U.S. Senate Unanimously Condemns Anti-Semitism
House of Representatives Takes a Pass
Melissa Langsam Braunstein
The Federalist
When you write about anti-Semitism, there’s typically not much good news to report; the world’s oldest hatred has been making a comeback not only overseas, but also here in the US of A. So, it’s both good and important to pause and celebrate the U.S. Senate unanimously passing a resolution that unequivocally condemns anti-Semitism.
Where the House of Representatives fumbled, the Senate succeeded. And thank G-d for that.
In March, the House struggled to rebuke blatantly anti-Semitic remarks from freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar. Rather than forcefully denounce anti-Semitism within their own ranks, House members passed a watered-down resolution calling out all hatred. While that message was unobjectionable, it was also totally non-responsive to the historical moment.
By contrast, Sens. Ted Cruz and Tim Kaine led the Senate in embracing a resolution yesterday that squarely condemns anti-Semitism in all of its forms. The Senate resolution offers a sweeping historical view of anti-Semitism across borders and millennia. It recognizes that the virus of anti-Semitism is different than other forms of hatred, has occurred both overseas and domestically, and that it requires a unique, targeted condemnation.
In addition to citing pogroms, forced conversions, and the Holocaust, the resolution mentions that Jews retain the dubious honor of being the most targeted religious group for hate crimes.
Showing posts with label Anti-Semitism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti-Semitism. Show all posts
Monday, 17 June 2019
Tuesday, 30 April 2019
Saul Alinsky's Faithful Pupil
"I’m a Jew. Stop Calling Me an Antisemite."
Joe Biden's Silly Slur
Joel Pollak
I am a Jew — an observant Jew, raised in Skokie, Illinois, a town that resisted neo-Nazi marchers and which, at the time, was home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors in the world outside Israel. Nazis murdered many of my grandfather’s relatives in Poland.
Today, former vice president Joe Biden trivialized the suffering of Jews and exploited the memory of the Holocaust for personal and political gain — and he used a lie to do it.
Biden suggested that President Donald Trump, and the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for him, support the rise of a new wave of antisemitism and white nationalism similar to Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Biden claimed — falsely — that Trump called neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 “very fine people” — when, in fact, Trump said the neo-Nazis “should be condemned totally,” as the transcript proves.
Saturday, 1 September 2018
Jeremy Corbyn Is Worse Than His Press
The UK Labour Leader is an Antisemite
Peter Walker
The Guardian
The former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks has called Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite, saying the Labour leader’s comment about Zionists at a 2013 conference was the most offensive statement by a senior UK politician since Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech.
Labour dismissed the comparison with Powell as “absurd and offensive”.
In an interview with the New Statesman, Sacks, who was the UK’s chief rabbi from 1991 to 2013, said Corbyn had “given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map”.
He said: “Now, within living memory of the Holocaust, and while Jews are being murdered elsewhere in Europe for being Jews, we have an antisemite as the leader of the Labour party and Her Majesty’s opposition. That is why Jews feel so threatened by Mr Corbyn and those who support him.”
Sacks condemned Corbyn’s 2013 comments, which resurfaced last week, in which he said that a group of Zionists had “no sense of irony” despite “having lived in this country for a very long time”.
Peter Walker
The Guardian
The former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks has called Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite, saying the Labour leader’s comment about Zionists at a 2013 conference was the most offensive statement by a senior UK politician since Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech.
Labour dismissed the comparison with Powell as “absurd and offensive”.
In an interview with the New Statesman, Sacks, who was the UK’s chief rabbi from 1991 to 2013, said Corbyn had “given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map”.
He said: “Now, within living memory of the Holocaust, and while Jews are being murdered elsewhere in Europe for being Jews, we have an antisemite as the leader of the Labour party and Her Majesty’s opposition. That is why Jews feel so threatened by Mr Corbyn and those who support him.”
Sacks condemned Corbyn’s 2013 comments, which resurfaced last week, in which he said that a group of Zionists had “no sense of irony” despite “having lived in this country for a very long time”.
Friday, 1 December 2017
Letter From the UK (About Australia)
Rise in Anti-Semitism Troubling Australia’s Jews
BreitbartLondon
Simon Kent
Australia has seen an increase of almost 10 percent in incidents against Jews over the past year, and almost 20 percent over the past two years, according to a report released Sunday.
The annual Report on Antisemitism in Australia is published annually by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the peak representative body for Australian Jews. The latest edition shows Jewish community groups logged a total of 210 antisemitic incidents during the period, including physical assaults, abuse and harassment, vandalism, graffiti, hate and threats communicated directly by email, letters, telephone calls, and leaflets.
This compares to a total of 190 such incidents logged by the same sources over the preceding 12 month period.
“There was a marked increase in the form of assault known as ‘egging’ – targeting and assaulting Jews by throwing eggs at them. Eggings occurred predominantly as Jews walked to and from synagogue on Friday evenings and Saturdays in Melbourne,” said the report’s author, ECAJ Research Officer, Julie Nathan. Nathan added that anti-Semitic attitudes are entrenched “in western and Muslim culture” requiring Jewish communities to act to protect themselves and their places of worship.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, as recently as last August Jewish leaders in Australia’s biggest city reacted with dismay after a court rejected their application to build a new synagogue on the grounds that it could become a terrorist target.
BreitbartLondon
Simon Kent
Australia has seen an increase of almost 10 percent in incidents against Jews over the past year, and almost 20 percent over the past two years, according to a report released Sunday.
The annual Report on Antisemitism in Australia is published annually by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the peak representative body for Australian Jews. The latest edition shows Jewish community groups logged a total of 210 antisemitic incidents during the period, including physical assaults, abuse and harassment, vandalism, graffiti, hate and threats communicated directly by email, letters, telephone calls, and leaflets.
This compares to a total of 190 such incidents logged by the same sources over the preceding 12 month period.
“There was a marked increase in the form of assault known as ‘egging’ – targeting and assaulting Jews by throwing eggs at them. Eggings occurred predominantly as Jews walked to and from synagogue on Friday evenings and Saturdays in Melbourne,” said the report’s author, ECAJ Research Officer, Julie Nathan. Nathan added that anti-Semitic attitudes are entrenched “in western and Muslim culture” requiring Jewish communities to act to protect themselves and their places of worship.
The Jewish community is the only community within Australia whose places of worship, schools, communal organisations and community centres need, for security reasons, to operate under the protection of high fences, armed guards, metal detectors, CCTV cameras and the like.
The necessity is recognised by Australia’s law enforcement agencies and arises from the entrenched and protean nature of antisemitism in western and Muslim culture, resulting in a high incidence of physical attacks against Jews and Jewish communal buildings over the last three decades, and continuing threats.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, as recently as last August Jewish leaders in Australia’s biggest city reacted with dismay after a court rejected their application to build a new synagogue on the grounds that it could become a terrorist target.
Wednesday, 30 August 2017
The Power of Ancient Doctrines
Islamic Anti-Semitism is "Congenital"
A feature of contemporary Islam is its reflexive hatred of Jews. Some prominent Islamic political declare that the Holocaust never happened, or that it did happen and a good thing it was too. Others get fulfilment by drawing maps of the Middle East, with Israel being emphatically erased off the map. Still others call for the annihilation of Israel to be a central foreign policy plank and summon the umma to arms to achieve it.
The Left in the West, still addled with long-obsolete notions of Marxist class warfare, find themselves aligned with the Islamic cause because it represents the current "little guy" struggling against "big guy" Western imperialism. The Left is increasingly showing its solidarity with Islamic ideology. It increasingly espouses its own form of anti-semitism so as to stand with its Islamic brothers. Elements in the UK Labour Party provide one example. President Obama's genuflections and considerateness toward Islam provide another.
And on it goes. But, why the hatred of Israel and the Jewish people in Islamic doctrine, rhetoric, and eschatology? According to Efraim Karsh, anti-semitism has deep historical roots, stretching all the way back to Muhammad.
A feature of contemporary Islam is its reflexive hatred of Jews. Some prominent Islamic political declare that the Holocaust never happened, or that it did happen and a good thing it was too. Others get fulfilment by drawing maps of the Middle East, with Israel being emphatically erased off the map. Still others call for the annihilation of Israel to be a central foreign policy plank and summon the umma to arms to achieve it.
The Left in the West, still addled with long-obsolete notions of Marxist class warfare, find themselves aligned with the Islamic cause because it represents the current "little guy" struggling against "big guy" Western imperialism. The Left is increasingly showing its solidarity with Islamic ideology. It increasingly espouses its own form of anti-semitism so as to stand with its Islamic brothers. Elements in the UK Labour Party provide one example. President Obama's genuflections and considerateness toward Islam provide another.
And on it goes. But, why the hatred of Israel and the Jewish people in Islamic doctrine, rhetoric, and eschatology? According to Efraim Karsh, anti-semitism has deep historical roots, stretching all the way back to Muhammad.
Friday, 23 June 2017
Follow Up
Anti-Semitic Echoes Fade Away
We published recently upon an incident in Wellington City Council, (New Zealand) which implied latent anti-semitism was at work. The piece can be read here.
The matter has had two downstream consequences. The first was a press release from the Jewish Council to The Wellington City Council.
Don’t close the door on kids’ singing by censoring Jewish history
The Wellington Regional Jewish Council has asked Artsplash Co-ordinator Mary Prichard to (in her words) “keep life simple” by reinstating three songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat into its programme for the September festival, using the correct words.
An apology for changing one word without permission has been made to the librettist, Sir Tim Rice, and he has accepted the apology, so there is no reason why the performance of the song with the correct words shouldn’t go ahead, Zwartz said. “As we see it, the ‘trouble’ Mary Prichard refers to is an attempt to censor without explanation an event in Jewish history that took place about three-and-a-half thousand years ago.
“It is wrong to indicate to primary school children that something in the Jewish Torah – also included in the Christian Old Testament, and the Koran – needs to be altered, or avoided altogether,” Zwartz stated. “It also undermines a strong move in New Zealand society for better understanding of every religion, as shown by the National Statement on Religious Diversity and the work of the Human Rights Commission.
Wednesday, 21 June 2017
Avoiding Trouble . . .
Latent Anti-Semitism?
The intellectual chattering classes throughout Europe and the English speaking world have moved over recent decades towards anti-semitism. There are a number of reasons or causes--all of them either specious or evil.
One cannot help but wonder what was really going on amongst the bureaucrats at the Wellington City Council. It's actions and words imply, either latent anti-semitism, or a fear of retribution from (unknown) anti-semites. Here is the story:
Israel Spat for Wellington's Children's Festival Artsplash
NZ Herald
Wellington City Council has been forced to apologise to multi-award winning lyricist Sir Tim Rice, after the word "Israel" was removed from his work being used for a children's festival. Lyrics from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat were being used as part of Wellington's annual children's festival, Artsplash.So far, so good. People make mistakes, right?
But the song sheets soon sparked controversy, after the line "Children of Israel" was changed to "Children of Kindness". Questions were raised on Twitter by Kate Dowling, who asked why it was done. That tweet prompted a response from Rice himself, who warned he hadn't given permission for any changes. He described the "totally unauthorised" change of lyrics as "a terribly drippy and meaningless alteration". Wellington City Council moved quickly to fix the mess, apologising and telling Rice they loved his work. "A community coordinator made an error in judgement which we will rectify before the schoolkids perform in Sept. Sorry, we love your work." [Wellington City Council--Artsplash]
Friday, 1 July 2016
The Tradition of Philosemitism
Taking Up an Honourable Cause
Gertrude Himmelfarb has written an engaging book on the history of philosemitism in England. It "began" with Oliver Cromwell who encouraged Jews to return to England, which had been the first country to expel them during medieval times. Gradually, over two and a half centuries not only were Jews migrating to England, but gradually they were winning or being granted an increasing list of civil and political rights--during centuries when such rights were not universal by any means.
The Christian Church, particularly through the influence of the Great Awakening, played a positive role. At the end of the eighteenth century, for example, a Jewish financier and philanthropist, Abraham Goldsmid raised a fund to help and assist the Jewish poor throughout England. Himmelfarb tells us that "of the eighty-seven initial subscribers, forty-one were Christians". [Gertrude Himmelfarb, The People of the Book: Philosemitism in England, From Cromwell to Churchill (New York: Encounter Books, 2011), p. 56.]
In the mid-nineteenth century, Conservative leader, Benjamin Disraeli was arguing that the Church was the key instrument for the "renovation of the national spirit". But he went on to address the origin of the Church.
Gertrude Himmelfarb has written an engaging book on the history of philosemitism in England. It "began" with Oliver Cromwell who encouraged Jews to return to England, which had been the first country to expel them during medieval times. Gradually, over two and a half centuries not only were Jews migrating to England, but gradually they were winning or being granted an increasing list of civil and political rights--during centuries when such rights were not universal by any means.
The Christian Church, particularly through the influence of the Great Awakening, played a positive role. At the end of the eighteenth century, for example, a Jewish financier and philanthropist, Abraham Goldsmid raised a fund to help and assist the Jewish poor throughout England. Himmelfarb tells us that "of the eighty-seven initial subscribers, forty-one were Christians". [Gertrude Himmelfarb, The People of the Book: Philosemitism in England, From Cromwell to Churchill (New York: Encounter Books, 2011), p. 56.]
In the mid-nineteenth century, Conservative leader, Benjamin Disraeli was arguing that the Church was the key instrument for the "renovation of the national spirit". But he went on to address the origin of the Church.
Thursday, 5 May 2016
The Left Nurtures Anti-Semitic Prejudices
Why the Left Hates Jews
Kevin D. Williamson
National Review Online
Why does the Left hate the Jews?
The Labour party in the United Kingdom is being convulsed at the moment with a public reckoning of the anti-Semitism of some of its most prominent members, including the former mayor of London, “Red” Ken Livingstone, who has just been suspended from the party for arguing that Adolf Hitler was, effectively, a Zionist. He was trying to explain away the anti-Semitic remarks of MP Naz Shah, who suggested that Israel be liquidated and its population forcibly resettled in the United States.
In the United States, the Harvard Law Record went to some lengths to conceal the identity of a law student who attacked a visiting Israeli dignitary as — in the classic anti-Semitic formulation — “smelly.” That student was Husam El-Qoulaq, a Palestinian leftist. The campus Left has, to no one’s surprise, rallied to his defense. Among those defending him were a number of Jewish law students, who insisted that El-Qoulaq couldn’t possibly have known the anti-Semitic history of “smelly Jew” rhetoric, in spite of his having been reared at the world center of such nonsense.
Others insisted that the Harvard case and the Labour cases are — this, too, will be familiar — not at all about anti-Semitism but about anti-Zionism.
That argument does not stand up to two seconds’ scrutiny, and never has.
Kevin D. Williamson
National Review Online
Why does the Left hate the Jews?
The Labour party in the United Kingdom is being convulsed at the moment with a public reckoning of the anti-Semitism of some of its most prominent members, including the former mayor of London, “Red” Ken Livingstone, who has just been suspended from the party for arguing that Adolf Hitler was, effectively, a Zionist. He was trying to explain away the anti-Semitic remarks of MP Naz Shah, who suggested that Israel be liquidated and its population forcibly resettled in the United States.
In the United States, the Harvard Law Record went to some lengths to conceal the identity of a law student who attacked a visiting Israeli dignitary as — in the classic anti-Semitic formulation — “smelly.” That student was Husam El-Qoulaq, a Palestinian leftist. The campus Left has, to no one’s surprise, rallied to his defense. Among those defending him were a number of Jewish law students, who insisted that El-Qoulaq couldn’t possibly have known the anti-Semitic history of “smelly Jew” rhetoric, in spite of his having been reared at the world center of such nonsense.
Others insisted that the Harvard case and the Labour cases are — this, too, will be familiar — not at all about anti-Semitism but about anti-Zionism.
That argument does not stand up to two seconds’ scrutiny, and never has.
Mad As Hatters
By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them
Should a political party nourish and protect racism within its ranks? Well, if it is the KKK, it's very raison d'etre is racist, so of course it should and would protect racism. Should that party be deemed a legal association? Maybe. Maybe not. But that is not what is primarily at issue here. The question is whether racism should be tolerated within a political party. The answer to that question is in the hands of the political party itself.
Freedom of speech and freedom of association (fundamental precepts of a free society) require that the rest of society respect the right of some to gather together to advance a racist platform. But, of course, that leaves the rest of society free to pillory (figuratively speaking) the party and its platform . . . as the US has done with respect to the KKK.
This leads us to consider the depths to which the Labour Party in the UK has sunk. Even The Guardian, Labour's representative within the media, finds itself in a quandary. Should it criticise the Labour Party for its embedded racism, or not? Again, from our perspective, the UK Labour Party is free to become a political party with a racist platform if it so chooses. It appears increasingly obvious that racism is the new normal--at least to many within it.
Wednesday, 9 March 2016
"For the Sake of Their Forefathers"
"Christ Killers" and Antisemitism
Antisemitism is a grotesque affliction. Unfortunately it seems to lurk just beneath the surface of the West, ready to spring out in full force, when times and conditions are opportune. Antisemitism, however, requires a number of correlated beliefs in order to become a true social movement.
One such belief is that Jewish people (abstracted into a collective noun with a definite article--"the Jews") control and manipulate most of world affairs. Antisemitism cannot arise or survive as a movement in the West until it is linked with a conspiracy theory about Jewish influence, if not control, over virtually everything. It goes further than the assertion that Jews control money, and banking, and international finance. It mushrooms into the belief that "Jewish money" buys influence everywhere to the extent that all political institutions and powers do the bidding of their Jewish paymasters.
Another corollary of European antisemitism has the Jews as being ultimately responsible for all evil. Disease, crime, public disorder, drunkenness, poverty, debauchery, and so forth--all social ills can be ultimately traced back to the insidious influence of Jewish morals, practices, and funding. Is Greece teetering on the edge of bankruptcy? The Jews are bleeding the country dry. Is Europe now bailing out Greece? The Jews have secretly influenced the bailout so as to ramp up their ruinous exploitation of Greece. Is zika virus infecting the world? The Jews have carefully nurtured the disease deep in their caverns of Isengard, waiting for the right moment to infect humanity.
Monday, 7 March 2016
Willing Executioners
Eliminationist Anti-Semitism is Alive and Kicking
We have been reading Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners with great interest. [Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Abacus, 1997)]. The book has attracted significant academic controversy. Goldhagen's central thesis is that ordinary Germans in the nineteen thirties and forties were captured by an ideology of eliminationalist anti-semitism.
The idea is that the great majority of German people were not just anti-semitic, but had come to believe that the only solution to the "Jewish problem" was the elimination of Jews from Germany--not by expulsion, but by their extermination. The Nazis institutionalised this idea and sought to effect it as the "Final Solution". But--and this is where Goldhagen's thesis becomes more controversial--eliminationist anti-semitism was not distinctly Nazi; it was, argued Goldhagen, a widely held idea within Germany. One fundamental trail of evidence produced by Goldhagen was the enthusiastic extermination of Jewish people perpetrated by non-Nazi, German Order Police Reserve Battalions, made up of older, middle-aged German men.
The historical reality is that anti-semitism became "eliminationist" in Germany.
Wednesday, 18 March 2015
Neo-Nazi Revival
Anti-Semitism Rising in Britain
Hatred of the Jewish people is on the rise in the UK (and in some European countries). In a recent research experiment, a reporter put on a yarmulke (a traditional Jewish skull cap) and walked down streets in Manchester and Bradford. Within minutes he was being publicly insulted and event spat at.
The headlines which of the Daily Mail report read:
In Britain, Leftist ideology also frames the Islamic ghettoes as being populated by victims, the have-nots, the disenfranchised, the exploited and the oppressed. The Left must stand with them and help facilitate the struggle against oppression within Britain itself. Both groups, now joined at the hip in group-think, hate the Jewish people and Israel as the unjust monster with its foot on the neck of deprived and exploited peoples.
The Left has made anti-semitism and hatred of the Jewish people fashionable and respectable once again in the UK.
Hatred of the Jewish people is on the rise in the UK (and in some European countries). In a recent research experiment, a reporter put on a yarmulke (a traditional Jewish skull cap) and walked down streets in Manchester and Bradford. Within minutes he was being publicly insulted and event spat at.
The headlines which of the Daily Mail report read:
We believe that what is transpiring before our eyes is an unholy alliance. On the one side are mainly Pakistani immigrants to the UK settling in ghettoes in cities like Manchester and Bradford whilst continuing to live within the traditional doctrines and dictats of Islam. On the other side--far removed from the ghettoes--is the Leftist (now UK mainstream) ideology which frames Israel (and, therefore, the world-wide global conspiracy of Zionism) as being the relentless oppressor of Palestinians, in particular, and Middle Eastern peoples in general. (Yes, we know it's a troglodyte's position, owned by the impeccably ignorant, but there you go.)EXCLUSIVE: 'Fight the Jewish scum!' Shocking anti-Semitism on streets of BRITAIN as Jewish journalist is spat at, abused and even stalked... and the same happens in Copenhagen
- Journalist donned traditional Jewish head covering 'kippah' to test reaction
- It took one minute for first abuse to be hurled on Britain's streets
- Spat at in Manchester and boy walking with father called out 'Jew'
- 'Stalked' by a man in Bradford for five minutes as he took photos
- Prime Minister David Cameron told MailOnline: 'There are no excuses for the shocking anti-Semitism revealed in this report'
- Same test in Copenhagen saw a similar taunts to 'Jewish man'
- But Stockholm and Berlin walkabouts went without any incident
In Britain, Leftist ideology also frames the Islamic ghettoes as being populated by victims, the have-nots, the disenfranchised, the exploited and the oppressed. The Left must stand with them and help facilitate the struggle against oppression within Britain itself. Both groups, now joined at the hip in group-think, hate the Jewish people and Israel as the unjust monster with its foot on the neck of deprived and exploited peoples.
The Left has made anti-semitism and hatred of the Jewish people fashionable and respectable once again in the UK.
Friday, 5 December 2014
Letter From Turkey (About "Huge Hatred" and Great Courage)
The Turkish Governor's "Huge Hatred"
At the beginning of the 20th century, Edirne, a Turkish province in Thrace, hosted a prominent community of some 20,000 Jews – a larger community than the entire Jewish population of about 17,000 in Turkey today. Most of the Jews of Edirne were forced to leave the city after the pogroms of 1934. In 2000, the Jewish population in Edirne had dropped to 2 (no typo: two) people.
Earlier, in the Ottoman Turkey of 1907, Sultan Abdulhamid had ordered the construction of what would become one of the world's two biggest synagogues (and Europe's biggest), known in Turkish as "Buyuk Sinagog," or the "Great Synagogue", in Edirne. As the Jews left the town, the Great Synagogue turned into a sorrowful wreck.
In late 2000s, the Jewish community in Turkey applied to the governor's office in Edirne to have sermons and wedding ceremonies at the synagogue. Luckily, in 2010, the Great Synagogue was declared a historical site and brought under a $1.7 million restoration program to reopen for prayers and visits – not that the Turks thought the building would serve the (literally) couple of Jews left in town, but that they thought it could lure tourists (and money). The restoration work is almost complete.
Thursday, 31 July 2014
Letter From the UK (About the Left's Anti-Semitism)
Is the Left anti-Semitic?
Sadly, it is heading that way
Brendan O'NeillThe Telegraph
29 July, 2014
Brendan O'Neill is editor of the online magazine spiked and is a columnist for the Big Issue in London and The Australian in, er, Australia. His satire on environmentalism, Can I Recycle My Granny and 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas, is published by Hodder & Stoughton. He doesn't tweet.
There has been a lot of talk over the past two weeks about whether it is anti-Semitic to oppose Israel’s attack on Gaza. Radical Leftists and liberal commentators have insisted (perhaps a bit too much?) that there is nothing remotely anti-Semitic about their anger with Israel or their fury on behalf of battered, bruised and bombed Palestinians. And of course they are right that it is entirely possible to oppose Israel’s militarism without harbouring so much as a smidgen of dislike for the Jewish people. Some will oppose the war in Gaza simply because they are against wars in general, especially ones that impact on civilians.
However, it seems pretty clear to me that much of the left in Europe and America is becoming more anti-Semitic, or at least risks falling into the trap of anti-Semitism, sometimes quite thoughtlessly. In the language it uses, in the ideas it promotes, in the way in which it talks about the modern world, including Israel, much of the Left has adopted a style of politics that has anti-Semitic undertones, and sometimes overtones.
This is a recurring theme in anti-Israel sentiment today: the idea that a powerful, sinister lobby of Israel lovers has warped our otherwise respectable leaders here in the West, basically winning control of Western foreign policy. 
The key problem has been the Left’s embrace of conspiratorial thinking, its growing conviction that the world is governed by what it views as uncaring “cabals”, “networks”, self-serving lobbyists and gangs of bankers, all of which has tempted it to sometimes turn its attentions towards those people who historically were so often the object and the target of conspiratorial thinking – the Jews.
Yes, one can hate Israel’s attack on Gaza without hating the Jews. But there’s no denying that the hatred being expressed for Israel’s attack on Gaza is different to the opposition to all other acts of militarism in recent times.
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Using the Bible as Pretext
The Bible Belongs to Christ
A recent piece in the National Review Online by Dennis Prager has taken the National Church of Scotland to task for anti-semitism. That church has come out with a new report on Israel which Prager alleges represents "a combination of medieval anti-Judaism and leftist anti-Zionism".
We have not read the report (which has now been taken off the church's website for re-editing) and we acknowledge that the Church of Scotland long ceased ceased to be a reliable guide on things taught in the Bible, having been racked with Enlightenment rationalism and humanist, epistemic autonomy. Nevertheless, it is Prager's rejection and rejoinder to the Church of Scotland's report which is worth reflecting upon.
There are at least three assertions made in the report which Prager reacts to:
A recent piece in the National Review Online by Dennis Prager has taken the National Church of Scotland to task for anti-semitism. That church has come out with a new report on Israel which Prager alleges represents "a combination of medieval anti-Judaism and leftist anti-Zionism".
We have not read the report (which has now been taken off the church's website for re-editing) and we acknowledge that the Church of Scotland long ceased ceased to be a reliable guide on things taught in the Bible, having been racked with Enlightenment rationalism and humanist, epistemic autonomy. Nevertheless, it is Prager's rejection and rejoinder to the Church of Scotland's report which is worth reflecting upon.
There are at least three assertions made in the report which Prager reacts to:
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
The Promised Land, Part I
Rough and Rocky Travelling
Here is an interesting idea--the Jewish Promised Land is actually the United States. No, this is not some latter day British Israelite theory, wondering where "those feet in ancient times" might have walked. The thesis, however, (that the US might actually be the Jewish Promised Land) raises some really interesting theological and historical issues which we hope to explore in a short series of posts.
But first, the argument.
Here is an interesting idea--the Jewish Promised Land is actually the United States. No, this is not some latter day British Israelite theory, wondering where "those feet in ancient times" might have walked. The thesis, however, (that the US might actually be the Jewish Promised Land) raises some really interesting theological and historical issues which we hope to explore in a short series of posts.
But first, the argument.
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Reflections on the Revolution in Europe
Not with a Bang But a Whimper
Most of our readers will be familiar with Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. One of these days we plan to do an extensive review/critique of this classic for it has much to teach us, whilst having some fatal flaws.
Christopher Caldwell, no doubt inspired by Burke, has written Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. It appears to be a must-read book. What follows are excerpts from a review of Caldwell's new book by Daniel Johnson, published in Commentary Magazine (September, 2009)
Edmund Burke, Meet Tariq Ramadan
Reflections on the Revolution in Europe:
Immigration, Islam, and the West
By Christopher Caldwell
Doubleday, 422 pages.
Amazon link: here.
In June 2009, an incident took place at Conway Hall in London’s Red Lion Square, the hallowed venue of secular leftist gatherings since the 1930s. Anjem Choudary, a radical Muslim preacher and leader of the Islamist organization al-Muhajiroun, was ejected after his followers attempted to segregate male and female members of the audience for a public debate. Choudary told the assembled media in the street outside: “This country is rife with social and economic problems and only Islam has the answer. Muslims are multiplying at a rate eight times faster than the kaffir. In a couple of generations this will be a Muslim country, inshallah. We will dominate this country, my brothers, and implement the beauty and perfection of Islam.” Al--Muhajiroun members greeted the speech with cheers and cries of “God is great” and “Sharia for the UK.” The crowd included Simon Keeler, the first white British Muslim convert convicted of inciting terrorism.
Such incidents are now commonplace not only in Britain but also across Europe. Yet the rise of European Islamism has occurred over only a few years’ time, without any of the Continent’s political elites even noticing what was happening. As Christopher Caldwell argues in his spirited tract Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, “Western Europe became a multi-ethnic society in a fit of absence of mind.” Now that the rest of the population has woken up to the change, many are angry. The result is a political upheaval that is still being played out.
The institutional structures of Europe are creaking because it is no longer possible to accommodate both the increasingly extravagant demands of the Islamist minority and the resentment of a no-longer-silent majority. The multicultural model, based on pure relativism, is widely regarded as bankrupt. But it is too late to prevent or reverse the demographic transformation of virtually every major city on the Continent.
What is striking is that nobody even bothers to challenge Choudary and other demagogues. Instead, Europeans roll their eyes and move on. But who will have the last laugh? Choudary’s prophecy may be outlandish, but it is an accurate description of the urban districts from which he and his like draw their support. It is certainly far less unreal than the cloud-cuckoo-land where European leaders have been living for the past generation.
Britain a Muslim country in a couple of decades? By 2050 a third of the population of Britain and most European countries will be immigrants. The proportion of Muslims may well be even higher because of birthrates and conversion. Sharia for the United Kingdom? England already has 85 functioning sharia courts, and the president of the UK’s new Supreme Court, Lord Phillips, has said that “there is no reason why principles of sharia law should not be used as the basis for mediation or other forms of dispute resolution” as long as the sanctions imposed comply with English law.
Does this transformation—demographic, political, social, legal, and religious—amount to a revolution? Caldwell believes that it does. Hence his Burkean title. But Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France had at its heart the conviction that the triumph of the revolutionary ideology was not inevitable—that the overthrow of the French monarchy could be made “the parent of settlement, and not the nursery of future revolutions.” Burke’s hopes for France and much of Continental Europe were to be disappointed, for the Jacobin Terror proved to be only the first of many totalitarian episodes over the next two centuries. But he was right about England and, indeed, America, whose revolution followed the pattern of 1688 rather than that of 1789, leading quickly to a settled form of government and society.
Caldwell’s revolution, on the other hand, does not look like the parent of a new settlement—unless it be the caliphate. He himself doubts whether Europe has the moral courage to win over its new immigrant populations in the contest for allegiance. He concludes on a pessimistic note: “For now, Islam is the stronger party in that contest, in an obvious demographic way and in a less obvious philosophical way. Words like ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ mean little when an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture meets a culture that is anchored, confident, and strengthened by common doctrines. It is generally the former that changes to suit the latter.”
The key word here is relativistic. For the story that Caldwell sets out to tell is one of relativism applied across the board in every realm of public policy. Instead of helping the waves of immigrants who came to Europe to escape the ghetto and assimilate into the broader society, the new postwar welfare states enshrined in law the new doctrine of cultural relativism, rendering integration impossible. The universal declarations of human rights that were a legacy of the Holocaust ought to have created a new sense of the world and their place in it for these immigrants, who mostly came from countries where such rights did not exist. Instead, the language of human rights was turned against Israel in the name of antiracism, while the Muslim practitioners of wife-beating, forced marriage, polygamy, female mutilation, and terrorism were able to claim the protection afforded by the Left’s political correctness and anticolonialism. . . .
Caldwell is at his best in chronicling the deceptions and self-deceptions of the intellectuals. Take the serpentine insinuations of Tariq Ramadan, for example, the poster boy of the Muslim Brotherhood, who claims that jihad means -“resistance” and only in a “spiritual” sense and who, months after 9/11, claimed that there was merely “a very strong possibility” that Muslim terrorists were responsible. Caldwell gives Ramadan plenty of rope to hang himself with, quoting such obiter dicta as this: “Islam stands for the liberation of women—but not at the expense of children.” The massacre of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria, he dismisses coolly: “We need to consider the situation objectively and bring a critical view as much to the causes—global homogenization and a sometimes savage Westernization—as to the consequences—ethnic and religious tension.” In Caldwell’s view, Ramadan is not in favor of any Western freedoms unless they advance the cause of -Islam. To ask what Islam will contribute is impertinent, for “what Islam will contribute to the West is Islam.” . . . .
The most striking single consequence of Caldwell’s European revolution has been the return of the oldest hatred of all: anti-Semitism. Other writers, such as Gabriel Schoenfeld, have already written about the explosion of jihadist Judeophobia, legitimized by the Left, that has accompanied the terrorist assault on the West. Caldwell’s contribution is to explain how the Muslim-immigrant communities of Europe were the true beneficiaries of the post-Holocaust taboo against anti-Semitism among European elites. What has only recently become clear, especially since -Israel’s counterattacks against Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in 2009, is that this taboo is now a thing of the past. The European elites have given themselves permission to express virulent hostility not only toward Israel but also toward “the Israel lobby” (by which is meant the minority of European Jews who publicly defend the Jewish state). The big lie, that the Palestinians are the new victims and the Israelis are the new Nazis, is now fully established in mainstream European discourse. “Far from forgetting the lessons of the Holocaust,” Caldwell notes, “anti-Semites and anti-Zionists were obsessed with them. They were a rhetorical toolkit.”
And just as in the 1930s, it is in the universities that the new anti-Semitism is most ubiquitous. The clamor for boycotts and other sanctions against Israel has gone far beyond mere gesture politics. The atmosphere at Britain’s traditional centers of expertise on the Middle East (such as Oxford University; the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University; and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House) is becoming intolerable for scholars who try to discuss Israel with any degree of objectivity. This academic atrophy inevitably has a long-term impact on the quality of public debate. The same process is being replicated across Europe, and it is by no means limited to the Left.
The underlying problem is the collective amnesia that has afflicted Europe concerning its origins, values, and traditions. . . . There are as many views in between these two positions as there are Europeans. But the fact that Europeans no longer agree about what their core values are suggests that they no longer have core values. The vacuum is being filled by a faith that knows precisely what its values are and, funded by the revenues of the oil-rich Orient, is proclaiming those values from the rooftops.
The heart of Europe has been transplanted from Mecca. If you want to know how this happened, and what became of the European civilization that Americans used to know and love, you must read Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe.
Most of our readers will be familiar with Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. One of these days we plan to do an extensive review/critique of this classic for it has much to teach us, whilst having some fatal flaws.
Christopher Caldwell, no doubt inspired by Burke, has written Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. It appears to be a must-read book. What follows are excerpts from a review of Caldwell's new book by Daniel Johnson, published in Commentary Magazine (September, 2009)
Edmund Burke, Meet Tariq Ramadan
Reflections on the Revolution in Europe:
Immigration, Islam, and the West
By Christopher Caldwell
Doubleday, 422 pages.
Amazon link: here.
In June 2009, an incident took place at Conway Hall in London’s Red Lion Square, the hallowed venue of secular leftist gatherings since the 1930s. Anjem Choudary, a radical Muslim preacher and leader of the Islamist organization al-Muhajiroun, was ejected after his followers attempted to segregate male and female members of the audience for a public debate. Choudary told the assembled media in the street outside: “This country is rife with social and economic problems and only Islam has the answer. Muslims are multiplying at a rate eight times faster than the kaffir. In a couple of generations this will be a Muslim country, inshallah. We will dominate this country, my brothers, and implement the beauty and perfection of Islam.” Al--Muhajiroun members greeted the speech with cheers and cries of “God is great” and “Sharia for the UK.” The crowd included Simon Keeler, the first white British Muslim convert convicted of inciting terrorism.
Such incidents are now commonplace not only in Britain but also across Europe. Yet the rise of European Islamism has occurred over only a few years’ time, without any of the Continent’s political elites even noticing what was happening. As Christopher Caldwell argues in his spirited tract Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, “Western Europe became a multi-ethnic society in a fit of absence of mind.” Now that the rest of the population has woken up to the change, many are angry. The result is a political upheaval that is still being played out.
The institutional structures of Europe are creaking because it is no longer possible to accommodate both the increasingly extravagant demands of the Islamist minority and the resentment of a no-longer-silent majority. The multicultural model, based on pure relativism, is widely regarded as bankrupt. But it is too late to prevent or reverse the demographic transformation of virtually every major city on the Continent.
What is striking is that nobody even bothers to challenge Choudary and other demagogues. Instead, Europeans roll their eyes and move on. But who will have the last laugh? Choudary’s prophecy may be outlandish, but it is an accurate description of the urban districts from which he and his like draw their support. It is certainly far less unreal than the cloud-cuckoo-land where European leaders have been living for the past generation.
Britain a Muslim country in a couple of decades? By 2050 a third of the population of Britain and most European countries will be immigrants. The proportion of Muslims may well be even higher because of birthrates and conversion. Sharia for the United Kingdom? England already has 85 functioning sharia courts, and the president of the UK’s new Supreme Court, Lord Phillips, has said that “there is no reason why principles of sharia law should not be used as the basis for mediation or other forms of dispute resolution” as long as the sanctions imposed comply with English law.
Does this transformation—demographic, political, social, legal, and religious—amount to a revolution? Caldwell believes that it does. Hence his Burkean title. But Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France had at its heart the conviction that the triumph of the revolutionary ideology was not inevitable—that the overthrow of the French monarchy could be made “the parent of settlement, and not the nursery of future revolutions.” Burke’s hopes for France and much of Continental Europe were to be disappointed, for the Jacobin Terror proved to be only the first of many totalitarian episodes over the next two centuries. But he was right about England and, indeed, America, whose revolution followed the pattern of 1688 rather than that of 1789, leading quickly to a settled form of government and society.
Caldwell’s revolution, on the other hand, does not look like the parent of a new settlement—unless it be the caliphate. He himself doubts whether Europe has the moral courage to win over its new immigrant populations in the contest for allegiance. He concludes on a pessimistic note: “For now, Islam is the stronger party in that contest, in an obvious demographic way and in a less obvious philosophical way. Words like ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ mean little when an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture meets a culture that is anchored, confident, and strengthened by common doctrines. It is generally the former that changes to suit the latter.”
The key word here is relativistic. For the story that Caldwell sets out to tell is one of relativism applied across the board in every realm of public policy. Instead of helping the waves of immigrants who came to Europe to escape the ghetto and assimilate into the broader society, the new postwar welfare states enshrined in law the new doctrine of cultural relativism, rendering integration impossible. The universal declarations of human rights that were a legacy of the Holocaust ought to have created a new sense of the world and their place in it for these immigrants, who mostly came from countries where such rights did not exist. Instead, the language of human rights was turned against Israel in the name of antiracism, while the Muslim practitioners of wife-beating, forced marriage, polygamy, female mutilation, and terrorism were able to claim the protection afforded by the Left’s political correctness and anticolonialism. . . .
Caldwell is at his best in chronicling the deceptions and self-deceptions of the intellectuals. Take the serpentine insinuations of Tariq Ramadan, for example, the poster boy of the Muslim Brotherhood, who claims that jihad means -“resistance” and only in a “spiritual” sense and who, months after 9/11, claimed that there was merely “a very strong possibility” that Muslim terrorists were responsible. Caldwell gives Ramadan plenty of rope to hang himself with, quoting such obiter dicta as this: “Islam stands for the liberation of women—but not at the expense of children.” The massacre of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria, he dismisses coolly: “We need to consider the situation objectively and bring a critical view as much to the causes—global homogenization and a sometimes savage Westernization—as to the consequences—ethnic and religious tension.” In Caldwell’s view, Ramadan is not in favor of any Western freedoms unless they advance the cause of -Islam. To ask what Islam will contribute is impertinent, for “what Islam will contribute to the West is Islam.” . . . .
The most striking single consequence of Caldwell’s European revolution has been the return of the oldest hatred of all: anti-Semitism. Other writers, such as Gabriel Schoenfeld, have already written about the explosion of jihadist Judeophobia, legitimized by the Left, that has accompanied the terrorist assault on the West. Caldwell’s contribution is to explain how the Muslim-immigrant communities of Europe were the true beneficiaries of the post-Holocaust taboo against anti-Semitism among European elites. What has only recently become clear, especially since -Israel’s counterattacks against Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in 2009, is that this taboo is now a thing of the past. The European elites have given themselves permission to express virulent hostility not only toward Israel but also toward “the Israel lobby” (by which is meant the minority of European Jews who publicly defend the Jewish state). The big lie, that the Palestinians are the new victims and the Israelis are the new Nazis, is now fully established in mainstream European discourse. “Far from forgetting the lessons of the Holocaust,” Caldwell notes, “anti-Semites and anti-Zionists were obsessed with them. They were a rhetorical toolkit.”
And just as in the 1930s, it is in the universities that the new anti-Semitism is most ubiquitous. The clamor for boycotts and other sanctions against Israel has gone far beyond mere gesture politics. The atmosphere at Britain’s traditional centers of expertise on the Middle East (such as Oxford University; the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University; and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House) is becoming intolerable for scholars who try to discuss Israel with any degree of objectivity. This academic atrophy inevitably has a long-term impact on the quality of public debate. The same process is being replicated across Europe, and it is by no means limited to the Left.
The underlying problem is the collective amnesia that has afflicted Europe concerning its origins, values, and traditions. . . . There are as many views in between these two positions as there are Europeans. But the fact that Europeans no longer agree about what their core values are suggests that they no longer have core values. The vacuum is being filled by a faith that knows precisely what its values are and, funded by the revenues of the oil-rich Orient, is proclaiming those values from the rooftops.
The heart of Europe has been transplanted from Mecca. If you want to know how this happened, and what became of the European civilization that Americans used to know and love, you must read Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Fighting Yesterday's Battles
Moral Myopia Kisses Indignant Self-Righteousness
A heated debate has been raging over recent weeks in the NZ blogosphere. One left-leaning blog (some would say so left-leaning as to be lying on the ground) defended good old Mahmoud's rant at the recent UN Conference in Geneva to combat racism.
That great statesman who stands as a veritable colossus astride the world stage, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran used the occasion to denounce the state of Israel and Zionism as the essence of racism. Mahmoud is infamous for his denial of the historical existence of the Holocaust. He has also argued that Israel has no right to exist as a nation and, therefore, he wants to see it obliterated. In this view, he is not alone. It is held in common with most consistent Islamic adherents.
Writers at the blog Tumeke! have supported his remarks, agreeing that Israel was conceived in sin, theft, murder, and rapine. Moreover, since it was a state for Jews, by definition it represents institutionalised racism. Mmmm. One would have thought that Jews were found in many nations and amongst many races, as a universal religion tends to be. Really, the case would be more cogent if Israel were excoriated as "religist" or something like that. But, we digress.
So offended have been some bloggers that they have excommunicated Tumeke!, wanting nothing further to do with such extremism. But wait on--these earnest folk at Tumeke serve a useful purpose from time to time as foils to make sound and cogent arguments, do they not? Is it not useful at times to have a jester in the court?
But, allegations of racism and the monumental folly of denying the existence of the Holocaust aside, underneath there is a more serious issue at stake. What Mahmoud and his fellow travellers at Tumeke! are arguing is pretty standard stuff from an ethical perspective. They are proposing that an historical injustice has been committed with the formation of Israel in 1945 and subsequent years. They are arguing further that historical injustices must be removed and reversed. Therefore, Israel must be dismantled and the Palestinians put back or restored to a pre-1945 condition.
Now there is a plethora of groups, nations, peoples who would have a great deal of sympathy with this way of thinking. Displaced indigenous peoples the world over for one. ("We were here first and you took the land off us.") Aggrieved groups amongst Ukrainian, Irish, Scottish, Tamil and other people groups would also raise their hands.
We, for our part, have to agree that the creation of the modern state of Israel was more a manifestation of realipolitik rather than an application of the principles of international law. The continuing displacement of the Palestinian people is an injustice pure and simple. Zionist extremism and terrorism was just as evil as any other terrorism. If the UN insisted, for example, at the behest of Britain and the United States, that displaced refugees out of Afghanistan and other places should be granted a homeland north of Whangarei to the Cape in order to right the injustice of Islamic terrorism, and that all people currently living in Northland would have to decamp southwards upon command, most reasonable people in this country would regard that as an unlawful action.
But regrettably, such things happen in a fallen world. This is not to excuse the evil, nor disregard it. But, the attempt to turn the clock back and go back to the way "things were" is the height of folly and is a further wrong. You cannot do evil that good may come. You only create bigger and worse problems. The adage, "two wrongs do not make a right" is apt here. That is why Mahmoud is wrong, if not evil, in calling for the annihilation of the State of Israel. It is also why zealots in Israel who march into Palestinian villages and towns and push out Palenstinian families so they can occupy their "rightful" land are equally wrong.
In this fallen world there is no ideal restoration where all past evils are atoned for, and the afflicted perfectly restituted. The attempt to solve problems by reverting to an earlier time is naive folly. Rather, every generation, having inherited a set of circumstances (much of which may have been wrong and evil) is obligated to do what they can to apply the Law of God to their neighbours as they find them, not agitate to reverse the course of history back to an earlier time.
Rather than living in the past, all men are obligated not to steal, not to covet, not to kill their neighbours, now. These obligations apply across borders as well as within states. Surely, this is one of the most pointed lessons of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. After all, would not the Good Samaritan have had the opportunity to reflect upon all the historical injustices committed to and upon his people by the Jews, stretching back centuries, as he walked that day down to Jericho? But he chose to live in the present and fulfill his obligations to God and his neighbour, as he found him. This is what God requires. To do something else is sinful.
The naive and foolish attempt to reverse history and go back to an earlier time in the supposed attempt to right historical wrongs and remove injustice only serves to perpetrate yet more theft, killing, injustices, and evil. The cycle never ends, and becomes increasingly vicious.
The standard of Jerusalem flies above all people groups and nations. Our restitution, our healing, our salve lies in Christ, not in a vain attempt to right historical wrongs by reversing history. Our duty is to live with our neighbours as He has commanded. Therefore, the cup of cold water needs to be offered daily by Palestinian to Israeli, and by Israeli to Palestinian. All new "legalised" theft, covetousness, and murder must be laid aside. Those who break His Law must be restrained and duly punished for their evil doing. Make restitution wherever possible. But the attempt to punish present generations for the evildoing of former generations is the height of arrogance and folly. The attempt to rewind history is an act of rebellion against the providence of God Himself.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his camp followers, together with his Western liberal cheerleaders, want self-righteously to do evil that good may come. Zionists, in denying the God given right to Palestinians to live in peace, without being driven out of their homes and off their farms for the sake of a spurious historical "title" to their lands is theft pure and simple. They would sow to the wind: they, and their victims, would inherit the whirlwind.
A heated debate has been raging over recent weeks in the NZ blogosphere. One left-leaning blog (some would say so left-leaning as to be lying on the ground) defended good old Mahmoud's rant at the recent UN Conference in Geneva to combat racism.
That great statesman who stands as a veritable colossus astride the world stage, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran used the occasion to denounce the state of Israel and Zionism as the essence of racism. Mahmoud is infamous for his denial of the historical existence of the Holocaust. He has also argued that Israel has no right to exist as a nation and, therefore, he wants to see it obliterated. In this view, he is not alone. It is held in common with most consistent Islamic adherents.
Writers at the blog Tumeke! have supported his remarks, agreeing that Israel was conceived in sin, theft, murder, and rapine. Moreover, since it was a state for Jews, by definition it represents institutionalised racism. Mmmm. One would have thought that Jews were found in many nations and amongst many races, as a universal religion tends to be. Really, the case would be more cogent if Israel were excoriated as "religist" or something like that. But, we digress.
So offended have been some bloggers that they have excommunicated Tumeke!, wanting nothing further to do with such extremism. But wait on--these earnest folk at Tumeke serve a useful purpose from time to time as foils to make sound and cogent arguments, do they not? Is it not useful at times to have a jester in the court?
But, allegations of racism and the monumental folly of denying the existence of the Holocaust aside, underneath there is a more serious issue at stake. What Mahmoud and his fellow travellers at Tumeke! are arguing is pretty standard stuff from an ethical perspective. They are proposing that an historical injustice has been committed with the formation of Israel in 1945 and subsequent years. They are arguing further that historical injustices must be removed and reversed. Therefore, Israel must be dismantled and the Palestinians put back or restored to a pre-1945 condition.
Now there is a plethora of groups, nations, peoples who would have a great deal of sympathy with this way of thinking. Displaced indigenous peoples the world over for one. ("We were here first and you took the land off us.") Aggrieved groups amongst Ukrainian, Irish, Scottish, Tamil and other people groups would also raise their hands.
We, for our part, have to agree that the creation of the modern state of Israel was more a manifestation of realipolitik rather than an application of the principles of international law. The continuing displacement of the Palestinian people is an injustice pure and simple. Zionist extremism and terrorism was just as evil as any other terrorism. If the UN insisted, for example, at the behest of Britain and the United States, that displaced refugees out of Afghanistan and other places should be granted a homeland north of Whangarei to the Cape in order to right the injustice of Islamic terrorism, and that all people currently living in Northland would have to decamp southwards upon command, most reasonable people in this country would regard that as an unlawful action.
But regrettably, such things happen in a fallen world. This is not to excuse the evil, nor disregard it. But, the attempt to turn the clock back and go back to the way "things were" is the height of folly and is a further wrong. You cannot do evil that good may come. You only create bigger and worse problems. The adage, "two wrongs do not make a right" is apt here. That is why Mahmoud is wrong, if not evil, in calling for the annihilation of the State of Israel. It is also why zealots in Israel who march into Palestinian villages and towns and push out Palenstinian families so they can occupy their "rightful" land are equally wrong.
In this fallen world there is no ideal restoration where all past evils are atoned for, and the afflicted perfectly restituted. The attempt to solve problems by reverting to an earlier time is naive folly. Rather, every generation, having inherited a set of circumstances (much of which may have been wrong and evil) is obligated to do what they can to apply the Law of God to their neighbours as they find them, not agitate to reverse the course of history back to an earlier time.
Rather than living in the past, all men are obligated not to steal, not to covet, not to kill their neighbours, now. These obligations apply across borders as well as within states. Surely, this is one of the most pointed lessons of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. After all, would not the Good Samaritan have had the opportunity to reflect upon all the historical injustices committed to and upon his people by the Jews, stretching back centuries, as he walked that day down to Jericho? But he chose to live in the present and fulfill his obligations to God and his neighbour, as he found him. This is what God requires. To do something else is sinful.
The naive and foolish attempt to reverse history and go back to an earlier time in the supposed attempt to right historical wrongs and remove injustice only serves to perpetrate yet more theft, killing, injustices, and evil. The cycle never ends, and becomes increasingly vicious.
The standard of Jerusalem flies above all people groups and nations. Our restitution, our healing, our salve lies in Christ, not in a vain attempt to right historical wrongs by reversing history. Our duty is to live with our neighbours as He has commanded. Therefore, the cup of cold water needs to be offered daily by Palestinian to Israeli, and by Israeli to Palestinian. All new "legalised" theft, covetousness, and murder must be laid aside. Those who break His Law must be restrained and duly punished for their evil doing. Make restitution wherever possible. But the attempt to punish present generations for the evildoing of former generations is the height of arrogance and folly. The attempt to rewind history is an act of rebellion against the providence of God Himself.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his camp followers, together with his Western liberal cheerleaders, want self-righteously to do evil that good may come. Zionists, in denying the God given right to Palestinians to live in peace, without being driven out of their homes and off their farms for the sake of a spurious historical "title" to their lands is theft pure and simple. They would sow to the wind: they, and their victims, would inherit the whirlwind.
Friday, 24 April 2009
Sauce for the Goose
Flies on the Wall in Ros Noonan's Office
Joris De Bres (Race Relations Conciliator) walks into the office of his boss, Ros Noonan, Commissioner for Human Rights. "Ros, we have a problem," he announced self-importantly. "Oh, Ok," said Ros. "At least it will give us something to do today. Things have been pretty quiet lately."
"Well," continued De Bres, "you know I am in trouble with McCully and the right wing fascists in the National Party over going to Geneva to the UN Conference on racism."
"Don't worry about that," interjected Ros. "I approved your trip. We can spin it as a demonstration of the independence of our office. It is vital to our human rights and constitutional fabric to have a Commission for Human Rights that is completely independent of the government, etc. etc. Besides, our friends in the Labour caucus have been banking political capital over the government's stupid boycotting of the UN conference. We had a little informal strategy session the other day. They were very pleased that we had decided to send you over. It really showed the up the racist fascist thuggery within the National caucus. A rather neat contretemps, was how Goffie and Kingsy put it. I said thanks, and reminded them that contretemps are my speciality."
"Ros, I appreciate your support. It has been the highlight of my otherwise lacklustre career to date to work with you. But, my spies tell me that this thing has legs. I mean McCully is mad--well, he is more mad than we thought, is what I mean. You know how he struts around parliament like a little Napoleon. Power has gone to his head and we all know there was nothing else in there to begin with, so it's having free rein. I am reliably informed that he has been discussing with Key that the contretemps is inexcusable. It is just too big a contradiction with the Government. I mean independence is one thing, but McCully thinks there is a conspiracy between ourselves and the Labour caucus. Apparently Key agrees. He thinks a suitably high profile sacking would take people's attention away from worrying about losing their own jobs."
"Well," said Ros, after a long thoughtful pause, "that's unfortunate. But it has been really great working with you. We did some good things while it lasted. Will you be wanting a reference?"
"No, no Ros. You don't understand. It's worse than that. McCully has told Key that you are the one who is the contretemps expert, and that we both have to go. And Key agrees, because he hates contretemps."
"Why didn't you tell me, you overrated obsequient," screeched Ros. "I'm your boss. You are supposed to protect me."
"Look," stammered De Bres. "I've got a plan. We've got to do something big and quick--something so big and compelling and public that they won't dare fire us. You know how you said that our finest hour was when we got our Labour colleagues to ban David Irving from coming to New Zealand. It was like the good old days, standing on the barricades. That horrid monstrous little creep who minces around the world denying the Holocaust--we stomped on him. I realised that day that we are people of destiny, Ros--and so did everyone else.
"Cullen bombasted on our behalf in Parliament. Clark exuded her inner beauty over banning the creep. Everyone loved us, especially the Jewish lobby. "
"Oh, no," groaned Noonan. "I had forgotten. Key is Jewish. How could you be so stupid as to go to that horrible UN Conference on racism. No wonder he's mad. It's contretemps every which way."
"Yes," purred the unctuous De Bres, "but I have not forgotten Key's Jewish connection. And that's why we can use our Irving triumph again, and relive the glory days. Key will really appreciate that--and he won't dare fire us, without being seen to be anti Semitic, which would drop his ratings in the polls to Goffie levels."
"I'll believe that when I see it," snapped Ros. "No-one could ever get as low as Goffie. He's a phenomenon in his own right. Ok, so what do we do? How about a big press release on Anzac Day reminding everyone that the Human Rights Commission struck a decisive blow for humanity by courageously working to have David Irving, Holocaust Denier banned from New Zealand, and that was our part in Hitler's downfall."
"No, that's too subtle for National party people. They would not be able to join up the dots. You know how ignorant they are of history. You do have a tendency, Ros, if I may say so, which in its own way is quite charming, to overrate our opponents. That is a mistake Helen (may she never die) avoided. She saw right through them because she could see there was nothing there. No, we need a new uber-obvious Holocaust Denier to ban--one who is a clear and present danger to our land. One so vile, so perverted, so anti-Semitic that John Key and everyone else will just love us for acting against him. "
"Yes, but who?" wailed Ros.
"Mahmoud, of course. He's the biggest Holocaust Denier the world has ever seen. He's full of racist hate. He's in the news. We will come out on Anzac Day (a nice touch, by the way) and call for the Government to ban him from New Zealand. It will take the wind completely out of McSilly's sails. And Key won't dare fire us, because people will think he harbours secret anti-Semite tendencies."
"Ban Ahmadinejad! What a fantastic idea", enthused Ros. "Yes, the little anti-Semite creep. I have really never liked him, you know. And he's Muslim. That's a plus--I mean, a minus. No-one likes them. Everyone will love a ban. And he's homophobic--so Labour will support us too. But hold on, I made a public statement the other day that there was nothing at all anti-Semitic at the UN conference--before I knew McStupid and Key were going to fire us. That's going to make a call for a ban on dirty Ahmadinejad a bit hollow."
"Ah, Ros. That's what makes you so fantastic. It's all about contretemps--and you are really good at that. You were making the perfectly valid point that after all the pro-semites walked out, the only people left were anti-semite ravers, who, of course, could not see their anti-semite forest for the trees."
"Joris! You are wonderful. You are so right. I really am good at contretemps."
Joris De Bres (Race Relations Conciliator) walks into the office of his boss, Ros Noonan, Commissioner for Human Rights. "Ros, we have a problem," he announced self-importantly. "Oh, Ok," said Ros. "At least it will give us something to do today. Things have been pretty quiet lately."
"Well," continued De Bres, "you know I am in trouble with McCully and the right wing fascists in the National Party over going to Geneva to the UN Conference on racism."
"Don't worry about that," interjected Ros. "I approved your trip. We can spin it as a demonstration of the independence of our office. It is vital to our human rights and constitutional fabric to have a Commission for Human Rights that is completely independent of the government, etc. etc. Besides, our friends in the Labour caucus have been banking political capital over the government's stupid boycotting of the UN conference. We had a little informal strategy session the other day. They were very pleased that we had decided to send you over. It really showed the up the racist fascist thuggery within the National caucus. A rather neat contretemps, was how Goffie and Kingsy put it. I said thanks, and reminded them that contretemps are my speciality."
"Ros, I appreciate your support. It has been the highlight of my otherwise lacklustre career to date to work with you. But, my spies tell me that this thing has legs. I mean McCully is mad--well, he is more mad than we thought, is what I mean. You know how he struts around parliament like a little Napoleon. Power has gone to his head and we all know there was nothing else in there to begin with, so it's having free rein. I am reliably informed that he has been discussing with Key that the contretemps is inexcusable. It is just too big a contradiction with the Government. I mean independence is one thing, but McCully thinks there is a conspiracy between ourselves and the Labour caucus. Apparently Key agrees. He thinks a suitably high profile sacking would take people's attention away from worrying about losing their own jobs."
"Well," said Ros, after a long thoughtful pause, "that's unfortunate. But it has been really great working with you. We did some good things while it lasted. Will you be wanting a reference?"
"No, no Ros. You don't understand. It's worse than that. McCully has told Key that you are the one who is the contretemps expert, and that we both have to go. And Key agrees, because he hates contretemps."
"Why didn't you tell me, you overrated obsequient," screeched Ros. "I'm your boss. You are supposed to protect me."
"Look," stammered De Bres. "I've got a plan. We've got to do something big and quick--something so big and compelling and public that they won't dare fire us. You know how you said that our finest hour was when we got our Labour colleagues to ban David Irving from coming to New Zealand. It was like the good old days, standing on the barricades. That horrid monstrous little creep who minces around the world denying the Holocaust--we stomped on him. I realised that day that we are people of destiny, Ros--and so did everyone else.
"Cullen bombasted on our behalf in Parliament. Clark exuded her inner beauty over banning the creep. Everyone loved us, especially the Jewish lobby. "
"Oh, no," groaned Noonan. "I had forgotten. Key is Jewish. How could you be so stupid as to go to that horrible UN Conference on racism. No wonder he's mad. It's contretemps every which way."
"Yes," purred the unctuous De Bres, "but I have not forgotten Key's Jewish connection. And that's why we can use our Irving triumph again, and relive the glory days. Key will really appreciate that--and he won't dare fire us, without being seen to be anti Semitic, which would drop his ratings in the polls to Goffie levels."
"I'll believe that when I see it," snapped Ros. "No-one could ever get as low as Goffie. He's a phenomenon in his own right. Ok, so what do we do? How about a big press release on Anzac Day reminding everyone that the Human Rights Commission struck a decisive blow for humanity by courageously working to have David Irving, Holocaust Denier banned from New Zealand, and that was our part in Hitler's downfall."
"No, that's too subtle for National party people. They would not be able to join up the dots. You know how ignorant they are of history. You do have a tendency, Ros, if I may say so, which in its own way is quite charming, to overrate our opponents. That is a mistake Helen (may she never die) avoided. She saw right through them because she could see there was nothing there. No, we need a new uber-obvious Holocaust Denier to ban--one who is a clear and present danger to our land. One so vile, so perverted, so anti-Semitic that John Key and everyone else will just love us for acting against him. "
"Yes, but who?" wailed Ros.
"Mahmoud, of course. He's the biggest Holocaust Denier the world has ever seen. He's full of racist hate. He's in the news. We will come out on Anzac Day (a nice touch, by the way) and call for the Government to ban him from New Zealand. It will take the wind completely out of McSilly's sails. And Key won't dare fire us, because people will think he harbours secret anti-Semite tendencies."
"Ban Ahmadinejad! What a fantastic idea", enthused Ros. "Yes, the little anti-Semite creep. I have really never liked him, you know. And he's Muslim. That's a plus--I mean, a minus. No-one likes them. Everyone will love a ban. And he's homophobic--so Labour will support us too. But hold on, I made a public statement the other day that there was nothing at all anti-Semitic at the UN conference--before I knew McStupid and Key were going to fire us. That's going to make a call for a ban on dirty Ahmadinejad a bit hollow."
"Ah, Ros. That's what makes you so fantastic. It's all about contretemps--and you are really good at that. You were making the perfectly valid point that after all the pro-semites walked out, the only people left were anti-semite ravers, who, of course, could not see their anti-semite forest for the trees."
"Joris! You are wonderful. You are so right. I really am good at contretemps."
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