Archive for the ‘anti-Semitism’ Category

An open Tubularsock statement to The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Edna Frieberg’s press release on Holocaust Analogies.

 

Tubularsock would say that EVERY holocaust survivor in the U.S should be ON THE FRONT LINES in reminding everyone that when a government starts putting people in “camps” like in Nazi Germany it is a step TOWARD a possible tragic and horrendous outcome.

And to demean people and treat them inhumanly and then blame them is exactly what the Nazi’s did to the Jews, homosexuals and Gypsies, so the analogy isn’t some far fetched idea it is an actual reality. And occurring in the United States RIGHT NOW!

The concentration camps on our Southern Boarder are not some intellectual abstract grammatical debate. They exist NOW!

And just to become clear, attempting to keep from any analogy the term “concentration camps” for fear that some people may have “painful memories” is unfortunate but you have to remember that Jews have not cornered the market on that term!

It is like saying that NOTHING can be compared with the pain and murder of the Jews during WWII because it may cause painful memories. That is the price of admission to preventing having it happen again.

Of ALL the people who should be out and on the vanguard AGAINST any form of government orchestrated camps it should be those who know the horrors of such actions toward groups of people!

It shouldn’t be up to Tubularsock to remind the Holocaust Museum that “in the beginning” Jews didn’t realize what would happen to them and “followed orders” rather than refused to follow the orders at the risk of death.

The difference is one of open resistance and thereby exposing the action to the general population as to what the German Government was doing.

By not saying NO in mass allowed them to be taken away without the advantage of exposure BEFOREHAND and thus mass murder was done without the general German population knowing what was being done.

Unfortunately, Edna Friedbery presents a point of observation so myopic and distorted that one can not find it tenable. What is happening NOW is the same as when Germany STARTED their program. And to intellectualize the warning signs is exactly what many Jews did prior to the tragedy that occurred during WWII.

Remember: The first “camps” were “work camps” and from that the Jews walked into hell!

To wallow around in the pain of the past without making an overt stand against the same beginning atrocities in the present is ONLY GOOD if one’s “victim status” is their life crutch!

That is why if there is any lesson to be taken here is that PUTING PEOPLE INTO CONCENTRATION CAMPS BY ANY GOVERNMENT should be a red flag for those who have witnessed and lived through the possible outcome.

IT IS HAPPENING NOW and that must be recognized. It is the only way to stop its continuance into something far worse.

Tubularsock urges The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to make a public stand against the Concentration Camps on our Southern Boarder as well as standing against the outrageous treatment being perpetrated upon refugees coming into the United States.

ANY THING LESS IS HYPOCRISY OF YOUR STATED GOALS.

 

Please note: This is a response by Tubularsock to a press release by The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the link to that press release is https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/why-holocaust-analogies-are-dangerous

 

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AIN’T LIFE A BITCH: UKRAINE

With Tubularsock focused on his run for the White House which if elected will be painted RED as a reminder of the amount of blood the U.S. has demanded from the rest of the world. They just are not cooperating with the U.S. imperial takeover.

Damn foreigners …… wanting to do it their way and they DON’T EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH!

The current President of the Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko has petitioned the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to: “. . . acknowledge that the law ‘on the removal of the presidential title from Viktor Yanukovych’ as unconstitutional.”

Now ain’t that the shit!

Petro Poroshenko “. . . admitted prior to 26 February 2014, to the EU’s investigator, and right after the February 22nd overthrow of Yanukovych, that the overthrow was a coup . . .”

He also admitted “. . . that it was even a false flag operation, in which the snipers, who were dressed as if they were Ukrainian Security Bureau troops, were actually not . . .”

The EU investigator’s report stated, “. . . all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers, from both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, that they were the same snipers, killing people from both sides . . . Behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.”

Now anyone who has followed this American orchestrated Ukrainian overthrow and the subsequent blaming of the “Russian-invasion” of Ukraine will not be surprised that the Nazis that have been put in power by the American State Department’s very own Victoria Nuland are now planning to assemble in Kiev on July 3rd to overthrow Poroshenko unless he restarts right now the war against the Donbass region.

These Nazi are the same group that the U.S. hired for the coup and for the ethnic cleansing campaign in Ukraine’s former Donbass region which the Nazi-Loving-Nuland supported.

Meanwhile back at the ranch ……..

The UN General Assembly’s Third Committee passed a Russia-proposed resolution condemning attempts to glorify Nazism ideology and denial of German Nazi war crimes. The US, Canada and Ukraine were the only countries to vote against it.

So, if the Constitutional Court of Ukraine grants Poroshenko’s petition “. . . then the appointment of Arseniy Yatsenyuk by the U.S. State Department’s Victoria Nuland on 4 February 2014, which was confirmed by the Ukrainian parliament (or Rada) at the end of the coup on February 26th, and the other appointments which were made, including that of Oleksandr Turchynov to fill in for Yanukovych as caretaker President until one of the junta’s chosen candidates would be ‘elected’ on May 25th of 2014, which ‘election’ Poroshenko won — all of this was illegal.” (Eric Zuesse, “Ukraine’s Pres. Poroshenko Says Overthrow of Yanukovych Was a Coup”)

Are you following this?

Now is Petro Poroshenko doing this because he see the writing on the wall that the U.S. is about to toss him out and install the Nazis directly and forget all pretense in order to go after Russia?one way dead end

And if that is the case then the fact that Poroskenko’s election was illegal would also make the new installed Nazi Ukrainian Government illegal as well.

Which might play into Poroskenko hands at a later date.

Meanwhile back at the ranch ……..

US Will Provide Weapons For NATO Commandos Attack Ukrainian Separatists” (Kurt Nimmo,  Global Research)

Which is a clear sign that the U.S. is leaning toward the Nazis desire to resume attacking Donbass.

So the game is simple. We have the Neocons in the form of Victoria Nuland pressuring Obummer to back the Nazi’s against the Russians. And Samantha Powers voting against the anti-Nazi Russian proposal at the U.N. because it was the Russians that proposed it and the U.S. is backing Nazis in Ukraine.

You know, Obummer is just rotten at foreign policy as well as health care. The boy has no backbone. Supporting Nazis? Supporting ISIS? Supporting Corporate Profit Care?

Is this country just a little bit sick in the head, or what?

Meanwhile back at the ranch ……..

“Gazprom and Royal Dutch Shell are teaming up on several energy projects that will benefit both. The two energy companies have agreed to build an expansion of the Nord Stream Pipeline, a major natural gas pipeline that travels beneath the Baltic Sea. The pipeline is a priority for Russia, which will allow it to expand its natural gas exports to Europe while also cutting out Ukraine from the mix.” (Charles Kennedy, OilPrice.com) Gazprom-Shell logo

So it’s business as usual for the oil corporations even with all these sanctions that the U.S. forced on the Russians over the Ukraine mess. You see money and corporate-power-plays trump the games being played out by mere nation states. And as TPP proceeds the future will just be directed by CEO’s not Presidents.

But does it matter? Our vote really doesn’t count for either anyway.

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PLOTTING THE PLOT

A long time ago on a dark, cold, windy night someone told Tubularsock that there were only seven basic plots in literature. Now Tubularsock has never cared to find out if that is true or not but Tubularsock does know one thing. When it comes to the CIA, Mossad, M15, and DCRI there is only ONE PLOT and it is the one they are cooking up!

Which leads us to the current plot. The one that has caused the world to focus.  But hey, it’s a secret plot so like any basic magic trick …… the hand is quicker than the eye.

And the “ayes” have it but they are wrong! Always watch the hands.

So what is this Charlie Hebdo shoot out at the “OK” corral REALLY all about.

Ok. Lets start with an odd (or not) happening. On Thursday, January 8th The second-largest French public TV channel reported that:

The police commissioner, Helric Fredou , 45, who had been investigating the January 7th Charlie Hebdo attack was found DEAD in his office at about 1 a.m.

Oh well, you know …… standard operating procedure for the French police.

He reportedly met earlier with the family of a victim of the Charlie Hebdo attack and died before completing a report that he had been compiling.

Well you know the press ……. blood and guts sell, right!

Now remember this was reported by the SECOND-LARGEST French public TV channel on the 8th.

But it wasn’t until January 12 that the British press picked up the story. But that’s understandable because they are across the Channel.

And coming last place ………. January 13 ……….. the U.S. press. Well, the Atlantic!

Now that is just part of FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. They can report breaking stories whenever the fuck they please. And just maybe the six corporations that own the free press may not be interested in any details of the Charlie Hebdo attack.

You know, the parade’s over …….. let’s move on to college football. That’s what the public really is interested in, right?

Now Commissioner Fredou, it was reported, had been suffering from depression and experienced burn-out. He used his own gun and committed suicide. And that all may be true, Tubularsock sure doesn’t know Commissioner Fredou personal problems. But Tubularsock does know the ambulance chasing press and when they do something out of character ….. Even the Tabloids, well THAT’S news.

Why no coverage?

Oh sure Tubularsock has a theory ……… removing the focus on this entire event is where it’s at now because if one starts to pay real attention to it, well there are some holes in the story. In fact, the more you look the more like French-Swiss cheese it appears. Now that’s a delicacy!

You know, one could ask …….. who really did this Charlie Hebdo event which is being compared to 9/11. And that is a great comparison because who did 9/11 still hasn’t been determined. In fact, slowly much truth that the government’s narrative of that tragic event is just wrong continues to flow into public view. Yet the game continues.

Oh ……… don’t look, nothing to see here. Keep moving…..

So let Tubularsock define the players for you because it appears, right on schedule, they are attempting to move the goal post.

“IN THE BEGINNING ………..” there were terrorists 2 by 2 or was it 1 by 3. No, 1 by 1. Oh fuck it …….. forget in the beginning!

“IN THE SECOND COMING …….” there was Anwar al-Awlaki and he was droned to death by the Obomber Team in 2011. In September of all months of 2000 … 11. You have got to thank the Washington, D.C. PR firm for being symbolically creative for that kill date.

Anwar al-Awlaki

But how time changes. Back in 2001 Awlaki was the imam (worship leader) of the mosque in Falls Church, Virginia. And at that time he was considered a “moderate-Moslem” you know the kind. The ones in todays world Congress votes to fund with arms to fight in Syria as Western mercenaries and attempt to other-throw the Assad government.

Now Anwar al-Awlaki was an American citizen born in New Mexico and had all what American citizens have …….. a RIGHT to a fair trial for crimes and misdemeanors.

No more. The President can kill anyone he wants. And yes he has the power to do so and there are “legal reasons” he has that power BUT YOU CAN”T SEE THEM because they are secret. And for you to see the rationale for those powers would risk national security. The Supreme Court says so!

Back in 2001 Awlaki was the go-to guy in Washington, D.C. as a media source to answer questions about Islam and the 9/11 attacks. The New York Times  and National Geographic both interviewed him.

He even was invited into the Pentagon to a luncheon in the Secretary’s Office of General Counsel because the Secretary of the Army asked for a presentation from a moderate Muslim as part of an “outreach effort” to ease tensions with Muslim-Americans.

Now this may seem odd but remember white people are not really in tune with those brown Middle Eastern types so we want to “outreach”. It falls into that same shit about “what do black people want” syndrome. So, of course ……. we out-reach!

Hey, it’s the best the main stream whites can do. Because they don’t want to live next door to them!

But one could ask what has Awlaki got to do with the Charlie Hebdo business? Awlaki is DEAD.

Well come to find out back in 2010, Anwar al-Awlaki issued death threats to cartoonists, journalists, and writers from Britain, Sweden, Denmark and the United States for slandering the Prophet Mohammed by drawing cartoons of him and “who are going out of their way to offend Muslims worldwide” as he expressed in Inspire an al-Qaeda magazine.

You see Awlaki “turned radical” around 2006. You know those fucking moderates. You just can’t depend on them. And he went into hiding.

While he was imam at the masque in Falls Church he preached to 3000 members and three of them were 911 hijackers who were al-Qaeda members. “He even spoke with them!” (OMG) Hmmm, 2,997 …… 3.(Do you think a Catholic priest could have criminals attending his mass occasionally?)  The FBI even met with him to discuss his relationship with them.

And if that isn’t enough Awlaki in 2001, presided at the funeral of the mother of Nidal Malik Hasan the Army psychiatrist who later e-mailed him extensively in 2008–09 before the Fort Hood shootings. (must be a link …. he presided at Hasan’s mother’s funeral)!

Hey, Awlaki even associated with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Come on you remember. The Nigerian Christmas Day bomber, the underwear bomber! In fact, Awlaki was ALLEGEDLY involved in planning the attack.

You remember. Abdulmutallab was escorted onto the plane in Amsterdam by a man “of authority” without a passport, visa, or luggage. Gosh no red flag there. And he attempted to detonated his ass-bomb near landing time on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, en route to Detroit, Michigan. This occurred when Israeli intelligence was in charge of the Amsterdam airport security.

And gosh, you do remember Abdulmutallab’s father even informed the U.S. embassy that his son had “been radicalized” before the event.

Funny thing, Awlaki wasn’t in control of the Amsterdam airport or the American Embassy.  And Awlaki is conveniently DEAD but still lives as you will see!

But finally the tie in ………… Said Kouachi, one of the brothers responsible for the Charlie Hedbo attack, according to The Associated Press, had lived with Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber.

And Abdulmutallab had been, in fact working under cover for Saudi intelligence and the CIA when he was given a new non­metallic type bomb aimed at getting past airport security. That was according to what US and Yemeni officials had told The Associated Press in May 2012.

So.

Now we have Chérif Kouachi and Said Kouachi as the weapons of choice to attack Charlie Hebdo. And we have Amedy Coulibaly the terrorist who was involved in killing an unarmed woman police officer and he was the hostage-taker and gunman in the kosher market where four of the hostages were killed.

Kouachi Bros

But during the market crisis the hostages said that Coulibaly yelled out:

“We are just telling you we are the defenders of the prophet and that I Chérif Kouachi have been sent by Al Qaida of Yemen and that I went over there and that Anwar Al- Awaki financed me.”

Coulibaly&Boumeddiene

The three men were all members of the same Paris jihadist cell.

Now is that a bit odd to you? Notice the quote doesn’t say “I” (Coulibaly) but “I” (Chérif Kouachi) and proceeds to tie in Al Qaida and Anwar Al-Awaki.

And then think about the Kouachi brothers conveniently leaving their ID in the getaway car.

Well Dr. Watson it appears someone is trying to tell us something. And rather emphatically.

But it is useful to know that Chérif Kouachi, Said Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly had been tracked and monitored because they were involved is terrorist activities. They were arrested many times, yet were allowed to continue training and plotting with fellow Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria groups.

Then about 6 months ago, French intelligence decided the suspects’ serial offenses along with their direct contact with Al Qaeda – including the receiving of terrorist training and battlefield experience fighting along side them in Syria – were “low risk” cases and therefore not worthy of their attention.

And if you are interested, six months, coincidentally, is about the typical length of time that security and intelligence “sting operations” take to set up and target terrorists operations. This time frame provides an appropriate time within which an event like these attacks could have been planned, funded, and eventually carried out.

It does follow a trusted pattern. A blatantly obvious terror cell, known to authorities, “drops out of sight”, and then set loose at an appropriate moment. And then executed making sure that the “terrorists” are executed as well. Mission accomplished.

This pretty much has all the telltale signs of a guided military-intelligence operation.

And the “hit-date” was pre-planned because Coulbaly drove his wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, to Madrid, Spain and stayed with her until January 2nd when he returned to France and she flew on to Istanbul, Turkey stayed for four days then moved to Akçakale,Turkey and then crossed into Syria on January 8th the day of the attack. Her movements were watched by MIT (Turkey’s intelligence agency) using cellphone tracking.

Well what does all this mean? Why was this attack carried out? Who wins?

Tubularsock figures first, who needs to be scared into line? AND WHY?

The short list for the possible rationale for this attack is as follows:

1. The U.S. government executed the attack to punish France for its independent foreign policy, citing its vote at the United Nations to recognize Palestine as a state.

2.Both France and Germany are baulking over the economic hit they are taking over the Russian sanctions. And talking about ending them. This attack could have been done to refocus their commitment to the American cause.

3.NATO needs public support of its ISIS war and it’s Syrian destruction. The attack could help to enrage the publics of Europe into a stronger fear based hatred of Moslems.

4.France is being targeted by Israel since its lower house last month voted to recognize Palestine, which allowed the occupied state to become part of the International Criminal Court, with the power to hold the Zionist state responsible for genocide. An enraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that it would be a “grave mistake” if the French parliament recognized Palestinian statehood.

5.The President of Turkey has suggested French security forces are to blame for the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, since the culprits had recently served prison sentences.

Doesn’t their intelligence organization track those who leave prison?

“French citizens carry out such a massacre, and Muslims pay the price,” President Erdogan said.

In any chess match you may have to sacrifice a few pawns in order to check-mate the King. Pawns are expendable to a point.

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Zbigniew Brzezinski, in his 1998 book The Grand Chessboard states that, “Without sustained and directed American involvement, before long the forces of global disorder could come to dominate the world scene. And the possibility of such a fragmentation is inherent in the geopolitical tensions not only of today’s Eurasia but of the world more generally  . . . that puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America’s primacy.”

Whatever the case whenever these types of terrorist activities take place it is safe to say that somewhere in the line of command you’ll find the CIA and Mossad …… hey, that’s what they do.

Remember, it was the CIA  that  assisted in creating al-Qaeda.

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Charlie Hebdo: FULL SPEED AHEAD!

Tubularsock has been mulling over this entire Charlie Hebdo cartoon mess.

It was truly fantastic to see people actually get off their butts and go to the streets in a statement of freedom of speech. And then Tubularsock realized that it was happening in France not the United States. So it isn’t as fantastic as it appears because the French have always gone to the streets in protests.

Years ago while Tubularsock was bopping around France he bumped into a huge protest in the streets of Paris himself. Tubularsock doesn’t speak French but he does drink French wine which gives him credibility in understanding.

The protest Tubularsock finally figured out was in favor of the French librarians being on strike.

No, you got that right ….. The French LIBRARIANS! (les bibliothécaires Français)

Tubularsock marveled at the size of the protest and was flabbergasted at the support for Librarians. WTF?

Leaving the protest and cutting through to smaller back streets Tubularsock ran smack into truck loads of the French military decked out in riot gear.

Come to find out street protest in France get out of hand often.

Side note: From that day forward Tubularsock has never had a library fine for late books. Librarians are a force to contend with! Some things just stick with you.

The French live in a cafe culture where people are out in the public sphere all the time and they know what is politically going on not only in France but in the world AND they express their opinion about it publicly.

And to see Voltaire’s statement being paraded about, “I may disagree with what you say but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”, was music to Tubularsock’s core beliefs.

Je Suis Tube

Which brings up some bottom line issues for Tubularsock.

Tubularsock really likes to at least attempt to take people as individuals and not as groups. On a one to one bases even an ass-hole has some good qualities. So grouping people as “All Moslems, All Jews, All Christians, All Atheists” doesn’t really make too much sense if you want to understand somebody else that isn’t like you.

And when “All Moslems, All Jews, All Christians, All Atheists” are grouped like that then usually they are grouped so as to ascribe some negative aspect to them. Not that you can’t dig some shit up about all of them but in general people are individuals.

That is where some issues come up that Tubularsock is attempting to explore.

Charlie Hebdo cartoons have always covered everyone across the board and make satirical positions whether using cartoons or words to push their view. And hell satire is funny.

But why is it that in France as Chris Hedges points out, “. . . a Holocaust denier, or someone who denies the Armenian genocide, can be imprisoned for a year and forced to pay a $60,000 fine. It is a criminal act in France to mock the Holocaust the way Charlie Hebdo mocked Islam.”

Why is that?

And Hedges continues to point out that, “French high school students must be taught about the Nazi persecution of the Jews, but these same students read almost nothing in their textbooks about the widespread French atrocities, including a death toll among Algerians that some sources set at more than 1 million, in the Algerian war for independence against colonial France.”

Why is that?

And just why is it that the media seemed to have missed the 2000 Nigerian, mostly women and children” that were slaughtered by Boko Haram the Islamist group and focused all their attention on the Paris attack.

Well Tubularsock does find Russell Brand’s explanation having some merit. Brand says that we (Western peoples) can identify with the Paris attack because we live in that type of environment ourselves while a “village” seems a stretch to identify with because it is not familiar. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg8Y0WpbfZw)

Why is that?

Have we as a people EVER really had the ability to walk in the other guys moccasins?

Tubularsock thinks not ………

And the reason Tubularsock thinks not is because if we had that ability we a long time ago would have stopped this constant killing and taking other peoples life, liberty and pursuit of happiness!

It appears to Tubularsock as institutions “All Moslems, All Jews, All Christians, All Atheists” have all created reason why walking in the other guys moccasins is of value but continue in reality to justify killing so as to grab those moccasins off their dead feet!

Now Tubularsock is not interested in taking a stand and walking out on the end of the limb without it being a true stand for a core belief. Tubularsock is not interested in riling people up without a good reason. Of course, in truth, Tubularsock can ALWAYS find a good reason. And Tubularsock can go off the deep end for the fun of it as well.

But poking someone with a stick doesn’t usually get a positive understanding in return.

Charlie Hebdo did a lot of anti-Muslim theme cartoons but they did a lot of anti-Pope cartoons and anti-political cartoons. They would have gone after the Jews but didn’t …. as Carlos Latuff, the Arab Brazilian freelance political cartoonist, so aptly conveys the double standard below:

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You just have to remember if they make fun of YOU it’s not funny. If they make fun of THEM it’s funny.

Well Tubularsock can stretch his emotional view across this entire divide.

Tubularsock believes, the world as we know it is such a painful place that we should not rile people up. Just let them believe as they wish. But then again Tubularsock believes, fuck all that maybe a cartoon depicting Allah as a pile of pig shit will settle it.

And those extreme views rattle around in Tubularsock’s head ALL THE TIME!

But more to the point ……. Tubularsock doesn’t have a bone to pick with Allah or God, or Mohammad, or Jesus, or Buddha for that matter. No, Tubularsock leaves all the fantasy manipulations to Disney.

Tubularsock has a bone to pick with the ignorant Air Force Captain who reads his Bible and then climbs into his jet and bombs the fuck out of his fellow humans beings.

Tubularsock has a bone to pick with that ignorant mujahid who reads his Koran and then marches off to bomb the fuck out of all those who don’t believe as he does.

Tubularsock has a bone to pick with the governments that play the ignorant to achieve domination over others.

But most of all Tubularsock has a bone to pick with all those who don’t realize that we are all one …….. now how fucking simple is that?

This entire Charlie Hebdo cartoon mess falls back to that playground scene most everyone who went to grade school has witnessed.

You know ……. “if you step over that line I’ll punch you”.

And what ALWAYS happens?

Yep.

And just like the playground scene there are the background players who egg each side on.

And Tubularsock still has the 10 year old stance when it comes to being “warned” not to do something. Tubularsock’s “adult-self” likes to be reasonable and rational about decision making but confronted with that WARNING/THREAT from anyone over anything and Tubularsock ALWAYS jumps to his 10 year old self.

Now Tubularsock would like at this point to say that he had overcome his 10 year old response for his adult-self response. But in truth the only thing that has changed is that when someone gives that WARNING/THREAT Tubularsock steps back three paces. Not to take an adult appraisal of the situation but to give himself more speed as he head butts the fucker.

Well, so much for all those anger management sessions.

Just when will mankind wake up and say enough? You know the answer as well as Tubularsock and that is why Tubularsock just happens to be selling bulletproof vests.

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TUBE HEADING ART

 

Now Tubularsock ran across this article by Lawrence Davidson who is a retired professor of history from West Chester University in West Chester PA. His academic research focused on the history of American foreign relations with the Middle East. He taught courses in Middle East history, the history of science and modern European intellectual history.

Now this is a view about the Israel-Palestinian Conflict that Tubularsock happens to agree with and the insights here are well documented.

Tubularsock, as always, encourages comments. Feel free to say what you mean!

“But Is It Good for the Jews?”

If you are over fifty and were raised in a Jewish household, you either heard this question, “but is it good for the Jews?” explicitly asked numerous times or were subtly encouraged to think the question to yourself. It reflects a group-centered concern born of the memory of anti-Semitic hostility and a seemingly unending vulnerability, and it can apply to almost any public action: federal or local legislation, cultural trends, foreign policy decisions, etc.

I do not know how many of the younger generation of American Jews, known to be very secular and prone to religious intermarriage, still ask this question, but there can be no doubt that it is still there on the tips of almost every Jewish tongue of that generation for whom World War II is still well remembered.

After World War II most Jews assumed that the Zionist movement and the Israeli state were good for the Jews. Indeed, they assumed that they were necessary goods – necessary for the very survival of the Jewish people. To that end, it was alleged, Israel would provide a haven from the anti-Semitism that so devastated the Jews of Europe.

There were those who took issue with this perspective, but they were few in number and without influence. Zionism triumphed and in 1948 the State of Israel was proclaimed. Today we have 66 years of history to judge Zionism and Israeli nationalism. So, after these six and a half decades, it is time we ask the question once more. Can we still assume that Zionism and Israel are good for the Jews?

Part II – Looking for the Answer

Here are some observations, given by thoughtful and knowledgable people, both Jews and non-Jews, and some facts easily accessed, that help us answer the question:

— Israeli behavior toward the Palestinians has involved tactics of ethnic cleansing and mass murder, often justified as “self-defense.” In terms of the latest violence in Gaza, the United Nations estimates that at least 73% of the fatalities inflicted by Israel were civilians. There is good evidence that Israel has been purposely targeting Gaza economic assets so as to impoverish its people. To this end Israel’s Deputy Interior Minister Eli Yishai proclaimed that the “goal of the operation [code-named Protective Edge by the Israeli military] is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages.”

— How do Israeli Jews feel about this situation? Or perhaps a better way of putting this would be: how have Israeli Jews been culturally programmed to judge such behavior on the part of their government? According to the latest polls up to 97% of them support the current operation in Gaza. Do outside opinions matter to them? Not to most. 63% assume that “the whole world is against us.”

These numbers suggest that only a very few Israeli Jews understand what is happening to them as they live their lives in a state dedicated to the displacement of another people and the absorption of their land.

— One of those who sees the damage to the Jews is Zeev Sternhell, a well-known scholar and “Israel prize laureate.” He equates present-day Israel to Vichy France – a country “falling into the hands of the right-wing with the support of a vast majority of the population.” This includes the intellectuals, whom he defines as the “professors and the journalists.” Thus, the attack on Gaza has led to “absolute conformism on the part of Israel’s intellectuals” and the “intellectual bankruptcy of the mass media.” According to Sternhell “democracy crumbles when the intellectuals, the educated classes, toe the line of the thugs or look at them with a smile.”

— There is also a sense of alarm among some Jews outside of Israel. Henry Siegman is president of the U.S./Middle East Project and former national director of the American Jewish Congress. Referring to the latest Israeli attack on Gaza, Siegman observes that “the slaughter of Palestinian civilians and the Dresden-like reduction to rubble of large parts of Gaza by Israel’s military forces in the name of its own citizens’ security has exposed the hypocrisy that lies at the heart of Israel’s dealings with the Palestinians. Israel’s claim to the right of self-defense in order to prevent its victims’ emergence from under its occupation is the ultimate expression of chutzpa.”

In addition he notes that “Too many Israelis seem to believe – indeed, to take absolutely for granted – that they have the God-given right to occupy, suppress, disenfranchise and displace non-Jews … in Israel.”

Siegman is not alone in his condemnation. Recently a number of Holocaust survivors and children of survivors placed a notice in the New York Times. In part it stated: “We are alarmed by the extreme, racist dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli society. … In Israel, politicians and pundits in The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post have called openly for genocide of Palestinians and right-wing Israelis are adopting Neo-Nazi insignia.”

— Scott McConnell, the founding editor of the American Conservative is not Jewish, but he too has been observing Israeli behavior and its evolution. Here is how he describes the country’s present state: “This now is Israel, a country … where imposing collective punishment of innocents is the main point, whose elected officials pine openly for concentration camps and genocide. … Hyper-nationalistic, loaded with nuclear weapons, deeply racist, persuaded that opposition to it is derived from anti-Semitism, feeling that the Holocaust gives it license to do whatever it wants and that the normal rules of international conduct will never apply to it.”

So, we must ask, just how good is all this for the Jews?

Part III – Rising Anti-Semitism

Let’s recall that Israel’s reason for being was to give Jews shelter from the ravages of anti-Semitism. That was certainly Theodor Herzl’s motivation. By any rational standard, Zionist Israel has failed in this regard. Indeed, with but very few exceptions, it is hard to imagine anywhere less safe for Jews than present-day Israel. And, there is growing evidence that Israeli behavior is a major source of today’s increasing anti-Semitism.

M. J. Rosenberg, a well-known Jewish American commentator, has analyzed this latter issue and noted the difference in levels of publicly expressed anti-Semitic feelings during the leadership of Yitzhak Rabin and Benjamin Netanyahu. His suggestion is that when it appeared, during Rabin’s prime ministership, that Israel wanted a just peace with the Palestinians (whether this appearance was accurate or not), public expressions of anti-Semitism went down.

However, when Israel behaves with wanton aggression against Palestinians, as it has in Gaza, instances of anti-Semitism go up. Since wanton aggression has certainly characterized most of the history of Israeli behavior toward Palestinians, it is fair to say that such actions constitute an important source of growing anti-Semitism.

Part IV – Finding the Answer

Most Zionists and Israeli Jews are ideologues. That is, they see the world through the ideology of Zionism and Israeli nationalism, and this narrows their ability to see things, especially their own behavior, in an objective way. For instance, they insist that their economic impoverishment, ethnic cleansing and periodic slaughter of the Palestinians are carried out in “self-defense.”

However, they absolutely refuse to consider that Palestinian violence against Israel is a reaction to Israeli policies and practices, particularly those of occupation, land confiscation and police state rule. In other words, Zionism and Israeli nationalism have blinded Israeli policy makers and their supporters to the consequences of their actions. That state of mind is not good for anyone, be they individuals or groups.

So we are brought back to our original question – can we assume that Zionism and Israel are good for the Jews? The answer is no, we cannot. Zionism failed the Jews by insisting on an Israel for one group alone. That insistence has inevitably led to racism, discrimination and ethnic cleansing.

These are not practices that have characterized modern Jewry and so it is simply wrong to equate Zionism with Judaism and insist that Israel stands in for the world’s Jews – errors now made by both Zionists and real anti-Semites. The more Jews who understand this, and begin to publicly distance themselves from both Zionism and Israel, the better, for they can safely assume both are bad for the Jews.

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