This is a guest post from AKUS

Seth Freedman is by his own admission a devout Jew who on May 28th this year shared with the readers of the Guardian’s CiF website in an article headed We must make e-books pirate-proof that he uses his phone to say the traveler’s blessing – Birkat Ha’Derech– when getting on a bus in Israel, presumably to ward off the possibility of being blown up by one of his Palestinian friends.

“On Monday, I said the traveller’s prayer when getting on the bus, as I do every time I go on a journey out of Tel Aviv. Rather than carrying a prayer book with me, I have an e-siddur installed on my phone for just such occasions, allowing me instant access to the necessary text”.

Less than two days ago was Yom Kippur, so, “as-a-Jew”, and an Orthodox one to boot, Freedman had plenty of time to sit in synagogue and think up his next piece for the Guardian – one that would once again compare Israelis (with one exception – himself) to Nazis.

Yes, Israel’s own little Goebbels must have had a brain-wave – perhaps while the Rabbi recited the memorial service for the 6 million dead a little lamp went off in what passes for Freedman’s mind: “Why”, he must have mused to himself, “do I not draw an analogy between Israelis who think that Jewish girls dating Arab guys are like Nazis who supported Hitler’s Nuremberg laws? Why not compare Israel’s policies to those of the Nazis against ‘mischlings’ and to the Nazi laws against mixed marriages – ‘miscegenation’?”

Waiting, one hopes, for the services to end, three stars to appear to signal the end of Yom Kippur, and the havdalah candle to be lit, he must have rushed to his computer. Only a few hours later he came out with the latest addition to his long list of Nazi images to describe Israel and Israelis (see my earlier piece, The Use of Nazi Analogies on CiF ). Israel, like Nazi Germany, practices “miscegenation”.

Thus, the day after Yom Kippur, a day sacred to Jews before which the Guardian published an article by Freedman described correctly on CiF Watch as oozing oleaginous sanctimony, this self-proclaimed expert on all matters Jewish, Israeli, publishing, electronics, and financial claimed:

“Jewish law instructs adherents that… it is first and foremost incumbent on individuals to apologise to their fellow men for any injustices they may have committed during the past year – and only then may they approach God and offer up their prayer for forgiveness from above”.

Well, G-d’s laws – or Jewish laws – do not, apparently apply to this particular Jew.  Instead, we get the latest foul insult hurled by this nasty house Jew at Israelis: an article entitled “Israel’s vile anti-miscegenation squads“.

Here, as one example, is what Wiki has to say about the etymological history:

“… The word was coined in an anonymous propaganda pamphlet published in New York City in December 1863, during the American Civil War. The pamphlet was entitled Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro.

…Laws banning “race-mixing” were enforced in Nazi Germany (the Nuremberg Laws) until 1945, in certain U.S. states from the Colonial era until 1967 and in South Africa during the early part of the Apartheid era. All these laws primarily banned marriage between spouses of different racially or ethnically defined groups, which was termed “amalgamation” or “miscegenation” in the U.S. The laws in Nazi Germany and many of the U.S. states, as well as South Africa, also banned sexual relations between such individuals.”

Now, Freedman may not be smart enough to come up with the word “miscegenation” himself, or perhaps he heard the Rabbi condemn the Nuremberg laws and in a quick visit to Google he found it. Possibly it may have occurred to him and probably it did to the Guardian editors that using the word “mischling” was not quite the thing – it rather gives the game away, and perhaps opens the door to prosecution for hate speech. But miscegenation is close enough – wink, wink – to get the point across.

Clearly, the Wiki contributor is unaware of Freedman’s discovery – the application of the Nuremberg laws inside Israel itself, and the attempt to prevent the creation of “mischlings”. One assumes that Freedman will write up an additional section to drive the point home, and make sure the comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany sticks. I am sure there will be a chorus of his anti-Semitic supporters when the thread reopens later today praising him for his “objectivity” – as-a-Jew, his credentials are impeccable, and he provides a most valuable human shield for the inveterate Israel bashers and anti-Semites that flock to the CiF site – not so much, as a variation on one of Freedman’s favorite images, as a “sheriff’s posse” – rather as a group of Cossacks or lynch mob intent in extracting the most Jewish blood out of the latest pogrom.

Is this vile activity opposing “miscegenation” carried out by all Israelis, as Freedman would have us believe? No, it is not, though you would find it hard to gather that from reading the article, replete as it is with Freedman’s usual childish hyperbole, mixed metaphors, and turgid prose.

Freedman’s knowledge of the phenomenon, like so much of his commentary, is based on second hand, recycled news or superficial observation. He makes no attempt to investigate and report actual facts on the extent of the phenomenon he is reporting – perhaps he read about it on his Kindle on the way back from the airport since in this case, his column’s sources are limited to a report in the British Times OnLine, and an article in Ha’aretz.

Freedman chooses to overlook three important points in his racist rant.

First, the current concern about Jewish girls dating, or accompanying, Arab men arises from the brutal and senseless murder of an elderly Jew on the Tel Aviv promenade about a month ago by a group made up of eight Arabs and a couple of Jewish girls:

Tel Baruch beach lynch suspects remain in police custody

… The Tel Aviv Magistrates’ Court overnight Sunday extended the remand of eight residents of the Arab local council of Jaljulia who are suspected of being involved in the murder of 59-year-old Leonard (Arik) Karp Friday night at the Tel Baruch beach.

Another suspect, a 17-year-old girl from Kfar Saba was sent to house arrest, but the remand of a 19-year-old woman soldier from Petach Tikva was extended by three days after the court accepted the police’s appeal against its previous decision to send her to house arrest as well.

Not an altogether unreasonable event to create some concern among the Jewish population.

Second, Israelis who know a little more about Arab culture than those who see Arabs as only victims of Jewish Nazi tendencies are well-aware of the way, in Arab culture, young unaccompanied, unmarried girls of any religion, including Islam, are regarded, especially if they engage in sex. Not to put too fine a point on it, they are simply regarded by their Arab boy-friends as whores. Anyone who doubts this need only read Asra Nomani’s fine biography, “Standing Alone”, where she describes how she was jilted by her Pakistani boy-friend as soon as he got her pregnant – there was no way he could marry a woman who had sex before marriage – even with himself!! If further proof is needed, there are the endless cases of “honor killings” that are reported when a Moslem woman has sex before marriage and is found out by her family.

Third – as was pointed out in accompanying thread – this is a typical example of Freedman eagerly searching for the half-full glass:

SantaMoniker

29 Sep 09, 6:25pm (about 11 hours ago)

Umm — even if a few extremists are trying to stop Jews and Arabs dating – isn’t the larger issue the more positive fact that Jews and Arabs are dating?

I suppose the way you view this phenomenon depends on whether you are always looking for the half-empty glass, or are willing to consider whether it might be half full?

Another commentator on the thread asked:

Question to Seth (SHanaTova by the way). Just wondering as an orthodox Jew whether you would prefer a Jewish wife. Do you date non Jewish girlfriends?

An interesting question which leads me to wonder how Freedman’s orthodox family would relate to him if he brought home an Arab woman he intended to marry. So far, there has been no answer to THAT question on the thread.

What puzzles me is why a British Alan Dershowitz – and there must be one among Britain’s lawyers – backed financially by the wealth of the British Jewish Community has not hauled this nasty piece of work into a court somewhere in Britain and used laws that must surely exist, if only at the EU level, against the kind of hate speech that Freedman pours out weekly under the warm protection of Mother Guardian.

It is more than time for some brave British Jews to make a stand.

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