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Post by jdredd on Apr 10, 2019 16:31:30 GMT -5
So Bibi has won another term. Sadly for Israel, it won't help them and may even hasten Israel's demise.
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Post by jdredd on May 2, 2019 1:05:30 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/new-york-times-cartoon-anti-semitism-anti-zionism/"While the Times, like the rest of the liberal mainstream media, remains resolute in its opposition to right-wing anti-Semitism and eager to connect President Donald Trump to any uptick in hate crimes, it is blind or indifferent to expressions of hatred for Jews from left-wing sources. Stephens characterizes this problem as “ignorance” — but considering that, as he acknowledges, the newspaper is “hyper-alert” to every other conceivable expression of prejudice, this creates a terrible double standard. While Israel’s government, like any other, is fair game for criticism, the point of anti-Zionism is the delegitimization of Israel itself. Editors who claim to oppose all sorts of bigotry simply don’t grasp that a movement whose sole focus is the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet is inherently anti-Semitic. And once you’ve legitimized anti-Zionism, imagery and arguments about Israel and the Jews that might once have been easily seen as beyond the pale are no longer viewed with alarm."
My original concern with starting this thread was that linking anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism might be suicidal for Jews. But apparently it can't be helped. Zionists are determined to link the two. But I do stick to my conclusion that Judaism will outlive Zionism.
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Post by jdredd on Aug 17, 2019 13:34:18 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/us/politics/trump-israel-jews.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage"To some Jews, the president’s attacks on the congresswomen are a fierce renunciation of anti-Semitism and a defense of Israel. But many others see their identity being used as a pawn for the political ambitions of Mr. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a dynamic they fear could undermine the historically strong alliance between the United States and Israel and increase the security risks for their community at home. “If Israel equals Trump, then there is a concern that opposition to Trump will transition, God forbid, into opposition to Israel,” Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, who leads Ohev Sholom, an Orthodox congregation in Washington, D.C., said a few hours before shabbat on Friday. “It is very dangerous.”
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Post by jdredd on Aug 24, 2019 21:07:42 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/08/24/opinion/sunday/trump-jews.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=HomepageThe Jewish left rejects the idea that anti-Zionism is equivalent to anti-Semitism, but even more than that, it rejects the idea that Israel is the guarantor of Jewish safety or the lodestar of Jewish identity. A central value of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, as well as for much of left-wing Jewish culture more broadly, is “doikayt,” a Yiddish term that means “hereness.” “Where we are is our home. This is what we fight for. This is where we seek kinship,” said Audrey Sasson, JFREJ’s executive director. The first post-relaunch issue of Jewish Currents featured an essay by the publisher, Jacob Plitman, called “On an Emerging Diasporism,” which likewise celebrated the value of “hereness.”
For those primarily concerned about Jewish life in the diaspora, Israel, which has courted anti-Semitic nationalist leaders in Europe, isn’t really an ally, much less an ideal. And Trump, who always speaks of American Jews as if they belong there, is a grotesque enemy. He tells Jews committed to life in America that they owe loyalty to Israel, which he sometimes calls, when speaking to American Jews, “your country.” He says this, and expects Jews to react with gratitude. And this is how Judaiam will survive Zionism.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 12, 2019 3:13:18 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/opinion/jared-kushner-trump-anti-semitism.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"This new order adopts as its definition of anti-Semitism the language put forth in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, while also accounting for other forms of anti-Semitism. For example, the alliance defines “the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity,” and those who deny “the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor” or those who compare “contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” as examples of anti-Semitism. The Remembrance Alliance definition makes clear what our administration has stated publicly and on the record: Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. The inclusion of this language with contemporary examples gives critical guidance to agencies enforcing Title VI provisions." Who is the "Remembrance Alliance"? How far right are they? I don't know. Will Trump's new policy make things better or worse for Jewish students? I don't know that either. I do know it will make things worse for students who support Palestinian rights. Will Democrats stand up for free speech for opponents of Israel? Of course they won't. And here I thought rightys were against government meddling with free speech on campus.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 12, 2019 18:20:50 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/opinion/trump-bds-movement-israel.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"It is true that anti-Israel speech, whether on campus or in Congress, makes some Jews feel unsafe, especially those who feel that Zionism is intrinsic to Jewish identity. Some worry that critics of Israel too often blame all Jews for the actions of the Jewish state halfway around the world. Others share critics’ concerns about Israeli actions but find themselves unwelcome as allies, because of hostility toward the Jewish state. The solution to these worries isn’t to stifle conversation. It’s to allow a healthy discourse about the country’s policies, its future and the role of American diplomacy and aid in the region." This is what I've been warning about for 10 years on this thread, that Jews will be too closely identified with Israel and it's legacy of violence.
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Post by jdredd on Apr 27, 2020 11:41:07 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/opinion/labor-likud-knesset-israel.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"But viewed through the politics of the spring of 2020, the murals seem like an illustration of the gap between that vision and where we are now. Just as socialism enjoys a renaissance in American politics, led by Bernie Sanders — who in 1963 spent time on a kibbutz about an hour from here — the ideology’s political power in Israel has expired. Historians argue about when the decline of the left began: Was it in 2000, with the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings that destroyed the peace process and discredited the Labor leaders behind it? Or was it the mishandling of the Yom Kippur War of 1973? Did the slide actually begin even earlier, with the first cracks in kibbutz socialism, like the decision to let members own their own kettles instead of drinking coffee together in the dining hall?" Sad watching Israel descend into crypto-Fascism.
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Post by jdredd on May 25, 2021 11:36:47 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/opinion/anti-zionism-anti-semitism.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=HomepageIn recent years it has become an article of faith on the progressive left that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism and that it’s slander to assume that someone who hates Israel also hates Jews. Not everyone got the memo. Not the people who, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Death to Jews,” according to a witness, assaulted Jewish diners at a Los Angeles sushi restaurant. Not the people who threw fireworks in New York’s diamond district. Not the people who brutally beat up a man wearing a yarmulke in Times Square. Not the people who drove through London slurring Jews and yelling, “Rape their daughters.” Not the people who gathered outside a synagogue in Germany shouting slurs. Not the people who, at a protest in Brussels, chanted, “Jews, remember Khaybar. The army of Muhammad is returning.” Progressives will have to come to their own reckoning about what to do about the burgeoning anti-Semitism in their midst. As for Jews, they should take the events of the last few days less as an outrage than as an omen."
Yes, the right is trying very hard to get traditionally liberal Jews into their camp. I will assume Jews are too intelligent to fall for it. And to think the left is tolerant of fundamentalist Islam is misreading the left. Islamists hate Commies. One can only speculate what would have happened if Israel had turned hard left instead of hard right.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 2, 2021 0:53:24 GMT -5
I asked the question will Judaism survive Zionism, and then concluded Judaism has a future but Zionism does not. I might have to revise that conclusion. It might actually be that both have a future, but Judaism and Zionism may go their separate ways.
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Post by jdredd on Apr 1, 2023 13:05:40 GMT -5
Editorial from the NYT: “ The Fight for Israel’s Democracy Continues”. But I’ve lost interest in Israel. It’s obvious the Palestinians will not get justice in my lifetime, whether Israel is democracy or not.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 9, 2023 0:47:01 GMT -5
Israel continues its legacy of blood, even if it is in self-defence.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 11, 2023 15:31:19 GMT -5
Of course, this is beong described as “Israel’s 9/11 moment”. And like we did, the Israelis will invade something. Good luck with that.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 13, 2023 1:53:05 GMT -5
In the NYT today, David French has a column titled “What would it mean to treat Hamas like ISIS” where he makes the case for exterminating Hamas, no matter the cost, including leveling Gaza City. In other words, the ends justify the means, and might makes right. So what else is new?
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Post by jdredd on Oct 13, 2023 10:25:51 GMT -5
Not that Hamas does not also believe the ends justify the means.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 18, 2023 14:12:35 GMT -5
Top of the page on the NYT online: Biden embracing right wing Neocon hero Netanyahu the day after Bibi blew a Gaza hospital to smithereens (or did they? The Israelis claim otherwise). But Bret calls this “President Biden’s Finest Hour”. At the end Bret claims America is the “last best hope of Earth.” Is he sure we are part of the solution and not part of the problem? Here I thought AI was humanity’s last best hope.
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