>> Start here: define "race". If you can't say what the necessary characteristics of a race are, how can you claim Jews are a race? <<
as with everything, it's a matter of convenience. if it is convenient to refer to jews as a race, they do so. if it suits them to refer to jews only as religious or cultural figures, they do so.
>> I have observed a great deal more Jewish life and culture than you might believe <<
great! i hope you will share your conclusions with me.
>> And, no, contrary to Evil Vermin's claim, I am not Jewish. <<
well i'm not aware of this spat between you and him, but from what i've read of his posts, i do not believe him to hate jews. i think that people like emile and myself feel we must spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on jewish shortcomings simply to try to counter the unbalanced efforts spent by the mainstream media outlets who focus on the shortcomings of all non-jews, usually to the exclusion of jews. if the jewish supremacists and their supporters in the media did not spend so much time vilifying christians, moslems, and essentially everyone who doesn't agree with their plans for a new world order, we would not have to focus such energy on countering that jewish slant. the article below speaks to this.
>> What would you say of someone who made the sort of charges he does against Muslims? Are ALL Muslims evil murdering terrotists? Or a majority? <<
i do not recall seeing emile vidrine post that all or a majority of any group are murdering terrorists.
DISCUSSION OF ANTISEMITISM
israelshamir.net
By Israel Shamir
(excerpts)
It is very possible that these opinions will be as unpleasant to us as those of the Jewish chicken-hawks in the Pentagon. As an Israeli citizen, I wouldn't enjoy an appeal to nuke Israel or to remove all Jews from positions of influence in the US. However, these unpleasant opinions would provide a much needed balance to the present assault of philo-Semitism. Joe Public, while exposed to these opinions, will take his middle ground. This good man will say: 'Oh no, we should not nuke Israel! Maybe trade embargo and naval blockade will be sufficient'. Or: 'Oh no, not our wonderful Jewish mayor, but Perle and Wolfovitz can go'.
An extreme position will usually lose. The adversary knows it and ensures the presence of his own extreme voices in discourse. David Duke is forever barred from participation in discourse for he was a KKK leader, but Yossi Halevy, an ex-member of the Kahane Band (surely racist) writes for the New Republic, and torture-promoting Dershowitz writes for the NY Times. In order to ensure they are not extremists, they bring in Nathan Lewin and Amitai Etzioni. Etzioni is a tenured professor at George Washington University and a friend of Elie Wiesel, Simon Wiesenthal and Abe Foxman. Lewin is a candidate for a federal judgeship. They call for the execution of the family members of suicide bombers.[1] After their prime appearance, Dershowitz comes in as a moderate and says, 'the same level of deterrence could be achieved by levelling the villages of suicide bombers after the residents are given a chance to evacuate', and the extremist Lewin disparagingly likens this to "using aspirin to treat brain cancer"). David Duke never reached this level of bestiality, but he is excluded from discourse while they are not.
Consider Israel. The full spectre of opinions in our country stretches from Jihad extremists who would like to expel all Jews to Marzel extremists who would like to expel and kill all Gentiles. In this spectre, my own position is but the middle ground: no expulsions, no killings, but peaceful life together for all the communities. In normal discourse, my position would win, and united free Palestine would come into being. But the discourse is slanted: at first, extreme Arab opinions are blocked. Then, moderate Arabs find themselves 'extremists' and are effectively blocked. Eventually the softest non-Jews - Ahmad Tibi and Azmi Bashara - take the place of extremists and are excluded from discourse.
The exclusion of one extreme causes the drift of the middle ground when the other extreme is not in place to plug it. Thus, instead of being in the dead middle, the supporters of equality for Jews and Palestinians find themselves at an extreme end. As extremists they are excluded from discourse. Though 30% of Israelis and Palestinians support the idea of one state with equal rights for all, according to a pre-Intifada survey by Haaretz, their opinion gets zero representation in discourse.
On the other hand, leaders of Jewish terrorist organisations regularly write for Haaretz. Haggai Segal, who was sentenced (and later pardoned by the President) for the murder of Palestinians, is a frequent writer on its liberal pages. But the opposite opinion, that of Hamas and Jihad, is carefully excluded even from the Palestinian mainstream. Thus, the drift of the middle ground continues unchecked. Likud politicians are not extremists: they ensure they are not by including extremists of their kind in discourse. Ariel Sharon is not an extremist, for he promotes his right-wing opposition of Liberman and Landau. Now, these thugs do not want to be extremists either, and they promote a new voice, Baruch Marzel, a man-eating ogre from the Jewish settlement of Hebron. Next to Marzel, Jack the Ripper is a soft guy. Marzel's people have a tribune in the liberal Haaretz; they are included in discourse.
Their Western counterparts, the Jewish chauvinists Conrad Black and Mort Zuckerman, are active participants in discourse by virtue of their ownership of a large chunk of media. But their mirror opposites, Horst Mahler or Nick Griffin, are excluded. Without these extremists, the moderate voices of the anti-globalisation and anti-Zionism are excluded as well, for they find themselves on the extreme. The founding fathers of American democracy were ready to die for the right of their opponents to express their opinion publicly, for they intuited that in order to promote one's ideas one should ensure the presence of more radical voices on the spectrum.
In balanced Palestinian discourse, the opinions of Hammas and Jihad should be presented. We can productively argue about suicide bombings only if the voices of their fervent supporters are included and considered. Otherwise, a dynamite-loaded belt is their only way to express their opinion. What is worse, without them Edward Said is glossed as an extremist.
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Christianity is one of the victims of bias, and it is the cornerstone of European art. A recent French film, The Brotherhood of the Wolf, demonises the Christian Church without much subtlety: a half-human monster wears a cross that flashes at us relentlessly, the gang of murderers is led by a priest, its lair is full of crosses and crucifixes, church devotees perpetrate a long chain of ritual murders of innocent women and children in order to bring France back to the faith.
A mirror image of the movie would substitute a Rabbi for the Priest, make the monster brandish the Star of David and have a bunch of observant Jews commit ritual murder for their nefarious needs. For sure, such a movie would never be screened in France after 1945. (Although this sounds similar to the book on ritual murders published in Syria to a chorus of universal condemnation.) But the French movie producer Samuel Hadad was not condemned or criticised. The French audience is so used to attacks on Church and Christianity that they did not even consciously notice its not-so-subliminal message; it sank directly into their unconscious.
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The problem is, good people are quite unable to stop the anti-Christian and pro-Jewish tendency, for the Jewish supremacists today control a major chunk of world media and wealth. Besides, the tendencies are unstoppable: they can only be counterbalanced. What good people can do is stop the opposite thought, and they do that very efficiently. In my essays I have frequently noted the advantages of Christian and Muslim universalism over Jewish particularism. The editor of La Fabrique, the good Jewish leftist Eric Hazan, refused to publish my essays, for "despite their literary qualities they include some ideas which are difficult to promote in France, namely, the superiority of Christianity". I am sure Eric Hazan would not publish a treatise on the vast superiority of Judaism either, but it would be printed in millions of copies by the publishers of Goldhagen and Oriana Falacci. This has the look of job-sharing: Jewish supremacists promote Jewish supremacy, while the Leftists' job is just to stop the balancing attempt by appealing to universal values. Thus good people participate in slanting discourse as much as bad ones.
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For as long as Richard Perle sits in the Pentagon, Elie Wiesel brandishes his Nobel Prize, Mort Zuckerman owns the USA Today, Gusinsky bosses over Russian TV, Soros commands multi-billions of funds and Dershowitz teaches at Harvard, we need the voices of Duke, Sobran, Raimondo, Buchanan, Mahler, Griffin and of other anti-bourgeois nationalists. If we accept their exclusion from discourse, Jewish bigotry will be tolerated while anti-Jewish bigotry is removed. Then, the middle ground for Joe Public will be 'a little bit of Jewish bigotry', or 'Zionism lite', in the words of my dear friend Bob Green. |
