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BDS activists posted, then removed, this YouTube video of Norman Finkelstein blasting the BDS movement - Yes, Norman Finkelstein! - during an interview with a pro-BDS activist at Imperial College, with an interlocutor who, no doubt, thought Finkelstein was on board.
Here’s what you saw when trying to access the video following its removal.
However, thanks to our friends Zach and Matt at Huffington Post Monitor (HPM), who downloaded the video (and trimmed the original 30 minute video to include only the sections calling out the BDSers) the clip anti-Israel activists didn’t want you to see is now available.
Here’s a transcript of the shortened clip, courtesy of HPM, as well:
I’ve earned my right to speak my mind, and I’m not going to tolerate what I think is silliness, childishness, and a lot of leftist posturing.
I mean we have to be honest, and I loathe the disingenuous. They don’t want Israel. They think they are being very clever; they call it their three-tier. We want the end of the occupation, the right of return, and we want equal rights for Arabs in Israel. And they think they are very clever because they know the result of implementing all three is what, what is the result?
You know and I know what the result is. There’s no Israel! And if you don’t want the same framework then stop talking about the law and stop trying to be so clever. Because you’re only so clever in your cult. The moment you step out you have to deal with Israeli propaganda. And here they have a case.
They say no they’re not really talking about rights. They’re talking about they want to destroy Israel. And in act I think they’re right I think that’s true. I’m not going to lie. But this kind of duplicity and disingenuous, “oh we’re agnostic about Israel.” No you’re not agnostic! You don’t want it! Then just say it! But they know full well: If you say it you don’t have a prayer reaching a broad public. Because that’s where the public is right now.
I support the BDS. But I said it will never reach a broad public until and unless they’re explicit in their goal. And their goal has to include the recognition of Israel or it’s a nonstarter. It won’t reach the public because the moment you go out there Israel will start to say what about we and they won’t recognize our right and in fact that’s correct. You can’t answer the Israelis on that because they’re making a statement that’s factually correct. It’s not an accidental and unwitting omission that BDS does not mention Israel. You know that and I know that
It’s not like they’re “oh we forgot to mention it.” They won’t mention it because they know it will split the movement. Cause there’s a large segment of the movement that wants to eliminate Israel.
You talk about BDS they make all these claims about their victories. All their claims. You know what? You use these ten fingers? These more than suffice to count all their victories. There are superfluous fingers here to count all their victories. It’s a cult! Where the guru says we have all these victories and everyone nods their head and no one sits down to do the arithmetic on their own.
Yes it’s had some victories no question about it. But the way people promote it as if it’s proven itself and we’re on the verge of a victory of some sort. It’s just sheer nonsense. It’s a cult. And I personally am tired of it.
There’s no Israel. That’s what it’s really about. And you think you’re fooling anybody. You think you’re so clever that people can’t figure that out for themselves? No they understand the arithmetic perfectly well. Are you going to reach a broad public which is going to hear the Israeli side ‘they want to destroy us?’ No you’re not. And frankly you know what you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t read a broad public because you’re dishonest. And I wouldn’t trust those people if I had to live in this state. I wouldn’t. It’s dishonesty.
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A guest post by Sam Westrop (A version of this essay originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post)
In 2000, Norman Finkelstein published his book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitations of Jewish Suffering, which posited that the accepted account of the Holocaust is merely a Zionist narrative, which is cynically used to justify putative Israeli ‘cruelties’. Finkelstein frequently invokes his family’s suffering during the Holocaust as a premise to sanitise his obsessive demonisation of Israel, and frequent use of antisemitic tropes.
Finkelstein’s method is not lost on a new breed of anti-Israel activists, who often employ the memory of the Holocaust to sanitise their abhorrent views on living Jews.
Enter Gary Spedding.
Garry Spedding
Spedding is chair of the Queen’s University Belfast Palestine Solidarity Society, the group which orchestrated the attack upon Solon Solomon, a former legal adviser to the Knesset Foreign Affairs committee, who was invited to speak to law school students at Queen’s University. Solomon was heckled by members of the university’s Palestine Solidarity Society (PSS) and the youth wing of Sinn Féin (the political wing of the Irish terrorist organisation the IRA) during a lecture, and the protesters then attacked the car in which Solomon escaped, attempting to smash its windows.
After being contacted about the attack, Spedding stated he does ‘not condone violence’, yet is evidently proud of his relationship with Holy Land Trust Director, Sami Awad - characterizing him as his ”Best Friend, Mentor, colleague and leader” - who certainly does not condemn terrorist violence. Wrote Awad:
“[non-violent resistance] is not a substitute for the armed struggle. This is not a method for normalization with the occupation. Our goal is to revive the popular resistance until every person is involved in dismantling the occupation.”
Spedding’s mentor Awad has also hosted the extremist Greek Orthodox priest Atallah Hanna – who can be seen here condemning the “Satanic” and diabolical Zionism, and promising that Palestine will be free “from the river to the sea”- at the Holy Land Trust.
Sami Awad and Atallah Hanna
In fact, both Sami Awad and Atallah Hanna have defended the quite reactionary Raed Salah, and Hanna has expressed support for suicide bombings.
Further, about Awad, Spedding has written:
“Sami you have taught me so much and I hope that I have represented you in a good way in my writings, you are a light to me in this time much as Jesus Christ is a light for all of us! … My deepest love goes out to you, my thanks and appreciation nothing can really substantiate in words what you mean to the people here or what you mean to me!”
Spedding also has echoed Deborah Orr’s claims that Jewish supremacism guided Israel’s deal with Hamas to exchange over 1000 Palestinian terrorists to secure the release of Gilad Shalit. :
“There is a point that needs addressing in the use of language by media outlets because of the specifics in the deal surrounding Shalit’s release especially in the mainstream media in the USA and Israel reporting along the lines of ’1000 or more terrorists to be exchanged in prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit’ this viewpoint is highly inaccurate it degrades the Palestinian prisoners being swapped for Gilad Shalit whilst reinforcing the current view among many right wing Zionists and their supporters that 1 jewish life is of more value than say 1000 Arab lives which is incredibly racist in and of itself.”
Spedding also wrote this about the brutal murder of the Fogel family:
“The J’post article sickening invokes the cloudy and unclear death of the Fogel family an attack which I have the report and pictures of in my email inbox from the day after it happened. I find it sick that the J’post is still using this attack for political gain suggesting Palestinians are to blame when there has been no further information, news or otherwise released about the murders since the IDF conveniently caught two Palestinians kept them in torture for a month until they ‘confessed’ and then announced they had caught the killers despite the evidence and speculation of it being the work of a migrant worker from asia.”
This was published months after the murders, when it was clear that Palestinian terrorists were responsible for the murders. The theory about a migrant worker was put forth by the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda unit, and was discounted as agitprop months before Spedding’s comments.
Finally, here’s Spedding expressing support for Finkelstein’s unique understanding of Israel.
“Ah but Anny, I do live in Palestine and i know a lot about this conflict! accusing people of not knowing about the conflict by the way just because they don’t live there is silly really, theres countless middle east experts who don’t live in Israel who know about the conflict in great detail, my friend Norman Finkelstein for one…. i would agree with my friend Norman Finkelstein when he describes Israel as a lunatic state.”
And, evidently inspired by Finkelstein’s example of invoking the memory of the Holocaust in the service of legitimizing extreme anti-Israel politics, Spedding has recently decided to volunteer with Holocaust Memorial Day Trust - a charity which works to raise awareness of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Interestingly in the context of Finkelstein’s critique of the “accepted” Zionist account of the Holocaust in Israel as a ploy “to justify putative Israeli ‘cruelties”, Spedding’s flirtation with antisemities and proponents of terror attacks against Jews would suggest this his association with such a Shoah remembrance organization is itself a supremely cynical attempt to sanitize his alliances with those possessing a decidedly Judeophobic orientation.
You can visit the FB page of Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (or email them at enquiries@hmd.org.uk) if you wish to express your displeasure with their association with Spedding, whose presence is an insult and abuse of genuine Holocaust memory.
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- Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2011 Top 10 anti-Israel and antisemitic slurs (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian gratuitous anti-Israel photo of the day (& a story about the photojournalist behind the lens) (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian, PalFest and the ‘culture’ of anti-Israel activism (cifwatch.com)
- Tell us why you love Israel…in as many words as you like! #WhyILoveIsrael (cifwatch.com)
- The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman and the Guardian’s increasing notoriety (cifwatch.com)
- Antisemites, terror supporters, & Holocaust deniers: aka, just another Palestinian Solidarity Campaign event (cifwatch.com)
Though CiF moderators may be doing a slightly better job of cleaning anti-Semitic filth from their pages these days, a recent comment by a Guardianista named Berchmans recalls a CW post from 2009 called “The first Berchmans Award” – an award dedicated to exposing to recognise the most antisemitic posts on CiF.
Berchmans is a permanent fixture on CiF. And, as we noted, he may be a man of few words, but the words he does use are guaranteed to be used to vilify Israel and her supporters.
More recently, in response to a CiF essay by Timothy Snyder titled, “Lithuania neglects the memory of its murdered Jews“, July 29, about Lithuania’s failure to deal with their involvement in the mass slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust, Berchmans said the following.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Of course, citing Norman Finkelstein is par for the course for Berchmans, as Finkelstein’s views – as expressed in his book “The Holocaust Industry”, which characterizes Israelis as “basically Nazis with beards and black hats” – naturally endears him to anti-Semites and Israel haters the world over.
No, the vile accusation that the Holocaust is cynically exploited by my country and our Jewish supporters does not dignify a reply, but it does need repeating that the memory of the anti-Semitism (the “respectable bigotry” of the time) which led to the murder of one out of every three Jews in the world is, to be sure, a constant reminder of why this blog continues to fight anti-Semitism (and the assault on the Jewish state’s legitimacy) advanced by Guardian reporters, CiF contributors, and commenters like Berchmans.
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- CiF, Henning Mankell, and the audacity of evil (cifwatch.com)
- Yes, denying Jews the right to self-determination is inherently anti-Semitic. (cifwatch.com)
- On CiF Watch and the fight against contemporary anti-Semitism (cifwatch.com)
- CiF Watch’s new Newsletter has hit the stands! (cifwatch.com)
- Curious deletion by Guardian comment moderators in Demjanjuk thread (cifwatch.com)
- Canadian Muslim Activist, Tarek Fatah, unveils “the myths that fuel Islamic anti-Semitism” (cifwatch.com)
- Perfect illustration of Guardian’s biased moderation when dealing with Israel related reader comments (cifwatch.com)
The Guardian has an online store which includes a books section.
So, I wondered, what, pray tell, did the world’s leading liberal voice offer about Israel, and upon a brief search found a few interesting titles:
More Bad News From Israel, by Greg Philo.
Philo, as we’ve noted, has warned darkly at CiF that the UK media is afraid to criticize Israel due to the Jewish state’s powerful and dangerous PR machine, and participated in a conference organized by the openly pro-Hamas group, MEMO.
Image and Reality of the Israel – Palestine Conflict by Norman Finkelstein.
Finkelstein is on record supporting Hezbollah as a legitimate resistance movement, suggested that the U.S. deserved the attacks on 9/11 and that “some things bin Laden says are true”, and “the U.S. qualifies as the main terrorist government in the world today.” In his book, The Holocaust Industry, Finkelstein said, the Holocaust “has been used to justify criminal policies of the Israeli state and U.S. support for these policies….The Zionists indeed learnt well from the Nazis. So well that it seems that their morally repugnant treatment of the Palestinians, and their attempts to destroy Palestinian society within Israel and the occupied territories, reveals them as basically Nazis with beards and black hats.”
Apartheid Israel, by Uri Davis
While the title speaks for itself, the Guardian’s helpful intro informs us that “Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has violated most UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. This up-to-date analysis of the inherent racism in the legal foundations of the State of Israel gives a sense of new emerging anti-Zionist currents within Israel/Palestine.”
Israel/Palestine Question, by Ilan Pappe.
Ilan Pappé is the Israeli-born political science professor and historian who has been behind the attempt by the UK Association of University Teachers’ (AUT) to blacklist Israeli universities. Pappe is a proud post-modern historian who admits that, facts are irrelevant when it comes to the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. “Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts, Who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we can that our interpretation of the facts is the correct one, and we do it because of ideological reasons, not because we are truthseekers,” Pappe said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Soir, Nov. 29, 1999.
Power of Israel in the United States, by James Petras
I’ve reviewed this book for a previous employer, and, in addition to being a well-known 9/11 conspiracy theorist, calling Petras a mere anti-Semite simply doesn’t do justice to his open malice towards Jews. He accuses Amercian Jews of dominating political life of the United States, a community which is not only more loyal to Israel than their own country, but represents, he asserts, nothing short of a fifth column. Petras also portrays Israel as a Nazi-like state which represents the biggest single threat to peace, human rights, and democracy around the globe. Here are two quotes of literally dozens you can find here: (Petras).
“At a time when Israel was killing children in the streets of Rajah and destroying hundreds of homes under the horrified eyes of the entire civilized world…US Congressional leaders and the two major Presidential candidates pledged unconditional support to Israel, evoking the bloodthirsty cheers of investment brokers, dentist, doctors, lawyers the cream of the cream of American Jewish society.“
“The hidden horror and the voices of dissent of many US citizens are stifled by the overbearing dominance of the Jewish monopoly of the mass media.”
Finally, the Guardian offers its readers “Jewish History, Jewish Religion” by the Jew most preferred by anti-Semitic white supremacists, Israel Shahak.
David Duke is the former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and perhaps the most famous American white supremacist today. On the website of his book, Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening to the Jewish Question, Duke notes that his book “is dedicated to the memory of…an Israeli Professor, Dr. Israel Shahak. Dr. Shahak believed that Jewish Supremacism has greatly harmed the Palestinian people as well as the non-Jewish community the world over. He offered strong evidence that Jewish radicals have waged an unrelenting ethnic war against Gentiles since the days of their sojourn in Egypt.”
Commented scholar Paul Bagdanor:
“Israel Shahak was a professor of organic chemistry. In his spare time he was a disseminator of antisemitic lies. Almost every falsehood invoked by the Nazis to justify the Holocaust was eventually ratified by this tenured academic at one of Israel’s most prestigious institutions.
According to Shahak, the Jews think of nothing but making money for the benefit of the Jewish state (“The force of Jewish devotion in assembling money is thought to be infinite”). According to Shahak, the Jews plan to dominate much of the world through an Israeli empire.”
He announced that “Israeli Jews, and with them most Jews throughout the world, are undergoing a process of Nazification.” He asserted that the Nuremberg Laws “are infinitely more moderate than the ‘Gentile’ regulations in Talmudic Law.” And he defamed “the Jewish establishment in the USA and its intellectual slaves,” adding that “Jewish terror is very kosher in the USA!”
The Guardian is not Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. Their limited collection represents what the Guardian considers recommended reading on any given subject. As such, their online bookstore’s Israel section has the effect of informing their no doubt erudite readers that works by malicious and vile anti-Semites are consistent with their understanding of liberal values.
As I’ve noted previously, though Guardian editors may not hold anti-Semitic views themselves, they certainly have an appalling habit of legitimizing those who do.
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- Image accompanying Guardian ‘letters to the editor’ post condemning Israel evokes classic canard (cifwatch.com)
- If they’re Jews send them back! (cifwatch.com)
- Mondoweiss or David Duke? Raed Salah’s defenders reach a new low. (cifwatch.com)
- What the Guardian won’t report: 73% of Palestinians agree with quote from Hamas charter about the need to kill Jews (cifwatch.com)
- Hateful Guardian reader comments about Jews & Israel beneath Daniel Levy’s celebration of Hamas (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s obsession with Israel and the conflicts not covered (cifwatch.com)
- Disturbing amount of anti-Semitism by Guardian readers following CiF piece about Israeli PM’s speech (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade, Ha’aretz and the political pathos of the radical left (cifwatch.com)
H/T Just Journalism
Today’s Guardian “Palestine Papers” update included the following illustration by one of the most prolific anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic cartoonists, Carlos Latuff – depicting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a sinister looking (gun wielding) Orthodox Jew. (The Guardian casually referred to Latuff as “a Brazilian based cartoonist.”)
As I noted previously (in a piece for the JCPA, as well as a guest post for Elder of Ziyon), Latuff is a Brazilian political “activist” and cartoonist with an impressively large portfolio of work – much of which openly express anti-Semitic themes. Some of his caricatures seem to suggest that Israel is a unique and immutable evil in the world. His work includes imagery frequently suggesting a moral equivalence between Israel and Nazi Germany – and he has explicitly acknowledged that this is indeed his political view.
Latuff’s work has been posted on various radical left websites and blogs, as well as several terrorist affiliated websites such as ‘The Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance’ (JAMI) magazine. Norman Finkelstein’s official website has also featured Latuff cartoons. As I noted in my Elder of Ziyon post, a blogger at the site, Mondoweiss, made use of one of Latuff’s cartoons during the flotilla incident. (Scroll down to bottom to see link to Latuff‘s cartoon)
Latuff’s notoriety includes his participation in the 2006 Iranian International Holocaust Cartoon Competition – for his cartoon comparing the Israeli West Bank security barrier with the Nazi concentration camps. Latuff placed second in the contest.
In their 2003 Annual Report, the Stephen Roth Institute compared Latuff’s cartoons of Ariel Sharon to the antisemitic caricatures of Philipp Rupprecht in Julius Streicher’s Der Stürmer.
Even the Guardian’s Ian Black noted that Latuff was among those cartoonists “drawing, without inhibition, on judeophobic stereotypes in the service of the anti-globalisation movement.”
Latuff also has employed racist themes in service of his critiques of President Barack Obama.
Here is some of Latuff’s work:
The Latuff cartoon above, showing Sharon kissing Hitler, appeared on the (Washington) DC Indymedia site.
H/T Harry’s Place
Guardian contributor Rachel Shabi, frequent and vociferous critic of the Jewish state (See CW posts here, here and here) also just happens to be Facebook friends with notorious anti-Semite, Israel Shamir. (Shamir, its worth noting, is also FB friends with Norman Finkelstein, Lauren Booth, Philip Weiss, and Ken O’Keefe.)
Just to be clear about what a prolific anti-Semite Shamir is, here are a few highlights.
- He’s said: “It’s every Muslim and Christian’s duty to deny the Holocaust.”
- He’s described Jews as “virus in human form.”
- He’s endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
- He’s Stated: Palestine is not the ultimate goal of the Jews; The world is. Palestine is just the place for the world state headquarters.”
It kind of puts everything she’s written about Israel in perspective doesn’t it?
The following was written by K. Gena, a student at Imperial College London who attended Norman Finkelstein’s talk at the University on November 26th as a part of the Islamic Society’s Justice Week. The talk was a part of Finkelstein’s UK lecture tour.
If you’ve ever taken a pessimist on a hard journey you will know that the journey becomes hell. The person sees only the bad side of the coin, conveys suspiciousness and uses superstition to predict the failure of the journey. Well, a pessimist eventually can be left home alone, but what can be done with a controversial radical, who also happens to be a charismatic speaker?
One of these individuals is Norman Finkelstein, an invited speaker by the Islamic Society to Justice Week. He was introduced as a professor, although his academic rank would be equivalent to a lecturer (he was denied tenure in the US), and he has a track record of controversy among academic colleagues.
Being at his lecture reminded me of the movies by Michael Moore which supposedly reveal hidden conspiracies behind any action or event. But if the movies by Moore are usually taken with a pinch of salt, I was surprised to see a lack of critical reflection on behalf of the people in the audience who failed to challenge any of Finkelstein’s views.
Worse than that, the inaccuracies of some of the facts presented went mostly unnoticed because of the crowd’s almost naive willingness to believe.
Most of the focus of the talk was on the operation “Cast Lead”, a 3-week armed conflict in the Gaza strip during winter 2008-2009. Israel started the operation after an escalation of rockets fired into its territory by Hamas militants.
Hamas is the largest Palestinian militant Islamist organisation widely recognised as a terrorist organisation, which took over control of Gaza in 2006.
From the beginning Finkelstein brilliantly downplayed the necessity of the Israeli action, and made the situation into an almost one-sided-conflict portraying Israel as an unprovoked aggressor. His rhetoric reminded me of that of a politician who highlights those aspects which favour his statements, while ignoring others that don’t support his case.
Kieron Monks is a reporter and editor for Palestine Monitor. He’s written pieces in the publication accusing “Zionist lobbies” of “smearing” such heroic figures as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein. Finkelstein, it should be noted, asserts that the Holocaust has been exaggerated and exploited by Jews to justify Israeli human rights violations and crimes against humanity, and supported Hezbollah’s “armed resistance against the Israeli Army in Lebanon.” In the same essay, Monks accuses the Jewish people of having transitioned from “oppressed” to “oppressor”, and – even more shamefully – accuses Jewish groups of desperately ”digging deeper for evidence of their victim-hood.”
In another piece for Palestine Monitor, entitled “Human Currency”, in 2009, he argues that Palestinians should not negotiate with Israel, and that force is the only thing which Israelis understand.
So, with such a prolific anti-Israel pedigree, and palpable hostility towards the Jewish community, I wasn’t surprised to see that Comment is Free recently published his essay, on Nov. 19, Palestine aid models must change.
It was these five words in the following passage that initially got my attention:
“The impact of foreign interests can be clearly seen in PA budgets that allocate 10 times more money to security – suppressing resistance to the occupation – than to agriculture, which could be the backbone of the Palestinian economy.”
This passage really caught my eye. With language, context is everything, but, given his past commentary, its seems clear that it should be read as criticism of the Palestinian security forces attempts to combat extremism, violence, and terrorism against Israelis – a minimal requirement for coexistence in the region. The words “resistance to the occupation” often are a thinly veiled euphemism for the right to “armed resistance.”
Another passage in his essay lends support to my conclusions. He says:
Individual NGOs have attempted to assert their independence from donors. Many reject USAID funding due to its political demands, which preclude assistance for projects that could benefit people with affiliations to undesirable political groups. The Dalia Association has introduced a “Village Decides” scheme, focused on institution building, which empowers local communities to invest funding as they see fit, without conditions.
Of course, Monks fails to inform his readers what he means by “undesirable political groups.” He’s referring to U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) guidelines requiring NGOs receiving funds to pledge “not to promote or engage in violence, terrorism, bigotry, or the destruction of any state, nor … make sub-grants to any entity that engages in these activities.”
In the mind of Kieron Monks, requirements that NGOs – who ostensibly are trying to promote peace and human rights in the region – shouldn’t promote terrorism or anti-Semitism are, naturally, a betrayal of the revolution.
Monks – who fetsishizes violent resistance by the most reactionary political movements, and peddles hateful narratives about Jews, yet still styles himself a brave progressive voice – is the perfect embodiment of the Guardian’s consistent betrayal of true liberal values.
There was a time when liberal papers (like the Guardian) were at the forefront in the fight against anti-Semitism. There was a time when such papers could be relied upon to be in fierce opposition to totalitarianism and unwavering in their defense of democracies - and never mistook the former for the latter. And, there was a time when liberal papers would see through the thin veneer of folks such as Kieron Monks and see him as the reactionary that he is.
I long for the return of that kind of crusading and fearless liberal voice in the UK.
This is a cross post by Matt of the The Brothers of Judea
I’m taking my own turn reading “Why the Jews?” by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, and it’s pretty interesting. This particular section that I felt is worthy of your attention is a section about “non-Jewish Jews”. Non-Jewish Jews are, according to Prager and Telushkin’s definition, Jews who are Jews in heritage alone, they don’t practice religious ceremonies, believe in God, or follow Jewish laws. What is remarkable about these Jews is that in their pursuit of acceptance outside Jewish circles, they often bring disaster on their fellow practicing Jews.
Prager and Telushkin point out that a lot of revolutionaries turn out to be Jewish (at least in Europe). Not a lot of Jews are revolutionaries, but a lot of revolutionaries are Jews. They’re not totally sure why this is the case, they think it has something to do with the belief that non-Jewish Jews keep looking for a community to replace the Jewish one they abandoned, and when they can’t find it, they seek to make everyone else just as community-less as they are. In any case, they give two examples of revolutionary non-Jewish Jews whose actions bring up pain and suffering for Jewish Jews.
First is the Bolshevik Jews of revolutionary Russia. Because so many of the Bolsheviks were Jews (i.e, Trotsky and Lenin), their enemies associated Judaism in general with Communism. So the anti-Communist Ukrainians considered all Jews their enemies and took steps accordingly, culminated in the deaths of 50,000 Jews in the 1918-20 civil war. On the other side, even though the Bolsheviks were led by Jews, those Jews didn’t like the practicing Jews either, as they were religious, something Communism rejected. The Russian Jews were stuck between a rock and a hard place because of these non-Jewish Jewish revolutionaries. The second example Prager and Telushkin cite is 1920s and 30s Germany. At the same time the Nazis were rising to power, non-Jewish Jew intellectuals were virulently criticizing the government. Many of them were part of the extremist revolutionary Left, and the Nazis used their disloyal speech and action to turn the German people more solidly against Jews in general. Once again, non-Jewish Jews bring down suffering on their estranged relatives.
I couldn’t help but think after reading this section that it’s happening again today with the I/P conflict. We see far-Left non-practicing Jews fiercely condemning Israel (and the United States), trying to overthrow the Israeli government/create a one-state solution, and believe so strongly in their own political ideals they are willing to ally with people who disagree with everything the Jews are. Such non-Jewish Jews include Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein and MJ Rosenberg. These people were willing to put their own beliefs, ambitions, and lust for attention before everything else, and they are (deliberately or not) putting their fellow Jews in danger. If MJ Rosenberg gets his wish and AIPAC is dissolved as a US lobby, and the Arabs invade Israel and destroy it because Israel can no longer prevent UN sanctions (a doomsday scenario to be sure), Rosenberg will be able to disappear into the US, shrugging his shoulders and saying “Oops”, while his fellow Jews have to pay the price.
We have to be on guard against these people. They claim they have our best interests in mind, but they’ve internalized their own ambitions so much they refuse to accept the possibility that what’s best for them isn’t necessarily what’s best for Israel.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Is there really any difference between Jenny Tonge and Salma Yaqoob?
April 9, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Ben White, Comment is Free, Flotilla, Guardian, Hamas, Holocaust Perversion, Islamism, Israel, Jenny Tonge, Norman Finkelstein, Raed Saleh, Richard Burden, Selma Yaqoob | by Hawkeye | 22 comments
A couple of months ago Jenny Tonge caused a firestorm after she publicly stated during an anti-Israel diatribe “Israel is not going to be there forever in its present performance”. Rejecting an ultimatum from Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, to apologize for her remarks Tonge was forced to resign from the Liberal Democrats and give up the party whip.
Commenting on Tonge’s remarks, Robert Halfon, MP opined
Enter Salma Yaqoob, hailed by the Guardian as “the most prominent Muslim woman in British public life”.
Yaqoob, leader of the Respect Party and former Birmingham city councilor, is known for her Islamist leanings having called the 7/7 London bombings “reprisal attacks”. According to Harry’s Place:
Salma Yaqoob (right) endorsing Ben "I can understand why some are antisemitic" White's book Israel Apartheid for Beginners
It should come as no surprise then that Yaqoob holds a special place in her heart for Israel. She attended a protest together with Richard Burden, MP, in which the Israeli flag was burnt. On her personal blog, she lovingly refers to the IHH terrorists on board the Mavi Marmara as martyrs, campaigned for the release of Sheikh Raed Salah, endorsed the closure of the Israeli embassy in London, and supported the pro-Hamas Viva Palestina convoy while on Twitter she participated in the campaign to release Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesperson, Khader Adnan.
In the spirit of Norman Finkelstein, in an article published in the Guardian (but where else!) she accused “Zionists [of abusing] the memory of the Holocaust to bolster support for today’s Israeli state.” And as can be seen from this article she is a staunch supporter of the BDS movement and the antisemitic Israel apartheid trope.
Which is all by way of introduction to this video filmed in 2010 that places everything neatly in context.
Around the 1 minute mark you can hear Yaqoob saying the following:
Calling into question the existence of and willing the end of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people is abhorrent, offensive and yes antisemitic.
So I ask the question: is there really any difference between what Jenny Tonge and Salma Yaqoob said?
Perhaps Yaqoob should ponder this next time she openly threatens CiF Watch on twitter for expressing our First Amendment rights of free speech.
Update 1
On Twitter, Yaqoob is claiming that she referred to the fact that 7/7 bomber claimed it as a reprisal attack and that she condemned the bombings unreservedly.
Update 2
On Twitter, Yaqoob claims that the Trends article was a satirical parody. She’s strangely silent about the substance of the post – namely the similarity of her statement to that of Jenny Tonge!
Update 3
More hate speech from Salma Yaqoob, this time on Twitter:
Salma Yaqoob Hate Speech Tweet
Update 4
Yaqoob is resolute about standing behind her comments a la Jenny Tonge as evidenced by this retweet:
Update 5
This retweet from Salma Yaqoob is priceless:
Update 6
Note how Salma Yaqoob accuses us of trolling and smearing in the following two tweets:
And then she retweets this:
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