the time.

Your tactic is to often set up a false dichotomy, or your own phony strawman argument, claiming that it was your debate opponent's, which you then proceed to topple over. You're so insecure about your own ego and mental faculties that you won't even deal with what someone else actually said. Instead you have to twist and put words in someone else's mouth (you're the only one who thinks it's not obvious), then rebut that, instead of what the other person actually said, and then you declare yourself the victor. That's real mental skill, gehrig.

I see two _re_posts, by JA, of Jeff Blankfort from another thread, quite effectively rebutting your claim of one of his "mistakes". And two posts by JA himself dealing with two different topics: one post rebutting your claim of a 2nd "mistake", and there cogently explaining why Zionism is racism. And another brief post dealing with the question of Zionists' (yes, Zionist Jews', among whatever other anti-Palestinian racists) vicious verbal attacks on the late, Israeli-murdered Rachel Corrie.

As for providing a URL for a publication article, it's proper standard practice and proper form. It's like footnoting. No one should have to go chase down your article for verification of content (and to make sure that you didn't change anything or leave anything out). (What if the site doesn't have a good archive search engine?) Otherwise, what are you trying to hide? What else are you afraid that someone will see. Something you didn't intend them to? I usually just skip second-hand, allegedly published articles without URL verification (unless it's a first-person article), especially lengthy ones, and really lengthy ones, like yours "from a Ha'aretz book review".

As for looking for any little point to attack your reasoning, you make it all too easy. It's hardly that you're some great formidable mental giant! The problem is probably that there are, indeed, too many ridiculous little (or otherwise) points, obfuscations and inconsistencies of yours to deal with in one post, and too little time to deal with them all in one sitting, as you keep falling back or changing the primary subject. We don't all just sit at home all day with no job or no other work, like you do.
by gehrig watch
As for "ranting", gehrig, you're The Rant King!
by Gerald A. Gerash
I never met Joseph Anderson until the recent conference of "Anti-Semitism and the Left." He was in a few workshops that I attended, and I also had a conversation with him.
His statements were sloganeering of rigid politcal postions with no room for any kind of rational dialogue. He made it be known in every workshop I was in that there is no anti-Semitism on the Left. As such it was an unashamed attack against the conference itself.
HIs presence was essentially obstructionist, although people were polite and let him speak and, viewing him like a fitful, buzing fly, then went on with the discussion of the workshop, and the reason we were there: to find ways to struggle against anti-Semitism and its various manifestations on the Left.
From his comments, Anderson is completely insensitve to the pain and history of persecution of the Jewish people. Several of his comments revealed an anitpathy to the Jewish people such as denying our right to self-determination and maintaining the position that the Jewish people do not constitute a nation and therefore Israel lacks any basis for nationhood. Unabashedly, he quoted admiringly, the rabid anti-Jewish racist, Louis Farrakan to the mainly Jewish attendees.
One person I met at the conference who is a teacher for many years was taken by JA's passion. She wanted to engage him and discuss issues with him, which she did for a good amount of time. She told me later, a little bewildered, that Anderson completely "manipulated" her in believing he was interested in what she was saying. She said he ignored everything she said and kept sloganeering with the same completely distorted and completley one-sided facts about the Israel-Pal. conflict.
He refuses to hear the pain of the Jewish people. He calls us racists if we feel we need a homeland where we can feel free from anti-Semites. He scoffs at the notion of anti-Semitism on the Left. He attends a conference that attracts concerned people whose very experiences speak to the fact of it. We want to figure out a way to improve the Left and to educate it on the historic role of Jew hating as a divide and conquer device of the powers and rulers. His behavior was obstructionist and defiant of the purpose of the conference. He came, not in the spirit of dialogue and exchange, but in bad faith to attack the very idea of such a conference and of such Jews.
Anderson is a racist anti-Semite, as I saw and heard him that weekend and now read more of what he says. He is doing a superb job of weakening the Left, by ignoring the pain of Jews on the Left and dishonoring the bedrock of the Left: fighting all forms of oppression, rational analysis and discussion, humanism and uniting all peoples.
Anderson: I will not respond to anything you might write. So go ahead and rant all you want. It will go unanswered by me. I will not waste my time on you. I plan to continue working against people like you and your disruptive and dirversionalry tactics against the Left.
by Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, CA
Posted at Indymedia:

Once again, we have the sheer irony -- the chutzpah -- of a *ZIONIST* Jew -- here Gerald A. Gerash -- complaining about anti-Jewish racism, as well as trying to claim that *Jews* are being *oppressed* in the *UNITED STATES*!!

Let's review again what Jeffrey Blanfort (Jewish) said above:

* JEWS NOT HISTORY'S ONLY -- OR ALWAYS WORST -- VICTIMS
by Jeffrey Blankfort (posted by JA) Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004 at 8:49 AM.
* an excuse to dispossess the Palestinians of their native land
by Jeffrey Blankfort (posted by JA) Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004 at 8:49 AM.

"The fact that some people are anti-Jewish for one reason ot another [ANTI-SEMITISM] DOES NOT [AUTOMATICALLY] TRANSLATE INTO *OPPRESSION* OF JEWS unless those people are in a position to act on it and desire to do so. THERE IS NOT THE SLIGHTEST EVIDENCE OF THIS [OPPRESSION OF JEWS TODAY] IN US SOCIETY. ...The notion that Jews are the most oppressed people in the world is ludicrous. Obsessed with their own "victimization", maybe, which is used as an excuse to dispossess the Palestinians" [(caps, by JA.)]


GG: "I also had a conversation with him [JA]."

If you can call it that.


GG: "His statements were sloganeering of rigid politcal postions with no room for any kind of rational dialogue."

Translation: 'I couldn't get JA to budge on accepting on the European-initiated, settler-colonialist, racist ideology of political/nationalist Zionism.' -- JUST LIKE THE ANTI-ZIONIST *JEWISH* AUTHOR (AARON S.) OF THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ABOVE WOULDN'T BUDGE.

(GEE, EVEN ANTI-ZIONIST *JEWS* ARE AFRAID TO USE THEIR FULL NAME!)


GG: "He made it be known in every workshop I was in that there is no anti-Semitism on the Left."

OPEN EMAIL TO OAKLAND "ANTI-SEMITISM" CONFERENCE! - by Joseph Anderson
by JA Saturday, Aug. 21, 2004 at 1:22 PM:

< As an African American I can say this as a matter of fact, while still opposing incidents of real anti-Semitism, which do exists, and exposing real anti-Semites, which I have done. >

http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/08/1692588.php


GG: "As such it was an unashamed attack against the conference itself."

Jeffrey Blankfort -- *Jewish* -- said that if he had attended the conference, he probably would have disrupted it.

OPEN LETTERS TO OAKLAND "ANTI-SEMITISM" CONFERENCE! - by Jeffrey Blankfort:

"But rest assured, I will not be attending such a conference."

http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/08/1692542_comment.php#1692589


GG: "HIs [JA's] presence was essentially obstructionist, although people were polite and let him speak and, viewing him like a fitful, buzing fly..."

Whereas I can assure everyone that Gerald A. Gerash is an absolute paragon of equanimity and diplomacy -- a true British Oxfordian gentleman.


GG: "to find ways to struggle against anti-Semitism and its various manifestations on the Left."

Note:

OPEN LETTERS TO OAKLAND "ANTI-SEMITISM" CONFERENCE! - by Jim Harris:

"...the way anti-Semitism is used to fight any questioning of U.S.Israeli policy. It does not address, for example, the fact that large, established organizations such as the ADL are quite openly advocating policies that are viciously anti-Arab, and yet calls itself a fighter against anti-Semitism. It is in this context that you say that there is “a prevalence of unchallenged anti-Semitism on the Left"? I just confess to being mystified by your apparent position. Despite claims that this conference is opposed to all forms of racism, there is a workshop that says that all must embrace Zionism, a political movement that has dispossessed millions of their land, homes, and their dignity."

http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/08/1692542_comment.php#1692589


And, NOTE the very title of the original article above -- written by a Jew:

"ZIONIST MENU: RED HERRING OF "LEFT ANTI-SEMITISM" -- ONLY $125!"
- by Aaron S.

http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/08/1692493.php


GG: "his comments revealed an anitpathy to the Jewish people such as denying our right to self-determination..."

At the conference I said that this PR euphemistically-defined ideology of Zionism as merely "Jewish self-determination" would be like Aryan Supremacy being euphemistically merely defined as "Loving your brothers": there's a lot more in the small print.

You mean, Gerald, the belief that Jews -- *whenever* they were born and *wherever* they live -- have a natural, superior, automatic, unequivocal, divine, "God-given" right to most or all the land in Palestine?

The Palestinian are an indigenous people engaged in an anti-settler-colonial struggle against largely European Jewish oppression. Zionist Jews call resistance to that oppression "anti-Semitism". Zionist Jews don't get -- no one gets -- their so-called "self-determination" at the expense, dispossession, subjugation and brutal oppression of another people.

Let's examine this, euphemistically put, "self-determination" more closely:


ZIONISM IGNORES PLIGHT OF PALESTINIAN PEOPLE - by Joseph Anderson:

"...to Zionists, this "self-determination" means pursuing an exclusively (or exclusionary) Jewish state. This is a state where the non-Jewish indigenous people (Muslims, Christians and others) are reduced to worse than second-class citizens, forced into apartheid-style lands or expelled. Also, [the] once "ancient" Jewish presence justification is an argument that is literally worse than medieval! To suggest that protesters who oppose that semi-racial ideology are anti-Semitic is an old, standard smear tactic. This falsely equates Judaism with Zionism—an ideology rejected by many Jews."

http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=10435


Now let's see what some *Jews* (including a former Israeli -- besides the Israeli who spoke of blatant Israeli racism at the conference) have to say:

OPEN LETTERS TO OAKLAND "ANTI-SEMITISM" CONFERENCE! - by Jim Harris:

"...Zionism, a political movement that has dispossessed *MILLIONS* of their land, homes, and their dignity." As well as has brutally killed many many thousands of indigenous Palestinians.

http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/08/1692542_comment.php#1692589


HOLY SHIT! - by Rebecca Kahlenberg:

"Jews have endured a lot of suffering and it is lamentable that they should endure more. But how can I side with my people when they bomb entire villages of Palestinian civilians in retaliation for the murder of two Israeli soldiers? Is this righteous? Furthermore, how can I feel comfortable taking sides at all when I know that the American media suppress information about the racism of Israelis against Arabs? [NPR] refused to air a story about Israeli settlements in the West Bank because the Jewish settlers interviewed for the story expressed the opinion that the Arabs were "less than human." ...The wrongs of the Holocaust were hardly righted by stealing land from Arabs and giving it to Jews. This fighting is supposed to have something to do with God, but I see no God here. This is about land.... Jewish people are quick to point out global anti-Semitism, but the behavior of the Israelis merely makes it easier to hate Jews." -- Oct 19, 2000

http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=3589


COUNTER-OPINION IS RIDDEN WITH FALSEHOODS - by Jeff Strahl:

"I grew up in Tel Aviv, near the old Arab city of Yaffo, which in the late 50s was still looking like a battlefield. During the conflict, Arab dwellings were blown up with the goal of driving them out, and flee in panic they did. Moshe Dayan , at one time the head of Israel's armed forces, admitted in an April 1969 speech that every Jewish settlement in Israel had been built on top of a former Arab village or town. In 1967, land confiscations, water diversions, and armed repression, either by the army, police or para-militaries, were extended to the West Bank and Gaza District, which have been occupied illegaly to this day. The only other society which resembles current Israel is indeed apartheid in South Africa."

http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=3603


REFLECTIONS ON ZIONISM FROM A DISSIDENT JEW - by Tim Wise:

"Although one can argue with the claim made by some that Zionism and racism are synonymous -- especially given the amorphous definition of "race" which makes such a position forever and always a matter of semantics -- it is difficult to deny that Zionism, in practice if not theory, amounts to ethnic chauvinism, colonial ethnocentrism, and national oppression. ..."Anti-Semite" will be the other label offered me, despite the fact that Zionism has led to the oppression of Semitic peoples -- namely the mostly Semitic Palestinians... The only logic to Zionism then, seemed to be the "logic" of raw power: that of the settler, or colonizer. ...Nearly 800,000 Palestinians would be displaced so as to allow for the creation of Israel: around 600,000 of whom, according to internal documents of the Israeli Defense Force, were expelled forcibly from their homes. ...The head of the Jewish Agency's colonization department stated: "there is no room for both peoples together in this country. There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries, to transfer all of them: not one village, not one tribe, should be left." ...That most Jews have never examined the founding principles of this ideology to which they cleave is unfortunate. For if they were to do so, they might be shocked at how anti-Jewish Zionism really is. Time and again, Zionists have even collaborated with open Jew-haters for the sake of political power. ...Far from resisting Nazi genocide, some Zionists collaborated with it. ...Later, Israeli Zionists would again make alliances with anti-Jewish extremists. ...Indeed, the argument that Zionism is racism finds some support in statements of Zionists themselves... Years later, David Ben-Gurion acknowledged that Israeli leader Menachem Begin could be branded racist, but that doing so would require one to "put on trial the entire Zionist movement, which is founded on the principle of a purely Jewish entity in Palestine." ...Surely it is not for this ignoble end, that six million died."

http://www.mediamonitors.net/timwise1.html


THE JEWS OF PALESTINE, 1938 - by M.K. Gandhi:

"What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. ...Surely it [ZIONISM] would be A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY."

http://www.moqawama.org/v_zionis/v_doc/jews.htm


-- Had enough Gerald?

I guess not. Here's where Zionists do their usual thing of resorting to patent lying. But, first let's see what Tim Wise (anti-racist, anti-Zionist Jewish activist, essayist, and public lecturer) has to say about this in general:

FRAUD FIT FOR A KING: ISRAEL, ZIONISM, AND THE MISUSE OF MLK - by Tim Wise:

"But of course, the kinds of folks who push an ideology that required the expulsion of three-quarters-of-a-million Palestinians from their lands, and then lied about it, claiming there had been no such persons to begin with (as with Golda Meir’s infamous quip), can’t be expected to place a very high premium on truth."

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2003-01/20wise.cfm


This is what Zionists have to do when they are put into a moral, analytical, intellectual, and historical corner: they have to resort to **LYING**!

GG: "maintaining the position that the Jewish people do not constitute a nation and therefore Israel lacks any basis for nationhood."

I said that there was a difference between constituting a nation -- a concept that means different things to different people (like "the African American Nation", "the Nation of Islam", or even "the Hip-Hop Nation" or "the Grunge Nation" or even Janet Jackson's anti-racist multicultural "Rhythm Nation") -- and a having nation-state. But the political analysis of nation vs. nation-state was *way* over the head of Gerald.

Israel is the last Euro-settler-colonialist apartheid state of its kind in the entire world (apartheid South Africa was the second to last) -- where hundreds of thousands or eventually millions of Europeans came from a far away continent or thousands of miles to set up an apartheid state in a non-European land.


GG: "Unabashedly, he quoted admiringly, the rabid anti-Jewish racist, Louis Farrakan to the mainly Jewish attendees."

'Surrre'. Actually, I noted the sad irony that Zionist Jews and Louis Farrakhan use the very same parallel arguments:

(1) Zionism is premised on the Jewish Zionist assertion that non-Jewish whites will forever be inveterate, inalterable, 'genetic' anti-Jewish racists. And, therefore, Jews will need a separatist, politically and ethnically self-defined, "Jewish state" within Palestine. As one Zionist Jew put it at the conference: "Anti-Semitism is the *air* that everybody (non-Jews) breathe!" This idea is justified by Zionist interpretation of Jewish religious cosmology, on "ancient Jewish scripture", and ordained "by God".

(2) Nation of Islam doctrine was (at least once) premised on the so-called American "Black Muslim" assertion that whites (non-Jewish and Jewish) will forever be inveterate, inalterable, 'genetic' anti-Black racists. And, therefore, Black-Americans will need a separatist, politically and ethnically self-defined, "Black-American state" within the U.S.. (Black-Americans can't form one in Africa because we don't know where exactly in Africa we're from -- though that was once done with equally disasterous results to this day, in Liberia, as has occurred in Israel, to this day.) This idea is justified by Nation of Islam cosmology, on "ancient Black scripture", and ordained "by God".

But, of course, Zionist Jews don't like people making uncomfortable (im)moral, analytical, and CLEAR historical parallels to doctrines of belief and systems of practice that have already been absolutely morally rejected by the socially evolved world.

Now, since I don't accept NOI cosmology, the patriarchal NOI social beliefs, or the conservative capitalist NOI political agenda as an answer for Black America, then how could I speak "admiringly" of Louis Farrakhan? But, I do recognize that he was created by white -- including Jewish -- anti-black racism. And so once did Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun Magazine, in a commentary in Time Magazine.


THE REAL CRISIS IS SELFISHNESS - by Michael Lerner:

"I can't stand the hypicrisy coming from some in the Jewish world who for decades have used the Holocaust and the history of our very real oppression as an excuse to deny our own racism."
Time Magazine, February 28, 1994
(Sorry, no URL's existed back then for Time Magazine. Maybe there's an online archive going back that far now.)

Lerner pointed out that the same Jews in politics that advocate or perpetrate cutting funding for things like educational programs for Black kids, then hypocritically complain that, due to such hopelessness in American society, those very same Black kids might turn to the Nation of Islam for help. Lerner also talked about Jewish hypocrisy in greatly magnifying the membership population in the NOI, which he pointed out might constitute some 20,000 Blacks, at best, out of a nation of some 30 *MILLION* Blacks!

I pointed out that while Zionist Jews justify their own claims by *EXACTLY* the same parallel assertions, they believe that Louis Farrakhan's claim is proof *positive* of his pathological, absolutely insane racism! But then, Zionist narcissism is such that they believe that the universal rules of socially evolved, bi-/multicultural societies don't apply to them/Israel. I.e., they believe in the usual white 'racial'/ethnic double standards.


GG: Gerald's ' Tearful Teacher Story' ...[not quite as good as 'the land without a people' story]

Again, *NO SPECIFICS* -- no specific arguments, quotes, of mine to which Gerald wants to construct a counter-argument -- just broad, vague accusations.

Why isn't she writing here for herself. She's supposed to be a teacher. Can't *SHE* construct a counter-argument and write her *own* post? (Assuming your 'tearful teacher story' is even true at all.)

You know this recourse to *attempted* character assassination is Standard Operating Procedure for Zionist Jews. This is the recourse Zionists use when they actually have no valid intellectual arguments that they can actually use to defend their position -- which, as Malcolm X said, "has no intellectual or moral basis in history".

In fact, Malcolm X said that, "European colonialism is the perpetration that tries to make the wolf (the Europeans) look like the lamb, and the lamb (the non-European indigenous people) look like the wolf!"

(Even this week on PBS-TV, a Zionist Jew -- of course they are never identified as Zionist -- *pathetically* tried to accuse another guest of being "anti-Semitic" when the other guest mentioned interest ties between U.S. the war on Iraq and Israel. But, fortunately the other guest had the backbone to challenge the Zionist and asked, "Are you seriously trying to call me anti-Semitic?", to which the Zionist then backed off. You see, even on mainstream TV, people are finally getting mighty tired of the ole "anti-Semite" slur being promiscuously slung around by Zionist Jews. It's slung around so much that it's starting to lose its sting. Now people practically laugh! You Zionists have cried "Wolf!" too many times.)

Instead of Zionists saying, this is exactly what Mr. Anderson said in his argument -- quote -- and this is my rebuttal to that argument, Zionists *HAVE NO* intellectual or moral arguments that will stand the test of logical or moral consistency, especially with what Jews rightfully demand anywhere else in the world: absolutely equal national, civil, and legal rights for ALL people, regardless of ethnicity, race, or religion -- *EXCEPT* in Israel-Palestine.

Gerald even resorted to LYING (as one anti-Zionist Jew at the conference noted) ABOUT MARTIN LUTHER KING (supposedly supporting or opposing -- whichever position was favorable to Israel -- some UN resolution about Zionism, a resolution that didn't even exist during the time of King's life, but came about 7 years after he died!), so why would Gerald not lie about me! These Zionists are morally *pathetic* in more ways than one.

Gerald has, *NO SPECIFICS* -- no specific arguments, quotes, of mine to which he wants to *try* to construct a counter-argument -- just broad, vague accusations and ad hominem name-calling.

Well, AN AD HOMINEM ATTACK IS NOT A LOGICAL COUNTER-ARGUMENT. BUT, IT'S A HELLUVA LOT EASIER WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE ONE, ISN'T IT!?

But, since you want to take that route, I've got a *bulletin* for *YOU*!: you were one of the two Jews that another Jew, a woman, called "AN *ASSHOLE*"! -- for your hyper-aggressive, don't-let-anyone-finish-a-single-sentence-that-you-disagree-with style! -- even from another Jew who just doesn't happen to share your rabid Zionist opinion, and even after someone has let you speak.

GG: "Anderson is a racist anti-Semite, as I saw and heard him that weekend and now read more of what he says. ...Anderson, I will not respond to anything you might write. ...It will go unanswered by me."


*** BIG SURPRISE !!! ***


NOW, WHY DON'T YOU GO TAKE ON SOME OF THE ANTI-ZINOIST *JEWS* HERE, LIKE JEFFREY BLANKFORT, JIM HARRIS, OR AARON S.?

OR IS IT HARDER TO *CALL* **THEM** "ANTI-SEMITIC"?

________________________________________________________________
(Also see: "Response to Russell Simmons Op-Ed re Blacks & anti-Semitism: An Educational Commentary"
http://pub12.ezboard.com/fpoliticalpalacefrm21.showMessage?topicID=198.topic)
by Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, CA
You can stick a fork in him - Gerald A Gerash: he's *done* now!
by gehrig
anonymous: "yammity yammity yammity"

Whatever.

JA: "yammity yammity yammity"

Whatever.

Gerald, what was your assessment of the conference? All we've heard about it on Indybay so far is JA screaming how e-e-e-e-e-evil to the core the very concept is, and it turns out he apparently spent the whole conference trying to disrupt it. How did it look in reality?

@%<
But, thankfully, there were others who weren't!

New L.A.-IMC article post (same one as here at indybay.org -- I'm just revealing him for what he is down in L.A.):

http://la.indymedia.org

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/116230.php

A RESPONSE TO GERALD A. GERASH, LA GREEN PARTY, RE OAKLAND "ANTI-SEMITISM" CONFERENCE
by Joseph Anderson
Berkeley, CA


Will the Green Party become Zionist-occupied territory too? It will if Gerald A. Gerash of the L.A. Green Party has anything to do with it -- complete with Zionist mudslinging and character assassination against anyone who ever dares to criticize Israel or its ethnochauvinistic state ideology -- and, of course, complete with the usual promiscuous charges of "anti-Semitism".


re GERALD A. GERASH - LA Green Party, Gay Activist, Slimey Attorney, Michael Lerner shill, Zionist Propagandist; Santa Monica, CA, resident
by Aaron S.
Joseph Anderson was the person who told me and other anti-Zionist activists about Wendy Campbell's anti-Jewish bias -- I don't use the term "antisemitism", although he does -- long before it became an issue on indymedia.

Frankly, I find her attitude toward Jews to be one of Ms. Campbell's lesser faults. Her worst is that she's a US-American patriot. (I booed parts of her first movie when it premiered because of that!) She's also a control freak and puts on a saccharine smile when talking to people she really doesn't like -- which I suspect is almost everybody who doesn't defer to her.

I wouldn't bother discussing politics with Wendy Campbell, but I can converse and argue with Joe Webb. Joe generally seems to be saying what he thinks, while Wendy seems to be reading from some script.

I wish, by the way, that my friend Joseph would stop invoking my Jewish ethnicity. I don't think that being of Jewish origin should give one any special privileges in criticising Israeli apartheid any more than being Afrikaaner would have given one more right to criticize South African apartheid. I also think that Joseph, and other gentiles, should be less deferential to Jewish sensibilities. No Jew who supports full equality for Palestinians (including those now in exile) in the entire land now controlled by the ZIonist state should be offended by anything he has said.
by gehrig watch
- As usual.
by gehrig
anonymouse: "Now doesn't gehrig feel stupid?"

Why? You just proved my point for me!

Take out that tape measure, folks, measure repost of the Haaretz essay, and then measure JA's rant at a progressive who dared to call it as he saw it (and JA didn't), and then remember: my post was eee-e-evil and condescending because it was so long, but JA's considerably longer post was -- judging by your silence -- just fine by you.

Why? Because you weren't looking for stupid pretexts to attack him, while you're looking for stupid pretexts to attack me.

Sorry it backfired on you. Sorry it left you looking like -- well, what you are, a not-particularly adept troll looking for a pretext to attack me.

@%<
by Aaron S
The following is a response to the comment above,
No Aaron
by Mike Saturday, Aug. 21, 2004 at 5:57 AM
Quotes from Mike are in italics. You think the tribalism of the Uwa is OK because they do not NOW control any of their their tribal territory (just like the Jews did not a hundred years ago).

While I don't recommend tribalism (or nationalism, etc.) as a method of relating to the world for anybody, I'm not going to condemn it when it's practiced by groups that are relatively powerless in the face of the forces of world imperialism, or even of local imperialism (as in Northeast India, for example). Even in those cases, though, I would denounce it if it meant supporting the interests of that tribe or nation against an even weaker group.

Now maybe the Uwa manage to hold themsleves together through time, to EVENTUALLY regain control of some of ther tribal territory -- after all, it took the Jews almost 2000 years of never giving up, 2000 years of repeating "Eym ishkachake Yerusalayim" and "Hashannah haba'a b'rushalayim". You are saying that at THAT point their tribalism becomes "bad"?

Suppose the U'wa were to lose their territory, disperse, and over hundreds of years become one of the most powerful groups in the world. If some U'wa were to then go back to their original territory and kick out some much weaker group that had been living there, I (should I live that long) would condemn them.

... But anybody who tires to argue "tribalism is wrong if it's the Jews being tribal but OK for other people" --- well do I not have reason to conclude that is simply "anti-semitism"?

This brings to mind the argument made by Kevin MacDonald, among others, that Jews are against everybody's tribalism but their own! MacDonald makes that point in order to promote Euro-American tribalism, but the point is valid. In fact, one of my strongest motivations for opposing Zionism is to defend the universalism that even Zionist Jews usually support except when someone tries to apply it to Israel!

Yes I understand where the problem lies for "progressives" -- that this IS a problem, that the tribalism of the Jews interferes with getting the Jews to identify primarily with "progressivism" instead of their OWN interests. Which is presumably the intended topic of the conference, how to deal with the reality that IF the Jews are forced to choose between themsleves and "progressivism" that "progressivism" will lose.

If by "their OWN interests" Mike means the privileges of Jews relative to other groups, then Jews who want to defend those interests have no more place in a "progressive" or "left" movement than have white people who want to defend their group privileges vis-a-vis "people of color", or United States or European citizens who want to defend their privileges against peoples of the "third world".

I agree -- the "progressives" should not trust the Jews to support them if "progressivism" turns against Jewish interests. But that is true of EVERYBODY. If the "progressives" expect to be able to trust those people whose interests they attack they are fools. The only people a cause can trust, push come to shove, is those that are in the fight FOR THEMSELVES (their OWN interests).

While I do believe that there are many people from privileged groups who are genuine traitors to those groups and can therefore be welcomed into the revolutionary movement, it is indeed necessary that the bulk of the leadership of that movement needs to come from people in and of the oppressed groups if the movement is not to be seduced by the temptations of accomodation with the status quo, or the re-creation of the old privileges in the new order.

by JA
RE: anonymouse strikes again
by gehrig Sunday, Aug. 29, 2004 at 5:56 PM.


Oh...., ...did gerhig say something...?
by Mark Elf (levi9909 [at] aol.com)
Sorry to arrive so late for this but I am a Jewish anti-Zionist and I have always found the allegation of anti-semitism on the left tiresome and even dangerous since it is a tendency to cry "wolf!". I discovered that there are some expressions emanating from the left that that are anti-semitic. I have posted an exchange in a UK trotskyist newspaper on my blog to illustrate. I agree with the earlier post that says that anti-Semitism isn't a pressing issue. But when opposing Israel we have to get our facts and our principles right.
by Mark Elf (levi9909 [at] aol.com)
error in url - should have been: http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com
by Mark Elf (levi9909 [at] aol.com)
Stateless in Gaza
Mark: "Sorry to arrive so late for this but I am A *JEWISH* ANTI-ZIONIST and I have always found the allegation of anti-semitism on the left tiresome and even dangerous since it is a tendency to cry "wolf!"."


Thanks for all the good information.

"No lie can live forever! Truth crushed to earth will rise once again!" -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Jews Sans Frontieres
from http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com

I was just googling (as you do) when I stumbled on this. I think it's the same as Wikipedia. It has a passable definition and history of Zionism, but, more to the point here, of anti-Zionism. Here's a passage from it, though I don't agree entirely:

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Anti-Zionism

* First, while many, indeed most, self-declared anti-Semites today use the rhetoric of anti-Zionism, historically some anti-Semites were pro-Zionist. In pre-war Germany and Poland, for example, some anti-Semitic politicians advocated the emigration or expulsion of the Jews to Palestine as a solution to the "Jewish question."

* Second, some Jews are anti-Zionists. Jewish anti-Zionism exists mainly among socialist or radical Jewish intellectuals outside Israel. There is also a minority among Orthodox Jews, both inside and outside Israel, who reject Zionism as contrary to the will of God. It is true that both these groups are small and are unrepresentative of Jews [how do they know that?], but the existence of even a small minority of anti-Zionist Jews is sufficient to show that there is no necessary identification between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

I'm posting this now intending to return it to it at some point, as there seems to be much to discuss about Zionism. Of course most Zionist condemnation of anti-Zionism is plain dishonesty and misrepresentation but there are many uncommitted people who shy away from the whole Palestine question because they find it too perplexing. As I said, to be continued....
by Chris (chrismstm [at] yahoo.com)
Perhaps the reason there is anti-semitism thinking on the left is simply because anti-sems share the a hatred of the right as do the left – but the hatred is for entirely different reasons. For example, It is the American right that declared a war on terrorism. The left does not agree with the war for different reasons then the anti-sems. The ant-sems do not want the Americans to interfere with the Islamo- fascist in there quest to annihilate the jew.

The real problem is that the left embraces anyone who hates the right – without paying much attention to or really seeming to care about their agenda. During an anti-war demonstration in DC last year there was one group chanting “Palestine from the river to the sea”. There were against the war for an entirely different reason, yet they were invited to the demonstration and were part of the crowd.

Anyone who is an enemy of your enemy is not automatically your friend. The mistaken belief that someone is your friend just be virtue of the fact you share an enemy is precisely the type of thought that allows groups like folkandfaith to infiltrate and hi-jack the left. If you don’t believe that this is already happening then why do you suppose facingachallenge.com could exist and draw an audience?
by John Newell (jnewell957 [at] earthlink.net)

Please distribute to all those who would be interested

Oppose Oppression with Ten Billion Pricks

Organised opposition to an oppressor requires leaders, who will
then be eliminated. But the oppressor can still be opposed by the
the oppressed if every one were to attack the oppressor with a
series of little pin pricks. Some possible examples are as follows:

1) Never show intelligence or initiative when working for the
oppressor
2) Only understand the simplest instructions
3) Commit many acts of minor or symbolic destruction
4) Be inefficient
5) Leak secrets slowly
6) act on behalf of the individual, not the oppressor
7) Act a bit strangely
8) Arrange objects in a patterns that are understood to be
agaist the oppressor
9) When walking in squares or street intersections,
walk in a counterclockwise direction to show opposition
10) Avoid streets with names associated with the oppressor
11) Do not join any judicial or security organisation unless to
oppose the oppressor
12) When appropriate, members of security forces shall make
their superiors less effective at oppression unless these
superiors have made their own superiors less effective
13) vote and attend meetings as late as possible
14) Work to rule
15) In the street, gather in bunches, walk in bunches, walk in
lock step
16) Everyone is to get into minor trouble
17) Disable surveillance equipment
18) Laugh at the oppressor
19) Invent, invent, think, adapt, reject, add
20) Do what other people do so that all do the same thing
to show opposition to the oppressor
21 Have Fun




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