A dangerous time to be a Jew

[drdon326]

A part of this is a refusal to analyse what really happened to the Oslo land-for-peace accords. Premier Ehud Barak offered Chairman Yasser Arafat a viable West Bank-and-Gaza state. Arafat turned it down. The Palestinians returned to terrorist tactics; Israelis recalled the old warhorse Ariel Sharon. Both sides have done atrocious things to each other and been ill-served by their leaders. But it is Hamas-PLO that has needlessly resuscitated Sharon's career, destroyed Israel's peace party, sunk its own people into a quagmire of suicide, war, corruption, poverty and humiliation.

When Israel offered to do what everyone has wanted it to do since 1967 - withdraw from Gaza - the reaction to the initiative was as if Sharon had proposed the execution of every first-born in Araby. Yet Sharon's ruthlessness has almost decapitated Hamas, and certainly slowed the suicide bombings. Indeed, as a result of his policies, there are signs that the intifada is drawing to an end.

Today's conspiracy fever is based on fear, expressed in a millenarian yearning for answers in an uncertain, post-cold war world. Fear of Islamist terrorism leads some to think that if the suicide bombers of al-Qaeda/Hamas are so fanatically strong, they must be just.

In blaming Jewish-American neo-cons and in longing to appease the terrorists, the bien-pensants purveyors of these conspiracies will not heal Islamist grievances. For such grievances are about western power, modernity and freedom. Islamist terrorists visualise "Jews" as perhaps a weak link in our western civilisation, but an essential part of our society. Those who swallow conspiracy theories miss the point. For al-Qaeda maniacs, we are all Jews.

This month, arsonists attacked two more synagogues in north London; more than one hundred synagogues have been desecrated since 2000. This, in a time of prosperity: what would happen in a time of instability if these cod conspiracies became accepted political discourse?

Until 9/11, Anglo-Jewry had become accustomed to prejudiced coverage of Israel. But if you were not a Zionist, as many Jews are not, you did not need to worry. Since 9/11, and particularly post-Iraq, we have witnessed a sea change. It is as if, in the mythical scale of 9/11, al-Qaeda had unlocked a forgotten cultural capsule of anti-Semitic myths, sealed and forgotten since the Nazis, the Black Hundreds and the medieval blood libels. Just words? But words matter in a violent world. This weird and scary nonsense is an international phenomenon, not a British one. Despite it, Britain retains the easygoing tolerance and pragmatism, the sources of her greatness. It is still better to be a Jew in England than anywhere else.

http://www.newstatesman.com/nssubsfilter.php3?newTemplate=NSArticle_People&newDisplayURN=200406280017


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well worth the read

[Behind the Aegis]

1. Personal reflections

I am not really replying to the article as I am to just the title. I think the article makes some really good points. I have noticed, on a personal level, some increase in antisemitic attitudes (despite what some may say). It is usually overheard comments or things in blogs, sometimes, even stories about Israel which seem to take an odd twist.

What I have found to be more interesting, is that when we say we were maligned, we are called, at best, oversensitive, and, at the worst, liars. I have also noticed that if a Jew is attacked it is met with, "I think antisemitism is bad, but if Israel wasn't occupying land, this wouldn't happen." So, am I understanding this correctly? It is Jews' fault for being attacked, because of Israel's policies? Also, am I correct in understanding that attacks on Israel's policies are not attacks on Jews? Because it seems to me, using the above "statement" equates Jews and Israel. Yet, if we, as Jews, state something along those lines, we are shouted down as being "confused" or "making false allegations of antisemitism." So, what do we do?

I think the article touches on this in some ways. But, I was wondering does anyone else feel this way?

[Colorado Blue]

2. Sure. And I find that alarming. But also, I find deeply

alarming, the fact that apparently we have to refight all the battles for Israel - AGAIN. How many times to we have to justify our right to exist as people, or the right of Israel to exist as a state?

I've been doing LOTS of research and NOWHERE do I find that the Zionists acted in bad faith. Indeed, they got screwed SEVERAL times - the Mandate hugely reduced in size, then chopped up again, with local "leadership" being virulently antisemitic to the point of actually going to work FOR HITLER - and actually killing off or running off, moderate Arab families and leaders - a trend that still continues. Look at some of the governments that have evolved in the M.E., and at what people are preaching and teaching!

People try to whitewash this as "nationalism" but it really wasn't - for one thing, no Palestinian state was envisioned either in the Pan-arabic scheme, or in the idea of Greater Syria. But the Jews, like many other minorities, constituted a threat to people like Husayni. And the British needed oil.

Violence, stirring up the fears of the mob, ancient and harmless communities, like Hebron, victimized and virtually destroyed - it's an appalling story. And I do NOT find any excuse for it. In fact I'm shocked at the degree to which people seem to think this was OK BEHAVIOR, or somehow acceptable, or justifiable - I think it's horrifying. It's mob rule at its absolute worst.

Even the most fulsome population numbers show about 400,000, maybe 450,000 people at the time of the Balfour Declaration - in an area that now supports over 9 MILLION. I've seen estimates of half that. Mark Twain wrote about a near-desolate landscape in this region of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. What did happen, and what the Emir Faisal, later the King of Iraq, had HOPED would happen, is that the Zionist settlers attracted people (and money, and jobs) to the area. Immigrants came into the region, many illegally - to an extent probably not respected - certainly not by those who would believe that the Zionists were chasing people away, or "stealing land!"

Indeed, to qualify as a Palestinian after 1948, for refugee status, one needed only to have lived in the region since 1946! And who knows how many came during WWII, to escape the occupation of North Africa, or wartime conditions in Egypt, or the coup in Iraq, or the Syrian government - you tell me!

And even as early as the late 20's, this increase in population worked against the Jews, because the Arabs said the region was getting too crowded! So did a British commission, Hope-Simpson, which resulted in a limitation of land sales and Jewish immigration JUST when the Germans were going on a rampage - but based on what I really don't know given the current population. Certainly, with modern farming techniques and industrialisation and now, post-industrialisation, it's a given FACT that there was plenty of space, had there been the will! Churchill himself pointed this out, said it was nuts - but Chamberlain said, "if we must offend either the Arabs or the Jews - OFFEND THE JEWS."

Man, we cannot win. I'm going to keep studying, and keep on truckin', and hope somebody reads and learns a little too - but I am mightily discouraged, and sad, and worried.

Bernard Lewis says too, whole centuries of history are been disappeared. Revisionism is stealing our past and threatening to steal our future.

Not to mention our little Jewish tuchases.

[Colorado Blue]

3. And P.S. - I'd rather be here than in Britain. The attitudes of

the British "liberal" press and now the academics, I find outright scary.

Who knows to what extend the LIBERAL press and liberal actions, are actually empowering the far RIGHT?

People think they're two different things. But actually, they overlap at a certain point, and each fuels the other. For example - conspiracy theories about Jews abound on the far left AND on the far right - and they're often the same damn theories.

A visit to the 9/11 forum on THIS board should raise some hackles. It freaks me out how many people really thing 9/11 was a case of landlord lightning, or the Mossad, or something JEWISH. Damn. And the other great danger of course is, people being busy blaming the Jews, miss the REAL danger. It wouldn't be the first time - in Russia for example -

Ah well.

Take care everybody.