An anti-Semitism rundown
For those able and willing to follow this contentious subject, Glenn Greenwald has an account of the most recent flare up:
“Also strictly prohibited, according to the ADL, is “minimizing or rationalizing the Iranian threat.” This means that not only are the American intelligence agencies which produced the 2007 and 2010 NIEs guilty of anti-Semitism, as are Israeli officials who believe Iran “has not yet decided whether to translate these capabilities into a nuclear weapon,” but so too is Tamir Pardo, the current chief of the Israeli Mossad, who recently rejected the claim that Iranian nuclear weapons would pose an existential threat to Israel; ex-Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy (“[Iran is] far from posing an existential threat to Israel“; instead, domestic radicalization in Israel “poses a bigger risk than Ahmadinejad” because “ultra-Orthodox extremism has darkened our lives”; he added: “The State of Israel cannot be destroyed. An attack on Iran could affect not only Israel, but the entire region for 100 years”); ex-Mossad chief Meir Dagan (“a future Israel Air Force attack on Iranian nuclear facilities was ‘the stupidest thing I have ever heard”); and Israeli Defense Minister Barak (“Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel”).
“But remember: as an American citizen whose country may be involved directly or indirectly in a war with Iran, you are not allowed to express any opinions that constitute “minimizing or rationalizing the Iranian threat.” You’re presumably also not allowed to question the wisdom and justness of sanctions against Iran even though their principal Congressional sponsor has acknowledged, proudly, that they will “take the food out of the mouths of the citizens.” If you do question any of that, then you are an anti-Semite, pronounces the ADL.”
Whole analysis here: Greenwald at Salon.
What a pity. No, not all Jews are virtuous, and it is not anti-Semitic to say so. Further. defending non-virtuous Israelis can only harm Israel. Sad, sad, sad.
The use of the claim of “antisemitism” as a purely political (if not policy) tool will devalue its meaning over time. And, since Israel is still a democracy, it looks silly to so designate all the Israelis who agree that Iran is not the threat that the right wing Israeli government thinks it is.
Recall please how people were called racists by the Black militants and we did not jump–although almost none of us were such. Recall please that in the 60s and the 70s the Jews were among the most protective… of human rights and indeed among the most courageous in confronting Johnson and Nixon and the Vietnam carnage.
But today the vast majority of the former Jews are now passive or active Zionists. In effect, they made this counter-conversion because the propagandists within promoted Holocaust Hysteria–claiming that the Jews, now Zionists, were in grave jeopardy from the Second Holocaust AND THEREFORE even the kidnapping of a solider in 2006 became an EXISTENTIAL THREAT…bombs away!
Therefore the cheapest of mysticism became nationalism and extremism. In a few words, the then Jews are now more brutal than George Wallace on the racial question and the non-Semities are now enjoying daily visions which allow them to push any war they want–including a war against the 410 families that who lost a child in the Gaza atrocity.
Self-dramatized hysteria + teenager namecalling + control of the congress and media = riskless suppression of the Palestinians and the blocking out of all criticism in the USA–and all with single moronic phrase.
Don –
When you quit calling names I’ll take you seriously.
Ann–
I have a small challenge for you on this the Lord’s day–
Kindly describe some momentous change for the worse without indicating who the actors in the drama really are.
Allow me to suggest a solution or two to your possible moral dilemma:
1) Silence
2) Form a Prayer Group and beg the Trinity for Peace in our Time.
3) Follow our Vichy bishops and beg BOTH sides for Peace in the context of a Town Meeting as in New England.
4) Write a piece suggesting a one-state solution–as did Father Ray’s Schroth–when he received more than 90 smear attacks–all judiciously published by the Jesuit editors
5) Become like James Bernauer, SJ, one of the Ray’s defamers (=name callers) and as in 2004 write an infamous piece–with footnotes, etc–which would bring tears to your eyes as he begs the Zionists (=former Jews) for forgiveness in the name of the RCC while at the same time not saying a word about the Lobby-promoted Iraq War which cost America a trillion dollars, killed 4500 GIs, and sent back home 100,000s of guys and gals with PTSS–which now has left the nation almost bankrupt–while the War Party pushes our country to attack Iran with monies borrowed from China
6) support Pope Benedict’s racist smear of more than a billion Moslems–at Ravensburg.
0r perhaps find a fall-guy and blame sweetly–without name-calling! the Finns or the Swedes for the mutilated bodies of the 410 children in Dec-Jan 0f 2008-9 in Gaza,
Cheers
Peggy, You cannot talk about this enough. The threat of war on Iran is such a political football. The Iranian people want democracy as much as the rest of us. With that part of the world becoming more democratic we have to keep the lines open to the people of that country for more cooperation rather than war.
Amen to Bill, dear Margaret and all.
I discovered on the fabulous German TV spectrum that I receive the NBC evening news.
Last night there was a piece on the latest and wildest of fantasies–the like of which we have not heard since–General Powell’s infamous warning about the WMDs in Iraq.
What nonsense?…that Iran would incite the USA or try to extinquish Israel. Would Mexico or better Cuba tempt the War Party to any form of a duel? And do it in election year–when almost all the Republicans are playacting “more Zionist than thou?”
Margaret, your purpose in life for the foreseeable future is to EXPOSE the hýsteria of the Lobby&Israel–which is aching to drum its way into another orgy of violence–but not for the IDFs, but for the USA, its pilots, its GIs and its financial double-down torment—–but not for the upper one percent, but for the rest of us and our children.