arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

In de vijftiende commentaar (een antwoord aan Jan D. en Guido) bij mijn "Oproep aan Israël" (waarvan Françoise later een Franse vertaling plaatste, waarvoor dank) én na het lezen van een artikel over het sluiten van Indymedia Zwitserland, rees de volgende vraag:

"Moeten we niet ook benadrukken dat de Joodse cultuur de wereld ook veel positiefs heeft bijgebracht ? Denk alleen maar aan hun inbreng in het linkse gedachtengoed."

Denk ook aan bv. het werk van het Israëlische 'Vrede Nu'. Geconfronteerd met de toestand waarin zij moeten werken, moeten die mensen een schat aan ervaring en talent hebben bijeengewerkt in het levendig houden van een vredesbeweging. Kunnen we wellicht veel van leren. Waarom worden sprekers van 'Vrede Nu' niet vaker naar België uitgenodigd ?

Mijn vraag nu (want ik ben niet echt een 'kenner' van de Joodse en Palestijnse problematiek): wie schrijft hier eens een goed gedocumenteerd artikel over ? Werk voor een historicus, Jan D. ? (We gaan dit niet overlaten aan een Ludo Abicht.)

We moeten altijd alle aspecten van een problematiek aan bod laten komen. We moeten de burgers van een land blijven onderscheiden van de regering die hen leidt, temeer omdat de meeste regeringen door middel van allerlei vormen van misleiding aan de macht komen.

We moeten verhinderen dat we alle goedmenende Joden/Israëli in het kamp van de fascistische Sharon-figuren jagen. Het verzet van de vredelievende Joden/Israëli tegen de oorlogspolitiek van Sharon verdient ook onze volle steun.

Toevallig heb ik vorige week nog een vergadering bijgewoond waar enkele Franse migrantenorganisaties en een joodse vredesorganisatie beslisten om in de quartiers populaires van Roubaix, Lille, Parijs en Toulouse vorming te geven over het conflict in Palestina.
De meeste aanwezige migranten kennen de jongeren in de wijken zeer goed. Zij weten wat in hun hoofd omgaat. Hieronder een paar punten die ik mij herinner van de discussie:

1. De joden hebben (terecht) mooie synagoges waar ze hun geloof kunnen belijden, wij moeten na veertig jaar "gastarbeid" in Frankrijk nog altijd in kelders bidden.

2. De jongeren zien elke avond op Al Jazeera hoe Palestijnse huizen platgebombardeerd worden door Israelische straaljagers. Samen met punt één zorgt dat er voor dat ze zien dat dit onrecht ook in Frankrijk bestaat.

3. Dit is anti-imperialisme. In Frankrijk bestaat onder de migranten een sterke anti-imperialistische stroming. Veel migrantenorganisaties zoals de Fasti of de MIB zien de strijd voor gelijke rechten als een verderzetting van de onafhankelijkheidsstrijd in Algerije. Door een gebrek aan politieke vorming én door de totale afwezigheid van intercultureel onderwijs waar dit soort onderwerpen aan bod komen, denken veel jongeren in eenvoudige schema's. "Synagoge = joden, joden = Israeli's, dus Synagoges = Israeli's".

4. Er is dus nood aan politieke vomring waarbij aan de jongeren uitgelegd wordt wat het verschil is tussen de politiek van Israel en de joodse cultuur. Om die vormingen te geven spraken de organisaties verschillende mensen aan: Said Bouamama, Mogniss Abdallah en een joodse vredesbeweging.

5. De vertegenwoordiger van de joodse organisatie legde uit dat de situatie in Israel lijkt op een wespennest. Vrede betekent niet voor elke Israeli hetzelfde. Daarom gebruikt hij liever het woord "gerechtigheid". Met vrede bedoelen sommigen bijvoorbeeld ook een versnipperde Palestijnse mini-staat die op alle vlakken totaal afhankelijk is van Israel. Voor Sharon betekent vrede zelfs de uitschakeling van de Palestijnse autoriteit.
Gerechtigheid kan eigenlijk enkel betekenen: één staat, één hoofdstad en twee volkeren.

6. De Israelische veiligheidsdiensten zijn bijzonder agressief. Begin februari was er een debatavond aan de Sorbonne. Het publiek kreeg rake klappen van een bende extreemrechtse joden die flink uithaalden met baseball-knuppels.

7. Velen vermoeden dat sommige aanvallen tegen de synagoges uit extreemrechtse hoek komen.

8. Er is ook het niet bevestigde vermoeden dat de aanvallen door Israelische veiligheidsdiensten georkestreerd werden. Moeilijk te bewijzen zo'n samenzweringstheorie. Maar het kan natuurlijk wel. Naar het schijnt heeft Israel dit ooit gedaan in Jemen. Maar ik weet er het fijne niet van. Iemand anders wel? Het is wel bewezen dat Israel jarenlang Hamas steunde om de linkse nationalisten binnen de PLO te verzwakken.

Deze week zie ik enkele mensen van Fasti terug. Ik zal hen eens vragen hoe die joodse organisatie precies heette. Ik weet het: ik had het moeten opschrijven of onthouden, maar daarvoor smaakte de wijn waarschijnlijk te goed. Ik herinner mij nog vaag dat er iets verteld werd over die voetbalmatch waarbij Algerijnse jongeren het veld bestormden en het Franse volkslied verstoorden. Iemand die er bij was legde uit hoe dat nu precies in elkaar zat. Ik zal eens een interviewtje proberen te pakken te krijgen.

Het is toch blijkbaar erg gesteld met links dat men tegenwoordig steeds minder in staat is zich daadwerkelijk van antisemitische ideeën te distanciëren. De schrijver van dit artikel bemerkt tot zijn schrik dat er een onthustende overeenkomst is tussen klassiek antisemitisme en standpunten die nu door linkse groepen worden ingenomen. Als enige remedie wordt geopperd om ook eens aandacht te geven aan dissidente joodse geluiden. Het antisemitische wereldbeeld wordt echter niet radicaal in vraag gesteld!

Peter Zegers

Beetje gratuite redenering, Peter. Kun je dat eens aantonen. Waar is de tekst van JPE antisemitisch? Zoek eens een voorbeeld van antisemitisme op Indymedia of in andere linkse media. Ik ben benieuwd. Vind je dat er kritiek mag gegeven worden op de politiek van Israel? Vind je dat we mogen proberen begrip te hebben voor de reactie van Arabische jongeren in Parijs? Is begrip hetzelfde als goedkeuren?
Ik heb alleen een beetje problemen met de tekst van JPE als hij zegt "Moeten we niet ook benadrukken dat de Joodse cultuur de wereld OOK (mijn nadruk, CC) veel positiefs heeft bijgebracht?"
Ik denk dat we vooral moeten benadrukken dat de joodse cultuur niets te maken heeft met de Israelische bommen en geweerschoten. De Palestijnse doden zijn het slachtoffer van een Israelisch politiek die hierin volledig gesteund worden door de VS die op hun beurt daarmee hun wil proberen op te leggen in dit olierijke en strategisch belangrijke gebied.

Dag Peter,
voor zover ik hier kan lezen vroeg JPE publiekelijk om een tekst te schrijven over de invloed van de Joden op socialisme en pacifisme. Ik zie niet in wat hier anti-semitisch aan is.
"Moeten we niet ook benadrukken dat de Joodse cultuur de wereld ook veel positiefs heeft bijgebracht ? Denk alleen maar aan hun inbreng in het linkse gedachtengoed."
Die ook is inderdaad slecht gekozen.Wat nu zou je kunnen denken dat ze ons ook veel negatiefs heeft bijgebracht.

"Het antisemitische wereldbeeld wordt echter niet radicaal in vraag gesteld!"
Wat bedoel je hier mee Peter? Ik denk dat iedereen die deze site bezoekt(op de extreem-rechtse pipo's na)anti-semitisme veroordeeld.

Het is echt wel moeilijk om een regime te veroordelen dat met zijn leger ongewapende kinderen en vrouwen vermoord zonder voor anti-semiet versleten te worden.

"Het is toch blijkbaar erg gesteld met links dat men tegenwoordig steeds minder in staat is zich daadwerkelijk van antisemitische ideeën te distanciëren."
Hier veralgemeen je net als die Arabische jongeren en Vlaams Blokkiezers.
Je stelt dat er problemen zijn bij links:
a.links is meer dan JPE alleen.
b.waar haal je uit de tekst dat de auteur zich niet distancieert van anti-semitische ideeen?

Gevonden op http://www.yahoodi.com/peace/leftists.html

The Peace Encyclopedia:
The Left Wing, Leftists

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Frequently Asked Questions:
Who are those who proclaim themselves to be of the political left wing?
Is leftism associated with Arabism, or pro-Arab/Muslim leanings?
Is leftism associated with peace, pacifism, and tolerance?
What then is the motivation of the Jewish or Israeli left?
Can one be leftist and still be pro-Israel, or at least objective regarding Israel?
What is the difference between leftism and Marxism or Communism?
What are some of the common mistakes that the left makes?
Why does the Jewish left seem so vigorous in their public condemnation of 'the Bad Jews', and at the same time emphasizing that they themselves are 'the Good Jews'?

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Who are those who proclaim themselves to be of the political left wing?

"They are not left wingers, they are the agents of Arab imperialism and its Fascist regimes."
- the Lebanese Christian Social-Democratic Party (currently underground), in the Lebanon Bulletin, March 10, 1999

THE HARBINGERS OF DEATH
by Emanuel A. Winston Middle East analyst & commentator
We know the enemy because they make themselves known in a thousand ways. They want you to know; they want the fear. That is why terror is called terror. But, although they are the known enemy, there is greater enemy just behind them lurking in their shadows.

In every society there is a species scattered within the population which is far more terrifying than the enemy outside the walls. This creature is inside, mingling with the people and acting quite friendly. This creature is a person who grows quietly and one day blooms into the creature we must fear. He is always present at the fall of whole civilizations, often acting as the pallbearer carrying the corpse of a dead civilization into oblivion. This creature has been labeled many things and today it is identified as a "Leftist"

The Leftist cloaks himself with lofty proclamations boring into our minds with such phrases as "Peace Now" the "Peace Process" the "Inalienable Rights of Man" etc. The selection of a word cover cloaks the wolf in the skin of a sheep. It's a wonderful disguise, for who doesn't want peace or the dignity of man. We want all of that so when our Leftist comes along with his display of seductive wares, we buy. We want his bag of tricks so badly that even when it all disappears in a puff of smoke, we are ready to buy again. Over 250 Jews dead since the handshake and we are still buying.

The snake oil Leftist carries his aberrant ideas deep into our conscious mind because we happily open all doors for him. He convinces us that the enemy is not the enemy at all. He gives us a different view, saying the enemy is merely another person just like you. All he really wants is peace; to live with you; to be near you; to do business with you and everything will be all right.

Our Leftist grows close to the enemy, so much so that he identifies with his anger, his problems and soon begins to understand and share the anger against YOU. A clever Leftist will not necessarily openly join the ranks of the enemy but, subtly, he becomes his advocate and apologist. Somehow, the enemy's rights become more important than the rights of his own people. So, like death that creeps in on tiptoe in the fog, he whispers: "It's all right; these are your new friends. Lower your guard and be friendly. Put away your weapons; you have nothing to fear. Trust me".

How wonderfully lulling. Peace...wonderful Peace. And our Leftist is bringing it free of charge. We just have to reach out and take it. But, why doesn't the enemy lower HIS guard and put away HIS weapons? Why are they killing us? Our Leftists say: "Not to worry. They will apologize for the riots and offer condolences for our dead. They are changing".

Soon, after our new friends riot again and their leader says: "Not to worry. I promise again to stop the terror". Our Leftists say: "See...What did I tell you? They are reasonable men and, after all, it's only a few trouble makers who will make the Peace Process seem bad. I", says the Leftist, "guarantee that a full peace is at hand. You must, however, make another gesture. Yes...You did release terrorists. Yes, you did give them Gaza and Seven Cities but, just a few more things - a little more land and Peace shall be delivered to your doorstep".

"There is the matter of a capital for their New State. They have had their eye on Jerusalem since 1967 and it would mean a great deal to them if you moved out".

In the end of days the Leftists, the ultimate humanists, shall flock from the universities, from the news media, from the Labor and Meretz Parties and all will lend a hand to be pallbearers for the Nation of Israel. Then, they will flee to other nations where they will again take up their work as nation destroyers. They will creep into the unsuspecting population like a virulent plague and slowly infect the entire nation with promises of a really Great Peace if only they will open their gates to the angry mob waiting outside.

Is leftism associated with Arabism, or pro-Arab/Muslim leanings?

See Socialism

Is leftism associated with peace, pacifism, and tolerance?

See Peace

What then is the motivation of the Jewish or Israeli left?

"I see with sorrow and great anger how a part of the people still clings to hopes of reaching a peaceful settlement with the Arabs. Common sense tells them, too, that the Arabs haven't abandoned their basic aim of destroying the State; but the self-delusion and self-deception that have always plagued the Jews are at work again. It's our great misfortune. They want to believe, so they believe. They want not to see, so they shut their eyes. They want not to learn from thousands of years of history, so they distort it. They want to bring about a sacrifice, and they do indeed. It would be comic, it it wasn't so tragic. What a saddening and irritating lot this Jewish people is!"
- Yonatan Netanyahu, the fallen hero of Entebbe

Collectively, Jews have a hard time facing political reality. We have a far greater stake in fantasies of tolerance than in the truths about aggression, given the energy we realize we will have to expend if we intend to withstand the aggression directed against us.
- RUTH R. WISSE, writer for Commentary magazine

The Jews are a peculiar race, fit subject for abnormal psychology. Their political and pseudo-intellectual elites are nominal Jews ignorant of the Hobbesian origin of their diminished mentality. Many of these Jews identify with a Jew-hater Karl Marx. This "thinker" adopted Hobbes' reduction of thought to the subrational: "The PHANTOMS formed in the brain are ... bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence." Another perverse mind, exempting itself from its own conclusions.
Amazing how many academic earthlings have made a livelihood teaching this sophisticated madness. I say madness because, if "forms of consciousness" merely correspond to "material premises" or economic modes of production which change from epoch to epoch, or which differ from one country to another, it follows that what humans, hence academics, deem normal or abnormal, sane or insane, has no objective validity. Precisely the relativistic conclusion of anti-psychiatry! And what is most significant, anti-psychiatry was adopted by a neoMarxist movement in the West called the "New Left," adherents of which will be found among nominal Jews in Israel.

Like Marx, the New Left substituted organized egoism or socialism for random egoism or liberalism in the domain of economics.

...This ersatz mentality describes the political and pseudo-intellectual elites that have dominated Israel for some fifty years. These elites may be classified as degenerates. That they appear normal (or merely misguided) to their contemporaries is merely a reflection of the degeneracy of the human race resulting from the pervasive and leveling influence of relativism.

...I must now say a word about Muslims and the Arab-Islamic world. In that world relativism has no foothold. Yet, everywhere in that sprawling domain Arafat is embraced as a brother--a brother in Jewish blood. This barbarism is of ancient vintage, as I learned even from an emancipated Arab scholar. Thus, in the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun, an historian influenced by two illustrious Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, boldly declared that "Arabs are people who[se] ... savagery has become their character and nature." To this day it is only in Arab-Islamic states which amputate human limbs for trivial offenses

Indeed, during the last two decades, almost a million Muslims slaughtered each other in a war between Iraq and Iran; 100,000 Muslims and Christians butchered each other in Lebanon; 20,000 Arabs were murdered by their own countrymen in Syria. And what is more, after ravaging Kuwait, his Arab neighbor, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein won the support of Israel's own Arab citizens despite his threat to incinerate them along with the Jews! All this bloodshed is done in the name of a religious doctrine which thinly adorns a hard core of evil aggressiveness.

Intimately linked to Arab bellicosity is mendacity. In this century, an emancipated Arab sociologist, Sonia Hamady, admitted that "Lying is a widespread habit among Arabs, and they have a low idea of truth." They lie not only to "infidels" but to each other. Another indication of a flawed religion no one questions in an era of cultural relativism.

...[Here is] what an exceptional and thoughtful Arab of old might think of Jews who made agreements with their mendacious and unrepentant enemies. Here is what Ibn Hazm of the 11th century wrote: "The height of goodness is that you should neither oppress your enemy nor abandon him to oppression. To treat him as a friend is the work of a fool whose end is near."

- Prof. Paul Eidelberg, the Co-founder and President of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy in the Middle East

...how was it possible a "secular, rationalist, and modernist" political party could not fathom the nature of this determined Arab enemy? This becomes understandable when one recognizes the Laborite obsession with its socialist, universalist ideology. To them, all persons would have to obey "the iron laws of economics" and would perforce succumb to the material advantages of peace and abandon the passionate religion of their youth. In other words, the leftists were egotistic enough to imagine the enemy in their own image, an image they universalized to apply even to the Arabs. Like Narcissus in the Greek myth who drowned when he fell in love with his own image in the water, the Narcissistic Laborites embraced the enemy of their imagination, an enemy that still had its fangs but who had been smart enough to make his propaganda appeal to the obsessions of this Israeli leadership.
That such characterlogical flaws are not easily abandoned as a result of mere facts is daily demonstrated by the continuation of efforts by the Laborites and Israeli leftists to persist in their fanatic obsessions that those who martyred themselves to murder Israelis will make peace with "the despicable leftist, G-dless infidel." Only earth shaking events can change such a leftist mentality, like going down to dismal defeat in Israeli elections or feeling the first rippings of the Arab knife on their own throats -- the latter being an outcome from which the growing mainstream of truly wise and compassionate Israelis must save them.

Unfortunately, the damage of the unwise policies of the Israeli left has been done. It is difficult to reeducate the world and the Jewish public...

- David Basch

Can one be leftist and still be pro-Israel, or at least objective regarding Israel?

See Refugees

What is the difference between leftism and Marxism or Communism?

Under Construction

What are some of the common mistakes that the left makes?

In the tradition of Chamberlain, The Israeli and Jewish Left including organizations like "Dor Shalom," urge support for Arafat as "Israel's last, best chance for peace."
History buffs will recall that Chamberlain made similar statements about Adolph Hitler, another "man who sought peace." Using such words, Chamberlain advocated the appeasement of Hitler "for peace" by ceding Czechoslovakia's strategic territories. Chamberlain obviously searched for peace in all the wrong places, looked for it at the hands of a man who was the real threat to peace, like the Left searches for it today.

The Left's trust in Arafat and the Arabs is worrisome coming after four years of Oslo that have seen Arab bus bombings, terror, incitement to the hatred and murder of Jews, spectacles of Arabs honoring terrorist killers and terrorism, and video speeches of Arafat telling of his staged plan to destroy Israel. Can the Left be in touch with reality, or is it like some of those Germans who allege they spent World War II in a mine cave seeing nothing?

If a weakened Arab enemy, driven by Islam and history, was undaunted in his aims to overthrow Israel, why would his goals mellow if he became stronger, thanks to the generosity of the "doves"? Don't leftists ever learn? Or are their socialist, universalist, delusions of the world too strong, delusions in which Nazism could never happen but did, and in which Arabs will love Jews whom they believe violate Islam and rob them of their lands? Yet the Left seems to have learned nothing from recent events, attempting to influence U.S. and Israeli Jews to trust the maggot Arafat, the leader of a determined and dangerous Arab enemy.

The Left makes the pitch that unless Arafat is supported by Israel, worse will come, like Hamas leaders, as though there were a difference between the goals of Arafat and Hamas. Arafat's public kiss of the Hamas leader should have dispelled that myth. But the Left is impervious to reality, blind to the possibility that the Arabs are pulling off the old "good cop, bad cop" routine, in which the victim looks to the smiling "good cop" for help and is delivered over to the baddies.

One can tell much about the Left's allegiances when it blames Israel for weakening Arafat by such things as building Jewish homes in Jewish Jerusalem, which the Left pointedly refers to as "Arab East Jerusalem," a section of Jerusalem that once housed a majority of Jews before the Arabs expelled them in 1948 and in which sits the ancient Har Hazatim Jewish cemetery. The Leftist Jewish and Israeli organizations are now working to build a new Arab nation on the lands of Israel, as though empowering a new Arab nation will lead to peace when the Arabs themselves tell you that it is the first stage toward gaining all the lands of what is now the "Zionist entity."

The Left is concerned that Arafat, "Israel's hope," will be weakened if Israel stops the continuous appeasements that have followed since Yitzchak Rabin signed on the White House lawn. Too involved in its own delusions, the Left can't see that Arafat's position among his people is assured since the Arabs know full well Arafat's role in the "good cop" scam. The Arabs need Arafat as the figurehead to lure confused Jewish idealists. This role is Arafat's ticket to perpetual Arab support despite anything Israel does, the way supporting the Arab savages is the Leftists ticket to egoistic attention-getting in U.S. newspapers, also in on the Arab scam. But the Arabs obviously know their Jewish leftists because they are, invariably, on cue, laboring passionately for them and indirectly for Israel's destruction.

But the Left does make one good point, namely, that Arafat should be negotiated with, which is what Mr. Netanyahu is already doing. Though Arafat cannot be depended on to fight terrorism and to be working for peace, he should be treated as a messenger to his people. He should be plainly told by Mr. Netanyahu that Israel will not let herself be destroyed by the Arabs, neither in one fell swoop or in stages -- to forget about that Arab dream. He should also be telling his people that the present negotiations under Mr. Netanyahu is in fact the Arab last, best chance for peace.

Mr. Netanyahu -- hopefully -- is placing before Arafat and his people an opportunity to come to terms with Israel in the only agreement that can lead to peace between Arab and Jew. This is an agreement in which Israel preserves her strength and her strategic territories, military and economic, including vital high grounds and watersheds -- the vital watersheds, by the way, which should be instantly nationalized and cleared of polluters and pollutants. This is a land in which Palestinian Arabs never in history existed as a people, and will never have such unentitled sovereignty, nor will they be given the conditions to potentially harm Israel.

So what do the Arabs get out of this? The answer, already given, is that the Arabs gain real peace. This is the only kind of peace arrangement that will provide a stable peace for both Arab and Jew since experience has abundantly shown that the Arabs are thoroughly incapable of living in peace willingly with Israel. Alas, they require much compulsion to make such a peace possible, a peace gained through under outside compulsion which even Islam sanctions -- Islam sanctions no other kind of desistance of Jihad. It is the only way for these Arabs to secure what should be their own interests in living in peace.

That confusing foe with friend is endemic in the Rabin family and did not end with him is shown by the contemporary Left. The confusion is also demonstrated by Leah Rabin's ardent courting of Arafat as she sat beside him at a public occasion -- the Arafat that is an ardent supporter of Saddam Hussein and of Arab terrorism and who promises his people that all of Israel's lands will be liberated. And while Arafat at a Rabin memorial told how Rabin was his favorite dead Jew, Leah Rabin reviled Israel's democratically elected government. Here with the Rabin family is exhibited the anti-Jewish sentiments that are at the heart of the leftist secular religion of universalism that runs rampant in their veins.

Unfortunately, these charter members of Israel's surrender parties, blinded by their fanatic obsessions and their irrational anti-Jewish feelings, cannot visualize the dark reality of the implacable Arab determination to destroy Israel. And so they and their "Dor Ne'evad" labor mightily to create the Arab engine capable of destroying the Jewish state in the illusion that their efforts will bring peace.

These form a sick part of this generation of Jews and should be clearly identified as such at every turn by those of saner minds, reminded that it was Yitzchak Rabin that squandered Israel's firm control of the Jewish lands, legitimized a no-people, and enabled the enemy to create armed, terrorist bases adjacent to Israeli population centers. These members of this generation have mistaken the determined Arab enemy jackal with a dove of peace, and they do so with arrogance and self-deception.

Crime against oneself and one's inner integrity may perhaps be less serious in its consequences. No doubt my poor parents were unable to forsee what in their time was hardly imaginable; no doubt none of the millions of Jews done to death could have forseen their fate. But today, now that the unimaginable has become part of history, the Jews who allow themselves to be victims of illusion are inviting destruction.
- Jacques Givet, "The Anti-Zionist Complex"

"I would say that leftists must inhabit an alternate universe, except that we wind up having to pay the consequences for their detachment from reality. But while we do live in the same objective world, their vision of it seems to have nothing in common with ours. They do not comprehend reality as we see it, and when challenged with evidence that would seem to buttress our view, they seem either to dismiss it for theoretical reason or ignore it completely. One can list various dangers in the agreement, and give objective evidence that Palestinians have no desire for peace, but still want to drive our people into the sea. What is the reaction? They will tell you that self-determination and prosperity will change the Palestinians' outlook and behavior. On what do they base this? Not on evidence from Arab societies. Rather it is based on theory".
"To me, this looks like an unwillingness to deal with reality, and it echoes the unwillingness of the Jewish community of the thirties to recognize the threat posed by the Nazis. Indeed, it seems we have learned nothing at all from our experience with Nazism. The Holocaust has become little more than a tale to frighten children: demons in a morality play. They have turned the Holocaust into an image divorced from real world happenings. Millions more Jews could die in Israel, but they refuse to even imagine the possibility. They will not allow reality to interfere with their myths".

- Professor Mark Steinberger (Department of Math and Statistics, State University of New York in Albany, New York

Why does the Jewish left seem so vigorous in their public condemnation of 'the Bad Jews', and at the same time emphasizing that they themselves are 'the Good Jews'?

The Israeli leadership and many in the American Jewish community have unintentionally played into this latest bid to establish moral equivalence between the principally Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the so-called "victims of Zionist aggression."
I am mystified by the lengths Jews in Israel and elsewhere have gone -- not just to denounce Goldstein's criminal conduct -- but to apologize for it. Such apologies unavoidably imply an association with -- and responsibility for -- the crime. [Worst of all,] the apologies for Baruch Goldstein are being tendered in the context of Israel's titanic ideological struggle with its Arab foes....

- Frank J. Gaffney, in the speech "A CALL TO ARMS IN THE JEWS' 'IDEOLOGICAL WAR'", U.S. Senate Caucus Room, 16 March 1994

...leftist Jewish movements [are afflicted with] the disease of self-hatred and hatred of one's brethren. Jews who hate their Jewishness loathe their heritage and do everything in order to divide the people into two: into the presumably "good" Jews, and the "bad" Jews, who lack legitimacy. Their illness of self-hatred is so severe that they join the Arab enemy, become unadulterated anti-Semites and now, they have plunged to such depths of degradation that they are not ashamed to use the methods that the Nazis employed against German Jewry. Just as the Nazis found their scapegoat for all the troubles of the world - the Jews, so have the leftists found their scapegoat - the settlers! In their fantasy world, the settlers are the reason for all the troubles in the Middle East. The fact that there was terror before '67, and the fact that, in Arab eyes, there is no difference between the settlement of Efrat and the settlement of Sheikh Munis in Tel Aviv, are of no interest to the Jews of the extreme left. Their self-hatred is so entrenched that you cannot talk with them logically. This anti-Semitic mentality, incidentally, also is present as the living spirit behind the Oslo accords - here too, they joined together with the enemy, the arch-murderer Arafat, they established an armed terrorist army for him, and promised him that, withdrawal after withdrawal, the settlements will be uprooted - and this is the seeming "solution" to the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Nadia Matar, chairperson of Women for Israel's Tomorrow

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Enkele korte 'over de middag-reacties':

1) bedankt allen voor de bijdragen; iemand mailde me ook dat er interessant artikel verschenen is in AKTIEF: kwartaalblad van het Masereelfonds, geschreven door Henri Wajnblum, woordvoerder van de Unie van Progressieve Joden van België. Zo die kennen we nu ook weer bij naam. Nu nog dat artikel te pakken krijgen. Zet iemand het op Indy ?

2) voor Peter Zegers: neen ik stel hier het antisemitishe wereldbeeld niet radikaal in vraag. Kon ook niet in zo'n klein stukje. Voel me daar overigens absoluut niet deskundig genoeg voor. En een mens moet zijn grenzen kennen, nietwaar ? De manier waarop je reageert bewijst al hoe gevoelig deze materie is.

3) voor Christophe: die OOK staat er wel degelijk op zijn plaats. Zoals elke godsdienst heeft ook de joodse godsdienst niet alleen maar positieve verwezenlijkingen op haar rekening. Alles in het leven heeft zijn positieve en negatieve kanten. Wie dat niet ziet, verabsoluteert. Wie dat wel ziet, kan nuanceren en het goede tegenover het kwade afwegen.

Maar je hebt gelijk dat we onderscheid moeten maken tussen joodse cultuur en de huidige Israelisch politiek (waarin nog weinig sporen van cultuur te vinden zijn).

4) En tot slot, vraag voor Guido: heft het zin om hier zo'n lange Engelse (of andere) teksten van anderen te plaatsen ? Kan men niet beter die zelf proberen samen te vatten ?
Probleem is dat ik geen commentaren meer kan overbrengen naar mijn tekstverwerker (dankzij nieuwe software van onze vrienden van Microsoft), en dus kan ik die tekst niet op papier krijgen (want rechstreeks printen van de comments gaat nog altijd niet ..., wanneer gaat de techniek dit mogelijk maken ???) En op het scherm ga ik dat niet meteen lezen, zo'n lange boterham.

sorry, was weer wat te impulsief. Je kan die tekst toch gewoon in Word zetten? Ik had alleen die link moeten geven. Het is een website van Joden die alle grote vragen behandeld.
I.v.m. pacifisme van de Joden? Zijn zij niet het enigste volk dat zich nooit verzet heeft ondanks de dingen die hen werden aangedaan en ondanks het feit dat ze niets meer hadden te verliezen?