Is this anti-semitism?

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I saw this headline and expected to read on and be saddened by the knock-on effects of recent anti-American and anti-Israeli feeling. But on examining it, I don't think I think much of the questions in the survey, or rather the interpretation being put on them.

Nearly 18% said Judaism was “intolerant” and 17% did not consider Jews compatriots.. Sure, that's anti-semitism pure and simple.

Asked if Jews in their countries had a “mentality and lifestyle” different than other citizens, 46% said yes.

Is this? Not all Jewish people, no. But if they choose to participate in Jewish culture, then yeah, why not? I'd say the same about any cultural group, including those that I belong to. Nothing wrong with difference, or acknowledging it. I thought that was what a multi-cultural society was about,

I'm not even sure the money question is a surefire way of exposing bigotry. So what if a culture is associated with professions like banking and so on? My Parsee ancestors held a similar position in India. Big deal.

Anti-Semitic Europe signalled by survey

Nearly half of those asked in a poll on anti-Semitism in Europe yesterday said Jews in their nations were different, and more than one-third said Jews should stop “playing the victim” for the Holocaust.
The poll by the Ipso research institute was conducted in nine countries, including Britain.
The poll, released on the eve of a Holocaust memorial day in many European countries, came after Jewish leaders claimed anti-Semitism was rising across the continent.
Asked if Jews in their countries had a “mentality and lifestyle” different than other citizens, 46% said yes.
About 40.5% said Jews in their country had “a particular relationship with money” and 35.7% said Jews “should stop playing the victim for the Holocaust and the persecutions of 50 years ago”.
Nearly 18% said Judaism was “intolerant” and 17% did not consider Jews compatriots.
“Obviously the virus of anti-Semitism is far more resilient and determined than we might have thought in the past,” said Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee.
“What’s more amazing than the percentage of people who hold those opinions is the percentage of people willing to express them,” he added.
France refuted Israeli charges of rising anti-Semitism, saying attacks on Jews and Jewish property had dropped by 36% last year rather than doubled, as Israel’s minister for diaspora affairs has asserted.
The Interior Ministry reacted a day after Natan Sharansky said 47% of all anti-Semitic attacks in Europe last year occurred in France.–AP

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 12:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

It's very tricky. Nearly 18% said Judaism was “intolerant” -- even that isn't necessarily anti-semitic; I would saw that Islam, or any faith, really, is "intolerant" too. The Holocaust point is probably more worrying -- this was a cross-Europe poll, so held in countries considerably more culpable in this respect than the UK. Many quasi-Leftists fall on this position when attacking Israel, which is a vile position to hold, lacking in sympathy -- and I'm speaking as someone who is critical of Israel.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 12:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

I've often thought the biggest problem with the often nebulous and knee-jerk accusations of anti-semitism is that there is an extri special word for it (ie it ain't called Anti-Judaism). Islamophobic is incleasingly being brought in to mean a similar kind of thing for Islam - though certainly not as loaded. But there is no real offical word for hating Christians.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 12:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

It's not vile to be desperately upset with Israel's treatment of Palestinians is it, given the circumstances of the founding of Israel from a political standpoint? Admittedly, the founding of Israel on the ground kinda started to whole treatment of Palestinaians thing thing, but...

― Dave B (daveb), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 12:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

Hmm, the Holocaust one I'm not entirely convinced about, Enrique. Some Jewish people argue, not that it is time to forget, but time to get out of a victim-casting obsession with past persecution. Not because they are self-haters, but because they think it helps Jewish culture move on, and because in certain hands, the Holocaust issue is almost used as a trump card in all arguments, which is obviously irritating.

I accept that “Jews should stop playing the victim for the Holocaust and the persecutions of 50 years ago” is anastily-worded statement and I'm not saying I would agree with it. And yeah, maybe it's not for gentiles to say any of these things anyway.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 12:50 (9 years ago) Permalink

It's a bit vile to say that Israel only exists because the Jews 'used' the Holocaust as leverage, which is what a lot of revisionist leftists do in their attempt to undermine Israel's legitimacy as a nation. In its less nuanced uses, this is what the Finkelstein book does. Obviousy it shouldn't be used to justify current hostilities against the Palestinians, but I can understand why it was used back in the 1940s, when the area was a British mandate-colony.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 12:52 (9 years ago) Permalink

What we learned from the Holocaust is that it is a very wrong idea to separate people out according to religion/sexuality (remember Catholics and homosexuals also suffered there), place them in internment camps and then kill them. What we learned from apartheid is that it is wrong to separate people out by skin colour and deny them access to cities and areas and basic civil rights as if on a whim. I would suggest to Israelis of a 'pioneer' bent to learn from the Holocaust and apartheid the lesson about onetime victims relishing their turn on bully duty, and to find a way to resist.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:00 (9 years ago) Permalink

i thought it said 'jews should stop "playing the violin" for the holocaust'... i wish they had worded it that way because i don't think nearly as many people would be in favour of stopping violins!

― jeremy jordan (cruisy), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

Is it racist to say that a religion is intolerant? It would certianly be racist to say that Jews were intolerant.

It is not true that Judaism is intolerant, but saying it is might have all manner of motives, not necessarily racist ones. Although not excluding racist ones, either. For instance, someone might believe that Judaism is intolerant because its rituals can comes across as dogmatic and strict, such as not allowing you to use the car on a Friday. But this is not actually intolerance. To say that Judaism is intolerant implies that the religion or the culture has no sympathy for outsiders or other cultures. This is not true. Judaism, like Islam, is a religion of love and charity, which is not confined to the community but extends as far as loving the enemy.

Of course, I'm not talking about any particular state or government here, just the teachings of the religions.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:02 (9 years ago) Permalink

Um, the Balfour Declaration dates back to long before the Holocaust.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:03 (9 years ago) Permalink

How much of the fear and mistrust of Judaism comes from it being a non-evangelical religion (menkos Jews 4 Jebus notwithstanding).

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:05 (9 years ago) Permalink

Um, the Balfour Declaration dates back to long before the Holocaust.

Sure it does, but the Holocaust was a major part of the ideological constellation that led to Israel being set up. As you know, the Balfour declaration was no road-map, and of course had its Nazi counterparts (ie setting up of Jewish homeland far away from Europe).

Judaism, like Islam, is a religion of love and charity, which is not confined to the community but extends as far as loving the enemy. But neither are interpreted like that, or at least they aren't so often. The problem is the conflation of race and religion -- I think Ed made me think on this. I don't think it's racist to take issue with faith -- no-one will call me racist for having a problem with Christianity's views on homosexuality, for example.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:10 (9 years ago) Permalink

You're right, Enrique, about no-one calling you racist for taking issue with Christianity's dogma on sexuality. But what about the statement that Judaism might be about love and charity in principle but is is not interpreted like that? Do you mean actual Jews don't act out of love and charity? Or do you mean gentiles don't regard Judaism as about love and charity?

If you think that Judaism is about love and charity but Jews don't act as if it is, then that's already sounding like an attack on the race not the religion to me...

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:14 (9 years ago) Permalink

Pete, that's not at the heart of it at all. The Romans/Greeks didn't really 'get' monotheism, but it's the crapness of Christianity and its prostletysing that created a great deal of anti-Semitic sentiment, what with chasing the money-lenders out of the temple yada yada and people judging ALL Jews as usurers/cash-obsessed/cleverer than. I'm pretty bloody thankful I went to school with thousands of Jews, because they had in their favour a belief in the power of learning and education being a pathway to aspirations. Their parents were the best agitators for getting stuff done for everyone in my town that I've ever experienced.

Again: all bigotry is a manifestation of the bigot's insecurity, usually unsubstantiated.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:18 (9 years ago) Permalink

So, has anybody got any idea why someone would say that Judaism is intolerant? (I'm not asking if any of you are racist, I'm just wondering if anyone has any examples or good guesses about purported Judaic intolerance... And I mean the religion, not the state or Isreal or somesuch)

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:21 (9 years ago) Permalink

Hmm, interesting. I suppose I was thinking that the idea of not wanting to spread "the good news", being a closed community pretty much marks you out as The Other, but certainly the other factors you point out seem a fair bit more convincing.

How has Christianity dealt with the Jesus as king of Jews thing?

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:25 (9 years ago) Permalink

Dave, you've already said it's intolerant of several things (like allowing you to use the car on a Friday). You also explained why this doesn't mean the same as 'intolerant' to you. I understand that, but 'intolerant' means different things to different people.

Perhaps the main point of this thread was that I hate ambiguously worded questionnaires, esp. if they're deliberately so.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:26 (9 years ago) Permalink

because people conflate judaism with the state of isreal?

― Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

Or with 'all Jewish people'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:33 (9 years ago) Permalink

I don't mean that it doesn't mean intolerant to me, I mean it is not what intolerant means. Intolerance is an unwillingness to endure differing opinions. Religious Law is not intolerant of those who break religious law. Laws are not opinions, so flouting the law is not a differing opinion either.

If you are a Jew, you do not drive etc on the Sabbath. This is a ritual by which you live a religious life. It is the code by which you get closer to god. That is not intolerant. Judaism would be intolerant if it forbid non-Jews to drive etc on the Sabbath.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

good point, what about forcible removal of non-jews and 'pioneer' settling though?

― Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

That's Isreal, not Judaism

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:37 (9 years ago) Permalink

Is a state intolerant for forbidding someone to open his business, or restricting his hours of busines by law on the Sabbath no matter what his religion?

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:37 (9 years ago) Permalink

in·tol·er·ant ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-tlr-nt)
adj.

Not tolerant, especially:
a. Unwilling to tolerate differences in opinions, practices, or beliefs, especially religious beliefs.
b. Opposed to the inclusion or participation of those different from oneself, especially those of a different racial, ethnic, or social background.
c. Unable or unwilling to endure or support: intolerant of interruptions; a community intolerant of crime.

I'd say a) is pretty different to b)

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:38 (9 years ago) Permalink

That's Isreal, not Judaism
-- run it off (davebeec...), January 27th, 2004 1:37 PM.

because people conflate judaism with the state of isreal?
-- Stringent Stepper (stringen...), January 27th, 2004 1:30 PM.

there you go mate

― Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

the State may well be intolerant if it restricted business hours for citizens who don't share the law of the Sabbath, but the religion isn't intolerant because the state does this.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:40 (9 years ago) Permalink

So, if the problem is the conflation of the state and the religion, does that mean it is racist to say that Judaism is intolerant instead of saying that Isreal is intolerant?

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

not racist, I mean anti-semitic...

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

Huzzah, The UK is intolerant (no shock there....)

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:42 (9 years ago) Permalink

Well, a lot of places in London settled by Jews had Sunday trading by dint of being closed on Saturday for Sabbath: see Brick Lane/Whitechapel, Golders Green/Hampstead.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:44 (9 years ago) Permalink

the religion isn't intolerant because the state does this

I don't know enough about the tenets of Judaism to go into it, but by analogy -- it *is* intolerant if it sanctions the law, surely?

Judaism != Jews, maybe, run it off? It's clumsy, but race and religion are not the same. So it isn't racist to criticize a faith? I doin't know.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

Religious Law is not intolerant of those who break religious law.

Surely religious las IS intolerant of people who break it. I'm guessing there must be punishments for transgression, even if it's just an evil look during church - and that kind of emotional punishment can be extremely effective/painful, especially in close-knit communities and ones where the people have a God's good will yo lose.

Laws are not opinions, so flouting the law is not a differing opinion either.
If you are a Jew, you do not drive etc on the Sabbath. This is a ritual by which you live a religious life. It is the code by which you get closer to god. That is not intolerant. Judaism would be intolerant if it forbid non-Jews to drive etc on the Sabbath.

-- run it off (davebeec...), January 27th, 2004.

Laws are opinions, they're (usually(should be!)) the opinion of the majority as to how individuals should behave.

Also, not being allowed to drive on a Sunday (or Saturday) IS intolerant: intolerant toward Jews. I think most religions are least tolerant of their own.

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:52 (9 years ago) Permalink

Laws are opinions, they're (usually(should be!)) the opinion of the majority as to how individuals should behave.

That's a bit of a shallow view of jurisprudence.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 13:55 (9 years ago) Permalink

jurisprudence = ideological screen for repressive state apparatus

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 14:00 (9 years ago) Permalink

how could a religion as old as the hills sanction a state as young as Isreal? Still less the acts of the leaders of such a state.

The ideological screen idea is itself an ideological screen.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 14:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

Ideologies don't screen. They are productive not obstructive. Eagleton at one point uses the example of the phrase "the Prince of Wales is a nice chap". This is ideological because it produces a certain effect (support for the Royals as people) not because it hides the real social relations (Royals are social leeches, or etc). The fact that it makes no mention of politics, economics, and so on does not mean that it is a screen any more than a black and white photo can be said to be a screen against colour.

As such, juridprudence is not an ideological screen; it is ideological. That doesn't mean it is no different from other ideas or opinions. Opinions that are ratified and authorised are not opinions in the same way as opinions that are not.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 14:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

Sorry -- it was just my little joke. Nonetheless, I think it's interestingly provocative to call laws 'opinions'.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 14:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

yes, I agree.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 15:02 (9 years ago) Permalink

Hey, we Jews are barely tolerant of each other, let alone the rest of you.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 15:12 (9 years ago) Permalink

Enough with the kvetching!

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 15:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

kvetching - one of my favourites. A friend calls her young baby a kvetch box

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 15:47 (9 years ago) Permalink

Every time you moan you have to put a coin in the kvetch box.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 15:55 (9 years ago) Permalink

[all babies are young, aren't they... doh!]

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 15:59 (9 years ago) Permalink

Laws are opinions, they're (usually(should be!)) the opinion of the majority as to how individuals should behave.
That's a bit of a shallow view of jurisprudence.

-- Ricardo (boyofbadger...), January 27th, 2004.

Jurisprudence is the philosophy of law isn't it? Isn't what I've said what that all boils down too?

Where _is_ the depth?
It's simple isn't it?

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:00 (9 years ago) Permalink

Can you explain how it all boils down to opinion?

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

Hey, we Jews are barely tolerant of each other, let alone the rest of you.
-- Chuck Tatum (sappy_papp...), January 27th, 2004.

See! Told you!

And more kvetchup please!

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

Laws (attempt to) make people behave in the ways other people _think_ they should behave.

How humans should behave is a matter of opinion. Different religions, for example, havie differing opinions.

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:02 (9 years ago) Permalink

Sorry -- it was just my little joke. Nonetheless, I think it's interestingly provocative to call laws 'opinions'.
-- Enrique (miltonpinsk...), January 27th, 2004.

To clarify, laws themselves aren't exactly opinions, but what they attempt to enshrine as 'right' and 'wrong' ARE opinions.

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:05 (9 years ago) Permalink

I might break the law even though I agree with it generally, but I may also break the law because I have a different opinion as to what is 'rihgt' and what is 'wrong'.

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:06 (9 years ago) Permalink

who are these other people? Don't the laws apply to the people who write them? (Seriously)

If laws are backed by the state (and, after all, that's what makes them laws, rather than guidelines or codes or something else) then they are not just opinions, they are sanctified, ordered, institutionalied, backed up by the criminal justice system etc. I'm not saying power and hierarchy and stuff aren't involved -- of course they are -- but laws don't get to be laws without going through a socially sanctioned process.

The case of breaking the law because you have a different opinion (civil disobedience etc) does not mean that the law is treated as opinion it means that laws are seen as arbitrary and changeble, so that collective action can bring about social changes that force laws to change.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:07 (9 years ago) Permalink

Yes they do apply to those that write them (or they're supposed to).

Yes, they are socially sanctioned, they are the combined opinions of a lot of people.

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:09 (9 years ago) Permalink

By 'opinion' here I mean 'what some people' think is right.

Also, I'm not saying the law is _treated as_ an opinion, I'm saying it _is_ an opinion.

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:11 (9 years ago) Permalink

From dictionary.com

o·pin·ion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-pnyn)
n.

A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof: “The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion” (Elizabeth Drew).

A judgment based on special knowledge and given by an expert: a medical opinion.

A judgment or estimation of the merit of a person or thing: has a low opinion of braggarts.

The prevailing view: public opinion.

Law. A formal statement by a court or other adjudicative body of the legal reasons and principles for the conclusions of the court.

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:12 (9 years ago) Permalink

So for example, the law that says "kill someone, go to jail", implies that killing is wrong.

And "Killing is wrong" is "A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof".

(The last clause of that definition is a coincidence, and not what I was aiming at really, 'opinion' seems to be fairly slight homonym.)

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:15 (9 years ago) Permalink

I believe killing is wrong, but I'll admit that it's just a belief.

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:16 (9 years ago) Permalink

law is not an opinion except in an abstract sense. Even if an opinion is converted into law through the established procedure it is not an opinion. At least it's not an opinion anymore.

That's all I'm saying.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:16 (9 years ago) Permalink

How can 'killing is wrong' be just a belief? Do you mean it's only wrong for you and people who agree with you? What about people who don't agree with you, such as, let me think, ah yes, murderers?

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:18 (9 years ago) Permalink

Our rabbi would curtail his sermon whenever Spurs played home, which was a great act of altruism and tolerance.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:24 (9 years ago) Permalink

About 40.5% said Jews in their country had “a particular relationship with money”

So what if a culture is associated with professions like banking and so on? My Parsee ancestors held a similar position in India. Big deal.

That is not nearly as harmless an accusation as you may think. The belief that Jews are obsessed with money is one of the foundations to anti-semitism.

Also "playing the victim" in regards to the Holocaust has that vomit-inducing ring of Holocaust denial.

― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:25 (9 years ago) Permalink

Why did people stop writing books of the bible, anyway? There should totally be one tracing the decline of Spurs that culminates in them being cast of the garden of 'big clubs'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:26 (9 years ago) Permalink

So what if a culture is associated with professions like banking and so on? My Parsee ancestors held a similar position in India. Big deal.

That is not nearly as harmless an accusation as you may think. The belief that Jews are obsessed with money is one of the foundations to anti-semitism.

I think N made his point well, actually, in that within the matrix of (especially central and eastern) European culture, the link between Jews and banking/trade was made into an ideological justification for anti-semitism, and was therefore more harmful than in other contexts. Stereotyping according to race/culture is a touchy area, but the association, or the making of associations, is/are not in themselves bad.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

Sorry for crossposting with a serious post.

bnw - I know that about the money thing. But the question didn't ask 'are Jews intrinsically obsessed with money?'. I know that a good number of the people who answered yes to the question are probably horribly anti-semitic, but I resent the implication that they all have to be. 'Vomit inducing rings' are what all these questions work with, but I prefer my anti-racism to be less 'you must mean that really', in character.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:31 (9 years ago) Permalink

"mentality and lifestyle" different from, and this is the important part, "OTHER CITIZENS." Reminds me of that Bojeffries Saga story where the cops burst in to see a slavering werewolf standing on the table in a restaurant, say "well, it's obvious what our job is here," grab the one black guy in the restaurant, beat him up and drag him away, as one of the other patrons says to his companion "I'm not racism, but they ent the same as us, are they?"

― Douglas (Douglas), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:32 (9 years ago) Permalink

I know that a good number of the people who answered yes to the question are probably horribly anti-semitic, but I resent the implication that they all have to be.

My problem with it is how reasonable and academic it makes anti-semitism sound. It allows people to hold onto their suspicions about Jews, and not have to consider themselves anti-semites.

Really, what's the point of the association between jews and money if not anti-semitism? Have you heard this made in a positive light?

― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:45 (9 years ago) Permalink

No, but I've heard it said in a neutral light, by Enrique four posts up.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

This thread made it past 60 posts without anyone mentioning the link to the article doesn't work?

― Stuart (Stuart), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:52 (9 years ago) Permalink

Another thing is Jews are what.. like 3% of the population? That makes an 18% anti-semitism rate scary enough.

― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:52 (9 years ago) Permalink

bnw - I completely agree with that (though I don't understand what the 3% has to do with it)

Stuart - oops! I pasted all the text anyway but the link is here

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:55 (9 years ago) Permalink

I found it too just now. I didn't realize you'd posted the whole piece. I'm looking for the original survey but not having much luck so far.

― Stuart (Stuart), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 18:56 (9 years ago) Permalink

More at good ol' Al Jazeera - including the delightful headline: Jews urged to stop playing Holocaust victim

It also makes note of this, which I hadn't heard about: One in seven Britons says Holocaust is exaggerated.

― Stuart (Stuart), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 19:09 (9 years ago) Permalink

This stuff scares me a lot. Because, unless I just had my eyes closed as a young man, it seems that anti-Semitism has really grown just in the last five years. Since 9/11, really.

― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:31 (9 years ago) Permalink

anti-semitism hasn't had a day off since before WWII. It's not even had a significant surge since 9/11. Holocaust denial has been going on since the 1970s, particularly with the publication of "Did Six Million Die?" in 1974. There has been no significant lull in anti-semitism since.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

i disagree. there's been a great deal written since 9/11 about the prospect of a Palestinian state that co-joins "American-Judeo" as if it's some kind of world takeover conspiracy. Sure, it's not new, but it's become more pressing again.

― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:59 (9 years ago) Permalink

How can 'killing is wrong' be just a belief? Do you mean it's only wrong for you and people who agree with you? What about people who don't agree with you, such as, let me think, ah yes, murderers?

Lots of murderers believe killing is wrong, too.

I think calling these ethical viewpoints "opinions" trivializes the amount of importance we place on them. "Opinion" also implies some sort of choice in the matter, whereas we often perceive the truth of ethical standpoints so deeply that we cannot imagine thinking they are wrong, or relative, or whatever.

― Clarke B., Tuesday, 27 January 2004 21:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

Also, "kill someone, go to jail" as a code of law does not necessarily imply that killing is wrong, just that it should be punished. Of course these notions of wrongdoing and punishment are related in many contexts, but equating them will only cloud the discourse.

― Clarke B., Tuesday, 27 January 2004 21:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

Tottenham Hotspur are a big club.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 27 January 2004 21:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

that's your opinion!

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 22:05 (9 years ago) Permalink

"Jews should stop playing the victim for the Holocaust
and the persecutions of 50 years ago”

1) 50 years is not such a long time, after all, is it
2) It wasn't the first time
3) Of course Europe doesn't understand Jews - they killed 'em all

and here's the official chain of events for the start of this
conflict:

1) Jews move into Palestine
2) Jews declare nation of Israel
3) Arab neighbors invade with no other provocation beside step 2
4) ALL OTHER SHIT GOES DOWN (repeat step 3 in the 60s and 70s)

I get the feeling that too many people look at step 1 as the beginning of all this crap, not step 3.

― squirl plise, Wednesday, 28 January 2004 00:12 (9 years ago) Permalink

Yes, that's a very fairminded analysis. But lets not turn this into another Israel-Palestine thread.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 00:20 (9 years ago) Permalink

How can 'killing is wrong' be just a belief? Do you mean it's only wrong for you and people who agree with you? What about people who don't agree with you, such as, let me think, ah yes, murderers?
-- run it off (davebeec...), January 27th, 2004.

I don't understand what you're saying, can you put it another way?

― mei (mei), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 07:43 (9 years ago) Permalink

I don't think it's okay to kill people if they agree with me or not! That makes no difference.

I reckon a lot of murderers think killing is wrong, but they do it anyway.

― mei (mei), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 07:44 (9 years ago) Permalink

1) Jews move into Palestine
2) Jews declare nation of Israel
3) Arab neighbors invade with no other provocation beside step 2
4) ALL OTHER SHIT GOES DOWN (repeat step 3 in the 60s and 70s)

I get the feeling that too many people look at step 1 as the beginning of all this crap, not step 3

Mmmm! If only all those Palestinians who were displaced/denied the right to a homeland by step 2 could see things so lucidly, eh?

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 09:49 (9 years ago) Permalink

I know nothing about palestine etc etc, but just looking at those numbered points, step 3 can't be the start, because it was caused by step 2

(I'm saying nothing about the validity of the points, but just using maths style logic)

― mei (mei), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:00 (9 years ago) Permalink

Step 0: Jews promised this land in Genesis.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:04 (9 years ago) Permalink

So how do you plan on numbering the many historical steps between Palestine/Israel/the land of Canaan/the south western Levant/whatever you want to call it becoming the sacred homeland of the Jews and the twentieth century move of Jewish people to Palestine?

― Amarga (Amarga), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:22 (9 years ago) Permalink

With a fiddle and a diddle and a song in his heart.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:28 (9 years ago) Permalink

Step -infinity: God made the Earth and the heavens. Fucker!

― mei (mei), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

Step 0: Jews promised this land in Genesis

er, isn't that Step 0: Jews promise themselves this land??

― run it off (run it off), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 14:16 (9 years ago) Permalink

I don't understand what you're saying, can you put it another way?

Relativism has it that all beliefs are, well, relative. Against this is the idea that beliefs are either right or wrong, warranted or unwarranted, universalisable or merely partisan, and so on and so forth. I was suggesting that the 'belief' that murder is wrong is not a belief in the relativist sense of the word. On my side is the argument that killing must be wrong for everyone (not just those who believe killing is wrong - the relativist's error) or else you are left with the (relativist) situation that killing is only wrong for those who have that opinion, in which case the people actually committing murders get off ethically scot-free, so to speak. Something like that.

― run it off (run it off), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 14:22 (9 years ago) Permalink

killing is only wrong for those who have that opinion, in which case the people actually committing murders get off ethically scot-free, so to speak. Something like that.

That's a bit clearer. Ta.

I think that killing is 'wrong'. Another person may disagree and think killing is 'not-wrong'. We would both be correct.

I think I'm right, but so does the other person. Whose to say which of us is correct? And who is to say that the person who decides which of us is correct is correct. And so on.

― mei (mei), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:14 (9 years ago) Permalink

I will say again though, I'm sure many killers would think killing was wrong, but still do it anyway.

― mei (mei), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:15 (9 years ago) Permalink

I'm sure you're right that many killers think/know that killing is wrong. That doesn't count as an argument against the belief that killing is wrong, though, so it kind of doesn't matter.

As for the hypothetical person who disagrees, thinking that killing is right, we need to ask them to defend their position. It's not enought just to speculate that someone might disagree with us in order for us to 'relativise' our beliefs (although this is exactly what relativists do all the time.) In the absence of an argument - good reasons - in favour of killing, I think we can safely say that killing is wrong.

― run it off (run it off), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:58 (9 years ago) Permalink

I wouldn't try to argue against the belief that killing is wrong.

I couldn't honestly argue that killing is wrong or that killing is right.

I don't think the person who believes killing is right need defend their position. It's just a belief, no more or less valid than my belief that killing is wrong.

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 06:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

In the absence of an argument - good reasons - in favour of killing, I think we can safely say that killing is wrong.

-- run it off (davebeec...), January 28th, 2004.

This is where it's most clear that I'm NOT getting my point across:
YOU CANNOT ARGUE OR REASON TOWARDS A CONCLUSION ABOUT WHETHER SOMETHING IS 'RIGHT' OR 'WRONG'.

There is no absolute 'right' or 'wrong', the division is arbitrary.

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 06:45 (9 years ago) Permalink

I can't tell the difference between right and wrong and nor can anyone else, because There _is_ no difference between right and wrong.

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 06:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

It's not enought just to speculate that someone might disagree with us in order for us to 'relativise' our beliefs (although this is exactly what relativists do all the time.)

I'm interested in this. I've never heard the term 'relativise' before. Do you think that's what I'm trying to do? Can you explain that a bit please.

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 06:49 (9 years ago) Permalink

that's just what YOU think.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 29 January 2004 06:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

IT IS!

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 08:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

(That's exactly what I'm saying!)

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 08:02 (9 years ago) Permalink

>Mmmm! If only all those Palestinians who
>were displaced/denied the right to a homeland by step
>2 could see things so lucidly, eh?

As far as I know, there was no systemic displacement of
Arab-speaking natives before the war.
Here's my understanding of the refugee situation:
When Jordan, Syria and Egypt attack Israel (for no reason beside
hatred) a large number of Muslims rose up and joined the war
against their Jewish neighbors. After the invaders were defeated,
the insurgents fled Israel with their families to avoid
retribution, and convincing every Muslim they could to leave
with them, by spreading tales of impending slaughter by Israeli
troops. Again, I do not know of any systemic persecutions or
displacements of Arab-speakers.

It's worth noting that most of the "refugees" alive now were
born in the refugee camps - strange situation, no? I don't
know of any other situation where the child of refugees are
also considered.

The "refugees" are in a stasis now because they are not wanted
by Israel OR the Arab nations. Israel's enemy
neighbors will have nothing to do with the "refugees" - they would prefer to leave that thorn in Israel's
side.

― squrl pise, Thursday, 29 January 2004 08:15 (9 years ago) Permalink

Since that's a semi-unrelated rant, here's my thought on
the real topic at hand:

The anti-semites who admit to it are impotent and
ineffective. The smart ones are more dangerous;
they keep their true agenda hidden.

― squirl plise, Thursday, 29 January 2004 08:17 (9 years ago) Permalink

Another question that is important to ask:
In light of the fact that the Zionist movement was in
full swing at the turn of the 20th century, and that but
the 1930s Jews and Muslims were living in peace in
Palestine -

Why did the peace end in the 40s? Were the Israelis
the ones committed to violence?

Also, I believe that the Arab governments were sympathetic
or perhaps even allied with Nazi Germany. Did they truly
have the moral high ground in 1967?

― squirl_plise, Thursday, 29 January 2004 08:23 (9 years ago) Permalink

squirl_plise, do you think that deciding who is to blame or who is right here will help at all? Surely both sides (are there only 2?) already KNOW they're right.

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 08:43 (9 years ago) Permalink

skwrl, your history is way off; the 'no systemic displacement' and 'peace in the 30's' bits are a total inverse of the truth, in fact.

google these: "stern gang" and "folke bernadotte"

― g--ff (gcannon), Thursday, 29 January 2004 08:59 (9 years ago) Permalink

This issue drives me completely batshit, because the solution -- the ONLY solution -- is clear and has been for sometime: a free and autonomous Palestine. And everyone knows it. And nobody does it. There's more than enough blame to go all the way around the Middle East, and the U.S., and Europe, everybody playing it for their own ends and interests, but there's still only one possible outcome, at least in the short-term. (One could argue the longterm viability of a "Jewish state," or whether it's even important that there be a longterm Jewish state, but just getting to where the Jewish state and the Arab states aren't constantly fighting each other and are coexisting peacefully and prosperously should take us at minimum another few generations, and then things can go from there.)

I mean, what are the other possible solutions? The status quo is unacceptable to everyone; Israel doesn't want to absorb the entire Palestinian territory and population as Israeli citizens; nobody else really wants to annex the territory and take responsibility for a poverty-stricken population. Moreover, the Israelis and Palestinians need each other economically, so they have plenty of incentive to cut the shit out. But clearly it's going to take new leaders to put it into effect. And as long as everyone lets the suicide bombers dictate the pace of change (i.e. all it takes to derail everything for three more months is one asshole blowing up a bus), then it's going to come very slowly.

Meanwhile, 10 more people who were alive when this thread started are now dead.

― spittle (spittle), Thursday, 29 January 2004 09:02 (9 years ago) Permalink

what does it mean to say two contradictory positions are right? Or that neither can seriously be thought to be right (or wrong)? This is not a valid argument in some circumstances but seems to be true (for relativists) in other circumstances. Let me explain.

Water, when heated, tends to boil. This is true. It is true not only because it happens a lot, but because it happens as a result of the properties of water and how those properties are affected by heat. Relativism doesn't apply. It is, let us say for shorthand, objective.

Ethical statements - as far as relativists are concerned - don't work in this way. This is because relativists are aware that different cultures and different individuals have different values. The relativist concludes that all ethical (etc) values are subjective, arbitrary, relative. (This isn't always the argument used by relativists but it is historically significant - relativism emerged during the colonial encounter with 'other' cultures).

One persistent problem has plagued relativism, though. How can the relativist's argument (that these values are arbitrary) be any better (on the relativist's own terms) than the non-relativist's argument? Relativism is internally coherent for this reason. How can you be a confirmed relativist? (And Mei, you are certainly both relativist and confirmed in your relativism).

What is a belief if it has no argument behind it or can't be argued for? I think, if pressed, you would certainly come up with good reasons to be a relativist. If that's true then even a relativist can understand that other people (non-relativists) will - and have a right to! - offer their good reasons too! And if that's true, then we are not simply in the position of exchanging unfounded beliefs that can't be resolved because there is no difference between right and wrong; we are in the position of discussing the rights and wrongs of each other's arguments.

― run it off (run it off), Thursday, 29 January 2004 09:08 (9 years ago) Permalink

The anti-semites who admit to it are impotent and
ineffective. The smart ones are more dangerous;
they keep their true agenda hidden.

I understand how people can get into this kind of mindset, but I have now reached the point in my life where it just makes me go 'AAAAAAAARRRRGHHHHH'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 29 January 2004 11:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

how do you know they keep their true agenda hidden if they keep it hidden and they're smart about it?

This sounds like a fantasy that 'they' keep things hidden. NB the fantasy also acts as justification for attacking 'them' despite the fact that 'they' seem to be innocent.

Go figure!

― run it off (run it off), Thursday, 29 January 2004 11:43 (9 years ago) Permalink

This issue drives me completely batshit, because the solution -- the ONLY solution -- is clear and has been for sometime: a free and autonomous Palestine.

Spittle, because you KNOW the solution, you're (probably) part of the problem.

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:25 (9 years ago) Permalink

wouldn't the solution involve *dialogue*?

― run it off (run it off), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:26 (9 years ago) Permalink

run it off, I certainly do seem to be a relativist!

Yes, but I don't see that as a problem. I don't mind others disagreeing with me. Both myself and them can be right.

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:32 (9 years ago) Permalink

wouldn't the solution involve *dialogue*?
-- run it off (davebeec...), January 29th, 2004.

Yes. I think one of the problems is that both sides are convinced that they're right _and_ the other side are wrong.

For every spittle there's someone as sure as him, but sure he's (or she's) wrong.

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:38 (9 years ago) Permalink

Yes, but I don't see that as a problem. I don't mind others disagreeing with me. Both myself and them can be right.

-- mei (meirion.lewi...), January 29th, 2004.

Sorry, to clarify this, I'm not talking about any particular issue, rather, I don't have a problem thinking that this whole 'relativist' position (which I apparantly hold) is wrong.

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:44 (9 years ago) Permalink

You've made some very good points here.

What is a belief if it has no argument behind it or can't be argued for?

That's what a lot of people would call a belief. Some mentalists would argue that the more implausible and less evidenced a belief the better it is. Most of these mentalists would be religious.

I think, if pressed, you would certainly come up with good reasons to be a relativist. If that's true then even a relativist can understand that other people (non-relativists) will - and have a right to! - offer their good reasons too!

I'm not arguing against reasoning and I think some positions (in all matters) have more to commend them than others. But they're just reasons, suggestions, hints, supporting evidence...

It's not possible to _prove_ which side of an ethical argument is correct. In fact, this is partly why I say two opposing view points can be right at the same time - because neither can be proved right or proved wrong.

And if that's true, then we are not simply in the position of exchanging unfounded beliefs that can't be resolved because there is no difference between right and wrong; we are in the position of discussing the rights and wrongs of each other's arguments.
-- run it off (davebeec...), January 29th, 2004.

This depends on the belief in question.
There are unfounded beliefs that just happen to be correct.

Discussing the rights and wrongs might change peoples minds, but often it can' prove the validity of beliefs.

I do kind of think that there is no fundamental difference between right and wrong. Can you formulate a definition of what 'right' is?

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 13:02 (9 years ago) Permalink

I meant "...CAN'T prove the validity of their beliefs."

― mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 14:36 (9 years ago) Permalink

4 weeks pass...

Again, this annoyed me today, in relation to the Mel Gibson film:

"This is a tremendous, tremendous setback. I hope this will not be accepted by Christians in this country. It is this lie, the lie that Jews were responsible for the murder of Jesus, which planted the seeds of the Holocaust, Rabbi Avi Weiss, president of Amcha, said. (http://www.nbc17.com/entertainment/2874405/detail.html)

I mean yeah, you can say that 'Jews killed Jesus' is completely missing the point of the gospel, fine, but to say that it's a 'lie' that Jews were responsible for his death is just wrong, unless you're challenging the historicity of the gospels' accounts of the crucifixion, which I don't think he's doing. Why use that word 'lie', when it just plays into your opponents' hands?

On the radio, I heard someone from the Anti-Defamation League making the much more reasonable point, that all the bad Jews in the film looked stereotypically Jewish, whilst the good ones (ie. Jesus and his disciples) didn't. Assuming that's true, then that's completely fair criticism.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 26 February 2004 21:50 (9 years ago) Permalink

Well, the Romans killed Jesus, is the thing. The limited Jewish leadership in the area, which operated only so long as Rome allowed it to, was complicit in the execution at the most, but by the same token it's unlikely they could have done anything to stop it.

It's not completely, thoroughly false that Jews were involved in the execution of Jesus; it's completely misleading to say "Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus" if you're singling them out to do so.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:29 (9 years ago) Permalink

it's a bit like saying that poles were responsible for auschwitz, innit?

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:33 (9 years ago) Permalink

It's also just sort of funny, because it's not like there were loads of other people around to be complicit in it. The whole libel seems contingent on this bizarre idea that most everyone loved Jesus and it was just some Jews from around the way who came by and knocked him off.

(In other words for "Romans" we should substitute "state" and for "Jews" we should substitute, like, "public.")

― nabiscothingy, Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

i am just loving the number of churches now quoting the bit about "jews killed jesus" (thessalians, right?) (probable sp there) on their little billboards.

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

(knee-mail!)

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:36 (9 years ago) Permalink

it's bad enough i have to be confronted with the horror of my own body every time i go to the gym, but it's even better that i get slapped with something about "culture war", the backlash against gay marriage, this fucking mel gibson movie EVERY DAY.

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:37 (9 years ago) Permalink

it's a bit like saying that poles were responsible for auschwitz, innit?

I was trying to think of a comparison like that. I can't come up with one that works perfectly, mostly because there's a sort of ... range of possibility ... of the Sanhedrin's actual power.

(I'm not denying, by the way, that the Sanhedrin would have supported Jesus's execution, since J-dog going Jericho on the Temple is one of the bits we can be pretty sure actually happened. But likewise, this was a time when many, many Jews, both in and outside of Jerusalem, disagreed with the Sanhedrin. And you have to read the Gospels bearing in mind that they were written during and immediately after a time when Christians were being excluded from Jewish communities and services.)

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:38 (9 years ago) Permalink

it's a bit like saying that poles were responsible for auschwitz, innit?

some do maintain that very position ... but that's another topic.

if memory serves me right, most the really objectionable stuff (from a jewish perspective) re the crucifixion and the jews' alleged liability therefor is from the Book of Matthew. that's where the "his blood is on our heads" line comes from i think (tep?) but it was, of course, pilate who sentenced him and the romans who tortured than executed him. based on the reviews of the film that i've read, the romans don't get off the hook for the torture and actual crucifixion -- but pilate's role is whitewashed.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:40 (9 years ago) Permalink

but see THEY WANTED HIM TO DIE SO EVERYONE COULD BE SAVED...weren't the romans or the jews or the hitites or gozer the gozarian or WHOEVER doing them all a favor anyway?!

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

i've also read that the alleged ceremony where the jews selected who was to be execution and who was to be spared was a fiction created by matthew -- that there was no such ceremony among the jewish people then or ever. i have no idea whether or not this is true.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:43 (9 years ago) Permalink

to be executED, even

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:43 (9 years ago) Permalink

haha i remember asking something like the above in sunday school and beng made to stay after

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:43 (9 years ago) Permalink

or the whole prophecy thing ... i mean, if it was prophesized that the messiah would be executed then it had to happen anyway -- it could've been the jews, or the romans, or the french.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

Whoever was responsible for the death of Jesus, shouldn't they be regarded as blessed by God, as agents of salvation? St Pilate, St Judas...etc. Seriously i've never understood this as a theological point; obv. makes perfect sense from the political/storytelling angle (gotta have decent bad guys and Satan doesn't always care to show up).

― pete s, Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

that's where the "his blood is on our heads" line comes from i think (tep?)

Yep. I can probably find it, just cause.

"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!"

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!"

All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!"

Matthew 27:23-25

but see THEY WANTED HIM TO DIE SO EVERYONE COULD BE SAVED...weren't the romans or the jews or the hitites or gozer the gozarian or WHOEVER doing them all a favor anyway?!

It's like Pharaoh in the Exodus story -- God hardens some hearts and gets the bad guys to ... well, to be bad guys ... but it doesn't stop them from being bad guys, or excuse them from the repercussions. I'm not crazy with any of the theological explanations for this, and I'm not a theologian anyway.

I think it's one of those things we can't be positive is crap, because there's not enough information, but there's no compelling reason to think it's true, and the choice they're given, if they want to spare Jesus, is Jesus Barabbas -- "Jesus, the son of the father." They're being asked, who do you want to kill, Jesus the Messiah, or Jesus the son of the father?

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:50 (9 years ago) Permalink

gozer

― cinniblount (James Blount), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

the Romans killed Jesus, is the thing

I knew someone would say this. If the Rabbi had said 'it's a lie that the Jews killed Jesus' then that would be at least be technically correct, but what he said was about responsibility, and the Bible does make it fairly clear that his cruxificion was the Jewish people's choice. Of course 'washing your hands' isn't a morally great position, but that doesn't make any difference to what the Pharisees and the mob's own responsibility. If Matthew made all that up then fine, attack that, not the film.

As I said, the film may well be anti-semitic in its emphases and subtexts, but I just thought this was a particularly dumb way of phrasing an attack.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:25 (9 years ago) Permalink

If the Rabbi had said 'it's a lie that the Jews killed Jesus' then that would be at least be technically correct

Though irrelevant, of course, since the film doesn't make this claim.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:27 (9 years ago) Permalink

If Matthew made all that up then fine, attack that, not the film.

But the movie isn't a strictly Gospels-and-nothing-but portrayal -- and even the parts that do rely on a Gospel still often must decide which (with Gibson favoring Matthew and John, from what I've seen).

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:44 (9 years ago) Permalink

Yeah, fine - but now we're talking again about emphases and suchlike. I still don't see how anyone could support the attack that Rabbi Avi Weiss made (I'm not saying you are).

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:47 (9 years ago) Permalink

Oh yeah, in my initial post I guess I was talking about the "Jews killed Jesus" claim in general, and then for some reason I jumped to the movie specifically just now. I don't know why -- because I don't particularly think the movie's anti-Semitic, from the sounds of it. I'm not even sure it's anti-Judaism, all that strongly, if we wanted to make that distinction.

I think it includes a lot of things that can elicit a smug nod from people who hate the Jews already, but that doesn't mean it's nodding along with them; I do think the "let the blood be on our hands" line was a stupid one to include, but it's been removed from the subtitles (although it's still there, for those few Aramaic speakers in the audience who can make out the poor pronunciation.) A number of the changes Gibson has made to the Gospel material seem at first to make the Jews come across worse than they need to, but I think they make the Romans come across worse than they need to, too, so if Gibson's message is that everyone's a fuckbastard except me and my Messiah, I'm not sure I'm willing to charge him with subsets of calling-people-fuckbastards.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:55 (9 years ago) Permalink

Ha ha.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:59 (9 years ago) Permalink

I haven't seen it either, Tep, but I'm thinking the movie is clearly anti-semitic. The clear racial delineation of the "bad" Jews from the "good" Jews, the fact that "bad" Jews are all wearing black and all but twirling their mustaches, that the "bad" Jews are chanting for Jesus' death, that Pontius Pilate is portrayed as ineffectual and vaguely disinterested while the priests are the one who want Jesus eliminated. I mean if that isn't textbook pre-Vatican II anti-semitism, what is?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 27 February 2004 03:06 (9 years ago) Permalink

See, I guess it depends on which of the reviews sound most accurate, I guess. For the moment, I'm trying -- successfully or not -- to look at it purely in terms of what I know about plot and dialogue, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I can't defend it from charges of anti-Semitism unless I see it; but from what I know of it, I don't think anyone comes across as a good guy, except Mary, Jesus, and I suppose the apostles by proximity. And even Jesus sounds like little more than a superhuman Timex.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 03:12 (9 years ago) Permalink

Well, these charges will leveled on the Charlie Rose show last night and basically everyone seemed to agree that these were pretty troubling aspects of the film (a Newsweek guy, a CSM guy, Christopher Hitchens--who seems to have found a new enemy, breath easier Kissinger, and a New Yorker guy.)

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 27 February 2004 03:19 (9 years ago) Permalink

denby?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:05 (9 years ago) Permalink

the Bible does make it fairly clear that his cruxificion was the Jewish people's choice.

well, all it really says is that the pro-Roman high priests were all for it, and that there was a mob shouting "give us Barabbas!" and "crucify Jesus". It's a bit of a leap from that to say that all Jewish people wanted Jesus crucified. It doesn't even follow that all or most Jewish people in Jerusalem wanted him killed.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:16 (9 years ago) Permalink

I never said that it says 'all Jewish people' wanted it. Does the film?

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:21 (9 years ago) Permalink

All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!"

This is totally reminding me of the scene where the multitude are gathered outside Brian's bedroom window in Life of Brian and all answering (at length) in unison Brian's mother's questions.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:23 (9 years ago) Permalink

If the Rabbi had said "but to say that it's a 'lie' that the Jews were responsible for his death is just wrong" that would have been fair, if ambiguously phrased, comment, since 'the Jews' implies Jewish people as a whole. But he didn't.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:27 (9 years ago) Permalink

Well, how do you weight responsibility? If you go along with something you have no power to stop, are you responsible for it?

(I'm talking in general again here, not about the movie I haven't seen.)

I think the Rabbi is oversimplifying, but I do think there's a lot to credit in the idea that blaming Jews -- the Jews, some Jews, any Jews, if the statement of blame makes a point of their Jewishness -- for Jesus's death, while forgiving the Romans, is tied in with the anti-Semitism that was a necessary prerequisite for the Holocaust.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:33 (9 years ago) Permalink

What happened to Christian forgiveness, anyway?

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

I think a lot of this, re: the movie -- or Jesus movies in general, comes down to the question of to what extent does the filmmaker have a responsibility or expectation to consider his material in light of how it was used by people after the scope of his film[*]. I think that quickly becomes trickier than it looks, since every damn idiot has had his way with the Bible in the last bunch of centuries, and every verse has been used to support one idiot notion or another.

[*] For instance, if the "let his blood be on our hands" line had some greater pertinence, and removing it would remove some of the good along with the bad -- which I don't think is the case -- then there'd be the question of what to do with it, whether a rephrasing could retain the good while still removing the bad, etc.

But nevertheless, some idiot notions were popularized more than others.

It's something I can't condemn yet sight-unseen, because when I wrote my own Jesus novel, it was something I kept having trouble with -- I'd like to think I'm not the least bit anti-Semitic, but when your protagonist opposes the status quo, and the status quo is Jewish, and his followers are more ardent about the opposition than he is, you do find some sentences need to be rewritten to avoid things that could be taken very wrongly.

(I can't help but suspect Gibson was less concerned about that than I was, but I don't know if that's fair.)

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:42 (9 years ago) Permalink

Let me make it quite clear, in case it wasn't already, that I think being anti-semitic because of what happened to Jesus is completely bonkers and misses the point of the gospels.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

i wish i could believe that there is some 'point' to the gospels

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

I'm not gonna bother with that one.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

JESUS DIED FOR YOUR SINS, AMATEURIST.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:40 (9 years ago) Permalink

sorry i'm being an asshole today

i'm not criticizing you tep

it's one thing to say 'oh i think this part of the gospels is more humane and more useful' but that doesn't mean the other parts are any less *there*--i dunno, there's this awful residual part of me that says that the acceptance of the authority--moral or otherwise--of the gospels is the central problem, and the problems of interpretation and selective application are just auxilliary problems

but you're right that's another topic

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

hehe, are you calling amateurist a shoddy martyr?

(x-post)

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

Okay, just out of interest, do any jews consider the following opinions anti-semetic? I see them as anti Israel. And y'know, they might be correct or not, no need to argue against them.
a) Israel has been the agitator in most of her conflicts since 1967.
b) The Jewish religion is ruining the state of Isreal - religious views are a strong part of what is extending and worsening their conflict with Palestinians.
c) Palestinians deserve a state all the way from East Jerusalem to Jordan, and nothing less.

― Seán (Ireland), Friday, 27 February 2004 23:17 (9 years ago) Permalink

Ummm... this jew doesn't.

― Sym (shmuel), Friday, 27 February 2004 23:18 (9 years ago) Permalink

Good. I don't know any jews, see, and have for some reason had the suspicion that they're over sensitive about anti semitism. I now know that I'm wrong.

― Seán (Ireland), Friday, 27 February 2004 23:23 (9 years ago) Permalink

After all, 'this jew' = all Jews

― Sym (shmuel), Friday, 27 February 2004 23:36 (9 years ago) Permalink

it's not, séan, that your opinions are necessarily that offensive but that you seem to phrase them in the most confrontational way in the hopes that someone will take offense

so i'll be happy to oblige

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 28 February 2004 13:28 (9 years ago) Permalink

The Jewish religion is ruining the state of Isreal

I'm not a Jew but I certainly take offense at this statement. What do you mean by 'ruining'? Does it ruin the state more than Christianity ruins other states, like Northern Ireland, for instance?

― run it off (run it off), Saturday, 28 February 2004 15:26 (9 years ago) Permalink

Seán did a great job reaffirming the crossover b/n anti-semitic and anti-israeli views.

a) Israel is to blame.
b) No wait, the Jews are to blame.
c) Also, I forgot about those Palestinians in the Gaza strip.

― bnw (bnw), Saturday, 28 February 2004 17:59 (9 years ago) Permalink

4 years pass...

Chow985 (5 days ago) Show Hide
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enjoy while you can, the jews of nbc are coming

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i hope you meant jaws

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pretty sure he meant to say jews

― ladies and gentlemen, mr. biff_tannen (and what), Monday, 15 December 2008 21:57 (4 years ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/feb/18/caryl-churchill-gaza-play

w the f is with the tone of this? if the accusation was of straight-up racism... oh you get the idea.

― groovy groovy jazzy funky pounce bounce dance (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 10:31 (4 years ago) Permalink

"don't tell them about the dead babies"??

― s1ocki, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 14:54 (4 years ago) Permalink

subtle stuff.

― s1ocki, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 14:54 (4 years ago) Permalink

w the f is with the tone of this?

Lol Melanie Phillips, I believe.

― Maximo Park Ji-Sung (Matt DC), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 14:56 (4 years ago) Permalink

Tell her, tell her about the army, tell her to be proud of the army. Tell her about the family of dead girls, tell her their names why not, tell her the whole world knows, why shouldn’t she know? tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies? Tell her she’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Tell her they did it to themselves. Tell her they want their children killed to make people sorry for them, tell her I’m not sorry for them, tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they can’t talk suffering to us. Tell her we’re the iron fist now, tell her it’s the fog of war, tell her we won’t stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I laughed when I saw the dead policeman, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out, the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? Tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.

ay-ay-ay

xpost

would have held water before the guardian started publishing stuff by the likes of neil clark, richard seymour, tony naylor, etc.*

*joke that possibly not even dom will get

― groovy groovy jazzy funky pounce bounce dance (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 14:58 (4 years ago) Permalink

I know nothing about the content of the play but perhaps the accusation would be taken more seriously if it weren't coming from someone who talks about the "creeping Islamisation of Britain" on the same Spectator blog.

(xpost yeah okay that's pretty dodgy)

― Maximo Park Ji-Sung (Matt DC), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 15:00 (4 years ago) Permalink

I dunno, I guess that excerpt strikes me as a totally unsurprising level of venom in the the context of suicide bombers, attacks etc, and the everyday vilainization of the other side. Isn't hatred basically universal?

I kind of feel like...I don't think attributing that voice to a Jewish is person is anti-Semitic, I think it would be foolhardy denial to pretend any group of people wouldn't have some notes of that kind of hatred in them under similar circumstances.

― How can there be male ladybugs? (Laurel), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 15:12 (4 years ago) Permalink

This article on it in The Independent is getting a bit of attention today. I've got to say that I'm (genuinely) a bit shocked by the readers' comments section

― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 15:14 (4 years ago) Permalink

tl;dr

― How can there be male ladybugs? (Laurel), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 15:20 (4 years ago) Permalink

independent published a cartoon with ariel sharon actually eating babies though so they've kind of set out their stall as the paper for left-wing anti-semites.

not sure why it's thought to be a good idea to stage the caryl churchill with a play about germans refusing to accept responsibility for the holocaust, or why charlotte higgins think this context helps when "jews are the new nazis" is more or less the no. 1 meme among jew-haters.

― joe, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 15:22 (4 years ago) Permalink

Surely what Jacobson is saying is flat-out wrong, though. Critics of Israel (anti-Semitic or not) have nothing like the monopoly on political discourse that he claims, and isn't that his central claim? This isn't to deny that some criticism of Israel might be anti-Semitic.

― zero learnt from nero (Neil S), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 15:33 (4 years ago) Permalink

how-j's perspective on the world is pretty much limited to the tonier parts of media london; within that, he's not wrong.

― groovy groovy jazzy funky pounce bounce dance (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 15:44 (4 years ago) Permalink

The view from Hampstead, you mean?

― zero learnt from nero (Neil S), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 15:53 (4 years ago) Permalink

comments section on that article is a fucking shocker

― admin log special guest star (DG), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:07 (4 years ago) Permalink

I'm genuinely unclear about what's so shocking in that comment section! There's no point of view expressed there that I'm surprised to see.

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:25 (4 years ago) Permalink

― groovy groovy jazzy funky pounce bounce dance (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:28 (4 years ago) Permalink

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:29 (4 years ago) Permalink

you're cool with the first comment being: "this guy has a jewish name, don't listen to him"?

― groovy groovy jazzy funky pounce bounce dance (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:30 (4 years ago) Permalink

Nice job on equating "I'm not shocked" to "I'm cool with", there.

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:31 (4 years ago) Permalink

if you don't find it shocking you should probably spend more time among people who aren't complete fucking goons.

― groovy groovy jazzy funky pounce bounce dance (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:31 (4 years ago) Permalink

"No, A pro Isreali Anti Palestinian Shoddy Second Rate Piece of 6th Grade Reporting is the name of my dog!"

― Pancakes Hackman, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:32 (4 years ago) Permalink

enrique i cant really believe that youre shocked, given how often you talk about the anti-semitism prevalent in the british left

― max, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:33 (4 years ago) Permalink

you should probably spend more time among people who aren't complete fucking goons.

What, ILX?

― How can there be male ladybugs? (Laurel), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:34 (4 years ago) Permalink

xpost shocking = offensive or distasteful, not neccessarily surprised

― joe, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:34 (4 years ago) Permalink

dude still insists on reading the guardian too, what can you do

― O Supermanchiros (blueski), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:35 (4 years ago) Permalink

Yes, because "I'm not shocked by opinions expressed in a newspaper comments thread on the fucking Internet, you know the place where we have Youtube comments thread and the like" translates to "I hang out with anti-Semites". Again, well done.

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:35 (4 years ago) Permalink

(xposts)

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:36 (4 years ago) Permalink

Do I just not really understand the background here? Because I see a lot of comments like this one, which seems extremely reasonable to me:

Are we allowed to criticise Israeli actions at all? I criticised British and American actions during the Iraq war. Am I unpatriotic? If criticism of Israel descends into anti-semitism then it must be checked and noted I agree but those who abhor violence must be allowed a voice.

― How can there be male ladybugs? (Laurel), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:39 (4 years ago) Permalink

That seems like kind of an obvious comment that doesn't address the issue.

― You just got HAPPENED (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:42 (4 years ago) Permalink

By the way, I DON'T think it's anti-semitic to have Israeli parents say "Don't tell them about the baby-killing" or whatever. I think it's easy and cheap and not very subtle or interesting, but it's not anti-semitic to bring up the fact that Israeli actions resulted in the deaths of babies just because there happen to have been some blood libels in the middle ages involving jews and babies.

― You just got HAPPENED (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:43 (4 years ago) Permalink

There are certainly people -- I wouldn't say there are many, but they exist, and I've known a few -- who argue that no Western criticism of Israel is legitimate, because (a) whatever Israel's transgressions or mistakes, there are many countries and regimes deserving of opprobrium (and so if you're singling out Israel the only conceivable reason is anti-Semitism), and (b) the Holocaust, or at least the fact that the West permitted the Holocaust to happen.

(xpost)

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:45 (4 years ago) Permalink

(That being said, it's a fairly extreme point of view.)

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:46 (4 years ago) Permalink

Shimon Peres bottle opener

― Coyote Ultra Nate (The stickman from the hilarious xkcd comics), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:46 (4 years ago) Permalink

Caryl Churchill relying on easy and cheap polemics??? Hold the fucking presses this is breaking news

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:46 (4 years ago) Permalink

However I do think parallels between Israel and Nazi Germany is ... something. Maybe not anti-semitic, but problematic, because it seems to imply a canceling out of past wrongs.

― You just got HAPPENED (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:47 (4 years ago) Permalink

i think this has 0 to do with anti-semitism and 100% to do with Caryl Churchill's time being over some time about 30 years ago

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:48 (4 years ago) Permalink

I mean I don't have as much of a problem with people saying "apartheid" or even "ethnic cleansing" as long as they can back it up/justify it, but using Nazi Germany as the analogy seems to have an especially questionable motive.

― You just got HAPPENED (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:48 (4 years ago) Permalink

(xpost)

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:45 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

strawmensch

― joe, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:57 (4 years ago) Permalink

stating the obv here, but yeah the whole Nazi comparison thing is done to get a rise out of Jewish people rather than to make any real political statement.

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:02 (4 years ago) Permalink

strawmensch

Hey, I was answering Laurel's question. I'll look up the people I've known who've expressed the opinion I described, though, and tell them about a great casting opportunity for them in The Wizard Of Oz.

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:05 (4 years ago) Permalink

It's ALL kind of obvious, the playwright's point is, as you say, obviously and not very complex or interesting, but in that case...why are people upthread calling the comments shocking and terrible?

― How can there be male ladybugs? (Laurel), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:05 (4 years ago) Permalink

well the majority of them are surely terrible, just not shocking as in a surprise

― O Supermanchiros (blueski), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:08 (4 years ago) Permalink

Okay, well, I don't see why they're so terrible either. But I guess that means I don't understand the issues.

― How can there be male ladybugs? (Laurel), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:10 (4 years ago) Permalink

xxxposts fine, you've met people who've said this, whatever. but it's a travesty of mainstream arguments about criticism of israel, not the real thing. saying that israel is "singled out" doesn't mean that you can't criticise it - just that it shouldn't be targeted with extraordinary measures not applied to other human rights abusers eg boycott movements.

and it is not often said that complicity in the holocaust means that there should be no western criticism of israel, but that it feeds into israeli fears about neighbours and political organisations in palestine who have the stated aim of the destruction of the jewish state.

― joe, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:12 (4 years ago) Permalink

Didn't most of ILX pretty much reach this viewpoint after a day or so of argument about the Gaza invasion?

Talking about the crimes of Hamas is a smoke and mirror comment as the Palestinians are an occupied and embattled people. The original sin is being committed against them. We will address their crimes once Israel has cleaned up its act.

― How can there be male ladybugs? (Laurel), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:12 (4 years ago) Permalink

I see a continuum between lunacies at either end of the spectrum, admittedly with far more at the anti-Israel end. But we still have charming lines like "If Israel messes up the hair on an arab's head a million people scream and riot in the streets", the guy who says there's no such thing as a Palestinian, and the guy who basically asked why they all can't just go to Egypt.

xpost it's a travesty of mainstream arguments about criticism of israel, not the real thing

I more or less agree with the rest of your post, but this is awfully reductive. "The real thing"?

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:15 (4 years ago) Permalink

I mean, one elephant in the room with all these discussions -- or at least one clear demarcator -- is whether questioning Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state = anti-Semitism. There are a lot of people who would say an emphatic "yes" to that, a lot of people who would do the opposite, and a lot of people who aren't sure.

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:18 (4 years ago) Permalink

(This is a totally separate/different issue than asking whether it's pragmatic, reasonable, or appropriate to open up that question. I think Nabisco or Hurting summed that one up nicely, some time ago.)

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:22 (4 years ago) Permalink

questioning's Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state may not be anti-semitism, but it's stupid and pointless because Israel's realistically not gonna stop being a Jewish state. Israelis would have their country go down in flames before that happened.

it's a solution to the middle east crisis about as much as "what if everyone there became atheists?" is a solution.

so, like the nazi thing, its only use in political discussion is to get jews angry and paranoid. it might not be philosophically anti-semitic, but it has a similar end result.

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:30 (4 years ago) Permalink

Didn't most of ILX pretty much reach this viewpoint after a day or so of argument about the Gaza invasion?

Talking about the crimes of Hamas is a smoke and mirror comment as the Palestinians are an occupied and embattled people. The original sin is being committed against them. We will address their crimes once Israel has cleaned up its act.

― How can there be male ladybugs? (Laurel), Wednesday, February 18, 2009 7:12 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no because thats a retarded viewpoint

― groovy groovy jazzy funky pounce bounce dance (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:35 (4 years ago) Permalink

iatee, what do you think of the argument in this article?

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:37 (4 years ago) Permalink

(And by "what do you think" I mean "do you think it accurately reflects the perspectives of the parties involved", rather than "do you endorse it".)

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:39 (4 years ago) Permalink

^ article makes a very good point. question being put to palestinians/hamas is in some ways comparable to a (hypothetical) c. 1900's demand for native americans to issue a blanket statement honoring the US's "right to exist"

― contenderizer, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:42 (4 years ago) Permalink

There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist." From a Palestinian perspective, the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to concede that the Holocaust was morally justified. For Palestinians to acknowledge the occurrence of the Nakba – the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949 – is one thing. For them to publicly concede that it was "right" for the Nakba to have happened would be something else entirely.

Slight of hand with two very different uses of the word 'right' here. And then on top of that, there's the translation issue. What does 'recognizing Israel's right to exist' imply in the Arabic language vs. what he's reading into it in English? Overall, I'm not buying that sorta philosophical depth from an organization that quotes The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in their charter.

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:48 (4 years ago) Permalink

so iatee are you refusing to recognize palestinians' right to refuse to recognize israel's right to exist?

― if you like it then you shoulda put a donk on it (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:51 (4 years ago) Permalink

I think I have the right to

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:52 (4 years ago) Permalink

which by his logic, makes it 'right'

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:52 (4 years ago) Permalink

Israel has a right to exist --> Israel did not exist prior to the Nakba --> the Nakba was morally justified, or, in other words, "right"

but apparently this is "sleight of hand" which only works because it uses the word "right" twice

― if you like it then you shoulda put a donk on it (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:03 (4 years ago) Permalink

Israel has a right to exist = Israel is a state that exists right (argh) now and will continue to have the right to do so

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:06 (4 years ago) Permalink

if we buy his logic, doesn't that make Palestinian moderates who *are* willing to say 'Israel has a right to exist' a horribly self-hating group?

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:10 (4 years ago) Permalink

or do Palestinian moderates merely lack the philsophical subtlety of Hamas

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:11 (4 years ago) Permalink

well I think our debate basically just proves the author's point, which is that "right to exist" rhetoric is, at best, confusing and vague; and, at worst, a bunch of disingenuous bullshit.

like, if I find a homeless dude squatting in my house, and I shoot and kill him, are you going to charge me with crimes against humanity and say that I don't acknowledge his "right to exist"? because then I would probably just say "man I got no problem with that dude but I don't acknowledge his right to exist in my house", and then we could have a huge unproductive semantic debate and completely lose sight of the real issue, which is that I probably committed a crime, but am not a subhuman monster.

― if you like it then you shoulda put a donk on it (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:11 (4 years ago) Permalink

I dunno how much I like that analogy

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:13 (4 years ago) Permalink

I don't have time to chase a link right now, but wasn't there a recent poll of Israelis and Palestinians which showed dramatic changes in response when things like "an apology from Israel for the Nakba" (for Palestinians) or "acknowledging Israel's right to exist" (for Israelis) were included as possibilities? It seems like some of these semantic issues are genuinely crucial to some of the principals involved -- even though, at the same time, they seem disingenuous or counterproductive to others.

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:19 (4 years ago) Permalink

Part of it is rhetoric, I agree. But to a certain exist, it just comes down to the absurdity of it all - how is Israel supposed to have any sort of realistic peace/whatever talks with a group that refuses to accept its right to exist as a state? On a very, very basic level that undermines any legitimacy of what goes on.

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:20 (4 years ago) Permalink

and yeah I remember reading that and liking it too charlie. I think it was nyt?

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:21 (4 years ago) Permalink

I dunno, I just think that "Palestinians don't recognize our right to exist!" and "Israelis are forgetting about the Holocaust!" are both basically shorthand for "rather than attempt to engage in a meaningful discussion during the course of which we may discover that we are both guilty of mistakes, I am going to call you a subhuman being of pure evil who lacks the capability for rational discourse, and therefore I win by default".

(this is the driving force of like 90% of political discourse though (and 99.99% of it on the internet) so it's not like anyone should really be surprised)

― if you like it then you shoulda put a donk on it (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:21 (4 years ago) Permalink

"Israelis are forgetting about the Holocaust!"

eh?

― groovy groovy jazzy funky pounce bounce dance (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:26 (4 years ago) Permalink

Part of it is rhetoric, I agree. But to a certain exist, it just comes down to the absurdity of it all - how is Israel supposed to have any sort of realistic peace/whatever talks with a group that refuses to accept its right to exist as a state? On a very, very basic level that undermines any legitimacy of what goes on.
― iatee, Wednesday, February 18, 2009 7:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

argh but see this is exactly why it's stupid and unproductive to talk about this stuff instead of, you know, THE ACTUAL PHYSICAL THINGS that Hamas/Israel have done and are morally culpable for. because a Palestinian is going to point to an article like this:

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Hamas acknowledges the existence of Israel as a reality but formal recognition will only be considered when a Palestinian state has been created, the movement’s exiled leader Khaled Meshaal said on Wednesday.
Softening a previous refusal to accept the Jewish state’s existence, Meshaal said Israel was a “matter of fact” and a reality that will persist.
“There will remain a state called Israel,” Meshaal said in an interview in the Syrian capital, in what appeared to be clearest statement yet by the Islamist group on its attitude toward the state it previously said had no right to exist.
“The problem is not that there is an entity called Israel,” said Meshaal, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 1997. “The problem is that the Palestinian state is non-existent.”

and then say "look, we obviously acknowledge that there is a country called Israel and we are willing to talk to it and see if we convince it to get off our land, but you're kidding yourself if you think we're going to say that it SHOULD be there"

xpost the thing upthread where people were talking about the annoying tendency to say that Israel is perpetrating A SECOND HOLOCAUST and OH HOW SHORT OUR MEMORIES ARE etc etc

― if you like it then you shoulda put a donk on it (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:27 (4 years ago) Permalink

I think if Hamas were more vocal about the above POV it would probably suffice

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:34 (4 years ago) Permalink

I mean this really is all semantics right now, and it's esp difficult for us to analyze because he doesn't speak English (just checked)

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:36 (4 years ago) Permalink

one of my pet peeves in high school english was when people overanalyzed a single word in a translated book. the csm article needs to have been written by an arabic speaker.

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:40 (4 years ago) Permalink

I definitely agree with the above, but my point is that regardless of precisely what the term is supposed to mean, it's basically used to accuse the Palestinians of thoughtcrime.

― if you like it then you shoulda put a donk on it (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:44 (4 years ago) Permalink

There's also the question -- ideally, mostly mooted by the two-state solution -- of whether Israel's "right to exist" = "right to exist as a Jewish state in perpetuity". In other words, the difference between "the people who are there should stay there, and shouldn't be fucked with" vs. "the people who are there should stay there, shouldn't be fucked with, and have a right to pursue policies to ensure that their demographic maintains a solid majority".

(But then we get into the whole quagmire: is Israel like South Africa? Like most countries, many of which take measures to preserve their particular demographic? Somewhere in between? Under what circumstances is government intervention in these matters acceptable? If the Han Chinese had organically overrun Tibet, as opposed to being spurred on by the gov't, would that be more OK? etc. etc. etc.)

― Charlie Rose Nylund, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:51 (4 years ago) Permalink

I think I'm accusing them of doublethink

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 19:56 (4 years ago) Permalink

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/26/opinion/edatran.php?page=1

found the aforementioned article

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 February 2009 20:04 (4 years ago) Permalink

the comments bit i thought was shocking was from the indie article btw

― admin log special guest star (DG), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 20:22 (4 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/movies/02godard.html

But Mr. Ganis and others in the academy have fielded queries from members who question the propriety of an award that is drawing attention not just to Mr. Godard’s well-known disregard for Hollywood but also to positions and statements in which he has mingled his mistrust of the mainstream movie world with a wariness of traits he associates with Jews.

a "wariness of traits he associates with ________" is my new favorite euphemism and defense for racism.

― Cunga, Wednesday, 3 November 2010 02:41 (2 years ago) Permalink

which in this case seems bullshittish

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 02:45 (2 years ago) Permalink

In one of the more striking such statements, in a 1985 interview in Le Matin quoted in Richard Brody’s 2008 biography, Mr. Godard spoke of the film industry as being bound up in Jewish usury.

“What I find interesting in the cinema is that, from the beginning, there is the idea of debt,” he is quoted as saying. “The real producer is, all the same, the image of the Central European Jew.”

Between translation and lack of context, I'm not sure what's going on in this statement. But it seems strange to call out "debt" in filmmaking. Does he mean the idea that a film has investors who want to make money?

― Kinect: The Body Is Good Business™ (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 02:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

See Godard thread; Brody wrote in his New Yorker blog that NYT quotes were brief, w/out context and misleading.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 03:01 (2 years ago) Permalink

whoa fuck one (1) godard

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 11:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

not reeeeaaaallly surprised that brody is standing up for his boy there

also not too surprised that a conservative-modernist euro intellectual is an anti-semite; more surprised that he gets shine on the left... oh no hang on that's not right is it?

― it's always random in wackydelphia (history mayne), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 11:46 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://www.cinema-scope.com/cs38/feat_krohn_brody.html

interestingly this long review bends over backwards to defend godard from the charges of anti-semitism (actually: documented instances of anti-semitism) in brody;s book. curiouser and curiouser.

― it's always random in wackydelphia (history mayne), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 12:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

DG, who are you, and have you ever seen a Godard film?

bulletin boards, fulla fucking rabble

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 14:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

Modish mid twentieth century anti-semitism, Ezra Pound style.

― sandra lee, gimme your alcohol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 14:33 (2 years ago) Permalink

nice balance w/ Tarantino's racism and ILX's hatred of Christianity, anyhoo

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 14:35 (2 years ago) Permalink

doctor morbius, i'm the guy that created the board you are posting on, and yes i have - good films don't make people saints, cf roman 'i like drug raping children' polanski

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 14:40 (2 years ago) Permalink

no argument, i'm a fan of Jerry Lewis

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 14:47 (2 years ago) Permalink

per Brody, I really don't recall another filmmaker returning again and again to contemplation of the Holocaust in the way Godard has.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 14:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

cf roman 'i like drug raping children' polanski

Oh, it's "children," huh. Your board is its father's child.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 14:57 (2 years ago) Permalink

go fuck a 13 year old, see what the prosecutor thinks

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 14:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

I meant yr use of plural.

Now it aaallllllll makes sense.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 15:00 (2 years ago) Permalink

I really don't recall another filmmaker returning again and again to contemplation of the Holocaust in the way Godard has.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, November 3, 2010 2:54 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

ah, 'contemplation'. not really sure what to make of the strand in late godard, about the failure of hollywood bosses to 'film' and thereby prevent the holocaust. sounds like pretty typical godardian pseudo-intellectual bullshit to me. making 'night train to munich' and 'contraband' did not stop the battle of britain. but either way, godard is not much of an historian.

― it's always random in wackydelphia (history mayne), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 15:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

Modish mid twentieth century anti-semitism, Ezra Pound style.
― sandra lee, gimme your alcohol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 3, 2010 2:33 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

'modish'? among whom? kind of sure that becoming il duce's hypeman wasn't widely regarded as an intelligent move. obviously a lot of lit crit has been about trying to rescue the reputations of the likes of pound.

― it's always random in wackydelphia (history mayne), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 15:07 (2 years ago) Permalink

come on DG he only drugraped *one* child

― candid gamera (s1ocki), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 15:35 (2 years ago) Permalink

like you've never made a single mistake in your life

― candid gamera (s1ocki), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 15:36 (2 years ago) Permalink

well apparently he created the board you're posting on

― sock lobster (blueski), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 15:36 (2 years ago) Permalink

true :(

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 15:37 (2 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

sad

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11960291

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

i have a 9-year old daughter attending a jewish parochial school (in coral gables (fla), not the uk). security is a constant concern. stories like this break my heart.

― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:11 (2 years ago) Permalink

"Faith schools make a fantastic contribution to our education system and none more so than Jewish faith schools," Education Secretary Michael Gove said.

this was already happening, just now the govt takes the bill (which they ought to have done already) and of course it allows for such soundbites in support of the cross party consensus on 'faith schools'

the statistics cited there don't look good but i've never heard of a jewish school being attacked....you'd think the threat would be to kids going to/from school

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:21 (2 years ago) Permalink

it's sad that these concerns exist whether the govt foots the security bill or not

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:23 (2 years ago) Permalink

I remember when I was growing up we often had security guards posted at the Jewish day school. It's kinda terrifying when you're a kid.

― Mordy, Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

The Jewish Free School in Camden Town always had security guards when I was a kid, and stepped it up pretty hard in 2001. They moved wayyy out of town soon after - still in London but, like, zone 4 - and ppl speculated that it was partly so they could build a more defensible school. (NB this was not the stated reason, which was more to do w/ the Jewish population of London living further north nowadays.)

― crushing the frantic penguins (c sharp major), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:32 (2 years ago) Permalink

I remember when I was growing up we often had security guards posted at the Jewish day school. It's kinda terrifying when you're a kid.

― Mordy, Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:24 (38 seconds ago)

this is why i wonder if it's a good thing....frightens the kids, inculcates a siege mentality at an impressionable age

i'd guess some of these schools have received threats from some bedroom jihadi types and ppl are understandably scared to death, so it has to be done

nonetheless i'd caution against thinking the uk is a few steps from kristallnacht (as alleged in an inflammatory documentary by racist troll richard littlejohn a few years ago)

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:35 (2 years ago) Permalink

it's not 1933 but i think you are being very glib

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:39 (2 years ago) Permalink

I don't think I could ever feel comfortable living in the UK because of historical anti-Semitism, even tho I'm sure it's much much better there today than say in 1190. Maybe because of a siege mentality.

― Mordy, Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:43 (2 years ago) Permalink

things have improved a bit in 820 years to be fair

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:46 (2 years ago) Permalink

I don't think I could ever feel comfortable living in the UK because of historical bubonic plague tbh

― absinthe of malithe (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:47 (2 years ago) Permalink

Also not forgiven anybody for the Peasant's Revolt.

― absinthe of malithe (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:47 (2 years ago) Permalink

cautioning against glibness

these security concerns are nothing new, and probably won't go away any time soon

it's dreadful but the same concerns exist in france, america, etc

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:47 (2 years ago) Permalink

idk, on that logic i wouldn't want to be black in america

xposts to mordy

― man dem coalition (history mayne), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:47 (2 years ago) Permalink

me neither!

― Mordy, Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:48 (2 years ago) Permalink

these security concerns are nothing new, and probably won't go away any time soon
it's dreadful but the same concerns exist in france, america, etc
― nakhchivan, Thursday, December 9, 2010 5:47 PM (7 seconds ago) Bookmark

well, they're a little bit new. anti-semitic violence has gone up in the last decade.

holding up france as an example is not really going to clinch you much in an argument about anti-semitism!

xpost lol

― man dem coalition (history mayne), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

I swear that the Synagogue in Hull which was in a fairly rough part of the city that I used to live in had a security guard outside when there were meetings. This was in the early 90s in what was an unusually white city for the UK at the time. Never knew why the guy was there tho.

― absinthe of malithe (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

Actually there were probably NF-type fuckwits around capable of violence.

― absinthe of malithe (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:52 (2 years ago) Permalink

I don't think I could ever feel comfortable living in the UK because of historical anti-Semitism

yeah little hugh of lincoln was a while back

there probably is more of a mild antisemitism at all levels of society than in america, but off-colour remarks about israel is a separate issue to threats of violence, which are almost certain to be from either jihadists or nazis, both rather peripheral groups in england because of our historical antinaziism and antijihadism

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:53 (2 years ago) Permalink

holding up france as an example is not really going to clinch you much in an argument about anti-semitism!

example cuz those are the two other western countries with big jewish populations, tho yes things are worse in paris than new york

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

off-colour remarks about israel is a separate issue to threats of violence, which are almost certain to be from either jihadists or nazis

i wouldn't say so, and i don't think all the anti-semitic graffiti during the gaza war was from jihadis, exactly

― man dem coalition (history mayne), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

I almost never encounter British people who dislike Jews. Do these British anti-Semites never leave the UK except in published form?

I think the US has tons of passive anti-Semitism, not like hate but a lack of familiarity with or appreciation for Jews.

― you suck and your apple pie sucks too (u s steel), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:56 (2 years ago) Permalink

idk, on that logic i wouldn't want to be black in america

xposts to mordy

― man dem coalition (history mayne), Thursday, December 9, 2010 12:47 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

me neither!

― Mordy, Thursday, December 9, 2010 12:48 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

charming

― BO (DJP), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:57 (2 years ago) Permalink

i wouldn't say so, and i don't think all the anti-semitic graffiti during the gaza war was from jihadis, exactly

― man dem coalition (history mayne), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:55 (3 seconds ago)

that falls somewhere between those categories then

i don't think jewish schools are under threat from militant trots but yr welcome to cite relevant evidence

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

Quite a bit of coded anti-Semitism from a certain kind of conservative upper middle class dude *COUGH*richardingrams*COUGH*. Quite a bit of kneejerk anti-Semitism from the lumpenleft/same dudes who specialise in kneejerk anti-Americanism, filters thru all levels of society tbh

― absinthe of malithe (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 9 December 2010 17:59 (2 years ago) Permalink

nv otm

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:01 (2 years ago) Permalink

but off-colour remarks about israel

pretty certain security guards aren't there to protect against fashionable 'progressive' opinions

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

That Dawkins geezer can get pretty tasty when he's had a few.

― absinthe of malithe (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

that's what's nakh's saying i think

xpost

― man dem coalition (history mayne), Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

was agreeing with you mr HM

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:16 (2 years ago) Permalink

I know I'll probably piss someone off here but I hate it when Americans with no ties to the middle east just spout off about Israel with this vague criticism of American Jews. I am not Jewish but sometimes I get the vibe that some people don't feel comfortable around Jews or maybe don't trust them. This seems illiterate and un-American to me, it is shocking to encounter, but I have encountered it from people who are not racist activists or "Zioni$m" nutcases.

― you suck and your apple pie sucks too (u s steel), Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:21 (2 years ago) Permalink

Jews have no future in Holland'

By Michel Zlotowski, December 9, 2010

Due to the growing hostility ofa large part of Holland's Muslim population, Dutch Jews should emigrate to the United States or to Israel, said Frits Bolkestein, former European Commissioner and ex-leader of Holland's ruling right-wing VVD party.

The statement appeared in the book Het Verval (The Decline), written by Manfred Gerstenfeld, a Netherlands-born Holocaust survivor and senior researcher at the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs.

The book, published last week, examines the attitude of the Dutch Protestant Church towards Jews and argues that antisemitism is not restricted to people of Muslim background in the Netherlands.

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:30 (2 years ago) Permalink

pretty sure it's the dutch police that run a force of, er, 'decoy jews', ie cops dressed in orthodox attire in order to bait racists

also, this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00c342p

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

I think the US has tons of passive anti-Semitism, not like hate but a lack of familiarity with or appreciation for Jews.

There are lots of places in the US where those who live there have possibly never met a Jewish person in their lives. So the whole "lack of familiarity with or appreciation for" is kind of a given?

― Jesus Christ, the apple tree! (Laurel), Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:48 (2 years ago) Permalink

i dunno enough about the netherlands but i dread hearing such 'no future' rhetoric directed at/coming from british jews

at a certain point u gotta cut your losses.....but i don't think a few jihadi degenerates have made things that bad

of course the education of young muslims is a wider issue, and isn't helped by our lack of any apparent foreign policy goals not sourced from washington (i digress)

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:50 (2 years ago) Permalink

oh yeah i personally wouldn't subscribe to any 'no future' rhetoric, not least because i enjoy aggro, but i do think it is seriously worthy of concern as to how blithely people disregard overt displays of hatred or seek to hold all jews accountable for israel etc

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 18:57 (2 years ago) Permalink

again i still think you gotta think of violence/threats separately from left/liberal 'intellectual' antisemitism.....even if they have a cumulative effect

most ppl don't care about israel one way or the other

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:02 (2 years ago) Permalink

admittedly i don't associate with a lot of leftists but i'd be fairly confident that someone who srsly suggested israeli state policy was an issue about jews in general would be told to stfu in most circles

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

again i still think you gotta think of violence/threats separately from left/liberal 'intellectual' antisemitism.....even if they have a cumulative effect

i think they're both worthy of concern tbqh

i'd be fairly confident that someone who srsly suggested israeli state policy was an issue about jews in general would be told to stfu in most circles

i wouldn't

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

admittedly i don't associate with a lot of leftists

this is all going in your file

― chortlin acoleuthic (darraghmac), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

i think they're both worthy of concern tbqh

did i say otherwise

i wouldn't

ha i had second thoughts about that after posting

if ppl don't object to rhetoric like that, it's more likely cuz they are being timid/nonconfrontational/english than cuz they share it

anything to avoid an upset etc

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:13 (2 years ago) Permalink

only reason i joined combat 18 tbh, the awkward pause after i was invited was killing me

― chortlin acoleuthic (darraghmac), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

will ye have a cup of nuremberg tea

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:16 (2 years ago) Permalink

anything to avoid an upset etc

really wish i had yr faith

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

u gotta spend less time with elderly french film directors

― nakhchivan, Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

someone who srsly suggested israeli state policy was an issue about jews in general

you realize this is how a lot of pro-Israelis frame their defenses of various monstrosities

― "Information by surprise" is even legal in Sweden (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

should have seen the mess that guy made of my rug xp

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 19:26 (2 years ago) Permalink

casual-to-virulent anti-muslim sentiment seems far more prevalent in the UK to me than anti-semitism so this is quite a surprise but admittedly i never thought/knew much about increased security/fears at jewish schools and it all seems significantly more outside the radar

― modrić in paradise (blueski), Thursday, 9 December 2010 20:26 (2 years ago) Permalink

seems likely they feed off each other

― i just posted (bnw), Thursday, 9 December 2010 20:39 (2 years ago) Permalink

nearly 7 times as many muslims as jews in the uk as well

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 9 December 2010 20:40 (2 years ago) Permalink

casual-to-virulent anti-muslim sentiment seems far more prevalent in the UK to me than anti-semitism

Yeah this has seemed to be the case to me too.

Never in my life have I heard or overheard anyone ragging on Jewish people, obv I'm not a statistically worthwhile sampling in myself I guess. really it's off my radar too.

― Pashmina, Friday, 10 December 2010 00:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

casual-to-virulent anti-muslim sentiment seems far more prevalent in the UK to me than anti-semitism

would venture this is true in the US as well

― fuckin magnates, why don't they work (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 10 December 2010 00:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

French dude just told me same about France.

― mandatorily joined parties (Hurting 2), Friday, 10 December 2010 00:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

something about muslim faith schools here but seems like their quantity and profile isn't quite high enough here to have caused the same concerns

― modrić in paradise (blueski), Friday, 10 December 2010 00:45 (2 years ago) Permalink

when did the term 'faith schools' become commonplace? guessing within last 10 years in common with rebranding of oldtime fire and brimstone religion as new inclusive communitarian right-thinking ~faith~ [via t blair]

― nakhchivan, Friday, 10 December 2010 00:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

sigh http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12350913

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 3 February 2011 13:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

I'm glad I don't live there!

― Mordy, Thursday, 3 February 2011 13:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

It's really not that bad

― Tom D (Lenin's his feir and Liebknecht's his mate) (Tom D.), Thursday, 3 February 2011 13:50 (2 years ago) Permalink

In Worcester, someone daubed the word "Jew" on a pavement, accompanied by an arrow pointing towards a drain.

!!!!!!

― Tom D (Lenin's his feir and Liebknecht's his mate) (Tom D.), Thursday, 3 February 2011 13:56 (2 years ago) Permalink

It wasn't me, honest

― a fucking stove just fell on my foot. (Colonel Poo), Thursday, 3 February 2011 13:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

It's really not that bad

I know what you mean, but all the same I'm guessing that only a fraction of incidents ever get reported.

― seminal fuiud (NickB), Thursday, 3 February 2011 14:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

ohoh louis theroux is trending already

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 3 February 2011 14:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

ooh twitter racism outbreak has brought on the er 'fail whale'

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 3 February 2011 21:32 (2 years ago) Permalink

DG - that report says incidents are down by a third from last year. Isn't the trend the important thing?

― Alba, Thursday, 3 February 2011 22:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

they're down because the previous year had a spike, the overall trend is upward

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 3 February 2011 22:26 (2 years ago) Permalink

so yes, it is

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 3 February 2011 22:27 (2 years ago) Permalink

I can't see the figures before 2000 in that CST report. Do you have them?

― Alba, Thursday, 3 February 2011 22:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

no but feel free to email the cst, i'm sure they'd be happy to hear from you

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 3 February 2011 22:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

Also, it's good that the CST publicise such incidents, but I'm unclear how they control for changes in reporting and recording behaviour over the years, which is important if their data is to be used to make longitudinal comparisons. Even they say that the rise "partly reflects the increased size and scope of the CST's work, and better reporting rates to CST from the Jewish community".

― Alba, Thursday, 3 February 2011 22:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

well i dont work for them so like i say, feel free to email them to quiz them about their methodology

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 3 February 2011 23:01 (2 years ago) Permalink

But it doesn't interest you too?

― Alba, Thursday, 3 February 2011 23:04 (2 years ago) Permalink

lol, what are you hoping to gain from checking out the methodology? "oh look, methodological problems. UK is just as anti-semitic as its ever been, not significantly more."

― Mordy, Thursday, 3 February 2011 23:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

we could probably save a bit of bandwidth if you just said what you wanted to say instead of trying to nudge me towards some sort of exciting revelation of my damning misunderstanding of stats nick

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 3 February 2011 23:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

I suspect you understand stats as well as I do. I'm not trying to say anything other than expressing a certain scepticism about the way stats get pushed in press releases to journalists. If asked to guess, I'd say that there was a real, depressing, spike in antisemitic incidents last year, that it's subsiding and that the longer-term trend is flattish.

I'm probably not going to email the CST questions because I'm lazy and would vaguely worry about being mistaken for some weird antisemite obsessing over their work.

― Alba, Thursday, 3 February 2011 23:19 (2 years ago) Permalink

well i'm glad yr optimistic but i'm not feeling it myself

― Jefferson Mansplain (DG), Thursday, 3 February 2011 23:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

wonder what he said

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8347082/John-Galliano-suspended-by-Dior-following-arrest-over-anti-semitic-rant.html

― Romford Spring (DG), Friday, 25 February 2011 15:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://www.leparisien.fr/laparisienne/actu-people/antisemitisme-presume-galliano-suspendu-de-ses-fonctions-chez-dior-25-02-2011-1331441.php

Le Parisien is reporting that he said, «Dirty jewish face, you should be dead», and «Fucking Asian bastard, I will kill you». That first one sounds odd. "Sale tête de juif" is a perfectly traditional anti-Semitic thing to say in French but who would say that in English? Maybe he was speaking Franglish.

― Le mépris vient de la tête, la haine vient du cœur (Michael White), Friday, 25 February 2011 16:13 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/02/AR2011020206136.html?sid=ST2011020202710

― Super Cub, Friday, 25 February 2011 17:23 (2 years ago) Permalink

oh glenn

not so shocked about the reform rabbis claim as I am rmde at alleging that Holocaust-survivor George Soros collaborated with the Nazis to send Jews to death camps

― ice cr?m's world of female people (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 February 2011 21:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

wait, it's anti-Semitic to draw devil horns and a goatee on a picture...?

― DJP, Friday, 25 February 2011 21:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

they gave him john galliano's facial hair

― Romford Spring (DG), Friday, 25 February 2011 21:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

According to Rabbi Abraham Cooper, scribbling a beard and devil horns on a photo of someone is "a symbol associated with virulent anti-Semitism going back to the Middle Ages, deployed by the genocidal Nazi regime, by Soviet propagandists and even in 2011 by those who still seek to demonize Jews today."

― no pop, no style -- all simply (Viceroy), Friday, 25 February 2011 21:27 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/662,2068869/Did-Moses-have-horns.html

― buzza, Friday, 25 February 2011 21:33 (2 years ago) Permalink

The mistranslation that causes Michelangelo to portray Moses with horns (instead of 'radiant') has nothing to do with the demonization of a pre-Christian European horned god.

― Le mépris vient de la tête, la haine vient du cœur (Michael White), Friday, 25 February 2011 21:53 (2 years ago) Permalink

I had heard the "Jews have horns" things before but never actually connected that with the picture defacing

I feel like someone shat on my childhood

― DJP, Friday, 25 February 2011 21:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

I bet you drew penises too.

― Super Cub, Friday, 25 February 2011 22:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

THAT'S ANTI-SEMITIC TOO?????

― DJP, Friday, 25 February 2011 22:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

depends - were they circumcised

― ice cr?m's world of female people (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 February 2011 22:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

kirk is jewish too

― buzza, Friday, 25 February 2011 22:13 (2 years ago) Permalink

I might get a horn making out w/Betty, too.

― Le mépris vient de la tête, la haine vient du cœur (Michael White), Friday, 25 February 2011 22:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3436757/Film-of-John-Gallianos-racist-rant-in-bar.html

― Romford Spring (DG), Monday, 28 February 2011 13:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

Classic. Fashion designer an arrogant hateful dick SHOCKAH!

― Tom D (Tom D.), Monday, 28 February 2011 13:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

This article was amended on 27 February 2011. The original headline, 'Bon viveur? Yes. Racist? Non', was felt to have been misleading, by giving the impression the writer had concluded John Galliano was not a racist before any allegation had been fully investigated. It has now been changed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/25/john-galliano-paris-shows-doubt

lol

― Romford Spring (DG), Monday, 28 February 2011 13:26 (2 years ago) Permalink

"It was the Dom Perignon talking, occifer, honest..."

― Tom D (Tom D.), Monday, 28 February 2011 13:27 (2 years ago) Permalink

oh gawd

No one was surprised that Dior suspended him pending the police investigation.

yeah, the fashion industry is well known for its high ethical standards

― this odyssey that refuses to quit calling itself (history mayne), Monday, 28 February 2011 13:29 (2 years ago) Permalink

one season, he was Fagin in squished black top hat and hobnail boots;

erm

― Romford Spring (DG), Monday, 28 February 2011 13:32 (2 years ago) Permalink

the 'second mumford and sons album cover look' as it will be known

― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Monday, 28 February 2011 13:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

Oh, it'll come out he had a "reaction" to medication, or some such...

― Mark G, Monday, 28 February 2011 15:41 (2 years ago) Permalink

Galliano caused offence for what many perceived as gross insensitivity a decade ago when he used outfits improvised against harsh weather by homeless people in Paris, whom he saw every day while out running, as inspiration for a couture collection worth upwards of £10,000 per garment.

haha omg

― iatee, Monday, 28 February 2011 15:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

Oh, it'll come out he had a "reaction" to medication, or some such...

"With parole as inducement, Virgil submits to the vaccine test. It is a success, except for one temporary side effect. For several hours, he is turned into a rabbi."

― Tom D (Tom D.), Monday, 28 February 2011 15:56 (2 years ago) Permalink

LOL @ unemployed racist wanker

― Tom D (Tom D.), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 15:12 (2 years ago) Permalink

Waiting to see how 'troubled' he is - I am suspecting major issues here besides assholism and alcohol, dude was drinking solo which is NAGL but as of now, no scary Dior press office to back up/hide his bullshit. Good on Natalie Portman for speaking up, because I'm sure her threat to quit over it was probably the last straw.

The irony is killing me: a gay man would be oven-ready in Nazi Germany too.

― anna sui generis (suzy), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 15:59 (2 years ago) Permalink

According to some Guardian journalist on Twitter, Julian Assange has told Private Eye that he blames a "Jewish conspiracy" for his predicament. Classy dude staying classy.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:07 (2 years ago) Permalink

a gay man would be oven-ready in Nazi Germany too.

Exactly what I was thinking

― Le mépris vient de la tête, la haine vient du cœur (Michael White), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:12 (2 years ago) Permalink

why would he tell private eye that? richard ingrams is no longer editor anyway

― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:12 (2 years ago) Permalink

Most people who bang on about Jewish conspiracies don't actually know any Jews for reals.

Disturbing part of the Galliano story is that he's doing sterling work giving homophobes ammo for the 'bitchy gay man' angle in lots of the reporting. Gay friends already complaining about it.

― anna sui generis (suzy), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

― joe, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:28 (2 years ago) Permalink

― joe, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:29 (2 years ago) Permalink

oops, bit hard to read, try here: http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/03/01/assange-goes-off-deep-end-blaming-jews-and-guardian-in-private-eye/

― joe, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:30 (2 years ago) Permalink

Actually, suzy, part of fully accepting the humanity of homosexuals is realizing that their capacity to be drunken, racist assholes is every bit as large as any other person's.

For me, the real story is about how sheltered someone so pampered can become and how that deference paid him has obviously sheltered him from having to interact with normal people who would otherwise call him on this inane BS.

Also, it's interesting to me that Arnault/LVMH acted so quickly and so firmly to protect not only Dior's rep but possibly all their other holdings.

― Le mépris vient de la tête, la haine vient du cœur (Michael White), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

rip big man

― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:33 (2 years ago) Permalink

a gay man would be oven-ready in Nazi Germany too.

eh Ernst Rohm wasn't exactly executed because he was gay y'know

― ice cr?m's world of female people (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

MW, I agree with you - I am merely passing on what my friends are complaining about in the reporting of the story and people's comments in social media.

― anna sui generis (suzy), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:35 (2 years ago) Permalink

The Nazis were not as rigorous in their homophobia as in other forms of hate but oven-ready is a felicitous way of putting it, nonetheless, Shakey.

― Le mépris vient de la tête, la haine vient du cœur (Michael White), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 16:40 (2 years ago) Permalink

sometimes when i'm in stamford hill morrisons (supermarket) i see lots of jewish people stocking up on baby/face wipes. lots and lots of them. why is this?

― Crackle Box, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:15 (2 years ago) Permalink

Christian babies need to be ritually cleaned before we make matzos out of them

― ice cr?m's world of female people (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:16 (2 years ago) Permalink

controversial stuff from the west coast lenny bruce as many are calling him

― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

shit is it too late to make a "Well he can probably get a job at Hugo Boss" joke or have we moved on to Assange?

― no pop, no style -- all simply (Viceroy), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

^^^^^LOLLLLLL also, Chanel.

― anna sui generis (suzy), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

stamford hill eh? reminds me of this delightful piece in the indie

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/christina-patterson/christina-patterson-the-limits-of-multiculturalism-2036861.html

― Romford Spring (DG), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:26 (2 years ago) Permalink

Wow, she's all over the place there.

― Le mépris vient de la tête, la haine vient du cœur (Michael White), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

When I first moved to Stamford Hill, I didn't realise that goyim were about as welcome in Hasidic Jewish shops as Martin Luther King at a Klu Klux Klan convention

first they came for the subeditors

― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

shit is it too late to make a "Well he can probably get a job at Hugo Boss" joke or have we moved on to Assange?
― no pop, no style -- all simply (Viceroy), Tuesday, March 1, 2011 5:24 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

nice

― this odyssey that refuses to quit calling itself (history mayne), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:36 (2 years ago) Permalink

...googling reveals, perforated lines and tearing things. not allowed on shabbat.

yeah that christina patterson piece is... well, i'd like to watch her responding to the stuart lee skit on muslim women at weight watchers in stoke newington.

― Crackle Box, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:36 (2 years ago) Permalink

not really hard to see why the indie was sold for £1

― Romford Spring (DG), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:39 (2 years ago) Permalink

and it's still the least shit uk paper afaict

― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:41 (2 years ago) Permalink

follow up "battle of stamford hill" piece

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/manners-multiculturalism-and-the-battle-of-stamford-hill-2040039.html

― Crackle Box, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

and it's still the least shit uk paper afaict
― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Tuesday, March 1, 2011 5:41 PM (50 seconds ago) Bookmark

o_O

― this odyssey that refuses to quit calling itself (history mayne), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:43 (2 years ago) Permalink

say it then

― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:43 (2 years ago) Permalink

i'd rather read the mail

― this odyssey that refuses to quit calling itself (history mayne), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:44 (2 years ago) Permalink

frontin like a day today second tierer

― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:45 (2 years ago) Permalink

the mail is my favorite uk paper

― max, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:45 (2 years ago) Permalink

ya but u r all abt blogworthy content rather andreas whittman smith stuff

― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:46 (2 years ago) Permalink

shit, sorry aws my editorial staff are on shabbat

anyway in terms of reading, guardian then mail cuz of their sites and thoroughness of fitba content

long train journeys -- the independent probably

― they will have been disappointed not to have been (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

haven't read the assange thing yet, in detail. it's kind of comically predictable, though, given the company he keeps, etc etc etc. in a weird way im 'disappointed' that it's this predictable.

― this odyssey that refuses to quit calling itself (history mayne), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 17:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Support-John-Galliano/196742293678648

gross

― Peyton Flanders (Nicole), Wednesday, 2 March 2011 00:15 (2 years ago) Permalink

fuck "le politiquement correct"

― nakhchivan, Wednesday, 2 March 2011 00:16 (2 years ago) Permalink

Japanese pop group Kishidan's 'Nazi' outfits force Sony to apologise

― ka£ka (NickB), Wednesday, 2 March 2011 10:41 (2 years ago) Permalink

kula shaker tribute act?

― Romford Spring (DG), Wednesday, 2 March 2011 12:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

a flock of seig heils

― joe, Wednesday, 2 March 2011 13:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

*applause*

― ka£ka (NickB), Wednesday, 2 March 2011 13:21 (2 years ago) Permalink

Disturbing part of the Galliano story is that he's doing sterling work giving homophobes ammo for the 'bitchy gay man' angle

Yeah, that's the disturbing part.

― Du Musst Calamari Werden (Phil D.), Wednesday, 2 March 2011 13:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

a flock of seig heils

lol

― Le mépris vient de la tête, la haine vient du cœur (Michael White), Wednesday, 2 March 2011 15:27 (2 years ago) Permalink

When I first moved to Stamford Hill, I didn't realise that goyim were about as welcome in Hasidic Jewish shops as Martin Luther King at a Klu Klux Klan convention

Wow sorry to hear you got assassinated, columnist.

― The Corner Stander, The Suggest Ban Hammer (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 2 March 2011 16:22 (2 years ago) Permalink

That didn't happen at a Klu Klux Klan convention, did it?

― Mark G, Wednesday, 2 March 2011 16:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

no but i think the meaning is clear eh

― Romford Spring (DG), Wednesday, 2 March 2011 16:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

Dr. King offended by the "monosyllabic terseness" he received at Klan rally

― The Corner Stander, The Suggest Ban Hammer (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 2 March 2011 17:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

When I first moved to Stamford Hill

... you missed out the fact that she's been living there for 12 years, I'd say she's the one with the problem!

― Tom D (Tom D.), Thursday, 3 March 2011 12:52 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/03/antisemitism-hatred-wont-go-away

― Romford Spring (DG), Thursday, 3 March 2011 14:29 (2 years ago) Permalink

The Eye's editor, Ian Hislop, says Assange told him that central to the plot was "the Guardian, which included journalist David Leigh, editor Alan Rusbridger and John Kampfner from Index on Censorship – all of whom 'are Jewish'". That certainly came as news to Rusbridger.

Uh, but the Guardian is forever getting stick for being anti-Israel etc

― Tom D (Tom D.), Thursday, 3 March 2011 14:39 (2 years ago) Permalink

comments disabled haha

― Romford Spring (DG), Thursday, 3 March 2011 14:56 (2 years ago) Permalink

Funereal ambiance at Dior show

Faustine François (au Musée Rodin)
04/03/2011 | Mise à jour : 17:46 Réactions (2)

The Dior show took place this afternoon iat the Rodin Museum in Paris. The décor is sober, only the Dior logo is visible amidst the crystal chendeliers and the plexiglass marquetry. A rare event, the show starts with a speech by the brand's COO, Sidney Toledano. "What has happened is a test… such comments are inacceptable. The fact that the the name of Dior was mixed up with such intolerable comments through its designer, however brilliant he may be, is very painful. The workers are sick at heart. What you're about to see is the fruit of their immense work."

In the front row, very few celebrities.

John Galliano's name is never uttered. In the front row, very few celebrities unlike other seasons. Tormented violins set the pace for the balmk faced models. The ambiance is heavy and emotions run high when the dressmakers come out to salute the public in the place of the ex-artistic director. Afterwards at the exits the sun shines but, hidden behind their sunglasses, no-one smiles. Heard in the crowd, "Fashion has lost another genius."

(my quick translation)

― styrofoam for pancger management (Michael White), Friday, 4 March 2011 18:00 (2 years ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

― no xmas for jonchaies (nakhchivan), Monday, 16 May 2011 12:07 (2 years ago) Permalink

I do not know what that picture is about.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Monday, 16 May 2011 13:22 (2 years ago) Permalink

2 weeks pass...

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 16:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

yes btw

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 16:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 16:53 (2 years ago) Permalink

Also maybe this deserves its own thread but anti-(male)circumsition activists are fucking lunatics each and every one. What a weird bullshit thing to get yourself worked up about.

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 16:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

"intactivists"

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 16:56 (2 years ago) Permalink

Sullivan has been flirting with "intactivism" himself. He's never met a crazy tunnel he didn't want to go down.

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:01 (2 years ago) Permalink

Wait, that comic isn't a joke?

― EDB, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:02 (2 years ago) Permalink

If so, then ????????

― EDB, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:02 (2 years ago) Permalink

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:03 (2 years ago) Permalink

Also maybe this deserves its own thread but anti-(male)circumsition activists are fucking lunatics each and every one. What a weird bullshit thing to get yourself worked up about.

― Mordy, Sunday, June 5, 2011 9:55 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

eh, anything taken to extremes = lunacy & will attract lunatics, but considering male circumcision grotesque & harmful doesn't seem insane on the face of it.

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

Sullivan has been flirting with "intactivism" himself. He's never met a crazy tunnel he didn't want to go down.
― Mordy, Sunday, June 5, 2011 6:01 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

could be a british thing. gentile brits go unsnipped.

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

that baby's chiseled, beefy jaw.

― free inappropriate education (Abbbottt), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

on the face of it -- non-harmful procedure that predates all western society + culture and is intricately linked to at least two of the most influential and important faiths on the planet.

um -- sounds pretty insane to me.

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

haha abbott i was just

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

"it was inevitable that foreskin man and the intactivist underground would cross paths..."

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:07 (2 years ago) Permalink

predates all western society + culture and is intricately linked to at least two of the most influential and important faiths on the planet.

oh great where do i get one?

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:07 (2 years ago) Permalink

i love things that predate western society and are also religious rituals!

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:07 (2 years ago) Permalink

like considering it grotesque and not doing it to your own children is cool and all but trying to ban it is really nutcase territory esp since not only is it not harmful and has no deleterious affects but actually has some positive correlations to things like HIV rate

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

xp, so you're saying it should be encouraged?

― caek, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

like considering it grotesque and not doing it to your own children is cool and all but trying to ban it is really nutcase territory esp since not only is it not harmful and has no deleterious affects ~~but actually has some positive correlations to things like HIV rate~~

just stop there imo.

― caek, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://www.tlctugger.com/

― buzza, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

wtf is that tinsel symbol they have hoisted onto an oil derrick? Is it a bad drawing of fetal genitals before external differentiation?

― free inappropriate education (Abbbottt), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

we're having a bonfire. would you like to join us?

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:11 (2 years ago) Permalink

My USA experience: Weird (not weird) that all the anti-male-circumcision zealots I've met seem to be female. Awesome how they never notice the men around them not participating in their mission. Guess why!

― David Allah Coal (sexyDancer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:11 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/index.html -- worth checking out. I wouldn't encourage it but WHO does.

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:12 (2 years ago) Permalink

comic is one of the most ridiculous things i've ever seen:

the kid's face!

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:12 (2 years ago) Permalink

dang a billion x-posts

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:13 (2 years ago) Permalink

― buzza, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:13 (2 years ago) Permalink

love that the inactivist hotty mchothot speaks through first her tit, then her arse

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

her last name is "kumming"

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

anti-circumcision zealots are my favorite -- "how dare you make a decision for a baby!!" always makes me picture a baby sitting in a chair just shitting itself silly and the parents being all "well hey it's not our decision to wipe your ass. that's something you're going to have to decide on your own."

― b.o.s.e. (banned ones still envy) (J0rdan S.), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:15 (2 years ago) Permalink

WHO/UNAIDS recommendations emphasize that male circumcision should be considered an efficacious intervention for HIV prevention in countries and regions with heterosexual epidemics, high HIV and low male circumcision prevalence.
Male circumcision provides only partial protection, and therefore should be only one element of a comprehensive HIV prevention package...

right, but that's hardly the same as getting involved in the crazy debate in the U.S., which is why i would leave it out.

― caek, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:15 (2 years ago) Permalink

anti-circumcision zealots are my favorite -- "how dare you make a decision for a baby!!" always makes me picture a baby sitting in a chair just shitting itself silly and the parents being all "well hey it's not our decision to wipe your ass. that's something you're going to have to decide on your own."
― b.o.s.e. (banned ones still envy) (J0rdan S.), Sunday, June 5, 2011 6:15 PM (50 seconds ago) Bookmark

totally similar!

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:16 (2 years ago) Permalink

both are equally counterintuitive!

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:16 (2 years ago) Permalink

― brownie, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:16 (2 years ago) Permalink

"does the little baby want his haircut? WELL MAYBE HE SHOULD DRIVE TO THE FUCKING BARBER THEN."

― b.o.s.e. (banned ones still envy) (J0rdan S.), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:18 (2 years ago) Permalink

― buzza, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:19 (2 years ago) Permalink

not only is it not harmful and has no deleterious affects but actually has some positive correlations to things like HIV rate

― Mordy, Sunday, June 5, 2011 10:08 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

aids prevention benefits shouldn't be discounted (seem legit), but "harm" gets subjective fast. some would say that to cut is to harm, but that's probably a topic for another thread.

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:19 (2 years ago) Permalink

― buzza, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

"what's that? the little baby cut his head on the coffee table? WELL I THINK HE KNOWS WHERE TO GET STITCHES."

― b.o.s.e. (banned ones still envy) (J0rdan S.), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://intactivists.blogspot.com/2011/04/intactivist-overheard.html

Quote from an intactivist mother in the United States:

To do a surgery on the sex organs of a baby for cosmetic and future sex-related reasons is a bunch of pedophilia. LADIES, I AM SAYING IT! I am tired of beating around the bush. Cutting and handling of baby genitals is medicalized pedopilia. I am telling you, I am straight up telling this to people now. Spread the word that circ is sick. It is no longer an argument of is it cleaner, better looking, the parents choice, etc. We've moved beyond that. Circumcision is here because the biggest pedophiles: Mr. Kellogg and Mr. Graham. They were such sickos that they created hospitals to torture, mutilate, and purposely traumatize children with genital torture and cutting... PEDOPHILES. And I am losing it, I can't take this country much longer. If a bill doesn't pass I'm moving to Denmark or any other place that has zero culture of mutilation. AND, for the record, I am tired of talking about it and having to educate and convince people not to f-ing cut up their own babies genitals. I am tired of talking about other peoples babies genitals. They should care more about protecting their baby from profiteering knife-wielding doctors.

Note from Intactivist.net: This frustration is all too common. People who are involved in this movement really, truly care about the children they are desperately trying to protect. Sometimes it gets to the point where we explode because it seems no one is hearing us. I heard another conversation where someone asked why does it seem like "intactivists" are crazy or sometimes even rude... that is not the intent at all. The answer given to this person was that it's just that we know too much, we know and we're trying to tell you, and we can see it so clearly for what it is, and we just want to protect children.

Strapping a baby down, or holding it down as is the case in many a bris, and then ripping apart that child's genitals and slicing parts off... does this really seem like a *sane* thing to do? Think on this for a moment, really meditate on it. Don't you agree that this should not even happen?

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

"ugh, my parents are so lame. not only is my curfew 11 pm on weekends, but they also circumcised me."

― b.o.s.e. (banned ones still envy) (J0rdan S.), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:21 (2 years ago) Permalink

LADIES, I AM SAYING IT!

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:21 (2 years ago) Permalink

"Transferring data from www.foreskinman.com": browser status bar text you never thought you would see.

― England's banh mi army (ledge), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:21 (2 years ago) Permalink

anyone who has an opinion either way about circumcision of other people's kids in the US or Europe to the extent that they campaign about it is crazy imo. there, i said it.

― caek, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

to be fair the advantages of circumcision probably look more relevant in statistics that include the third world than they actually are to people who can shower daily and go to the doctor.

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

Have you ever heard of someone campaigning for other ppl to circumcise their kids or are u just being evenhanded?

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:26 (2 years ago) Permalink

do they have opinions about belly buttons?

― sarahel, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:26 (2 years ago) Permalink

Have you ever heard of someone campaigning for other ppl to circumcise their kids or are u just being evenhanded?
― Mordy, Sunday, June 5, 2011 6:26 PM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark

dude

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:27 (2 years ago) Permalink

im pretty sure all the circumsizing parents didn't just come up with the (admittedly obvious, great, why-would-you-not) idea independently

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:28 (2 years ago) Permalink

like considering it grotesque and not doing it to your own children is cool and all but trying to ban it is really nutcase territory esp since not only is it not harmful and has no deleterious affects but actually has some positive correlations to things like HIV rate

^^^ seemed like a weird thing to slip in there at the end in the context of a comic book by american crazy people

― caek, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:28 (2 years ago) Permalink

i'm not suggesting you're actually "campaigning" or whatever, but you don't really need to bring out "circumcision is good" to win an argument with these people.

― caek, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:29 (2 years ago) Permalink

Well, my parents came up w the idea bc our family has been doing it for like two thousand years I guess xp

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:30 (2 years ago) Permalink

caek ur being weird

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

brisses are dope for the food

― b.o.s.e. (banned ones still envy) (J0rdan S.), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

My original comment wasn't a response to comic writers but to contenderizer

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:32 (2 years ago) Permalink

i think my initial knee-jerk response when i first heard about this intactivist movement was that it was something along the lines of a reactionary men's rights type thing because of all the focus on anti-female circumcision.

― sarahel, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:32 (2 years ago) Permalink

brisses are dope for the food

all that christian blood

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

Zayde did a lot of campaigning tbh cause he was jonesing to be a sandek

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:43 (2 years ago) Permalink

Have you ever heard of someone campaigning for other ppl to circumcise their kids or are u just being evenhanded?

― Mordy, Sunday, June 5, 2011 10:26 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

have no idea what things are like today, but i've been told that when i was a kid (late 60s, 70s), non-circumcision was frowned on in america, seen as kooky and unhygienic, that medical professionals strongly encouraged parents of male children to circumcise. maybe this was a product of my parents' american culture, and not the national standard, i dunno. i.e., in america, this is a campaign against a pervasive social norm, not against an opposing team.

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

^ a big garbled, but i think the gist is p clear.

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:52 (2 years ago) Permalink

― sarahel, Sunday, June 5, 2011 10:32 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, i thought the same thing. that may have helped fuel the fire, but in the long run, i think it has more to do with our culture of sacred babyhood and the anxieties abt western medicine that spurred the anti-vaccination movement.

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

i once heard an anti-semite (or was he? let the thread decide!) claim that Jewish doctors forced circumcision on Americans because in case the Nazis rose to power again they didn't want them to have any easy way of checking to see who was Jewish. I don't actually know how pervasive circumcision is tho in any community outside the Jewish one. If medical professionals were pushing it tho, I imagine it's bc they actually believed it was medically valuable + worth doing, which invalidates the "pro + anti circumcision equally crazy" equivocation.

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:56 (2 years ago) Permalink

like considering it grotesque and not doing it to your own children is cool and all but trying to ban it is really nutcase territory

OTM. educate abt your cause, and if you've got a case, people will start to come around.

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:56 (2 years ago) Permalink

If medical professionals were pushing it tho, I imagine it's bc they actually believed it was medically valuable + worth doing, which invalidates the "pro + anti circumcision equally crazy" equivocation.

― Mordy, Sunday, June 5, 2011 10:56 AM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark

i'm willing to believe that ancient tradition and modern medicine might well be equally crazy, not that i have a horse in this race.

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:57 (2 years ago) Permalink

xp Ancient Greece also had stigmas surrounding circumcision and Hellenized Jews who wanted to participate in the Olympics had to do a foreskin reattachment in order to compete. That mostly emerged from a culture of the sacred body and the sanctity of the male form.

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:57 (2 years ago) Permalink

In 1970, in my high school P.E. class, the percentage of boys with foreskins was similar to the number of boys who were jewish, at maybe 3 out of 50 for each category. Clearly, something was at work here besides jewish traditions.

― Aimless, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:57 (2 years ago) Permalink

I don't actually know how pervasive circumcision is tho in any community outside the Jewish one.

Um, it's SOP in the US. And it's also totally indefensible.

― unmetalled world (wk), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:57 (2 years ago) Permalink

I think the real problem with the equivocation is that no one is trying to push a mandatory circumcision law, ppl are trying to make it illegal (here in the US and abroad).

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

fyi there are two issues of "foreskin man" -- "foreskin man no. 1" concerns doctors who love to circumcise babies, while in "foreskin man no. 2" foreskin man battles "monster mohel"

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

who wins?

― caek, Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:59 (2 years ago) Permalink

this guy:

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 17:59 (2 years ago) Permalink

The apparent medical justification for universal circumcision was the belief that boys were highly unlikely to wash their penises properly and lack of a foreskin would make hygeine much simpler for their tiny minds to encompass.

― Aimless, Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:00 (2 years ago) Permalink

[while Prince Akeem is getting a bath]
Bather: The royal penis is clean, your Highness.

― b.o.s.e. (banned ones still envy) (J0rdan S.), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:01 (2 years ago) Permalink

no one is trying to push a mandatory circumcision law

Well, it's already the status quo. Why would a law be needed?

― unmetalled world (wk), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:02 (2 years ago) Permalink

NO MANDATORY CIRCUMCISIONS

― ☂ (max), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:03 (2 years ago) Permalink

circumcision rate in the US is well below 50% for newborns the last few years, no longer "SOP"

― buzza, Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:03 (2 years ago) Permalink

If medical professionals were pushing it tho, I imagine it's bc they actually believed it was medically valuable + worth doing, which invalidates the "pro + anti circumcision equally crazy" equivocation.
― Mordy, Sunday, June 5, 2011 10:56 AM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark
i'm willing to believe that ancient tradition and modern medicine might well be equally crazy, not that i have a horse in this race.
― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, June 5, 2011 6:57 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark S

yah i wouldn't go as far as this but i don't think 'modern medicine' in general thought it was worth doing: it didn't catch on in europe anyway.

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:03 (2 years ago) Permalink

circumcision rate in the US is well below 50% for newborns the last few years, no longer "SOP"
― buzza, Sunday, June 5, 2011 7:03 PM (19 seconds ago) Bookmark

adjusts bowtie, 'i don't think it's ever been over 50%'

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:04 (2 years ago) Permalink

I think the real problem with the equivocation is that no one is trying to push a mandatory circumcision law, ppl are trying to make it illegal (here in the US and abroad).

― Mordy, Sunday, June 5, 2011 10:58 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah, the movement to ban male circumcision seems excessive (esp given the well-documented disease prevention benefits), don't think there's any disagreement there.

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:04 (2 years ago) Permalink

interesting wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_male_circumcision#Medical_circumcision_from_1870_to_1950_in_English-speaking_countries

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

circumcision rate in the US is well below 50% for newborns the last few years, no longer "SOP"

Ah, right. I didn't realize it had declined so much.

"91% of men born in the 1970s, and 83% of boys born in the 1980s were circumcised."

― unmetalled world (wk), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

from here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_circumcision#United_States

― unmetalled world (wk), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

Seat belts and foreskins: not just good ideas, they're the LAW!

― Aimless, Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:07 (2 years ago) Permalink

adjusts bowtie, 'i don't think it's ever been over 50%'

would love to see some stats on this, esp as broken down by region, race/ethnicity, etc. based on my admittedly limited (anecdotal) experience, i'd have guessed it was well over 70% (a lowball shot in the dark) in the mid-to-late 20th century. like uncircumcised kids were damn rare where i grew up...

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

x-post comin through

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

This ILE thread becomes #1 Google hit for "circumcision" in 3...2...1...

― Aimless, Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

no, no, it was a 'they don't circumcize women' HFJ

xpost

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

gotcha

yah i wouldn't go as far as this but i don't think 'modern medicine' in general thought it was worth doing: it didn't catch on in europe anyway

oops, i didn't mean to suggest that "modern medicine" in general might be crazy (it certainly isn't), just that this or that common medical practice/belief might well be wildly off-base.

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

Not a lot of women seem emotionally caught up in this thread right now.

― Aimless, Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

me and my bruv were both circumcised in the 70s, it was like tonsilectomy then, first sign of a problem and whip it off. but i've never had a problem whatsoever with it, dudes who are butthurt about being circumcised seem really weird to me.

― banter panchali (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:12 (2 years ago) Permalink

like where's the "give me back my appendix you savages" support groups?

― banter panchali (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:13 (2 years ago) Permalink

Not a lot of women seem emotionally caught up in this thread right now.

― Aimless, Sunday, June 5, 2011 2:10 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

if there could be an ilx "site description"

― b.o.s.e. (banned ones still envy) (J0rdan S.), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

dudes who are butthurt about being circumcised seem really weird to me.

it's their doctors who are weird in this case

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

like where's the "give me back my appendix you savages" support groups?

― banter panchali (Noodle Vague), Sunday, June 5, 2011 11:13 AM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark

unsex organs playing catch up

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

Is it wrong to find "foreskin restoration" kind of funny?

― free inappropriate education (Abbbottt), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:16 (2 years ago) Permalink

This is the next wave of stem cell research money, f'sure.

― Aimless, Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

how could foreskin restoration not be funny. be better still if it was like property restoration and they had to match the appropriate period and style

― banter panchali (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

it could not be funny (read entire link) but i won't ruin a good time :P

― Mordy, Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:18 (2 years ago) Permalink

I read some article about foreskin restoration once & one guy was hanging fishing sinkers from his dong for hours on end. That's something.

― free inappropriate education (Abbbottt), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:19 (2 years ago) Permalink

did he get a bite?

― banter panchali (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

one guy was hanging fishing sinkers from his dong

Next big wave of spam emails, f'sure.

― Aimless, Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:22 (2 years ago) Permalink

but i've never had a problem whatsoever with it, dudes who are butthurt about being circumcised seem really weird to me.

I don't know, more sensitivity could be good. Kind of hard to say, isn't it?

― unmetalled world (wk), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:23 (2 years ago) Permalink

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:23 (2 years ago) Permalink

thanks buffandmaxsmom

― free inappropriate education (Abbbottt), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

tooshay

― orchestral pygnoeuvres in zee park (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:29 (2 years ago) Permalink

dry but helpful

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 5 June 2011 18:47 (2 years ago) Permalink

Meantime, Sullivan's seen the comic and all and is duly disenchanted:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/06/the-anti-semitism-behind-san-franciscos-anti-circumcision-proposal.html

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 5 June 2011 23:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

has he determined if trig was circumcised?

― buzza, Sunday, 5 June 2011 23:15 (2 years ago) Permalink

There's plenty of dumb old testament shit that people don't do anymore because people have woken up and decided to apply common sense to their lives instead of the arbitrary rules of a fer-christs-sake god. A god. Don't chop up your children until they an give informed consent, imo. I'm not saying people need to make laws or anything - this isn't on the level of murdering homosexuals or selling your daughter or whatever. But this is totally arbitrary at this point and worthy of the making of fun.

― kkvgz, Sunday, 5 June 2011 23:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

i don't think there's much point to it anymore either but when the old testament was written and health and hygiene were unrecognizably different than in the modern first world it made more sense. people make up god-commandments sure but they don't just pull them out of a hat.

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 5 June 2011 23:29 (2 years ago) Permalink

or maybe they just wanted to make sure nobody was having too good a time. i dunno.

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 5 June 2011 23:30 (2 years ago) Permalink

Oh sure! Things were mad different back then! But shit changes...we got the internet now.

― kkvgz, Sunday, 5 June 2011 23:30 (2 years ago) Permalink

AND I'LL NEVER KNOW, NOW

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 5 June 2011 23:30 (2 years ago) Permalink

Don't chop up your children until they an give informed consent, imo. I'm not saying people need to make laws or anything

^100% agree with this.

Going back to before this stuff was traditionally/routinely done - how did circumcision start? I mean who was the first guy to think "I'm going to cut a bit of my son's dick off" and WTF was he thinking?

o_O @ Foreskin Man wtf

― reverse the jelly baby of the neutron flow (onimo), Monday, 6 June 2011 12:46 (2 years ago) Permalink

Like mythologically? It was Abraham and he was thinking, "God told me to circumcise myself and my sons. Better get to that." Historically I have no idea.

― Mordy, Monday, 6 June 2011 13:11 (2 years ago) Permalink

This might be a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_male_circumcision

― Mordy, Monday, 6 June 2011 13:12 (2 years ago) Permalink

god collects prepuces to make a coat iirc

― aka best bum of the o_O's (Noodle Vague), Monday, 6 June 2011 13:12 (2 years ago) Permalink

xp Hygiene was one reason why circumcision was promoted in the US starting in the late nineteenth century, but the main reason was to prevent masturbation. Really. Why the doctors didn't realize that there are other methods of male masturbation other than moving the foreskin up and down, I don't know.

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Monday, 6 June 2011 13:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

far be it from me to say this is the weirdest bit of the bible. but it's pretty weird.

And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.

Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.

So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision

― England's banh mi army (ledge), Monday, 6 June 2011 13:15 (2 years ago) Permalink

read that last night, oddly enough. it is fascinatingly oblique.

― aka best bum of the o_O's (Noodle Vague), Monday, 6 June 2011 13:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

There's a whole midrash about that. Moses neglected to circumcise his kids in a timely manner so God sent a snake to swallow him. The snake had like halfway Moses when his wife went and did the circumcision herself and saved her husband's life.

― Mordy, Monday, 6 June 2011 13:22 (2 years ago) Permalink

halfway eaten*

― Mordy, Monday, 6 June 2011 13:23 (2 years ago) Permalink

there's a line a little later where Moses describes himself as having "uncircumcised lips". could be a mistaken transposition of an epithet applied to Pharaoh but i love this unexplained mysteriousness.

― aka best bum of the o_O's (Noodle Vague), Monday, 6 June 2011 13:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

i think actually not just halfway, but like had swallowed him on both ends in such a way as to leave just his own penis uncovered and that's how Tzipporah knew that the problem was circumcision related

― Mordy, Monday, 6 June 2011 13:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

reading that recently too, it is one of those deep dark strange moments of the bible.

xp
cool that clears it up.

― portrait of velleity (woof), Monday, 6 June 2011 13:27 (2 years ago) Permalink

or, more seriously, I am entirely intrigued - where's a midrash like that come from? How does the snake get involved?

― portrait of velleity (woof), Monday, 6 June 2011 13:35 (2 years ago) Permalink

I've always kinda wondered why circumcision became so popular in the US during the 20th century, while it was/is much rarer in Europe. Wikipedia says it was because of doctors promoted it as healthy, and because it was thought to stop boys from masturbating, but why didn't those same justifications apply in Continental Europe? And why was/is the practice still continued in the US, even though neither of those justifications is hardly relevant today? Is it only because parents didn't/don't want their kids to be different from the majority?

― Tuomas, Monday, 6 June 2011 13:36 (2 years ago) Permalink

xp This particular story is from the Exodus Rabbah which was compiled around 12th century which was itself developed from various midrashic traditions (primarily Tanhuma iirc). The Tanhuma parts at least come from the amoraic generation (200 CE in Israelish). So it's probably from there. It may be an oral tradition that developed alongside the written tradition, or it may have been invented as a homiletic in 200 CE. Also look here for a fuller description (and some exegesis): http://books.google.com/books?id=nAfUF2_ClqgC&lpg=PA18&ots=nM-k4VWX_K&dq=haberman%20foreskin%20sacrifice&pg=PA23#v=onepage&q&f=false

― Mordy, Monday, 6 June 2011 13:43 (2 years ago) Permalink

I'm spitballing here bc I've never studied this particular midrash in depth but I'd guess the serpent/snake angle is related to Moses' staff turning into a snake since that's a huge motif for him. (Obv other snake references could be the healer staff + the Eden snake, but it strikes me as more likely that it'd be referring to Moses' personal experience with snakes.) Also there's the obvious phallic imagery, etc.

― Mordy, Monday, 6 June 2011 13:45 (2 years ago) Permalink

The Mark book I linked to, btw, claims that the snake is mirroring the Eve narrative. Eve was naive but Zipporah "immediately grasps life and death confronting her in one instant. She is fuly conscious of her position of power and responsibility at the nexus of her intersecting erotic connections with God, her son, and her lover." Also of note, the Talmud derives from this narrative (again IIRC, it's been years since I looked at this partic passage) that if a father does not circumcise his son, a mother become obligated in the commandment.

― Mordy, Monday, 6 June 2011 13:48 (2 years ago) Permalink

I don't really have much useful to say to this but reading this thread has made me realise that this is going to be a huge issue if I ever have a son :(

― Gravel Puzzleworth, Monday, 6 June 2011 14:02 (2 years ago) Permalink

xp
thanks for the links & info Mordy, totally fascinating.

― portrait of velleity (woof), Monday, 6 June 2011 14:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

why didn't those same justifications apply in Continental Europe?

long honourable tradition of massive anti-Semitism

― aka best bum of the o_O's (Noodle Vague), Monday, 6 June 2011 15:03 (2 years ago) Permalink

I don't think that fully answers it, anti-semitism wasn't that strong everywhere in Europe. (Also, there were anti-semites in the US too: did they leave their kids uncut?)

― Tuomas, Monday, 6 June 2011 15:43 (2 years ago) Permalink

why didn't those same justifications apply in Continental Europe?
long honourable tradition of massive anti-Semitism
― aka best bum of the o_O's (Noodle Vague), Monday, June 6, 2011 4:03 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

lol was about to post more inflammatory version of this but i don't think it's true. i had never heard the 'anti-masturbation theory', daaaaamn.

― if xtm & dj chucky ft. annia could fly something something love (history mayne), Monday, 6 June 2011 18:28 (2 years ago) Permalink

If the idea of infant circumcision was to prevent masturbation in later life, I can tell you that the theory is not empirically sound.

― Aimless, Monday, 6 June 2011 18:30 (2 years ago) Permalink

As opposed to all the other early 1900s theories about sexuality?

― Tuomas, Monday, 6 June 2011 18:32 (2 years ago) Permalink

the non-religious uses of circumcision seem to be more related to old school "hey here is this bit of the body that doesn't really do anything and sometimes it can get infected let's just chop it off eh?" just like appendix tonsils adenoids etc. prophylactic surgery just seems to have been more of a thing back in the day

― aka best bum of the o_O's (Noodle Vague), Monday, 6 June 2011 18:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

Some early 1900s sexual theorists actually believed that sexual repression was bad for humans. Mainstream culture professed to be shocked, but were seceretly fascinated.

― Aimless, Monday, 6 June 2011 18:36 (2 years ago) Permalink

Mainstream culture professed to be shocked, but were seceretly ~~fascinated.~~ horny.

― Shart Shaped Box (Phil D.), Monday, 6 June 2011 18:37 (2 years ago) Permalink

His first comic, released last summer, featured an evil Doctor Mutilation, who circumcised boys for medical, not religious, reasons.

"Nobody came out and complained about doctor bias," Hess said. There's "no difference" between portraying an evil doctor and an evil religious figure, he said.

fuck this douchebag

― S'cool bro, I only cried a little (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 7 June 2011 16:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

Is it only because parents didn't/don't want their kids to be different from the majority?

I've come across more than a few women who initially thought the idea of an uncircumsized penis was gross or weird.

― kind of droll but mostly rad (Kerm), Tuesday, 7 June 2011 17:21 (2 years ago) Permalink

Most women I've come across profess a fascination with it.

― e-drinks @ the smart bar (kkvgz), Tuesday, 7 June 2011 22:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

oh word?

― an actual guy talking in an actual rhythm (history mayne), Tuesday, 7 June 2011 22:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.

Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.

So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision

this always baffled and fascinated me too -- it's like a 'twin peaks' style dream interlude in the middle of an otherwise straightforward narrative.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 7 June 2011 22:38 (2 years ago) Permalink

even if you can figure out what's going on, here's the logic of the story:

god (i repeat: GOD) tries to kill somebody, and FAILS because someone performs a CIRCUMCISION.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 7 June 2011 22:43 (2 years ago) Permalink

god was a new hire back then. he used to fuck shit up all the time.

― contenderizer, Tuesday, 7 June 2011 22:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

Love the Old Testament -- lots of weird, unexpected shit.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 7 June 2011 22:53 (2 years ago) Permalink

god, squeamish at sight of blood. Hence new testament departure more aimed at his strong points.

― ♪♫ hey there lamp post, feelin' whiney ♪♫ (darraghmac), Tuesday, 7 June 2011 23:00 (2 years ago) Permalink

Yeah for reading pleasure/surprise per minute I vote Pentateuch over Epistles any day.

― free inappropriate education (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 7 June 2011 23:04 (2 years ago) Permalink

one good thing about not having a foreskin is your foreskin will never rupture and bleed during sex

― dayo, Wednesday, 8 June 2011 01:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

god (i repeat: GOD) tries to kill somebody, and FAILS because someone performs a CIRCUMCISION.

there's also the jarring leap from the previous verses where God is all tasking up Moses with this important task.

GOD: Moses, get thee to Egpyt
Moses: Ok yo
GOD: Die motherfucker!

― England's banh mi army (ledge), Wednesday, 8 June 2011 08:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

Oh god my brain merged abb and d's post into for reading pleasure/surprise per minute I vote Pentateuch over Epistles any day during sex

o_0

― “this dog won’t hunt” doesn’t appear in the Book of Proverbs (Trayce), Wednesday, 8 June 2011 08:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

russell crowe weighs in: http://twitter.com/#!/russellcrowe/statuses/79006376482967552

― ☂ (max), Friday, 10 June 2011 02:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

looking forward to Russ's visits to every maternity hospital in the world to remind new parents that every baby is perfect

― aka best bum of the o_O's (Noodle Vague), Friday, 10 June 2011 02:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://twitter.com/#!/russellcrowe/statuses/79016516829462528

― ☂ (max), Friday, 10 June 2011 02:47 (2 years ago) Permalink

Russell Crowe is barbaric and stupid

― buzza, Friday, 10 June 2011 03:15 (2 years ago) Permalink

racist Australian idiot OTM

― unmetalled world (wk), Friday, 10 June 2011 04:02 (2 years ago) Permalink

*coff* NZ idiot.

― “this dog won’t hunt” doesn’t appear in the Book of Proverbs (Trayce), Friday, 10 June 2011 04:15 (2 years ago) Permalink

omg russell crowe's twitter is killing me right now, thank u max

― (.づ☀‿☀)づ ~da post-modernist struggle~ (.づ☀‿☀)づ (Princess TamTam), Friday, 10 June 2011 04:28 (2 years ago) Permalink

oi m8. ur an idiot if u cut ur kid's pee-pee

― (.づ☀‿☀)づ ~da post-modernist struggle~ (.づ☀‿☀)づ (Princess TamTam), Friday, 10 June 2011 04:30 (2 years ago) Permalink

*coff* NZ idiot.

oops. One of the few cases where kiwis might actually be glad to have australia steal the credit though, right?

― unmetalled world (wk), Friday, 10 June 2011 05:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

Yeah, and also why we remind people the cockhead isnt aussie! :)

― “this dog won’t hunt” doesn’t appear in the Book of Proverbs (Trayce), Friday, 10 June 2011 05:45 (2 years ago) Permalink

Mel Gibson is one of yours though, isn't he?

― sarahel, Friday, 10 June 2011 05:48 (2 years ago) Permalink

Sadly yes.

― “this dog won’t hunt” doesn’t appear in the Book of Proverbs (Trayce), Friday, 10 June 2011 05:50 (2 years ago) Permalink

mel gibson was born in new york

― caek, Friday, 10 June 2011 08:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

was gonna say

― aka best bum of the o_O's (Noodle Vague), Friday, 10 June 2011 09:01 (2 years ago) Permalink

2 weeks pass...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13957476

jeremy corbyn is crying :D

― Once Were Moderators (DG), Wednesday, 29 June 2011 16:22 (1 year ago) Permalink

Marcus Brigstocke this week. "Oh wait you mean Jews *don't* drink children's blood? Maybe I should have done some basic research before spouting my mouth off"

― a fucking stove just fell on my foot. (Colonel Poo), Friday, 1 July 2011 09:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

Use your goy for sausage-meat,. lol@ Talmud Cookbook

Picking Persia over the Arab invasion, & making peace with Israeli politics is hard as a raisin in the desert.

Ultimately I pick the remnants of Qabala-descended Nazi psychology in European-American lineage as divided by the Capran school of Mystic-inspired science

― z (a you), Friday, 1 July 2011 15:34 (1 year ago) Permalink

in terms of Jews

― z (a you), Friday, 1 July 2011 15:34 (1 year ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/telling_it_it_wasnt

― Mordy, Thursday, 11 August 2011 13:50 (1 year ago) Permalink

im sympathetic to goldman's complaint but he doesn't seem particularly interested in the "complex dynamics of the conflict" despite citing the conaway piece? tho i suppose its not in the scope of what hes writing...

― max, Thursday, 11 August 2011 14:08 (1 year ago) Permalink

fwiw, i don't think the NYT was being anti-semitic. i think this piece falls into the greater complaint about the NYT (made by pretty much every media critic ever) that they're obsessed with telling all the sides of the story even when that kind of paradigm fails to get at larger truths -- exemplified by their political coverage which is often he-said she-said with very little authoritative voice.

― Mordy, Thursday, 11 August 2011 14:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

4 weeks pass...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14833259

― Once Were Moderators (DG), Thursday, 8 September 2011 12:13 (1 year ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

I keep winding up watching youtube videos and reading youtube comments that I should probably just not be watching at all, but I'm noticing a kind of rhetoric that I'm starting to get very uncomfortable with although I once thought it was harmless -- "I'm not anti-semitic, I'm anti-zionist." I used to feel like, "yeah, that's fair, of course you can be against the idea of a jewish state without being anti-jewish," and I still feel that way, except that now I see that the line is often followed with fairly scary stuff about how it's the "zionists" who control the banks, the money supply, force the US to fight wars, drink blood, whatever. I haven't changed my mind about criticism of israel or anything, but I think that the attempt to draw up a categorical bad guy is always a dangerous way to go.

― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Monday, 31 October 2011 04:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

― Mordy, Monday, 31 October 2011 04:19 (1 year ago) Permalink

yeah anytime someone uses the word zionist I just stop paying attention to them

― iatee, Monday, 31 October 2011 04:20 (1 year ago) Permalink

what if they're teaching a course about israeli socialist day camps? (jk)

― Mordy, Monday, 31 October 2011 04:21 (1 year ago) Permalink

"I'm not anti-semitic, I'm anti-zionist."
usually needs an "i'm european btw"

― How many socks do you 'deploy' ? (buzza), Monday, 31 October 2011 04:23 (1 year ago) Permalink

there are two kinds of jews you see

― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Monday, 31 October 2011 04:23 (1 year ago) Permalink

I am enlightened enough to know that

― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Monday, 31 October 2011 04:24 (1 year ago) Permalink

do u know the joke about the difference between an anti-Semite and a Jew? you ask an anti-Semite what he thinks about the Jews and he tells you, "they run all the banks. they are greedy, blood sucking vampires and scum of the earth." but you ask him about goldberg and he says, "oh, goldberg, he's a good guy," and about his friend stern and he says, "well of course stern is an exception that proves the rule." you ask a Jew what he thinks about the Jews and he says, "the chosen people. truly a light unto the world." ask him about goldberg tho and he says, "goldberg is a dirty cheat." and about stern? "a fucking bastard."

― Mordy, Monday, 31 October 2011 04:25 (1 year ago) Permalink

I've always been convinced that it's something about the sound of the word / the letter 'z' that makes it so imposing and mysterious and conspiracy-theorist-friendly

― iatee, Monday, 31 October 2011 04:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

the "bad guy" banker in margin call is named jared cohen. none of the other characters have jewish names.

― max, Tuesday, 1 November 2011 04:07 (1 year ago) Permalink

yeah I noticed that in the review I read, and I hesitate to call out shit like that but it sounded sort of o_0.

I'm also sort of torn on the harping on Goldman Sachs, the jewiest sounding investment bank. OOH they are shitheads, but otoh they really did not singlehandedly engineer the crisis. If you go down the exec rolls at a lot of the major finance companies, you don't actually find that many jews. I don't think any of the major people in AIG Financial Products were Jewish, or the people running Countrywide or the other big mortgage originators.

― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 1 November 2011 04:15 (1 year ago) Permalink

hurting, you're all about the anti-Semitism exposing these days!

― Mordy, Tuesday, 1 November 2011 04:16 (1 year ago) Permalink

I don't think the goldman sachs harping is cause of the jewiness, but maybe it's hard for me to look at it the way someone else would

― iatee, Tuesday, 1 November 2011 04:23 (1 year ago) Permalink

i always thought the singling out of goldman sachs was the Hank Paulson connection

― encarta it (Gukbe), Tuesday, 1 November 2011 04:33 (1 year ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

And Katy Perry's family circus goes on.
Days after Russell Brand filed for divorce from the singer, her father is drawing criticism from the Anti-Defamation League for a sermon he delivered last week at a church in Ohio.
Keith Hudson, an evangelist preacher, spewed anti-Semitic epithets in front of hundreds of worshippers, according to various reports.
"You know how to make the Jew jealous?" he said at the Church on the Rise, a nondenominational church in Westlake, Ohio. "Have some money, honey. You go to L.A. and they own all the Rolex and diamond places. Walk down a part of L.A. where we live and it is so rich it smells. You ever smell rich? They are all Jews, hallelujah! Amen."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/09/us-katyperry-idUSTRE8082I420120109

― i couldn't adjust the food knobs (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 21:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

I think that's anti-semitism, yes.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 21:31 (1 year ago) Permalink

The Rev. Keith Hudson, father of pop megastar Katy Perry, spoke at Church on the Rise in Westlake on Thurs, Jan. 5, and made comments stereotyping Jews that the church's pastor Paul Endrei said were taken out of context.
Endrei confirmed that Hudson told attendees, "You know how to make the Jew jealous? Have some money, honey. You go to L.A., and they own all the Rolex and diamond places. Walk down a part of L.A. where we live and it is so rich it smells. You ever smell rich? They are all Jews, hallelujah. Amen."
But Hudson's remarks were meant to be complimentary, said Endrei, a Shaker Heights native.
"He was praying for business owners ... he was talking about being blessed in life," he said. "What (Hudson) said was, ‘God wants you to be blessed and have God's favor on your life, like the Jews are blessed. He wants you to be so blessed that you can even make the Jews jealous,' which was inappropriate.
"You might say that with your friend or whatever, but it was inappropriate," Endrei said. "If he would've just said, ‘Hey, God wants you to be blessed,' it would've been fine. He went too far."

― buzza, Tuesday, 10 January 2012 21:32 (1 year ago) Permalink

Yeah, he also used the "some of my best friends are" excuse, too.

― i couldn't adjust the food knobs (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 21:33 (1 year ago) Permalink

I clearly am related to the wrong Jews. I want to be related to Keith Hudson's Jew-friends. Although since they are Jews they probably wouldn't give me any money, any money.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 21:37 (1 year ago) Permalink

Repeated for extra anti-semitism I guess.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 21:38 (1 year ago) Permalink

In any case, fuck "prosperity gospel" and "pro-Israel" Christians.

― i couldn't adjust the food knobs (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 22:50 (1 year ago) Permalink

weird non-sequitor

― Mordy, Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:03 (1 year ago) Permalink

People who are being complimentary to Jews often refer to them, collectively, as "The Jew"

― Oh shit, that's my bone! (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:17 (1 year ago) Permalink

Mordy, if you click through, that's their excuse for how they couldn't possibly be anti-Semitic. Why, they're pro-Israel and preach along with Messianic Jews!

― i couldn't adjust the food knobs (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:22 (1 year ago) Permalink

"the jew is using the black as muscle against you"

― omar little, Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

I think that's anti-semitism, yes.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, January 10, 2012 3:31 PM (2 hours ago)

― goole, Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:37 (1 year ago) Permalink

on a side note, what's with that picture?

― goole, Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:38 (1 year ago) Permalink

He's about to go swimming, if memory serves

― Do you know what the secret of comity is? (Michael White), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:41 (1 year ago) Permalink

Could you all stop saying "Jews" and just use the whole word?

― Mariusz Smiley (admrl), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:43 (1 year ago) Permalink

Jewjews?

― Mordy, Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:45 (1 year ago) Permalink

Jewishes?

― Mordy, Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:45 (1 year ago) Permalink

jeweriness

― carpy deems (darraghmac), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:46 (1 year ago) Permalink

my preferred term is yidden tbh

― Mordy, Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:47 (1 year ago) Permalink

as in: "what up, yidden?"

― Mordy, Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:47 (1 year ago) Permalink

oh no you yidden

― carpy deems (darraghmac), Tuesday, 10 January 2012 23:49 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/israel-moves-to-ban-use-of-the-word-nazi-and-symbols-of-the-third-reich/#more-152813

Israeli traffic cops occasionally complain they’re called Nazis by the motorists they pull over.

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 11 January 2012 17:43 (1 year ago) Permalink

Two weeks after ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem wore yellow stars and striped prison uniforms, invoking Nazi Germany to protest what they called their persecution by secular Israelis

Honestly, I only skimmed the article after reading this.

― beachville, Wednesday, 11 January 2012 17:57 (1 year ago) Permalink

I find it o_O that they're more offended by ladies in immodest dress than by yellow stars and prison stripes.

― Do you know what the secret of comity is? (Michael White), Wednesday, 11 January 2012 17:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

I mean, I had never thought about intra-Jewish religious persecution within Israel and it's especially weird to me that the orthodox Jews would feel persecuted by the secular Jews. But I'm fairly ignorant on the whole country and probably need to go find something that would explain this tension in a stronger context.

― beachville, Wednesday, 11 January 2012 18:10 (1 year ago) Permalink

It's not entirely unlike American evangelical christians believing that there's a war on christmas.

― Mordy, Wednesday, 11 January 2012 18:16 (1 year ago) Permalink

^^^

― locally sourced stabbage (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 11 January 2012 18:16 (1 year ago) Permalink

idk i think the $$$ angle of the whole thing is a little different

― goole, Wednesday, 11 January 2012 18:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/87611/state-of-her-own/

― mookieproof, Wednesday, 11 January 2012 18:45 (1 year ago) Permalink

Just heard a story by way, once removed, of Alex Kotlowitz, journalist and co-director of "The Interrupters." I guess he had a screening for Kanye West, who was very moved and wanted to impart his wisdom to some of the underprivileged documented by the film. Namely, 1) learn to read 2) learn math and 3) learn how to get "Jew money."

Grain of salt, I suppose. But if accurate, at least Kanye's anti-semitism is complementary!

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 11 January 2012 19:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

― Mordy, Wednesday, 11 January 2012 19:31 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/88397/framed-2/

― Mordy, Thursday, 19 January 2012 18:23 (1 year ago) Permalink

Complementary anti-semitism?

― After all, I grew up masturbating at my parents' house (Michael White), Thursday, 19 January 2012 18:27 (1 year ago) Permalink

what do you mean?

― Mordy, Thursday, 19 January 2012 18:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

Complimetary/complementary

― After all, I grew up masturbating at my parents' house (Michael White), Thursday, 19 January 2012 18:47 (1 year ago) Permalink

i have mixed opinions on mearsheimer (and not read "the israel lobby") but that article is kind of a mess, and it refers approvingly to this one, which is even worse

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Thursday, 19 January 2012 18:54 (1 year ago) Permalink

I remember listening to 'Talk of the Nation' or something on the subject of that book and having to turn the radio off.

― After all, I grew up masturbating at my parents' house (Michael White), Thursday, 19 January 2012 18:57 (1 year ago) Permalink

Putting side the question of whether it is anti-Semitism or not, I think that Joe Klein and Thomas Friedman's comments (in Time and the NYT respectively) indicate that being critical of Israel in America is safe and mainstream. I really never want to hear again about how brave someone is for criticizing the settlements or whatever (unless it is accompanied by the first comment in history to apply that adjective to Friedman).

― Mordy, Thursday, 19 January 2012 19:07 (1 year ago) Permalink

xpost In the scheme of anti-Semitism, depicting all Jews as successful/rich/Hollywood/lawyers/whatever is a better broad brush bad prejudice than saying, say, claiming that Jews run the world and eat babies. And yes, I meant complementary, not complimetary or whatever.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 19 January 2012 19:24 (1 year ago) Permalink

(Still bad, of course)

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 19 January 2012 19:24 (1 year ago) Permalink

i think the whole "rich hollywood jews" thing ties in w/ and stems from the whole "jews run the world" thing a bit

― omar little, Thursday, 19 January 2012 19:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

The problem with depicting all Jews as successful/rich/Hollywood/whatever is that it's really just a skip away from saying that Jews are behind powerful conspiracies or have unrepresentative influence on politics, or any number of claims that seem cribbed from the Protocols. Also, it's one thing to say, "many famous actors are Jewish," or "There are many Jewish lawyers" and another to say that Hollywood is controlled by the Jews.

― Mordy, Thursday, 19 January 2012 19:27 (1 year ago) Permalink

xp what omar said

― Mordy, Thursday, 19 January 2012 19:27 (1 year ago) Permalink

All bad slurs. But, you know, Jews do have a big presence in both Hollywood and the legal profession. Was it Louis CK (probably) who had the bit about how "Jew" is one of the only legit descriptions that's also a slur? Only in the world of anti-semitism can success be a failure. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 19 January 2012 19:36 (1 year ago) Permalink

oh to be aryan and be successful (but not *that* successful)

― omar little, Thursday, 19 January 2012 19:37 (1 year ago) Permalink

I think that Joe Klein and Thomas Friedman's comments (in Time and the NYT respectively) indicate that being critical of Israel in America is safe and mainstream.

i dunno if i'd go that far.

if anything my big problem with the argument of "the israel lobby" (as far as i understand it secondhand) is that, in an american context, the window of conversation is not really driven by the influential jews in american political life, so much as huge chunks of the american public having generally warm feelings toward israel for various cultural and religious reasons, and generally cold feelings toward all of israel's antagonists likewise.

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Thursday, 19 January 2012 19:37 (1 year ago) Permalink

I think that's otm, goole, in that the support for Israel in Congress is not from some magical AIPAC powers but more from the fact that Congress' constituents tend to be pro-Israel, often Evangelical Christians. At the same time though, there has been this self-congratulatory thing that American critics of Israel have where they pat each other on the back to be so brave as to go up against the Israel Lobby (tm). I think that when Thomas Friedman is parroting some of your talking points, there's nothing edgy or dangerous left to stating those positions. And claiming that Americans soldiers have died for Israeli interests is a huge (and self-evidently false) talking point from critics like Stephen Walt.

― Mordy, Thursday, 19 January 2012 19:51 (1 year ago) Permalink

I read the Walt Mearshimer piece in the NYRB (LRB?) way back when, and at the time I felt like it just slightly crossed into paranoia, as sophisticated as it was. E.g. I remember there was an example or two of AIPAC allegedly torpedoing a candidate for criticism of Israel. Political campaigns are pretty complex things and I think it's often difficult to prove that a single factor is solely responsible for a campaign's death, but even if that's the case, it's then extrapolated that AIPAC has the power to do this to any candidate any time. As big as the Israel lobby is, it so happens to not be the only powerful lobby in this country and I find that picture a bit unbelievably simplistic.

I also think there's a lot of assumption to the effect that Jewish politicians who consider themselves Zionists are somehow singlemindedly focused on Israel and indifferent to American interests, which is itself an assumption tinged with anti-semitism imo.

― frogBaSeball (Hurting 2), Thursday, 19 January 2012 20:08 (1 year ago) Permalink

i never think i could possibly like glenn greenwald less but he constantly finds new ways to make me dislike him
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/a-question-from-glenn-greenwald-updated/251705/

― Mordy, Friday, 20 January 2012 18:47 (1 year ago) Permalink

greenwald demonstrates well why the discussion often goes to shit and makes no progress.

― bnw, Friday, 20 January 2012 18:57 (1 year ago) Permalink

wonder if greenwald ever had to say the pledge of allegiance in class

― iatee, Friday, 20 January 2012 19:01 (1 year ago) Permalink

The mainstreaming of hostility toward any group of Jews leads inevitably to the mainstreaming of hostility to Jews generally.

Wait, what? Does this mean I can't loathe Likud anymore?

― After all, I grew up masturbating at my parents' house (Michael White), Friday, 20 January 2012 19:03 (1 year ago) Permalink

"A Question From Glenn Greenwald" is a hilarious title for a post

― tyga mother (J0rdan S.), Friday, 20 January 2012 19:08 (1 year ago) Permalink

"do these jeans make my ass look anti-Semitic?"

― Bam! Orgasm explosion in your facehole. (DJP), Friday, 20 January 2012 19:40 (1 year ago) Permalink

shit abe foxman says ^

― Mordy, Friday, 20 January 2012 19:42 (1 year ago) Permalink

still like jeffrey goldberg less i must say

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Friday, 20 January 2012 20:02 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-big-lie-returns/

In our own time, these ownership rights have become largely uncontroversial, insofar as most minorities can expect a respectful hearing when it comes to claims of racism. With the Jews, however, the reverse is now true: Claims of anti-Semitism are so often disputed, scorned, and denied outright. This state of affairs faithfully reflects the perception of the Jews as socially privileged, disproportionately represented in the fields of glamour, intellect, and finance, and—crucially—as the agency behind the dispossession of Palestine’s native Arab inhabitants.
This perception is not limited to the extreme left (nor, for that matter, to the far right, which thinks in near-identical terms). It now sits as comfortably with a traditional conservative realist like Mearsheimer as it does with many others who have had little interaction with the New Left or the Chomskyite school of international relations. It leads, furthermore, to a conclusion with a distinctly postmodern twist: Those who truly suffer from anti-Semitism today are not Jews, but those who are accused of being anti-Semitic. Those mere speakers of truth, so the thinking goes, are being made to pay for centuries of hateful prejudice.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 17:32 (1 year ago) Permalink

Are you asking if that's anti-semitism?

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 17:43 (1 year ago) Permalink

No.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 17:49 (1 year ago) Permalink

most minorities can expect a respectful hearing when it comes to claims of racism

I can't speak for the US but this seems to be not entirely true. Don't disagree with the rest of the piece tho.

― summer sun, something's begun, but uh-oh those tumblr whites (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 17:50 (1 year ago) Permalink

It's not remotely true in the US (and probably not true anywhere else.)

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 17:52 (1 year ago) Permalink

I think it is true of the groups he is primarily discussing in this piece (the far left and 'traditional conservative realists').

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 17:55 (1 year ago) Permalink

Also, despite the title of this thread, I figure discussions about anti-Semitism are appropriate here. Silly to start an entirely new thread for them.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 17:56 (1 year ago) Permalink

The origin of this warped thinking lies in the left’s commitment to anticolonialism following the Second World War.

o i c

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 17:56 (1 year ago) Permalink

I think the piece is pretty silly myself. Gilad Atzmon is an anti-semite, John Mearsheimer blurbed his book, therefore Mearsheimer's book is anti-semitic, also Mearsheimer's not true because other prominent journalists are now saying the same thing and getting away with it.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 17:57 (1 year ago) Permalink

Gilad Atzmon is an anti-semite, John Mearsheimer blurbed his book, therefore Mearsheimer's book is anti-semitic

Yeah, this is not his argument.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:00 (1 year ago) Permalink

The modification rests upon a distinction between what I call bierkeller and bistro anti-Semitism. Bierkeller anti-Semitism—named for the beer halls frequented by the German Nazis—employs such means as violence, verbal abuse, commercial harassment, and advocacy of anti-Jewish legal measures. Certainly, the first and second generations of modern anti-Semitic publicists and intellectuals had no qualms about this sort of thuggery. Since the Second World War, though, this mode of anti-Semitism has waned sharply, along with the tendency to use the word anti-Semite as a positive means of political identification.

Bistro anti-Semitism, on the other hand, sits in a higher and outwardly more civilized realm, providing what left-wing activists would call a “safe space” to critically assess the global impact of Jewish cabals from Washington, D.C., to Jerusalem. Anyone who enters the bistro will encounter common themes. These include the depiction of Palestinians as the victims of a second Holocaust, the breaking of the silence supposedly imposed upon honest discussions of Jewish political and economic power, and the contention—offered by, among others, Mearsheimer’s co-author, Stephen Walt, of Harvard—that American Jewish government officials are more suspect than others because of a potential second loyalty to Israel.

beer-track and wine-track! lol strauss

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:03 (1 year ago) Permalink

The man whose book Mearsheimer called “fascinating and provocative,” a work that “should be widely read by Jews and non-Jews alike,” is an anti-Semite, pure and simple. A saxophone player by trade, Atzmon was born and raised in Israel but subsequently moved to London. He proclaims himself either an “ex-Jew” or a “proud self-hating Jew” and was quoted approvingly by Turkey’s Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at the Davos conference in 2009: Denouncing Israel in vociferous terms before a horrified Shimon Peres, Erdogan quoted Atzmon as saying, “Israeli barbarity is far beyond even ordinary cruelty.”
Atzmon fixates upon the irredeemably tribal and racist identity he calls “Jewishness.” The anti-Gentile separatism that compels Jews to amass greater power and influence is manifested, he preaches, in any context where Jews come together as a group. The Wandering Who finds Atzmon on territory well-trodden by anti-Semites past and present: Holocaust revisionism (one chapter is entitled “Swindler’s List”), the rehabilitation of Hitler (he argues that Israel’s behavior makes all the more tempting the conclusion that the Führer was right about the Jews), the separation of Jesus from Judaism (Christ was the original proud, self-hating Jew, whose example Spinoza, Marx, and now, Atzmon himself, have followed).
One would think this was categorically indefensible stuff. Yet, when the blogger Adam Holland e-mailed Mearsheimer to ask whether he was aware of Atzmon’s flirtation with Holocaust denial, as well as his recital of telltale anti-Semitic provocations, Mearsheimer stood by his endorsement of the book. Holland duly published Mearsheimer’s response: “The blurb below is the one I wrote for The Wandering Who and I have no reason to amend it or embellish it, as it accurately reflects my view of the book.”

Mearsheimer positively blurbed a book that promotes Holocaust revisionism, argues that Hitler was justified in killing Jews, and considers anti-Semitism an appropriate reaction to Jewish behavior. When he was asked why he blurbed this book considering what appears to be explicit anti-Semitic tropes throughout, he merely reaffirmed his blurb, that the material was "fascinating and provocative."

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:03 (1 year ago) Permalink

"Yeah, this is not his argument."

Really? Coulda fooled me.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:05 (1 year ago) Permalink

Mearsheimer's book isn't anti-Semitic bc he blurbed this other book. His book may be anti-Semitic bc it traffics in classical anti-Semitic tropes. Also, the fact that he blurbed this other book certainly indicates that he himself may be anti-Semitic. You're just reading the causality incorrectly.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:09 (1 year ago) Permalink

when this thread got bumped i thought i might be about this, blogger IOZ, today, writing about the NYPD using anti-muslim "training" videos put together by a right-wing Clarion Fund:

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2012/01/to-be-or-maccabee.html

Having been raised in the Jewish faith, I retain a sentimental soft spot for the religion . . . if you can get over The Prayer for the State of Israel that's wormed its way into the service, the high holy day liturgies are really quite lovely . . . my long-lapsed Catholic father even enjoys them, in keeping with his dictum that he enjoys all religions carried out in languages he can't understand. Saturday mornings still recall for me pretty fond memories of preparing for my own Bar Mitzvah, and I do still celebrate a raucous Passover; you can't beat the Seder as a festival meal.

But good god, I hate Jews. I hate this Israel shit. It drives me absolutely batty. This preening, violent desire for a damned national identity, this ragged, atavistic, vicious rejection of exile, and the unforgivable, unspeakable treatment of the Holocaust not so much as a sorrow but as a collective embarrassment . . . oh, watch us pay lip service to the magnitude of our catastrophe while uttering a pugilistic "never again" like a skinny kid who got knocked down by a bully at recess. Well the bully got killed when he was run over by a drunk Russian, so let's pick on some even smaller kid, some little faggot, in a demonstration of compensatory toughness. Oh, and it helps that our big brother is the biggest kid in school.

Anyway, there is a majestically kooky symmetry to the whole thing: a bunch of Israeli nuts producing cryptoeugenic hit job videos which are in turn aired as continuing ed for a gang of New York cops who aspire to get out of the frisking random nigger business and in on the next bad action movie plot.

apologies for that last line, yeesh

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:10 (1 year ago) Permalink

this piece would be more convincing if all the anti-semites he found in american society weren't jews

― Detrius "The-Dream" Nash (symsymsym), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

"One would think this was categorically indefensible stuff."

But amazingly he defends it pretty handily. But he's clearly an anti-semite because there is no other explanation for blurbing a book which I have summarized in likely the most oversimplified fashion above. But he hasn't been tarred and feathered yet so clearly no one can anti-semitic anymore in this awful new post-The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy world. Also poor Josh Block.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

ioz is great on some things and reallllllllly iffy on everything else

― max, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

whoa

xxxp to that ioz blog post

― horseshoe, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

Oh, how does he defend it? xxp

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:12 (1 year ago) Permalink

IOZ seems like a charming young man

― Chaka Collar, lemme rock you (DJP), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:12 (1 year ago) Permalink

Mearsheimer positively blurbed a book that promotes Holocaust revisionism, argues that Hitler was justified in killing Jews, and considers anti-Semitism an appropriate reaction to Jewish behavior.

Without knowing anything about Atzmon beyond what's in this thread I would like to express very great confidence that his book is

a) bad and wrong and depressing;
b) not accurately paraphrased by Commentary.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:16 (1 year ago) Permalink

Mearsheimer vs Commentary-type orthodoxy is annoying and I frankly wish a pox on both houses.

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:17 (1 year ago) Permalink

Time and again, this strategy of deflecting and denying anti-Semitism has proved reliable. Following the recent controversy over claims by Josh Block, a former AIPAC spokesman, that left-wing outfits like Media Matters and the Center for American Progress are pushing the dual-loyalty canard with growing brashness, the commentator David Frum wondered “whether it is more unacceptable inside today’s liberal Washington to use the language of anti-Semitism—or to protest the language of anti-Semitism.” Frum got his answer when Block was relieved of his title at the progressive Truman National Security project for issuing group e-mails citing Jew-baiters in the left-wing media.

this is, as i understand it, not an accurate gloss of what happened!

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:22 (1 year ago) Permalink

Justifying Hitler is for amateurs! Rabbi Nachman Kahane (Meir's brother!) explains why Pharaoh had no choice but to enslave the Jews.

http://nachmankahana.com/?p=648#more-648

Paro was indeed evil, but in the name of truthful objectivity, one must agree that the Jews themselves could not “wash their hands in innocence”.... The situation became so chaotic that Paro had no choice but to convene his inner cabinet and enslave the Jews in order to prevent social and political unrest, and by then it was too late for the Jews to escape to Eretz Yisrael.
Fast forward 3000+ years to today. The social unrest, unemployment, animosity towards those who “have,” and the ostentatious lifestyle of very many Jews – it’s all there today in the US. As King Shlomo says in Kohelet, “There is nothing new under the sun”.
But it is still not too late for the Jews of America to escape. The clock on the wall is ticking ever faster, and when the guillotine of history begins to fall, no one will be able to alter the outcome.
Things are going to change drastically beginning in November. If Hussein Obama will be re-elected, they will come about quickly and dramatically; if another candidate will be elected the downhill change will come about but a bit less quickly.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:25 (1 year ago) Permalink

If anything, I tend to see all of this less as manifestations of anti-Semitism than as a huge internecine battle between various visions of Judaism and Israeli politics. Atzmon sounds an ass but he also sounds like a wind-up artist gone too far.

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

Man so much shit gets projected onto Obama, I wonder if it ever fazes him at all?

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:27 (1 year ago) Permalink

... this rabbi thinks Obama is going to enslave rich Jewish people in America? Am I reading this correctly?

― Chaka Collar, lemme rock you (DJP), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

Without knowing anything about Atzmon beyond what's in this thread I would like to express very great confidence that his book is

a) bad and wrong and depressing;
b) not accurately paraphrased by Commentary.

Sixty-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz we should reclaim our history and ask why? Why were the Jews hated? Why did European people stand up against their next door neighbours? Why are the Jews hated in the Middle East, surely they had a chance to open a new page in their troubled history? If they genuinely planned to do so, as the early Zionists claimed, why did they fail? Why did America tighten its immigration laws amid the growing danger to European Jews? We should also ask for what purpose do the holocaust denial laws serve? What is the holocaust religion there to conceal? As long as we fail to ask questions, we will be subjected to Zionists and their Neocons agents' plots. We will continue killing in the name of Jewish suffering. We will maintain our complicity in Western imperialist crimes against humanity...
The Holocaust became the new Western religion. Unfortunately, it is the most sinister religion known to man. It is a license to kill, to flatten, no nuke, to wipe, to rape, to loot and to ethnically cleanse. It made vengeance and revenge into a Western value.

Not many people are aware that in March 1933, long before Hitler became the undisputed leader of Germany and began restricting the rights of German Jews, the American Jewish Congress announced a massive protest at Madison Square Gardens and called for an American boycott of German goods...
....Jewish texts tend to glaze over the fact that Hitler's March 28 1933, ordering a boycott against Jewish stores and goods, was an escalation in direct response to the declaration of war on Germany by the worldwide Jewish leadership.

Fagin is the ultimate plunderer, a child exploiter and usurer. Shylock is the blood-thirsty merchant. With Fagin and Shylock in mind Israeli barbarism and organ trafficking seem to be just other events in an endless hellish continuum.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

xp I wouldn't treat anything a Kahane said as indicative of anything. They're crazy.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:30 (1 year ago) Permalink

Sixty-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz we should reclaim our history and ask why? Why were the Jews hated? Why did European people stand up against their next door neighbours?

HEY BLACK PEOPLE ISN'T IT TIME YOU ASKED YOURSELVES WHY SO MANY OF YOU GOT SOLD AS SLAVES??

― summer sun, something's begun, but uh-oh those tumblr whites (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:32 (1 year ago) Permalink

I was at an ADL fund-raiser w/Foxman once. It was really weird and I kept worrying that they would suddenly notice the liberal goy in the back and turn on me.

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:32 (1 year ago) Permalink

Atzmon's probably crazy too. Good clarinet player though. (xxp)

― Charles Kennedy Jumped Up, He Called 'Oh No'. (Tom D.), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:32 (1 year ago) Permalink

Waiting to hear from Alex in SF how he "defends it pretty handily."

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:33 (1 year ago) Permalink

Has anybody here read The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family?

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:34 (1 year ago) Permalink

Also, what's that organ trafficking charge?

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

Mordy, for me, that pretty much hits a) and b) -- I wouldn't say it does much to rehabilitate Hitler, or to flirt with Holocaust denial, but it is indeed bad, wrong, and depressing. I think it's pretty bad form for him to include fictional Jewish characters as evidence for the moral claims he's making against our co-religionists!

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:42 (1 year ago) Permalink

....Jewish texts tend to glaze over the fact that Hitler's March 28 1933, ordering a boycott against Jewish stores and goods, was an escalation in direct response to the declaration of war on Germany by the worldwide Jewish leadership.

If 'The Warburgs' teaches you anything about German Jewry, it's that they were incredibly proud Germans, too. Also 'declaration of war'?! I'm pretty sure 'the worldwide Jewish leadership' didn't have any means of conducting warfare and I'm also pretty sure that anti-Semites started this, not the other way around.

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:46 (1 year ago) Permalink

xp I wouldn't treat anything a Kahane said as indicative of anything. They're crazy.

Quite true, but this was posted on the FB feed of a relatively mainstream-Republican friend of mine. The narrative of "rich secular Jews who own everything inevitably bring havoc down upon themselves" is alive in all sorts of weird places, and while the Kahanists are often called crazy they are seldom called anti-Semites.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:47 (1 year ago) Permalink

i think the angle of that one is more "obama = pharaoh" than "jews have it coming"

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:53 (1 year ago) Permalink

HEY BLACK PEOPLE ISN'T IT TIME YOU ASKED YOURSELVES WHY SO MANY OF YOU GOT SOLD AS SLAVES??

― summer sun, something's begun, but uh-oh those tumblr whites (Noodle Vague)

ffs can't you start a different thread?

― teaky frigger (darraghmac), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:55 (1 year ago) Permalink

totally disagree, it is more "obama = pharaoh today, gop pres = pharaoh tomorrow, jews who stubbornly refuse to move to israel, become orthodox, and forswear material wealth are asking for trouble"

i agree with mordy that it's a fringy viewpoint tho

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:57 (1 year ago) Permalink

hm i see your point

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:00 (1 year ago) Permalink

yes but he also says that Obama is going to enslave Jews faster than any given Republican president

― Chaka Collar, lemme rock you (DJP), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:01 (1 year ago) Permalink

tbf wasn't that one of his platforms?

― teaky frigger (darraghmac), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:02 (1 year ago) Permalink

i may be misremembering that

― teaky frigger (darraghmac), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:02 (1 year ago) Permalink

In any case it's a fairly low hurdle to clear.

― Famous porn scenes like "shake that bear" (Phil D.), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:03 (1 year ago) Permalink

Like, neither Bush I nor Bush II managed to enslave very many Jews at all!

― Famous porn scenes like "shake that bear" (Phil D.), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:03 (1 year ago) Permalink

jews who stubbornly refuse to move to israel, become orthodox, and forswear material wealth are asking for trouble

Is this really all that uncommon amongst the fundamentalists in Judaism?

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:04 (1 year ago) Permalink

'become orthodox'

― teaky frigger (darraghmac), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:05 (1 year ago) Permalink

What happened to make Paro wake up one morning and suggest enslaving the entire Jewish people? (It could not have been irrational anti-Semitism because Christianity and Islam were not yet even thoughts in anyone’s mind).

i have to admit this gave me a chuckle

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:05 (1 year ago) Permalink

orthodoxymoron?

― teaky frigger (darraghmac), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:05 (1 year ago) Permalink

but he's comparing Obama to Romney/Paul/Gingrich/Santorum

I'm sorry, I just am still to this day amazed at how it seems that every group who has faced discrimination still has another go-to discriminated-against group that they blame all of their troubles on.

― Chaka Collar, lemme rock you (DJP), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:05 (1 year ago) Permalink

like ilxuk and the tories

― teaky frigger (darraghmac), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:06 (1 year ago) Permalink

"Waiting to hear from Alex in SF how he "defends it pretty handily.""

I meant he defended blurbing the book pretty handily. He didn't address any of Jeff Goldberg's specific "quotations" (not clear why he should.)

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:08 (1 year ago) Permalink

"I think it's pretty bad form for him to include fictional Jewish characters as evidence for the moral claims he's making against our co-religionists!"

Those are a whole bunch of separate quotes. They are not contextual to one another.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:08 (1 year ago) Permalink

"Also, what's that organ trafficking charge?"

Didn't you hear the story about the dude who woke up in hotel bathtub with his kidney missing? THAT WAS ISRAELIS THAT DID IT!

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:10 (1 year ago) Permalink

Tbf, Dan, Jews have tried several times over the course of their rather lengthy history to assimilate and the results haven't been all that great. Either they succeeded and are no longer Jews or there was some kind of backlash. I can see how Kahanists would think there's only safety in Eretz Yisrael following God's rules closely.

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:12 (1 year ago) Permalink

I think he's referring to this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8608053.stm

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:14 (1 year ago) Permalink

Police smash Israeli organ-trafficking ring

inappropriate roffles

― Chaka Collar, lemme rock you (DJP), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:15 (1 year ago) Permalink

I meant he defended blurbing the book pretty handily.

Where did he defend it? His defense seems to have consisted of: "I wrote what I wrote."

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:16 (1 year ago) Permalink

"...and I stand by it." He wrote a blurb, not a treatise.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

That's not a defense.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:21 (1 year ago) Permalink

Really? I think it works quite well given the circumstance.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:24 (1 year ago) Permalink

Why did you give a positive blurb to a book that contains anti-Semitic rhetoric?
I stand by my blurb.

Defended!

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

No, but seriously, are you just trolling or are you making some kind of really subtle point that I'm not picking up on?

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

Atzmon can't really win, though. He's a self-defined proud self-hating Jew. Okay, whatever but he also says shit like this,

"The Holocaust became the new Western religion. Unfortunately, it is the most sinister religion known to man. It is a license to kill, to flatten, no nuke, to wipe, to rape, to loot and to ethnically cleanse. It made vengeance and revenge into a Western value."

I will utterly defend his right to loathe Israel or religion or whatever but saying stupid shit like this should 'cause fewer ppl to listen not more. Vengeance and revenge have been part of humanity for eons and this thesis is basically a dim exegisis of Borges' 'Deutches Requiem'.

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:27 (1 year ago) Permalink

Oh wait he actually did defend it detail:

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/09/25/mearsheimer_responds_to_goldbergs_latest_smear

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:27 (1 year ago) Permalink

I hadn't seen that defense. It looks extensive tho. I'll have to read it in a little bit.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:31 (1 year ago) Permalink

Vengeance and revenge have been part of humanity for eons and this thesis is basically a dim exegisis of Borges' 'Deutches Requiem'.

^^^

― Full Frontal Newtity (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:38 (1 year ago) Permalink

ugh i just spent a lot of my lunch hour looking into the whole josh block firing fiasco, and it's all very washington-y and sick

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:41 (1 year ago) Permalink

that basic gist of it, as far as i get it, is that block, former aipac spokesman and resident conservative (i think?) at the democratic-leaning truman center, didn't a little more than just accuse some people of being anti-semites. he had a whole big file of quotes from all of these dem-progressive writers painting them as anti-semites and was pushing them on a conservative listserv. not just nutso atzmon types but people who are, or work for, washington liberals in good standing. so basically the whole town turned on him.

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:48 (1 year ago) Permalink

glenn greenwald has several hundred words on it if you're interested

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 19:48 (1 year ago) Permalink

Mearsheimer's defense is pretty good

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 20:27 (1 year ago) Permalink

the guy who said hitler had some good ideas had some good ideas too. what?

― bnw, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 21:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

Yeah he pretty much destroys Cohen and Goldberg's points.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 21:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

Without going a bunch more into this bc I don't really want to spend significantly arguing about Mearsheimer - his defense is more serious than I gave him credit for, and in that particular piece he comes off as perhaps more nuanced than the impression the Commentary article gave. At the same time, some of his critiques are kinda disingenuous and I can never help but feel like his tone is a really clever guy who is good at "just asking questions" without ever addressing the subtexts of some of those questions. If he can't see how some of the assertions he makes (or that MANY of his commenters seem to think he's making) would be terribly upsetting to Jewish people, then he's particularly myopic. If he can, he's cruel.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 23:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

Thats' why I said that that Talk of the Nation I heard with him and someone like Cohen was eventually unlistenable - they talked past each other and gave themsleves every permission for exageration and mischaracterization. I was largely sympathetic to him but then he'd say something so tone-deaf I'd wince.

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 23:32 (1 year ago) Permalink

I strongly recommend not reading the commentary to that piece btw.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 23:56 (1 year ago) Permalink

i kind of get why hawks for israel would want to write pieces based on all the sick internet comment box garbage they run into. i mean, we all do the same on the corner and elsewhere. you wonder how prevalent the attitudes really are.

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 23:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

Although I did learn this from the comments which is actually kinda hilarious in a "rebellious kid badgering his teacher" sorta way:

"Goldberg says that Atzmon's book suggests that historians reopen the question of whether or not the Medieval Blood Libels had any basis in fact."
No, actually, that accusation appears to be completely baseless.
Goldberg clearly did not read the book, and THAT particular accusation was culled from a blog called "Harry's Place", where that blogger had himself culled this quote from the book:
"It seems I didn’t learn the necessary lesson because when we studied the middle age blood libels, I again wondered out loud how the teacher could know that these accusations of Jews making Matzo out of young Goyim’s blood were indeed empty or groundless. Once again I was sent home for a week. In my teens I spent most of my mornings at home rather than in the classroom."

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 25 January 2012 00:17 (1 year ago) Permalink

That's pretty fucked up. :/

― Mordy, Wednesday, 25 January 2012 00:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-israeli-conflict-is-far-too-nuanced-and-comple,11576/

― Mordy, Wednesday, 25 January 2012 04:15 (1 year ago) Permalink

Hollywood is cannuck now anyway, isn't it? Flappy-headed bastards.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 25 January 2012 07:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

like ilxuk and the tories

LOL guy in Ireland thinks Tories discriminated against

― Charles Kennedy Jumped Up, He Called 'Oh No'. (Tom D.), Wednesday, 25 January 2012 10:22 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/89404/sounding-off/

― Mordy, Friday, 27 January 2012 22:09 (1 year ago) Permalink

If what Rosenberg and the others on the left want is a debate—by which I understand them to mean a debate about the wisdom of a war with Iran, and about the proper role of the U.S.-Israel relationship—great. The left, I think, will win that debate on the merits, because it recognizes that if Israel is to survive as a Jewish democracy living in peace beside a free Palestine, an assertive United States has to pressure a recalcitrant Israel to come to its senses, especially about the insanity of attacking Iran.
But that debate will be shut down and sidetracked by using a term that Charles Lindbergh or Pat Buchanan would be comfortable using. I can’t co-sign that. The attempt to kosherize “Israel Firster” is an ugly rationalization. It shouldn’t matter that the American Jewish right proliferates the term “anti-Israel.” The easiest way to lose a winnable argument is to get baited into using their tactics. I don’t fetishize false civility; bullies ought to get it twice as bad as they give. People disagree, so they should argue. Shouting is healthier than shutting up.
Call me a squish or a sellout or a concern troll. Whatever. But if you can’t be forceful without recalling some of the ugliest tropes in American Jewish history, you’re doing it wrong.

― Mordy, Friday, 27 January 2012 22:10 (1 year ago) Permalink

i've always liked spencer ackerman, will read

that is one of the worst magazine graphics i've seen in a while tho

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Friday, 27 January 2012 22:13 (1 year ago) Permalink

I like his tone

― Quand le déshonneur est public, il faut que la vengeance soit (Michael White), Friday, 27 January 2012 22:20 (1 year ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

"New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism has developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, emanating simultaneously from the far-left, radical Islam, and the far-right, and tending to manifest itself as opposition to Zionism and the State of Israel. The concept generally posits that much of what purports to be criticism of Israel by various individuals and world bodies, is, in fact, tantamount to demonization, and that, together with an alleged international resurgence of attacks on Jews and Jewish symbols, and an increased acceptance of antisemitic beliefs in public discourse, such demonization represents an evolution in the appearance of antisemitic beliefs."

that had been bugging me for some time, glad i learned about that concept today.

― Sébastien, Monday, 12 March 2012 23:31 (1 year ago) Permalink

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 14:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

rolling 'is this anti-semitic' thread

― thomp, Monday, 19 March 2012 14:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

i'm as much of a WE ARE CREATED BY THE DISCOURSE, DO YOU SEE humanities twat as anyone but saying that "the concept" posits such-and-such is doing some interesting work here

― thomp, Monday, 19 March 2012 15:01 (1 year ago) Permalink

― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Monday, October 31, 2011 12:18 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― the prurient pinterest (Hurting 2), Monday, 19 March 2012 15:04 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/world/europe/gunman-kills-3-at-a-jewish-school-in-france.html?_r=1&hp

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 15:04 (1 year ago) Permalink

I have said this other places but 'zionist' is not a word that needs to exist in contemporary political dialogue and anyone who uses it isn't just making a neutral argument, they're using a word w/ a lot of weird associations in 2012. the best way to say "I'm against the idea of a jewish state" is by saying "I'm against the idea of a jewish state"

― iatee, Monday, 19 March 2012 15:12 (1 year ago) Permalink

yeah this is fucked up. the killer successfully escaped too, hopefully they find him today. but what is there to say... 'hopefully he just picked a school at random to shoot at children and it just happened to be the jewish school'? there is ignorance and then there is being fucking deranged and evil.

france has become such an intolerant place in recent years and much of this election is being fought on anti-islam ideals of the right and I wonder if this has just spread over into general xenophobia, racism and hatred of anything different. Hopefully Sarkosy can fuck off and a more tolerant socialist government makes it (they are ahead in the polls iirc.) I don't think that would have anything to do with this, I just feel like venting.

― a hoy hoy, Monday, 19 March 2012 15:16 (1 year ago) Permalink

There's a very strong suspicion that the killer is the same guy who killed some Foreign Legionnaires in Toulouse and Montauban recently.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 15:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

Unlikely that the shooter is a Sarkozy supporter, that's for sure.

― the prurient pinterest (Hurting 2), Monday, 19 March 2012 15:19 (1 year ago) Permalink

Or if he is, I've got some news for him that's gonna make his head fuckin explode.

― the prurient pinterest (Hurting 2), Monday, 19 March 2012 15:19 (1 year ago) Permalink

nah the kill-people right has its own party there

― iatee, Monday, 19 March 2012 15:20 (1 year ago) Permalink

iatee, I think hurting is referring to the fact that Sarkozy's mother was Jewish (though a practicing Catholic).

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 15:23 (1 year ago) Permalink

I know that, I was just saying that it'd be extremely unlikely that he's supporting the moderate-right party regardless

― iatee, Monday, 19 March 2012 15:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

Oh yeah, sorry I didn't mean to imply that. The French right (incl. the far right but also the current cunts) are cunts but I have no idea if they have anything to do with this cunt's sympathies.

― a hoy hoy, Monday, 19 March 2012 15:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

Anyway, killing children is about as horrific a thing a person can do and I hope to hell they find this guy.

― a hoy hoy, Monday, 19 March 2012 15:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

thx for that

― the prurient pinterest (Hurting 2), Monday, 19 March 2012 15:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

I have said this other places but 'zionist' is not a word that needs to exist in contemporary political dialogue and anyone who uses it isn't just making a neutral argument, they're using a word w/ a lot of weird associations in 2012. the best way to say "I'm against the idea of a jewish state" is by saying "I'm against the idea of a jewish state"

otm and really can't be said enough. i think this is partially the point of norman finkelstein's interview with the BDS guy - if you're not upfront that you're against having a Jewish state, then you think you're getting away with something but you're just being transparently disingenuous. and if you're upfront that you're against having a Jewish state, then you're fucked bc that's not a popular position, which is why ppl aren't upfront about it.

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 15:30 (1 year ago) Permalink

anyway, off-topic. news from france is terribly depressing and france obviously has a long history of anti-Semitism - Dreyfuss etc. when my parents went to France on vacation about a decade ago they told my dad not to wear his yarmulke in public but to keep it under a baseball cap or something. anyway, right after shabbos they were walking back to their hotel and he was wearing his yarmulke and ppl shouted "Juif" at them.

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 15:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

france has become such an intolerant place in recent years

is this true? compared to what?

― caek, Monday, 19 March 2012 16:09 (1 year ago) Permalink

are you kidding

― the sir edmund hillary of sitting through pauly shore films (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 19 March 2012 16:13 (1 year ago) Permalink

I think "become" might be questionable -- it's always been a somewhat intolerant culture in general on many levels, not just in terms of religious/ethnic minorities.

― the prurient pinterest (Hurting 2), Monday, 19 March 2012 16:15 (1 year ago) Permalink

friend of mine who works in France gets a lot of casual anti-Semitic stuff under the guise of "but why won't Jews respect French culture" - e.g. given a lecture on French "secularism" when he said actually he couldn't come in and do overtime since it was a Jewish holiday (as if they'd ask an xtian for overtime on Easter Sunday), or people telling him off because kosher butchery is ~so cruel~ (from the country that brings us foie gras), etc.

xp I don't think the kind of stuff he faces is particularly a recent development tbh

― uh oh i'm having an emotion (c sharp major), Monday, 19 March 2012 16:15 (1 year ago) Permalink

there is a difference between white ppl anti-semitism in france and muslim anti-semitism in france

― iatee, Monday, 19 March 2012 16:15 (1 year ago) Permalink

xpost yeah my sister-in-law who lived in france said that a lot of it is this refusal to understand why anyone would want to identify in any way as anything other than "French," coupled, ironically, with making it fairly difficult to assimilate.

― the prurient pinterest (Hurting 2), Monday, 19 March 2012 16:17 (1 year ago) Permalink

yeah i'm saying that figuring what is going on with intolerance in france is complicated, and vague "woe is france" statements like "has become such an intolerant place" need clarification if you're going to tie them into an apparently crazy person with a gun shooting people

― caek, Monday, 19 March 2012 16:20 (1 year ago) Permalink

i don't know that "intolerant" is the world. france has become a minefield of ethnic tension and antipathy.

― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Monday, 19 March 2012 16:31 (1 year ago) Permalink

what did france used to be, exactly

― max, Monday, 19 March 2012 16:34 (1 year ago) Permalink

I think you maybe had less ethnic tension when you had fewer ethnicities?

― s.clover, Monday, 19 March 2012 16:34 (1 year ago) Permalink

or rather when the ethnicities were confined to the colonies more, then the tension was in the colonies more?

― s.clover, Monday, 19 March 2012 16:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

You know, when I vent you don't need to pick apart the exact language of it all.

― a hoy hoy, Monday, 19 March 2012 16:40 (1 year ago) Permalink

what did france used to be, exactly

a bit less diverse, i.e., "for the french"

― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Monday, 19 March 2012 16:54 (1 year ago) Permalink

not to be "my irish ancestors had it rough" about this, because to be a jew or an algerian was always outside any ideological definition of what could be 'french', but "fewer ethnicities" strikes me as loose talk. gascons, bretons, occitan-speaking folx, basques, german alsatians, etc. the central/republican state kind of did a number on identities like that.

i wonder if the lingering blithe insistence on "secularism" and "french culture" doesn't speak to a suppressed knowledge that to be "french" means to take part in a constructed identity? i.e. to have something jewish or otherwise ahem mediterranean in you is something unconstructed, idk

this is like the only thing i know about france btw, thanks benedict anderson

― goole, Monday, 19 March 2012 16:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

There's a vein of anti-semitism on the left in France that isn't comfortable with ethnic identity (or responds to French ethnic chauvinism by championing post-racist 'universal' identity politics) and isn't comfrotable with the religiosity of many French Jews. Add to that the widespread criticism of Israeli policies and it can get ugly. It's by no means helped by the anti-racist crowd having as its largest constituency North African muslims. There's populist 'traditional' Xtian anti-semitism and right-wing racist and ultra-Catholic anti-semitism though that has become a little more complicated since, similar to the American extreme right, parts of the French extreme right sometimes pretend to like Israel since it gives them a better place from whence to beat up on Islam and Arabs.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 16:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

also u know

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 17:02 (1 year ago) Permalink

Yeah, goole, francity is an invention. During the ancien régime it was mostly aspirational and after the Revolution increasingly imposed by a more and more centralized State often in opposition to the old aristocracy and the Church.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

Dreyfuss wasn't all that religious, Mordy. The Right hated him for being Jewish not for practicing Judaism. If you really want to see the worst of anti-semitic bias in France, look to Drancy and Vel d'Hiv round-up, etc...

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:14 (1 year ago) Permalink

all identities are constructed. no more true of "frenchness" than anything else.

― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:15 (1 year ago) Permalink

xp I don't know what his level of religiosity has to do with... if anything it's a good indication that France anti-Semitism is not rooted in secularism so much as in historical anti-Semitism.

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 17:16 (1 year ago) Permalink

I am totally pulling this out of nothing more than a motorcycle and a face tatoo but I suspect this guy is a white racist as much as an anti-zionist or whatever, esp if he is the same killer who shot the legionnaires last week.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:17 (1 year ago) Permalink

Like trying to explain French anti-Semitism as somehow being a result of French secularism, or French anti-religious sentiment is an attempt to elide historical trends in inexplicable French anti-Semitism that span political movements, cultural shifts, and chronicity.

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 17:17 (1 year ago) Permalink

The kind of crypto-Monarchists who filled the general staff of the French Army during the Dreyfuss affair had as their special bugbears destroying the soul of France: Jews, Freemasons, Protestants and, of course, atheists.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:19 (1 year ago) Permalink

^ otm

― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:21 (1 year ago) Permalink

is an attempt to elide historical trends

I'm not eliding it at all, merely pointing out newer expressions of anti-semitism in French culture that don't fit into the traditional, Catholic kind.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:21 (1 year ago) Permalink

I've heard ppl openly sneer at someone for sounding like he was from the Sentier (working-class area of Paris which had a large Jewish population) and even heard batshit things like Jaguars are a Jewish (and therefore uncool) vehicle. There's a lot of snobbery in white French anti-semitism but it's not that often that it turns murderous.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:25 (1 year ago) Permalink

historical trends in inexplicable French anti-Semitism that span political movements, cultural shifts, and chronicity.

what are these?

seems like contemporary french anti-semitism originates from several overlapping but not entirely related zones, the "ugh why can't you just be a normal agnostic french person" secular-chauvinist sentiment is just one of them

― goole, Monday, 19 March 2012 17:27 (1 year ago) Permalink

start here, read down to bottom of the page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_France#Expulsions_and_returns

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 17:31 (1 year ago) Permalink

i'm not sure that stuff is all that "inexplicable" - seems like a lot of power plays

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:34 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.amazon.com/Lantis%C3%A9mitisme-France-dans-lentre-deux-guerres-Pr%C3%A9lude/dp/2804800504

This is the older French anti-semitism

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

thanks michel xp

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 17:36 (1 year ago) Permalink

The police think our killer was not a 'pro'. He used a 9mm and then a 45 caliber after the first gun jammed.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 17:46 (1 year ago) Permalink

Thirty years of anti-semitic attacks in France (in French)

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 18:09 (1 year ago) Permalink

Our killer, if these can be linked, has killed 4 Jews, three Arabs and a black guy.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 18:21 (1 year ago) Permalink

Is there any reason to believe it's the same person behind all three?

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 18:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

France only has one murderer at a time

― thuggish ruggish Brahms (DJP), Monday, 19 March 2012 18:39 (1 year ago) Permalink

There's a very strong suspicion that the killer is the same guy who killed some Foreign Legionnaires in Toulouse and Montauban recently.

Really this statement is only interesting if you associate with the French criminal underground and they're speculating in whispers about who the killer is, and this is a Batman movie and Christian Bale is currently interrogating you.

― Mordy, Monday, 19 March 2012 18:41 (1 year ago) Permalink

Is there any reason to believe it's the same person behind all three?

It's being reported that the same weapon was used, although i'm not sure that's 100% confirmed.

― Une semaine de Bunty (ShariVari), Monday, 19 March 2012 19:05 (1 year ago) Permalink

Live reports are saying that it's the same calibre weapon, rather that the same weapon necessarily, but the same stolen scooter.

― Une semaine de Bunty (ShariVari), Monday, 19 March 2012 19:06 (1 year ago) Permalink

same caliber weapon is meaningless, same scooter is hmmm

― goole, Monday, 19 March 2012 19:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

Ok, The Guardian is now saying it was the same gun.

― Une semaine de Bunty (ShariVari), Monday, 19 March 2012 19:13 (1 year ago) Permalink

when i was in France during the mid-1990s, i was struck by how open many French people were wr2 their dislike of and bigotry towards Arabs. so it isn't only the Jews that the French appear to dislike.

― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Monday, 19 March 2012 19:21 (1 year ago) Permalink

Same modus operandi, same scooter, same gun (according to the police) - it looks very much like the same guy.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Monday, 19 March 2012 20:13 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17446999

― red is hungry green is jawless (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 10:51 (1 year ago) Permalink

Police hunting a gunman suspected of killing seven people in southern France are laying siege to a flat in Toulouse.

The man, named as Mohammed Merah, 24, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, has said he belongs to al-Qaeda and acted to "avenge Palestinian children".

― red is hungry green is jawless (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 10:51 (1 year ago) Permalink

This is gonna be awful.

I was in Toulouse when the first killings were happening, fwiw. I had an interesting if unconnected conversation with a local who said things like what Michael White & goole have been saying here.

― Euler, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 12:25 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/65425/ken-livingstone-jews-wont-vote-labour-because-they-are-rich

― caek, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 13:10 (1 year ago) Permalink

anti-semetic and stupid. i don't know if it's true in the UK (i imagine it is) but Jews love voting for labour parties!

― Mordy, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 13:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

i think what mr livingstone meant to say was that Jews won't vote for him because he's an anti-semite

― red is hungry green is jawless (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 13:37 (1 year ago) Permalink

oh, he's otm then

― Mordy, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 13:38 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4746016.stm

here's some of his classic earlier material

― red is hungry green is jawless (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 13:41 (1 year ago) Permalink

Not sure the 'Nazi jibe' was as bad as was made out in the press, although failing to apologise was pig-headed. The other comments, if recorded accurately, are incredibly stupid - particularly given how important Jewish voters and activists have always been to Labour in London.

― Une semaine de Bunty (ShariVari), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 14:09 (1 year ago) Permalink

French authorities have corned the suspected gunman in Monday's killing of three children and a rabbi outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, France. The police identified the suspect as Mohammed Merah, a 24-year-old Muslim citizen of France of Algeria descent. About 300 police officers have cordoned off an apartment building where they traced Merah. The suspect has been participating in negotiations with the police and said he will turn himself in this afternoon. He told negotiators that he belonged to al Qaeda and that the attack was conducted in retaliation for the killing of Palestinian children and French military intervention abroad. Authorities also suspect Maher for two other attacks in which three soldiers were killed.

― Mordy, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:52 (1 year ago) Permalink

why does he morph into Bill Maher at the end of the paragraph

― thuggish ruggish Brahms (DJP), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:54 (1 year ago) Permalink

this is all gonna end well isn't it

― the sir edmund hillary of sitting through pauly shore films (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:54 (1 year ago) Permalink

i think the events that have already transpired preclude our calling any ending of this 'well.'

― Mordy, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:57 (1 year ago) Permalink

I look forward to the flood of self-righteous screeds about the importance of French secularism

― the sir edmund hillary of sitting through pauly shore films (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

i look forward to the explanations of how this is israel's fault

― Mordy, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:00 (1 year ago) Permalink

yeah that too

― the sir edmund hillary of sitting through pauly shore films (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:02 (1 year ago) Permalink

i'm so fucking upset. i've been depressed about this since yesterday.

― Mordy, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:09 (1 year ago) Permalink

Extremists must stop using the Palestinian cause to justify their acts of violence, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Wednesday after a deadly attack on a French Jewish school.

"It is time for these criminals to stop marketing their terrorist acts in the name of Palestine and to stop pretending to stand up for the rights of Palestinian children who only ask for a decent life," the Palestinian premier said in a statement.

Good for Fayyad saying this.

― Mordy, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:12 (1 year ago) Permalink

I look forward to lots of poorly justified anti-Arab rhetoric in the upcoming presidential election.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:21 (1 year ago) Permalink

This will likely help Sarkozy but I find this whole kinda discourse pretty gross. Like with that AUF shooting. Everyone figures out what identity of the killer would be most helpful to their political ambitions, then root for finding out that they were right. If you were right, you get to mock the other side for hoping that it wasn't their guy. It's a pretty fucking sick and ethically hollow way to live. I guess human beings need this distance, though, otherwise life would be really painful. Or maybe pundits/columnists/politicians are all just assholes.

― Mordy, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

Even Hollande has come out strongly for reducing legal immigration (which is code for no more Arabs or blacks - 'we have enough') and though this might help Sarko, it might help Marine Le Pen, too.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:34 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.salon.com/2012/03/21/the_strange_case_of_the_toulouse_shooter/

― Mordy, Thursday, 22 March 2012 04:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

Merah is dead

― tokyo rosemary, Thursday, 22 March 2012 12:22 (1 year ago) Permalink

"Anyone who regularly consults Internet sites which promote terror or hatred or violence will be sentenced to prison," -Nicolas Sarkozy

so, who will be in charge of sorting out the acceptable forms of political dissent.

― Sébastien, Friday, 23 March 2012 00:32 (1 year ago) Permalink

is it anti-semitic to think that David Brooks is an embarrassment to Jews?

^^^srs question, btw. If yes, I gotta work on that.

― quincie, Saturday, 24 March 2012 21:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

I'm getting sick of the "Arab" thing. Where are all of the Islamic extremists? Well - these are the same people who used "communists" twenty years ago.

Also, are sororities anti-Semitic if they don't have any Jews in them? This is discussion I had with a family member the other day. I say "yes".

― โตเกียวเหมียวเหมียว aka Honk if You Love Roan Hair, Whoo (Mount Cleaners), Friday, 30 March 2012 00:07 (1 year ago) Permalink

it's anti-semitic not to, quincie

― Mumblr tights (symsymsym), Friday, 30 March 2012 00:49 (1 year ago) Permalink

^^^^such a relief.

― quincie, Friday, 30 March 2012 14:33 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/04/dnc-staffers-facebook-photo-causes-controversy-119770.html
http://freebeacon.com/democrats-jew-cash-money-team/

― max, Friday, 6 April 2012 13:17 (1 year ago) Permalink

(not actually asking if that's anti-semitic)

― max, Friday, 6 April 2012 13:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

id change my display name to jew-cash-money-team if i was the flighty sort who changes dns upon a whim

― The term “hipster racism” from Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious (nakhchivan), Friday, 6 April 2012 13:24 (1 year ago) Permalink

gelt rules everything around me

― bnw, Friday, 6 April 2012 13:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

(not actually asking if that's anti-semitic)

it isn't, right? or am i missing something?

― preternatural concepts concerning variances in sound and texture (contenderizer), Friday, 6 April 2012 14:42 (1 year ago) Permalink

comments on news & politics sites are always so horrifying

― preternatural concepts concerning variances in sound and texture (contenderizer), Friday, 6 April 2012 14:43 (1 year ago) Permalink

they are self h8rs-gonna-h8-ing jews

― The term “hipster racism” from Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious (nakhchivan), Friday, 6 April 2012 14:44 (1 year ago) Permalink

is it anti-semitic to think that David Brooks is an embarrassment to Jews?

he's an embarassment to humanity

― Disco Bob & MC Criminal (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 6 April 2012 15:34 (1 year ago) Permalink

ok is 'Shyster' anti semitic? I called up someone for using it but the etymology suggest differently? Has it become anti semitic?

― owenf, Monday, April 9, 2012 10:10 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― Disco Bob & MC Criminal (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 9 April 2012 22:24 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2006/aug/18/newsstory.leedsunited/print

― The term “hipster racism” from Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious (nakhchivan), Monday, 9 April 2012 22:33 (1 year ago) Permalink

shyster's weird in that it doesn't seem to have an anti-semitic origin, but has come to have anti-semitic connotations over the years

― preternatural concepts concerning variances in sound and texture (contenderizer), Monday, 9 April 2012 22:40 (1 year ago) Permalink

It has no relationship to Shylock?

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 9 April 2012 23:41 (1 year ago) Permalink

apparently not. first documented in NYC in the mid-1800s. most now seem to think it derives from the german sheisser, though there's no way to be certain. descent from shakespeare's shylock and/or a shady lawyer supposedly named "sheuster" said to be authoritatively debunked. associated from its earliest use with lawyers and in recent years seen as at least indirectly anti-semitic.

― preternatural concepts concerning variances in sound and texture (contenderizer), Monday, 9 April 2012 23:55 (1 year ago) Permalink

while reading up, came upon the delightful fact that pumpernickel means "devil farts"

― preternatural concepts concerning variances in sound and texture (contenderizer), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 00:00 (1 year ago) Permalink

that's what it tastes like to me

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 02:27 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/joe-eszterhas-explodes-mel-gibson-you-hate-jews-36957?page=0,0

"You continually called Jews 'Hebes' and 'oven-dodgers' and 'Jewboys.' It seemed that most times when we discussed someone, you asked 'He’s a Hebe, isn’t he?' You said most 'gatekeepers' of American companies were 'Hebes' who 'controlled their bosses.'"

― And I have been called "The Appetite" (DL), Thursday, 12 April 2012 08:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

The comments of Mel Gibson that Joe Esterhaze quoted do seem to be somewhat antisemitic. On the other hand, I am not sure how reliable a witness Joe Esterhaze is about anything.

Meanwhile, re. "shyster":

most now seem to think it derives from the german sheisser, though there's no way to be certain. descent from shakespeare's shylock and/or a shady lawyer supposedly named "sheuster" said to be authoritatively debunked. associated from its earliest use with lawyers and in recent years seen as at least indirectly anti-semitic.

Would sheisser have found its way into Yiddish and come to English from there rather than directly from German? That would not make it antisemitic in origin, obv, but you could see why racist morons might then start applynig it back to the community from which it came.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Thursday, 12 April 2012 12:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

Also, are sororities anti-Semitic if they don't have any Jews in them? This is discussion I had with a family member the other day. I say "yes".

I am unfamiliar with sororities, but would it be antisemitic for one to have no Jewish members if, say, none had applied for membership or any who had been asked to join had declined?

― The New Dirty Vicar, Thursday, 12 April 2012 12:28 (1 year ago) Permalink

And this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/05/gunter-grass-what-must-be-said?intcmp=239

Is this antisemitic in terms of its content (if so, what in particular?) or because of who said it (in terms of his nationality and his record in the second world war)? Or is it not antisemitic at all?

― The New Dirty Vicar, Thursday, 12 April 2012 12:30 (1 year ago) Permalink

Sorry, I see I have mis spelt the name of Joe Eszterhas.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Thursday, 12 April 2012 12:31 (1 year ago) Permalink

Bad verse and simplistic politics, yes. Anti-semitism, no.

― And I have been called "The Appetite" (DL), Thursday, 12 April 2012 13:38 (1 year ago) Permalink

Sort of germane to this thread, can anyone recommend a good, fair treatment of the Rothschild familiy? I'm reading "The Ascent of Money" right now, which has sections on the Rothschilds, and for all its attempts to hedge against anti-semitism, the descriptions sound kind of anti-semitic to me. Then again, it may be that the Rothschilds were genuinely dislikable people with ridiculous amounts of power, and it may also be that a lot of the historical record of them is through the already anti-semitic lenses of the time. Anyway, it's pretty interesting and not a subject I previously knew much about.

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Thursday, 12 April 2012 13:45 (1 year ago) Permalink

wow an amazon search for books on the rothschilds brings up some pretty depressing results

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Thursday, 12 April 2012 13:47 (1 year ago) Permalink

Not an answer at all, Hurting, but allow me to take the opportunity to recommend

http://www.amazon.com/The-Warburgs-Twentieth-Century-Odyssey-Remarkable/dp/0679743596

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Thursday, 12 April 2012 13:50 (1 year ago) Permalink

God, that Grass poem is horrible. Ever since the guy came out as a former Nazi he's been awash in this weird hand-wringing pathos, like giving in to his own emotional truth has transformed him into a tribunal for everyone else yet to own up to their various crimes.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 12 April 2012 13:52 (1 year ago) Permalink

Also, I totally believe Eszterhas.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 12 April 2012 13:54 (1 year ago) Permalink

wow an amazon search for books on the rothschilds brings up some pretty depressing results

When I was in Italy last year I was astonished to see a TV programme about the Rothschilds presented by a guy wearing a balaclava which seemed to be saying that they were the secret rulers of the world and were controlling Europe through an almost literal web of influence spreading across the continent. I felt like I was watching Protocols TV. And this would have been on a mainstream enough channel, not some crazy cable outlet. But then Italy did have a far-right government at the time.

I suppose as leading financiers who happen to be Jewish it is easy for the Rothschilds to have all kinds of antisemitic fantasies pinned to them. But it may also be possible to dislike financiers generally regardless of their religion and ethnicity.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Thursday, 12 April 2012 14:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

i think a pretty telling question is how many other 19th century european financier families can you or anyone else name

― Mordy, Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:09 (1 year ago) Permalink

That's a good point Mordy... Also, how many people talk about the Chases and Morgans and such? WASP banking families have never gained the kind of notoriety of the Rothchilds, and I doubt the reason for that was that they were nicer people or something.

― I will transmit this information to (Viceroy), Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

the rothschilds are still p prominent, in england and probably france too, nat rothschild used to sctup n portman among others

idk if the warburgs or barings or medicis are still running around

― The term “hipster racism” from Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious (nakhchivan), Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:28 (1 year ago) Permalink

/schtup

― The term “hipster racism” from Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious (nakhchivan), Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

haha iirc one of the rothschilds is some kind of bizarre 1% PUMA who got a lot of press in 2008

― max, Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Forester_de_Rothschild

― max, Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:30 (1 year ago) Permalink

Lynn Forester de Rothschild was introduced to Sir Evelyn de Rothschild by Henry Kissinger at the 1998 Bilderberg Group conference

oooh nbd

― max, Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:30 (1 year ago) Permalink

there's a famous ~19th century joke where a cheder teacher tells his friend, "if i were a Rothschild, i would be even wealthier than a Rothschild." his friend asks, "why?" and he responds, "because I would teach a little cheder on the side."

― Mordy, Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:44 (1 year ago) Permalink

Hurting, do you get the sense from that book you are reading that the Rothschilds were an order of magnitude bigger than any other financier family in the 19th century, or where they just as big as the others?

― The New Dirty Vicar, Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:50 (1 year ago) Permalink

haha 'lady lynn' was the subject of probably the only funny thing mickey kaus ever said: "You lost me at 'de.'"

― goole, Thursday, 12 April 2012 15:56 (1 year ago) Permalink

idk if the warburgs or barings or medicis are still running around

There are various Medici clans still claiming titles. The Fugger family (pictured below, looking much as you'd expect) is still going too. They have limited assets and influence, though.

Part of the Rothchild fame is definitely down to anti-semitism, part's down to the fact that there hasn't been anyone richer since.

― Une semaine de Bunty (ShariVari), Thursday, 12 April 2012 17:14 (1 year ago) Permalink

OWS & the 99%ers made a big deal out of chase bank's connections to the nazis, but that's an institution, not a family. the rockefeller name lingers in the (american) public memory as a symbol of vast family wealth in a way that's comparable to that of the rothchilds.

― BEMORE SUPER FABBY (contenderizer), Thursday, 12 April 2012 17:39 (1 year ago) Permalink

OMG: http://www.inquisitr.com/218266/jon-lovitz-harnesses-power-of-twitter-gets-teen-bullies-expelled-from-school/

Is this old news?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 12 April 2012 20:10 (1 year ago) Permalink

damn what is with people. the mom drove them?

kudos on not even drawing the swastika right

― goole, Thursday, 12 April 2012 20:32 (1 year ago) Permalink

Okay the mom driving them is the WORST part of that story.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 12 April 2012 20:38 (1 year ago) Permalink

them getting kicked out of school and possibly charged is the best part

― BEMORE SUPER FABBY (contenderizer), Thursday, 12 April 2012 20:39 (1 year ago) Permalink

no i think jon lovitz fucking their lives up for good is the best part

― goole, Thursday, 12 April 2012 20:40 (1 year ago) Permalink

that is a terrible story and I feel really, really awful for laughing so hard at that misshapen swastika

― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Thursday, 12 April 2012 20:41 (1 year ago) Permalink

it's the misshapen swastika and their public humiliation in conjunction with that pic of the three of them flipping off the camera all badass that makes it comedy gold.

― HE HATES THESE CANS (Austerity Ponies), Friday, 13 April 2012 18:14 (1 year ago) Permalink

that and the fact that I could name at least 3 girls we grew up with who are very very happy they became adults before the Internet was widely available for them to immortalize their idiocy

― an independent online phenomenon (DJP), Friday, 13 April 2012 18:27 (1 year ago) Permalink

my wife once had anti-semitic (and crazy) roommates who poured maple syrup all over the floor when it was her turn to clean the kitchen (it wasn't clear exactly whether this was specifically anti-semitic or just some kind of general bizarre grudge, they were very strange). Do anti-semites have some kind of a thing for maple syrup?

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Friday, 13 April 2012 18:36 (1 year ago) Permalink

huh that is odd. maybe it's a coincidental wasp thing

― goole, Friday, 13 April 2012 18:43 (1 year ago) Permalink

i am a wasp. we do like maple syrup.

― BEMORE SUPER FABBY (contenderizer), Friday, 13 April 2012 18:48 (1 year ago) Permalink

I think maple syrup is just a vandalism thing because it's a bitch to clean up.

― HE HATES THESE CANS (Austerity Ponies), Friday, 13 April 2012 18:49 (1 year ago) Permalink

Exactly.

― i love the large auns pictures! (Phil D.), Friday, 13 April 2012 18:49 (1 year ago) Permalink

was it mrs butterworth? because i've heard things

― bnw, Friday, 13 April 2012 18:50 (1 year ago) Permalink

what, that it was originally Butzerwitsky?

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Friday, 13 April 2012 19:06 (1 year ago) Permalink

― Mordy, Thursday, April 12, 2012 11:44 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i remember that from the big book of jewish humor (great book). great joke.

― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Friday, 13 April 2012 19:10 (1 year ago) Permalink

I DON'T GET IT

― quincie, Friday, 13 April 2012 19:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

I TRIED

― quincie, Friday, 13 April 2012 19:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

NO GET

― quincie, Friday, 13 April 2012 19:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

the joke is that if the cheder teacher were a rothschild, and thefore super rich, he would still teach cheder so he could make even more money even though the money he'd be paid for teaching cheder would be paltry compared to his wealth as a rothschild

― max, Friday, 13 April 2012 20:03 (1 year ago) Permalink

hilarious

― bnw, Friday, 13 April 2012 20:05 (1 year ago) Permalink

i thought it was pretty funny tbh

― max, Friday, 13 April 2012 20:06 (1 year ago) Permalink

i thought it was pretty funny

[dangit max]

― BEMORE SUPER FABBY (contenderizer), Friday, 13 April 2012 20:07 (1 year ago) Permalink

*sigh*

Can I not convert if I don't get it/find it amusing even when it is explained to me?

― quincie, Friday, 13 April 2012 20:15 (1 year ago) Permalink

― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 13 April 2012 20:37 (1 year ago) Permalink

aw shucks. Well, I didn't really love Blazing Saddles or any other Mel Brooks stuff, either.

― quincie, Sunday, 15 April 2012 21:54 (1 year ago) Permalink

I told my wife that joke and she immediately got it and also couldn't explain why it's funny. I think it's something about the combination of money-obsession, unrealistic fantasizing and old-world shtetl provincialness. It's not only that the extra money he'd make teaching hebrew school is meaningless next to Rothschild wealth, it's also that he clearly has no conception of Rothschild wealth because he's just some poor rebbe from Lodz or something. Yeah, hard to explain.

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Monday, 16 April 2012 15:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

I guess it's sort of like a little kid who says, "If I won the lottery, I'd get even richer by taking some of the money and buying lemonade and selling it at a lemonade stand."

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Monday, 16 April 2012 15:36 (1 year ago) Permalink

yeah there are a lot of ways to unpack that joke, max's is kind of the most literal

― Jilly Boel and the Eltones (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 16 April 2012 15:43 (1 year ago) Permalink

i think it's a great joke

― goole, Monday, 16 April 2012 15:47 (1 year ago) Permalink

it is

― BEMORE SUPER FABBY (contenderizer), Monday, 16 April 2012 15:49 (1 year ago) Permalink

like, forty gazillion plus 3.25 is still forty gazillion three twenty-five. that's more!

― goole, Monday, 16 April 2012 15:51 (1 year ago) Permalink

it's a good joke but if you laugh at it and aren't jewish you are an anti-semite

― iatee, Monday, 16 April 2012 15:52 (1 year ago) Permalink

whereas if dont laugh and are jewish...

― Masonic Butt (Lamp), Monday, 16 April 2012 15:52 (1 year ago) Permalink

Then you are a self-loathing Jew.

― tokyo rosemary, Monday, 16 April 2012 15:55 (1 year ago) Permalink

it's a good joke but if you laugh at it and aren't jewish you are an anti-semite

feh

― BEMORE SUPER FABBY (contenderizer), Monday, 16 April 2012 15:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

you also have to hear it in a schticky old shtetl jew accent for full effect imo.

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Monday, 16 April 2012 16:25 (1 year ago) Permalink

that's how I read most jokes

― HE HATES THESE CANS (Austerity Ponies), Monday, 16 April 2012 16:55 (1 year ago) Permalink

it's a funny joke

― catbus otm (gbx), Monday, 16 April 2012 21:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

dreck

― bnw, Monday, 16 April 2012 22:13 (1 year ago) Permalink

I love how in any story involving swastikas there's always at least one dick commenter going THEY HAVE A LONG HISTORY DID U NOT KNOW ABOUT THE INDIAN HISTORY OF THE SWASTIKA BLA BLA NAZIS RUINED IT

― fix it with like some music glue (Trayce), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 07:07 (1 year ago) Permalink

Nazis ruin everything.

― Touché Gödel (ledge), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 08:47 (1 year ago) Permalink

My best friend at school invited a whole German exchange class over to his house to celebrate Diwali, temporarily forgetting that it was absolutely festooned with swastikas. That was a little awkward.

― Une semaine de Bunty (ShariVari), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 08:57 (1 year ago) Permalink

that kind of swastika is usually reversed! not that that makes a difference tho

― dayo, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 11:55 (1 year ago) Permalink

The Reverse Swastika is my favorite wrestling move. Very effective.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 11:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

Also, a good cocktail.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 11:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

And sex move.

― nickn, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 16:25 (1 year ago) Permalink

swastikas are free to go either way on the subcontinent; only the nazis were such nazis about it

― ogmor, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 22:04 (1 year ago) Permalink

I am really sensitive about anti-semitism, I mean, I am not Jewish but if someone poured maple syrup all over my floor I would be deeply distressed. I'd need therapy. I've seen a really casual attitude about it in some places, like they can take a "joke".

My grandmother was a governess to a Jewish family, same with my dad's first boss out of college, again they are like family. I don't think you have to be Jewish to be hurt by this stuff, I just ignore weird politically correct people. I mean, how do you live being that "pc"?

Like I know people who think it's weird to look at Jewish websites if you're not Jewish. Like, what kind of weird attitude is that?

― โตเกียวเหมียวเหมียว aka Bulgarian Tourist Chamber (Mount Cleaners), Tuesday, 17 April 2012 22:47 (1 year ago) Permalink

"I am really sensitive about anti-semitism, I mean, I am not Jewish but if someone poured maple syrup all over my floor I would be deeply distressed."

― max, Wednesday, 18 April 2012 02:31 (1 year ago) Permalink

lol

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 18 April 2012 02:44 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/article/2012/04/19/3093326/urban-outfitters-goes-with-holocaust-style-star

― Mordy, Thursday, 19 April 2012 23:25 (1 year ago) Permalink

help me out. that seems to indicate solidarity more than anti-semitism, and i'd assume that the intended consumer is jewish?

― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Thursday, 19 April 2012 23:52 (1 year ago) Permalink

― Mordy, Thursday, 19 April 2012 23:55 (1 year ago) Permalink

i'm not sure that it's anti-semitic, probably not in intention, but i would never wear one :/

― Mordy, Friday, 20 April 2012 00:01 (1 year ago) Permalink

i just showed the shirt to my wife with no context and her response was, "is this real? what the fuck is wrong with these people?"

― Mordy, Friday, 20 April 2012 00:05 (1 year ago) Permalink

okay, calibrating

― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Friday, 20 April 2012 00:21 (1 year ago) Permalink

I dunno what it is but it's certainly bizarre.

I would never wear that.

― drum hitler gets full publishing (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 April 2012 02:38 (1 year ago) Permalink

I don't think it's anti-semitic, I think it's just kind of ill-considered. You can't really assume people are going to be cool with "reappropriation" of symbols associated with ethnic slaughter

― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Friday, 20 April 2012 02:49 (1 year ago) Permalink

2 weeks pass...

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/05/04/belgian-train-announcement-welcome-to-this-train-for-auschwitz-all-jews-get-off-at-buchenwald/

― Mordy, Monday, 7 May 2012 04:10 (1 year ago) Permalink

What the hell

― quincie, Monday, 7 May 2012 13:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

have we discussed this before? http://www.rp.pl/artykul/877193.html#.T7e5keUfje4.facebook

i kinda want to buy one

― Mordy, Saturday, 19 May 2012 23:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

Jew of the coins is the patron saint of financial success. "The Jew in the court, money in your pocket" - the slogan suggests. When I see it in homes, shops, galleries of art objects - I feel bad

The combination of a Jew and money zagościło for good in the Christian imagination, when - as the Gospel - Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Since that time, Judas has become synonymous with Jew, and the rest of the apostles and Jesus somehow ceased to be Jews. With time, the mythical Jew, a Jew on the phantasm "in general", tightly covered the reality they were real to the Jews.

― Serov devochka s persikami (nakhchivan), Saturday, 19 May 2012 23:33 (1 year ago) Permalink

ive never seen these things before

eastern european religious kitsch can be pretty strange

― Serov devochka s persikami (nakhchivan), Saturday, 19 May 2012 23:38 (1 year ago) Permalink

i don't even know how i'd get one

― Mordy, Saturday, 19 May 2012 23:39 (1 year ago) Permalink

ebay.pl, google translate

― Serov devochka s persikami (nakhchivan), Saturday, 19 May 2012 23:44 (1 year ago) Permalink

i got nothin

― Mordy, Saturday, 19 May 2012 23:48 (1 year ago) Permalink

I can't recall ever seeing one. The original article from Gazeta Wyborcza seemed to indicate it's a pretty standard piece of tourist merch but i'm not sure i've ever come across it. There's tonnes of tourist tat, including paintings, that references the pre-war Jewish community but it's generally aimed at Jewish tourists. I'll have to keep an eye out next time i'm over.

― Just like you, except hot (ShariVari), Saturday, 19 May 2012 23:56 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/05/23/the_worlds_most_racist_job_ad

― chris paul george hill (dayo), Friday, 25 May 2012 01:20 (1 year ago) Permalink

A Jewish lawyer once told me that he thinks Jewish lawyers benefit from anti-semitism, because even (perhaps ESPECIALLY) anti-semites assume that you have to have a Jewish lawyer or that Jewish lawyers are better.

― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Friday, 25 May 2012 01:44 (1 year ago) Permalink

I have heard the same said about internists.

FYI I think my internist is Jewish; my physiatrist (as in rehabilitative medicine, not shrink, but probably applies there as well) is definitely Jewish. They are both kinda meh.

― quincie, Friday, 25 May 2012 01:51 (1 year ago) Permalink

I mean neither is as exceptionally good as the drug dealer lawyer on The Wire, is all I'm saying.

― quincie, Friday, 25 May 2012 01:52 (1 year ago) Permalink

"Jewish lawyers are the best" has a slightly more negative undertone than "Jewish internists are the best" though because people think lawyers are sleazy.

― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Friday, 25 May 2012 01:55 (1 year ago) Permalink

Jewish doulas are the best, AFAIK...

― There are many tribes in the Juggalo nation (Viceroy), Friday, 25 May 2012 02:45 (1 year ago) Permalink

the best lawyers and judges that i know personally are Italian-Americans. that says more about the ethnic composition of where i live than anything else. (nb: i've also known some good Jewish lawyers and my first lawyer mentor was an excellent lawyer of Indian ancestry.)

that said, i am well aware of the "Jewish lawyers are the best!" meme. i once had a client who was visibly disappointed when i told her that i wasn't Jewish (as she originally assumed) and was in fact a Polack.

― Boris Kutyurkokhov (Eisbaer), Friday, 25 May 2012 03:01 (1 year ago) Permalink

ouch. double whammy.

― Mordy, Friday, 25 May 2012 03:09 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-do-people-hate-jews-2012-5

lol what kind of dunce is henry blodget

― goole, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 21:48 (1 year ago) Permalink

NOTE: The original photo in this post was of a couple of jovial Orthodox Jews, one of whom was wearing a traditional hat. Some readers found that needlessly provocative. One suggested I replace it with a picture of Natalie Portman, who, I guess, is Jewish (I don't know). So I have.

lol

― goole, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 21:48 (1 year ago) Permalink

if he is jewish I may have an answer

― bnw, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 22:00 (1 year ago) Permalink

2 weeks pass...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/06/12/after_new_york_times_profile_sweden_s_twitter_account_goes_off_the_rails_with_jew_rant_.html?wpisrc=obnetwork

i don't think actually anti-semitic, but pretty bizarre. reminds me of a defense someone once gave of zizek's early writing about jewishness: "well, they don't have many jews in slovenia"

― Mordy, Wednesday, 13 June 2012 01:56 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://elitedaily.com/elite/2012/date-jewish-boy/?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150880635816510_21998062_10150881150131510?#f82c4398

― Mordy, Wednesday, 20 June 2012 20:00 (11 months ago) Permalink

this elite daily site gd

― dis civilization and its contents (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 20:12 (11 months ago) Permalink

idk anything about them. someone IM'd me the link and i thought, "hey, i bet i know a great ilx thread for this one"

― Mordy, Wednesday, 20 June 2012 20:14 (11 months ago) Permalink

what says 'the voice of generation y' more than a tastefully monochrome background image of parquet flooring?

― dis civilization and its contents (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 20:18 (11 months ago) Permalink

WHAT IN THE

i actually think the "reasons to date the jewish boy" are marginally more anti-semitic than the "reasons not to date the jewish boy"

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 20:18 (11 months ago) Permalink

Want to take a sexy fiesta? Meet people of the sun and fun in our No. 10 horniest country. Mexicans kick off our list of boot-knocking people, and they start from an early age. In fact, in May of 2008 Mexico City’s government distributed 700,000 copies of sex-ed textbooks to deliver to the city’s student population, well aware that the kids would be doing the horizontal tango one way or another.

And when it comes to sex south of the border, there’s always a way. While prostitution is generally illegal in Mexico, it is legal in select cities like Tijuana, where sex worker zones are set up for your benefit.

― dis civilization and its contents (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 20:19 (11 months ago) Permalink

Yeah I don't even see why I should bother taking apart that elite daily article. But the site in general, good god. It's like a readers' digest version of the WSJ with a visual theme stolen from NY Mag.

― eggleston or instagram? (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 20:31 (11 months ago) Permalink

But when it comes to Jewish men, their appearances span across a spectrum ranging from James Dean look alikes, to the ultimate panty in James Franco.

― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:09 (11 months ago) Permalink

that is an amazing sentence for quite a few reasons

― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:09 (11 months ago) Permalink

what does being a "panty" even mean?

― eggleston or instagram? (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:11 (11 months ago) Permalink

hahaha it didn't even hit me until now that Franco played James Dean in a film

― eggleston or instagram? (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:12 (11 months ago) Permalink

James Franco is filled with panties, is how I read it

― a dense custard of infinity (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:13 (11 months ago) Permalink

- the appearance of jewish ranges from those who look like james dean, to james franco (who looks like james dean)
- james franco is the ultimate panty

― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:14 (11 months ago) Permalink

Right, and the other end of the spectrum of Jewish man looks from James Dean is the last panty one would find within James Franco.

― eggleston or instagram? (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:15 (11 months ago) Permalink

oh you think they mean the ultimate panty is LITERALLY in james franco

i thought they meant it like, "the ultimate panty in [the form of] james franco"

― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:16 (11 months ago) Permalink

I'm with s1ocki as to what it means, but i still don't get it. is it good to be a panty?

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:19 (11 months ago) Permalink

Jewish men range from looking like James Dean to looking like Jewish guys who look like James Dean

― eggleston or instagram? (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:19 (11 months ago) Permalink

maybe she meant pansy? Or maybe party -- can a person be a party? I suppose so. Or perhaps she left off a word, and it was like "panty-dropper" or "panty-thief."

― eggleston or instagram? (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:20 (11 months ago) Permalink

That makes sense in the context of Franco but why would that be one end of a spectrum, the other end of which is James Dean?

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:28 (11 months ago) Permalink

Maybe she meant Julio Franco

― eggleston or instagram? (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 22:30 (11 months ago) Permalink

― Black_vegeta (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 25 June 2012 16:21 (11 months ago) Permalink

Why is the Jew hating elmo?

― click here if you want to load them all (Hurting 2), Monday, 25 June 2012 16:45 (11 months ago) Permalink

kermit the ZOG

― am0n, Monday, 25 June 2012 16:47 (11 months ago) Permalink

nice.

― Black_vegeta (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 25 June 2012 16:47 (11 months ago) Permalink

lawl

― goole, Monday, 25 June 2012 16:47 (11 months ago) Permalink

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/elmo-imposter-hassles-tourists-money-booted-central-park-zoo-article-1.1101710

daily news omits all this. WHO ARE THEY PROTECTING

― goole, Monday, 25 June 2012 16:48 (11 months ago) Permalink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmo#Criticism_and_controversy

Elmo has been referred to as the "Little Red Menace" by Sesame Street traditionalists[7]

― click here if you want to load them all (Hurting 2), Monday, 25 June 2012 20:23 (11 months ago) Permalink

dying @ "Elmo IMPOSTER"

― Race Against Rockism (Myonga Vön Bontee), Monday, 25 June 2012 23:00 (11 months ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

IOC shot down proposal to hold 1 minute of silence for the Israeli victims of the 1972 Munich terror attacks. 40 year anniversary, 10th anniversary game-wise... The Olympic Committee makes a lot of stupid decision but there's a lot of people saying its antisemitism that's the real reason they won't do the minute of silence. Then again the people making this argument are saying it in articles like this and I'm not sure what to think:

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/106409/jewish-blood-is-cheap

― Ring brother, ring for me! (Viceroy), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 23:21 (11 months ago) Permalink

can't say I really give a shit

― the alternate vision continues his vision quest! (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 23:25 (11 months ago) Permalink

well thanks for posting then!

― Ring brother, ring for me! (Viceroy), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 23:30 (11 months ago) Permalink

I don't know if I'd say "antisemitism" but there's a good chance there's arab-israeli-euroleft politics in there and a smidgen of cravenness as well.

― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 23:33 (11 months ago) Permalink

yeah, the salivating of both sides to jump on it as proof of their point is so depressing that i'm not even going to click a story on it.

― bnw, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 00:12 (11 months ago) Permalink

yeah the comment thread is quite the echo chamber of sanctimony and indignance, as you might expect. I think they should have the moment of silence though. I mean it has to be one of the scariest, worst, most tragic thing that ever happened to an olympic games. I mean what about making secondary that it was Israelis and remembering that olympic athletes were killed -- that's the kind of spirit the olympics ought to have, I would think.

― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 00:44 (11 months ago) Permalink

Did they do anything in 1992 for the 20th?

― pplains, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 00:46 (11 months ago) Permalink

i don't really care, but even eurovision commemorated it when it was held in munich

― Mordy, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 00:47 (11 months ago) Permalink

I'm certainly aware that there's a contingent who is probably trying to make a flag pin out of this issue, as it were.

― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 00:53 (11 months ago) Permalink

flag pin = the new shibboleth?

― Mordy, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 01:17 (11 months ago) Permalink

2 weeks pass...

http://youngcontrarian.tumblr.com/post/14914351170/gore-vidal-and-the-jewish-question

― Mordy, Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:25 (10 months ago) Permalink

In “Pink Triangle and Yellow Star” in particular, Vidal seems irked by the very notion of a conservatively-minded Jewish sensibility, or commentators who might advocate for interests not of immediate importance to isolationists like himself. Indeed, Vidal has long argued retrospectively against American involvement in the Second World War, in Europe or otherwise, and in the lead-up to the conflict was a supporter of Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee.

when he was what, 14?

― goole, Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:46 (10 months ago) Permalink

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/books/99/08/05/SEXUALLY_SPEAKING.html

Gore Vidal's ideas about sex grow out of his ideas about himself: he is one of the last American aristocrats ("My family helped start [this country], and we've been in political life . . . since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country"), and is angry at what new immigrants ("I think the Roman Catholic arrivals here have not been -- how shall I put this tactfully -- a great addition to our Republic") and the national security state have done to erode his patrimony. That patrimony includes a dignified tolerance that extends to sexual matters, and this is the principle that underlies his witty and entertaining polemics against the intolerant masses. But every cause that Vidal embraces has deeper and better bases for support than those he advances in Sexually Speaking. "All men are created equal" may not date back quite as far as the 1690s, but it is a better defense of liberty, sexual and otherwise, than the one presented here.

― goole, Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:52 (10 months ago) Permalink

"how shall I put this tactfully"

― goole, Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:52 (10 months ago) Permalink

Young Contrarian taking on Old and now Dead Contrarian in weak blog shocka.

― Ring brother, ring for me! (Viceroy), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 16:21 (10 months ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

wtf http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/08/28/michigan-state-student-brutally-beaten-in-anti-semitic-attack/

― Mordy, Tuesday, 28 August 2012 23:51 (9 months ago) Permalink

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_spectator/2012/08/_holocaust_obsessed_it_s_the_new_anti_semitic_slur_.html

― Mordy, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:16 (9 months ago) Permalink

missed that vidal piece from a few weeks back but GV got the same treatment from salon, slate, the new republic, and a few other places when he died -- paul berman's essay was especially dishonest and infuriating.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:19 (9 months ago) Permalink

"...often used by Jews as an epithet to describe other Jews. "

So is the question whether a Jew can be an anti-semite?

― pplains, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:21 (9 months ago) Permalink

272,000 google hits is nothing, basically

― max, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:24 (9 months ago) Permalink

So is the question whether a Jew can be an anti-semite?

we prefer the term self-hating Jew thank you very much

― chicago rap twitter luminary (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:25 (9 months ago) Permalink

"obsessed with gawker"
About 974 results (0.42 seconds)

― Nilmar Honorato da Silva, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:26 (9 months ago) Permalink

ugh, fuck ron rosenbaum

― max, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:26 (9 months ago) Permalink

can he write an article without being a dick about hannah arendt

― max, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:27 (9 months ago) Permalink

whoah waht yeah that's a dealbreaker for me

― chicago rap twitter luminary (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:29 (9 months ago) Permalink

lol i haven't even read it yet

― Mordy, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:30 (9 months ago) Permalink

does he call her a nazi groupie?

― Mordy, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:30 (9 months ago) Permalink

I didn't get this far but max otm

One thing the new evidence has done is re-enforce a perception I’ve had that Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” description of Eichmann—the concept of “banality of evil” itself—is now looking ever more foolish. I’ve argued that Arendt arrogantly and ignorantly bought into Eichmann’s defense that he was “just following orders” in a way that absolved him from the “radical evil” that she, Arendt, once believed in.

― chicago rap twitter luminary (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:31 (9 months ago) Permalink

A little more info about the jewish mouth stapling bizarro crime above:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2019017260_apuscollegestudentattacked.html

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 20:06 (9 months ago) Permalink

tbh i instantly check out when a writer feels the need to remind us that he's 'already argued' something in the past.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 20:08 (9 months ago) Permalink

xpWhich if you listen to the police basically = kid got beat up for some nonsense and then made up ridiculous anti-semitic fantasy which his parents are now running with...

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 20:09 (9 months ago) Permalink

way to not get it, ron

― goole, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 20:12 (9 months ago) Permalink

I’ve argued that Arendt arrogantly and ignorantly bought into Eichmann’s defense

no, fuck you

― i know your nuts hurt! who's laughing? (contenderizer), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 20:28 (9 months ago) Permalink

he had a long terrible thing last year about arendt that was similarly and more insistently wrong, i mean almost a complete misreading

― max, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 20:40 (9 months ago) Permalink

Hannah Arendt: too nuanced, insufficiently vengeful

― just one little Tayto (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 20:41 (9 months ago) Permalink

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_spectator/2012/08/_holocaust_obsessed_it_s_the_new_anti_semitic_slur_.html

― Mordy, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 19:16 (1 hour ago) Permalink

this article is complete crap and I couldn't finish it

― look at this quarterstaff (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 20:56 (9 months ago) Permalink

kid got beat up for some nonsense and then made up ridiculous anti-semitic fantasy which his parents are now running with...

this was my suspicion tbh. getting yr mouth stapled shut is such a WTF method of assault there was no way that was real

― chicago rap twitter luminary (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 20:59 (9 months ago) Permalink

xp lol i haven't even read it yet

― Mordy, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 21:01 (9 months ago) Permalink

I really think there might be a little more to what Arendt meant by "the banality of evil" than Rosenbaum is giving credit for

― look at this quarterstaff (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 21:04 (9 months ago) Permalink

Nope that's it, that's why she's arrogant and ignorant, right?

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 21:11 (9 months ago) Permalink

there's the whole sleeping w/ a nazi thing too

― Mordy, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 21:12 (9 months ago) Permalink

(nb i really like arendt's writing and i mean any digs itt in jest)

― Mordy, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 21:13 (9 months ago) Permalink

if you HAD to pick one nazi to bone...

― goole, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 21:15 (9 months ago) Permalink

iirc the last rosenbaum column on arendt leaned really heavily on her relationship w/ heidegger as a reason to dismiss her

― max, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 21:15 (9 months ago) Permalink

while we're chatting about arendt, this is my fave book of hers

also, since it is the anti-semitism thread, i've never read origins of totalitarianism but i've always been curious about

― Mordy, Wednesday, 29 August 2012 21:22 (9 months ago) Permalink

every rosenbaum article reads exactly like this one. pissy, long, and full of pompous references to himself and how smart he is.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 29 August 2012 21:35 (9 months ago) Permalink

http://m.forward.com/articles/162511

― Mordy, Sunday, 9 September 2012 16:07 (9 months ago) Permalink

I would answer in the affirmative, in regards to the thread title.

― pplains, Sunday, 9 September 2012 16:44 (9 months ago) Permalink

ok, just checking

― Mordy, Sunday, 9 September 2012 16:51 (9 months ago) Permalink

i know we've got a thread for circumcision somewhere (or did we discuss those bizarro anti-circumcision comics here?): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/world/europe/circumcision-debate-in-europe-reflects-deeper-tensions.html

ppl obsessed w/ banning circumcision are among humanity's greatest weirdos imho.

― Mordy, Thursday, 20 September 2012 12:50 (8 months ago) Permalink

unrelated to the Germany ban, but i have a Jewish media colleague who is obsessed w/ preventing male circumcision (i think bc he feels sexually deficient, maybe, due to his own?) - he is also very active in the 'men rights' movement. i think they're connected!

― Mordy, Thursday, 20 September 2012 12:51 (8 months ago) Permalink

that's definitely a type, but i know plenty of liberal women who are against it too on secular individualist grounds. giles fraser, ex-canon @ st paul's, got a roasting after his article decrying the german court ruling against child circumcision; feels like the euro left is not keen on it in general

― ogmor, Thursday, 20 September 2012 14:05 (8 months ago) Permalink

(or did we discuss those bizarro anti-circumcision comics here?):

Is this anti-semitism?

― stURGEON & musKEY (how's life), Thursday, 20 September 2012 14:42 (8 months ago) Permalink

fwiw that german judge's ruling got basically no coverage in germany. i think he's kind of the equivalent of that birther sheriff in arizona, i.e. kinda lol, kinda sad. only a concern in a "poisoning the well" sense, not a practical one.

― caek, Thursday, 20 September 2012 14:56 (8 months ago) Permalink

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083174/Dubai-gym-slammed-using-Nazi-death-camp-Auschwitz-promote-weight-loss.html

― Mordy, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 14:44 (8 months ago) Permalink

arbeit macht sw0le

― goole, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 14:49 (8 months ago) Permalink

almost as strange as the thought that someone actually thought that ad was a good idea is that there are people who that concept actually appeals to. Massochists, I guess?

― has important things to say about gangnam style (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 15:04 (8 months ago) Permalink

Anger: The Circuit Factory in Dubai sparked outrage with this insensitive advert using Auschwitz, where millions of Jews were starved or gassed to death, to promote weight loss

^ helpful and informative appositive phrase, tyvm daily mail

― goole, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 16:00 (8 months ago) Permalink

At least there were commas.

― pplains, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 16:05 (8 months ago) Permalink

respect

― goole, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 16:13 (8 months ago) Permalink

2 weeks pass...

Occupy Wall Street just posted this on their Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=434443503290296&set=a.217603604974288.57691.217514361649879&type=1&relevant_count=1

― Get wolves (DL), Tuesday, 23 October 2012 17:51 (7 months ago) Permalink

leaning yes on this one

― goole, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 17:53 (7 months ago) Permalink

arguable

― iatee, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 17:54 (7 months ago) Permalink

jesus christ

― Mordy, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 17:55 (7 months ago) Permalink

poor Romeny

― Force Boxman (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 23 October 2012 17:55 (7 months ago) Permalink

i argued from the beginning of OWS that it wasn't anti-semitic and that any anti-semitism came from ppl that did not speak for the entire movement - that some anti-semitism was a consequence of having such a non-hierarchical organizational structure and that we should tolerate the few crazies bc the greater purpose is important.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 17:56 (7 months ago) Permalink

and actually caught flack in my community bc of that argument!

― Mordy, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 17:57 (7 months ago) Permalink

well it's not surprising that you would catch flak from your community for that comment tbh

― Gandalf’s Gobble Melt (DJP), Tuesday, 23 October 2012 17:58 (7 months ago) Permalink

flak*, thx. and not surprising but i went out on a limb for OWS, so this kind of thing makes me feel like a - idk - useful idiot.

― Mordy, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 17:59 (7 months ago) Permalink

friend of mine on fb:

― Mordy, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 18:01 (7 months ago) Permalink

yeah was gonna say, this is the "real" OWS page https://www.facebook.com/OccupyWallSt

― max, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 18:02 (7 months ago) Permalink

I'm relieved that it's not an official OWS account, but I remember seeing anti-semitic messages in the mix at Occupy London. It's always been there on the fringes - an inevitable side-effect of a broad-based, non-hierarchical movement.

― Get wolves (DL), Tuesday, 23 October 2012 18:22 (7 months ago) Permalink

I guess that's supposed to be the dome of the rock mosque? Reference to status of Jerusalem?

― michael bolton's reckless daughter (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 23 October 2012 18:38 (7 months ago) Permalink

ohh it is. i thought it was the US capitol!

― goole, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 18:43 (7 months ago) Permalink

i can't figure out if its ironic for me to be Gargamel for halloween since he was basically "a Jew"

― atlas sug (bnw), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 23:17 (7 months ago) Permalink

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 23:28 (7 months ago) Permalink

Regular Gargamel or Sexy Gargamel?

― tokyo rosemary, Thursday, 25 October 2012 03:55 (7 months ago) Permalink

http://www.rp.pl/artykul/948550.html

translation: http://tinyurl.com/c5j9s7t

― Mordy, Saturday, 3 November 2012 14:21 (7 months ago) Permalink

Steve Bell in the Guardian

― Swole Miss (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Friday, 16 November 2012 12:39 (7 months ago) Permalink

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/27/hungarian-rightwinger-call-survey-jews

― Nilmar Honorato da Silva, Tuesday, 27 November 2012 17:11 (6 months ago) Permalink

Yeah that one doesn't really need the question mark.

― ILM Communication (seandalai), Tuesday, 27 November 2012 17:13 (6 months ago) Permalink

WHAT THE FUCK HUNGARY YOU DIDN'T KILL ENOUGH OF US ALREADY????

― Mordy, Tuesday, 27 November 2012 17:33 (6 months ago) Permalink

zydki on sale from hala mirowska (warsaw):

― Mordy, Saturday, 1 December 2012 22:43 (6 months ago) Permalink

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5guWyiarF7Ahem2pqnlP61ATrZ6nA?docId=CNG.1f5230b87c34eb7ef95150ba96d4cfb3.941

― Mordy, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 19:07 (6 months ago) Permalink

i have no clue what to make of that except that jyllands posten is well known for a right-wing anti-muslim pro-israel paper. would be interested in reading more actual reporting on the rise of anti-semitism in denmark in scandinavia

― max, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 19:17 (6 months ago) Permalink

yes me too esp cuz i would hesitate calling a protest outside the israeli embassy an "anti-semitic incident"

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Wednesday, 12 December 2012 21:07 (6 months ago) Permalink

i know that sweden has seen a big rise in far-right nationalist political parties, generally anti-immigrant i would guess also anti-semitic (though maybe also pro-israel? you can never tell with these jokers)

― max, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 21:21 (6 months ago) Permalink

ya its all a depressing clusterfuck

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Wednesday, 12 December 2012 21:38 (6 months ago) Permalink

“We have had a Zionist-controlled Hollywood, a Zionist-controlled news media that is the conduit to all of this violence...this imagery into every home in America, and so you wonder why there is a culture of violence? It is because it comes from the Jews in Hollywood. That is where the conduit of violence comes from,” Phoenix-based Mike Harris said on Tuesday.

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2012/12/19/279024/zionists-create-culture-of-violence-in-us/

The guy who blamed Sandy Hook on the Mossad ^

― Mordy, Friday, 21 December 2012 04:09 (5 months ago) Permalink

The comments are a joy:

I've read most of the story behind the slayings at Newtown.There is a deliberate attempt to hide what really went wrong to warrant the murder of the younglings.The zionist would stop at nothing to kill and defile anything that does not favour them.Now, as part of a calculated evil mischief,they want to deprive Americans the right to own and keep arms for self defence.This is because they want to punish America for the losses suffered by Israel at the 8 days false flag war on Gaza and the "loss of face" at the UN General Assembly.These people are definitely evil.

― Mordy, Friday, 21 December 2012 04:13 (5 months ago) Permalink

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2012/12/polands-past?fsrc=rss

― Mordy, Friday, 21 December 2012 18:46 (5 months ago) Permalink

"younglings," ugh, as a Star Wars fan I apologize for this

― Gollum: "Hot, Ready and Smeagol!" (Phil D.), Friday, 21 December 2012 18:50 (5 months ago) Permalink

yeah as i read that all i cld think was SECURITY HOLOGRAM

― ogmor, Friday, 21 December 2012 18:50 (5 months ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/01/05/13/hitler-statue-holocaust-site-stirs-controversy

― Mordy, Saturday, 12 January 2013 15:12 (5 months ago) Permalink

Hmm:

Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said he was consulted on the installation's placement ahead of time and did not oppose it because he saw value in the artist's attempt to try to raise moral questions by provoking viewers.
He said he was reassured by curators who told him there was no intention of rehabilitating Hitler but rather of showing that evil can present itself in the guise of a "sweet praying child."
"I felt there could be educational value to it," said Schudrich, who also wrote an introduction to the exhibition's catalogue in which he says art can "force us to face the evil of the world."

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/01/05/13/hitler-statue-holocaust-site-stirs-controversy

Seems to be the same Rabbi.

― Tullamorte Tullamore (ShariVari), Saturday, 12 January 2013 15:27 (5 months ago) Permalink

Well at least he's consistent.

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Saturday, 12 January 2013 15:31 (5 months ago) Permalink

http://forward.com/articles/168948/german-travelogue-unveils-stubborn-anti-semitism/

good news, everyone!

― Mordy, Monday, 14 January 2013 20:01 (5 months ago) Permalink

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/14/3116806/jew-is-a-new-word-for-cool-in-dutch-linguist-says

― max, Monday, 14 January 2013 21:57 (5 months ago) Permalink

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-demand-apology-for-anti-semitic-netanyahu-cartoon/

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:44 (4 months ago) Permalink

Well is that cartoon anti-semitic? Dubious allegation imo. It's blunt but I could imagine Scarfe drawing a similarly gory image a few years ago with Tony Blair or George Bush.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 19:48 (4 months ago) Permalink

bibi and his big nose are building a wall w/ the blood of arabs. can't imagine what's anti-semitic about that.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:48 (4 months ago) Permalink

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2013/01/which_one_of_these_antisemitic.html

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:48 (4 months ago) Permalink

Like the Israeli cartoonist in the article says, Bibi's nose isn't that big compared to your standard Scarfe caricature. And what's anti-semitic about a wall or blood? (in this context, not in the case of blood libel obviously) The Eternal Jew poster that the blogger claims Scarfe "emulates" doesn't look like it at all.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 19:55 (4 months ago) Permalink

lol ok

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:55 (4 months ago) Permalink

What's wrong? Never seen an anti-Semitic caricature of an Israeli politician before?

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:56 (4 months ago) Permalink

Nothing to see here...

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:57 (4 months ago) Permalink

Don't see the original cartoon as anti-Semitic myself.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:57 (4 months ago) Permalink

Cartoonists should avoid drawing noses on Israeli politicians to avoid this kind of controversy though.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:58 (4 months ago) Permalink

Don't worry about it.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:59 (4 months ago) Permalink

I particularly like how the blood is dripping out of the cracks of the wall. Such attention to detail.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:59 (4 months ago) Permalink

every time this happens they say they would do the same for putin or whatever, which might be true but is always oblivious to the overdetermination, that where israel is concerned there is always a litany of old antisemitic tropes produced by the same 'neutral' imagery

― Why they hide the bodice under décolletage? (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:00 (4 months ago) Permalink

"in this context, not in the case of blood libel obviously"

why not? that's the exact association that makes it look antisemitic.

― nostormo, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:00 (4 months ago) Permalink

They should probably stop brutalising Palestinians maybe

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:01 (4 months ago) Permalink

some of the responses here boggle the fuck out of me, and then I remember:

OMG I WANT THIS AMAZING RONALDINHO BOTTLE OPENER

― Bel-Air the Fresh Prince, sitting in a chair (DJP), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:01 (4 months ago) Permalink

it's (accidentally?) quite evocative of this:

When astrologers told the Pharaoh that an Israelite male child born at that time would grow up to overthrow Pharaoh, Pharaoh decided to kill all the male children born to the Israelites. He ordered them thrown into the Nile River.
Pharaoh was stricken with a skin disease. His doctors told him that only baths of blood could cure his disease. So Pharaoh bathed in the blood of Israelite babies.
When the subjugation was at its worst, the Egyptians forced upon the Israelites an unreasonable quota of bricks. If the Israelites failed to fill the quota of bricks, their children were killed in front of them, and the bodies were mixed into the brick-mortar.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:02 (4 months ago) Permalink

They should probably stop brutalising Palestinians maybe

yeah! stop brutalizing the palestinians, jews and we'll stop running anti-semitic comics in the uk press!

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:03 (4 months ago) Permalink

Please continue to tie your support of the Palestinian nationalism movement to your support of anti-semitic comics on ILX. You're definitely doing your argument a service.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:05 (4 months ago) Permalink

scarfe's end titles for yes minister/yes prime minister

― beez in the katz (zvookster), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:05 (4 months ago) Permalink

Or they won't be perceived to be anti-Semitic because of ya know caricatures

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:05 (4 months ago) Permalink

it's not like these shitty cartoons are of any political value

like if someone tells steve bell that depicting benyamin netanyahu as the puppetmaster behind the uk foreign office is not merely politically fatuous but also antisemitic, and he no longer gets to do shitty cartoons about israel, the world will still be the same

― Why they hide the bodice under décolletage? (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:05 (4 months ago) Permalink

Mordy, posting other cartoons that are anti-semitic doesn't prove that this one is. That may be your personal response but it's not a clear-cut case. This Haaretz writer puts a strong case for the defence:

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/four-reasons-why-u-k-cartoon-of-netanyahu-isn-t-anti-semitic-in-any-way.premium-1.496880

xp nostormo, are you seriously saying that no cartoon critical of Israel is allowed to include blood because, in a different, specific context, blood is used as an anti-semitic image? Should this be the only case where the depiction of blood is not allowed at all?

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:06 (4 months ago) Permalink

should cartoonists avoid blood when depicting jewish subjects? honest q

― beez in the katz (zvookster), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:06 (4 months ago) Permalink

should cartoonists avoid apes when depicting black presidents? honest q.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:06 (4 months ago) Permalink

Wouldn't want to offend Bibi

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:07 (4 months ago) Permalink

Gukbe, I love arguing with you about this. You do all the heavy lifting for me.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:07 (4 months ago) Permalink

xp Fatuous q.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:08 (4 months ago) Permalink

Should a culture that has been suffering persecution for thousands of years be exempt from criticism when they persecute?

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:08 (4 months ago) Permalink

I'm not really arguing with you mordy but I'm glad you're enjoying it.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:09 (4 months ago) Permalink

should cartoonists avoid apes when depicting black presidents? honest q.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:06 (2 minutes ago)

thankfully steve bell, having spent 8 yrs drawing his predecessor as a chimp, has restrained himself wrt obama

― Why they hide the bodice under décolletage? (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:10 (4 months ago) Permalink

Dead Palestinians noses seem about proportionally the same but I guess you have a monopoly on what is anti Semitic.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:11 (4 months ago) Permalink

Yeah, Gukbe, maybe I know better than you what constitutes anti-semitism.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:11 (4 months ago) Permalink

But hey, continue to explain how it's cool bc Israel is persecuting the Palestinians.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:11 (4 months ago) Permalink

I'm not saying anti semitism is cool.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:13 (4 months ago) Permalink

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but Palestinians are Semitic as well, aren't they? So Gukbe's observation kind of strengthens Mordy's argument?

― Bel-Air the Fresh Prince, sitting in a chair (DJP), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:14 (4 months ago) Permalink

The term antisemitism was invented by Wilhelm Marr to be a scientific + classy way of referring to Jew hatred. It has nothing to do with Semitic languages or ethnic backgrounds.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:16 (4 months ago) Permalink

well that's not helpful!

― Bel-Air the Fresh Prince, sitting in a chair (DJP), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:17 (4 months ago) Permalink

Should a culture that has been suffering persecution for thousands of years be exempt from criticism when they persecute?

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:08 (2 minutes ago)

this is so stupid, even if the suggestion that 'a culture' somehow has agency for israeli state policy is merely accidental

there are a million ways to criticize israel, just not using shitty cartoons

so effectively israel gets an exemption there, wow how unfair

― Why they hide the bodice under décolletage? (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:17 (4 months ago) Permalink

I was bei g facetious going along with the previous line of questions

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:19 (4 months ago) Permalink

not sure if the scarfe is specifically antisemitic but it is hateful and in poor taste

― abanana, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:19 (4 months ago) Permalink

Joseph Kony is a horrible, horrible person, but a political cartoon that showed him half-naked in body paint with a bone through his nose eating children would still be considered racist. There's no need to feel like condemning this cartoon is de facto condoning Israeli policy.

― Bel-Air the Fresh Prince, sitting in a chair (DJP), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:19 (4 months ago) Permalink

I don't think it is, but I'm not sure this image is up there with, say, Alec Guiness in Great Expectations.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:21 (4 months ago) Permalink

xp Of course not, but nor does thinking this cartoon isn't anti-semitic count as condoning anti-semitism. And there's nothing in this cartoon equivalent to a bone through Joseph Kony's nose imo.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:22 (4 months ago) Permalink

This isn't reducing Bibi to a stereotype like that Kony example is what I guess my point is. But sure, if you want to find it, I guess it's there.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:22 (4 months ago) Permalink

the antisemitic elements of the cartoon are relatively mild it's true

― Why they hide the bodice under décolletage? (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:23 (4 months ago) Permalink

1) "Arabs are semites too" is a pointless semantic canard -- "antisemitism" has been used to mean only one thing for many decades. If we just said "racist against Jews" or something like that I guess we could avoid having this annoying discussion every time, but it's always just used as a conversation disruptor -- whether Arabs are semites has nothing to do with whether a cartoon is anti-Jewish or not.

2) I think the issue is not really any isolated factor (nose, blood, w/e) but the tendency to make Israeli politicians look extra-sinister and bloodthirsty. I don't think I've ever seen a major western newspaper portray obama as doing anything like eating babies or sealing walls with blood in re, e.g., criticisms of drone strikes, or even Bush wrt the Iraq war, but I could be wrong.

― space phwoar (Hurting 2), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:24 (4 months ago) Permalink

there is a difference between "blood" in general and using palestinian blood to built a wall after murdering them.

the cartoonist is not antisemitic but that's not the problem. the problem is that for some other people it does.
(i wonder what would be the reaction for a similar Muhammad cartoon)

regardless of the cartoonist/cartoon, here are some issues regarding this matter:

1. subconscious
2. "anti-israelism" as confused with antisemitism and vice versa.
3. is there a "liberal" who would truly admit he is antisemitic? (see also 1)

― nostormo, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:24 (4 months ago) Permalink

2.) is an interesting point.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:25 (4 months ago) Permalink

That said, that cartoon is relatively mild in its antisemitic elements, I agree, and also Bibi is kind of sinister.

― space phwoar (Hurting 2), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:25 (4 months ago) Permalink

Xposts

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:25 (4 months ago) Permalink

re: leftists and anti-semitism, I defer to Postone

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/02/05/zionism-anti-semitism-and-left

On the other hand there were Jews, many of them members of Communist parties, who viewed any expression of Jewish identity as anathema to their own notions of what I would call abstract Enlightenment notions of humanity. For example, Trotsky, in an earlier phase, referred to the Bund as “sea-sick Zionists”. Note that the critique of Zionism here had nothing to do with Palestine or the situation of the Palestinians, since the Bund was focused entirely on autonomy within the Russian empire and rejected Zionism. Rather, Trotsky’s equation of the Bund and Zionism implied a rejection of any form of Jewish communal self-identification. Trotsky, I think, changed his mind later on, but that attitude was fairly typical. Communist organisations tended to be very strongly opposed to Jewish nationalism of any sort, whether cultural nationalism, political nationalism, or Zionism. This is one strand of anti-Zionism. It is not necessarily anti-semitic, but rejects Jewish collective self-identification in the name of abstract universalism. Yet, frequently, this form of anti-Zionism is inconsistent – it is willing to accord national self-determination to most peoples, but not to Jews. It is at this point that what presents itself as abstractly universal becomes ideological. Moreover, the meaning of such abstract universalism itself changes with historical context. After the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel, this abstract universalism serves to veil the history of Jews in Europe. This fulfils a very useful, historically “cleansing” dual function: the violence historically perpetrated by Europeans on Jews is erased; at the same time the horrors of European colonialism now become attributed to the Jews. In this case, the abstract universalism expressed by many anti-Zionists today becomes an ideology of legitimation that helps constitute a form of amnesia regarding the long history of European actions, policies and ideologies toward the Jews, while essentially continuing that history. The Jews have once again become the singular object of European indignation. The solidarity most Jews feel toward other Jews, including in Israel – however understandable following the Holocaust – is now decried. This form of anti-Zionism has become one of the bases for a programme to eradicate actually existing Jewish self-determination. It converges with some forms of Arab nationalism – now coded as singularly progressive.
Another strand of left anti-Zionism – this time deeply anti-semitic – was introduced by the Soviet Union, particularly in the show trials in Eastern Europe after World War Two. This was particularly dramatic in the case of the Slansky trial, when most of the members of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party were tried and then shot. All of the charges against them were classically anti-semitic charges: they were rootless, they were cosmopolitan, and they were part of a general global conspiracy. Because the Soviet Union could not officially use the language of anti-semitism, they began to use the word “Zionist” to mean exactly what anti-Semites mean when they speak of Jews.
These Czechoslovak CP leaders, who had nothing to do with Zionism — most of them were Spanish Civil War veterans — were shot as Zionists.
This strand of anti-semitic anti-Zionism was imported into the Middle East during the Cold War, in part by the intelligence services of countries like East Germany. A form of anti-semitism was introduced into the Middle East that was “legitimate” for the Left, and was called anti-Zionism.
Its origins had nothing to do with a movement against Israeli settlement. Of course, the Arab population of Palestine reacted negatively to Jewish immigration and resisted it. That’s very understandable. That in itself is certainly not anti-semitic. But these strands of anti-Zionism converged historically.
As for the third strand, there has been a change in the last ten years or so, starting with the Palestinian movement itself, with regard to the existence of Israel. For years most Palestinian organizations refused to accept the existence of Israel. In 1988, however, the PLO decided that it would accept the existence of Israel. The second intifada, which begun in 2000, was politically very different from the first intifada, and entailed a reversal of that decision.
I regard that as having been a fundamental political mistake, and I think it is remarkable and unfortunate that the Left has gotten caught up in it and, increasingly, is calling for the abolition of Israel. However, today in the Middle East there are roughly as many Jews as there are Palestinians. Any strategy based on analogies to situations like Algeria or South Africa simply won’t work, on demographic as well as political and historical grounds.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:27 (4 months ago) Permalink

it's (accidentally?) quite evocative of this:
When astrologers told the Pharaoh that an Israelite male child born at that time would grow up to overthrow Pharaoh, Pharaoh decided to kill all the male children born to the Israelites. He ordered them thrown into the Nile River.
Pharaoh was stricken with a skin disease. His doctors told him that only baths of blood could cure his disease. So Pharaoh bathed in the blood of Israelite babies.
When the subjugation was at its worst, the Egyptians forced upon the Israelites an unreasonable quota of bricks. If the Israelites failed to fill the quota of bricks, their children were killed in front of them, and the bodies were mixed into the brick-mortar.
― Mordy, Monday, January 28, 2013 3:02 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this is crucial and key.

― how's life, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:29 (4 months ago) Permalink

I am not shy about saying that I think a preponderance of leftist anti-zionism is a smokescreen for PC anti-semitism. I don't go around calling it out in discussions about Israel bc I think I can make much stronger points and arguments just discussing anti-zionist critiques on their own ground. But I rarely enter a conversation about anti-zionism where I do not hear numerous comments, remarks and provocations that seem rooted in anti-semitism, not in "legitimate" critiques of Israel.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:29 (4 months ago) Permalink

3) also doing it on Holocaust rememberance day

I think this is kind of a tricky point. There's a common argument you hear that the holocaust doesn't somehow "excuse" wrongs committed by Israel, and I say well of course it doesn't. But conversely, Israel's wrongs should not be used as an excuse to minimize the holocaust, which I think is what happens every time someone thinks they are being clever by connecting the holocaust and any wrongs committed by Israel.

― space phwoar (Hurting 2), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:29 (4 months ago) Permalink

I don't want the abolition of Israel fwiw

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:30 (4 months ago) Permalink

xp We don't need telling that there's anti-semitism on the left and that some critics of current Israeli policy are anti-semitic. I've seen enough loathsome star-of-david=swastika banners on demonstrations.

Agreed that the timing was shitty and needlessly provocative. This isn't something anyone needs to see on Holocaust Memorial Day.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:32 (4 months ago) Permalink

Obviously linking any criticism of Israel w/ the Holocaust (especially the rhetorical tropes that Jews are the new Nazis, or that Israel has ironically become the Nazis that once persecuted them) is anti-semitism. There's no reason to evoke the Holocaust when critiquing Israel except to be hurtful to Jews. Especially since it is a terrible historical parallel - there has been no genocide of the Palestinians and in fact Israel delivers aid to Gaza and the Palestinian communities have boomed over the last 80 years. Which is not to say that there is never nothing to criticize about Israeli "treatment" of Palestinians, but that calling it a genocide is an anti-semitic trope imho.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:32 (4 months ago) Permalink

wouldn't blood be all slippery and a poor excuse for mortar? not sure this makes any sense

― mh, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:32 (4 months ago) Permalink

pertinent > http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-British-Left-Zionism-History/dp/0719088135

― ogmor, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:34 (4 months ago) Permalink

I think a lot of Palestinians would disagree about the amazing amount of aid certain communities are getting.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:38 (4 months ago) Permalink

Israel sends a tremendous amount of aid to Gaza. Whether it is sufficient, or makes up for the embargo, etc is worth a discussion but doesn't seem relevant to this thread.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:41 (4 months ago) Permalink

nakh and djp otm itt

― max, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:42 (4 months ago) Permalink

My only point was that there is clearly no policy of extermination or genocide against the Palestinians by Israel, whatever their other crimes may be. Using those terms then is - uh - problematic to say the least.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:42 (4 months ago) Permalink

― Why they hide the bodice under décolletage? (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, January 28, 2013 3:00 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this seems fairly clear cut to me.

― max, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:43 (4 months ago) Permalink

I just think your framing of it as "not that bad, but yes there are some problems" is a bit disingenuous. Not at all saying its anything approaching the holocaust, mind.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:43 (4 months ago) Permalink

If you want to discuss particular problems, I encourage you to post to the rolling middle east thread where I'd love to discuss your critiques with you. Israel is not committing genocide against the Palestinians. To say otherwise is anti-semitic. That's my only point.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:45 (4 months ago) Permalink

I'm not sure I buy that though. Ignorant criticism does not necessarily equal some kind of racial prejudice.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:45 (4 months ago) Permalink

Do you really believe ppl call Gaza a concentration camp and accuse Israel of committing genocide because they're just ignorant about the actual facts?

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:47 (4 months ago) Permalink

Yes, protesters love hyperbole. Look at basically every protest ever.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:47 (4 months ago) Permalink

If you want to find anti semitism in that cartoon you can, and if you're predisposed to that sort of mentality of course you can find it in any and every argument that, shall we say, lacks nuance.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:49 (4 months ago) Permalink

― Why they hide the bodice under décolletage? (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, January 28, 2013 3:00 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this seems fairly clear cut to me.

― max, Monday, 28 January 2013

yeah i accept this. and there is in this the bravado of the stand-up comedian breaking taboos, being shocking to reveal truth, which usually turns out to be hubris

― beez in the katz (zvookster), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:51 (4 months ago) Permalink

There's also the abiding shitness of political cartoonists when they're so outraged or horrified that they can't be witty or original and fall back on the same old tropes: blood-soaked hands, piles of skulls, the Grim Reaper, etc. And some of those tropes are undoubtedly more problematic when applied to Israel but whether they're actually anti-semitic is in the eye of the beholder and, as the Haaretz writer, points out, Scarfe omits anything with obvious anti-semitic connotations.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:56 (4 months ago) Permalink

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:57 (4 months ago) Permalink

Political cartoons are pretty stupid. I always think of Brandt from The Day Today.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:58 (4 months ago) Permalink

i mean i think (hope?) that scarfe is not "actually" anti-semitic but cartoonists of all people should be aware of the power & resonance of certain symbols & imagery

― max, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:58 (4 months ago) Permalink

like blood and towering over people as if to devour them

― beez in the katz (zvookster), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:00 (4 months ago) Permalink

Cartoonists should be careful, but I just don't see anything in this outside of Scarfe's regular style. I

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:00 (4 months ago) Permalink

Yes, protesters love hyperbole. Look at basically every protest ever.

This is why I try not to introduce anti-Semitism into discussions with anti-Zionists. There is too much plausible deniability. I don't know that the cartoonist hates Jews in his heart. I know that he doesn't like Jews very much. No one who likes Jews would criticize Israeli policy w/ a cartoon about a Jew using Arab blood as mortar in a wall. They'd find a way to criticize it that couldn't be "misinterpreted" as anti-Semitic. And that's really at the heart of it - he's either evil or thoughtless, and at least one Jew thought those two things were the same.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:01 (4 months ago) Permalink

I guess I should start thinking of Jews as the same as Israel to make sure I appreciate the sensitivity.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:02 (4 months ago) Permalink

u imply antisemitism on the reg xp

― beez in the katz (zvookster), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:02 (4 months ago) Permalink

I "imply." Ironic!

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:03 (4 months ago) Permalink

Gukbe, about ~40% of the world Jewish population lives in Israel. Maybe you didn't realize that?

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:03 (4 months ago) Permalink

I do realise that, but...uh...so?

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:05 (4 months ago) Permalink

You wrote: "I guess I should start thinking of Jews as the same as Israel to make sure I appreciate the sensitivity."

When you're criticizing the Jewish State where almost half the world Jewish population lives it's kinda unavoidable that you're talking about Jews?

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:06 (4 months ago) Permalink

I'm not comfortable tying a group of people inextricably to a nation. Certainly not comfortable tying a group of people to Bibi.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:06 (4 months ago) Permalink

Except a State is different than a People.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:06 (4 months ago) Permalink

I'd say if you want to avoid anti-Semitism, when you criticize Israel avoid hyperbole that seems cribbed from anti-Semitic cartoons in the 40s? You don't need to make a big deal about how Israel does not represent all Jews or how criticizing the State is not criticizing Jews, etc. Just stay away from the anti-Semitic tropes when talking about Israel.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:08 (4 months ago) Permalink

Maybe, but again, we disagree on the level of antisemitism going on in that cartoon.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:09 (4 months ago) Permalink

But yes I would avoid a Gargamel type figure.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:09 (4 months ago) Permalink

I wonder what is at stake for you in arguing that the cartoon is not antisemitic. Are you afraid that if we agree that building walls with Arab blood is an antisemitic image that legitimate criticisms of Israel will be off the table?

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:10 (4 months ago) Permalink

"I can't suggest that Bibi is building a wall out of Arab blood? What's next? I can't criticize Israel's policies of rejecting movement visas from Gaza to the West Bank? I can't criticize the embargo?"

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:10 (4 months ago) Permalink

What's at stake is a dude drew Bibi with a hot crazy oversized nose but its still antisemetic.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:11 (4 months ago) Permalink

With a not*

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:11 (4 months ago) Permalink

hahahaha what a typo

― Bel-Air the Fresh Prince, sitting in a chair (DJP), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:11 (4 months ago) Permalink

So people hurl around accusations that he has an innate hatred of a group of people.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:12 (4 months ago) Permalink

In the very least, the creator of this image is responsible for being aware of how his imagery conforms to historically racist tropes. So, too are the editors.

DJP pointed to the racist bottle-opener thread, and I think that's a solid comparison.

We can argue about intent, but c'mon, look at it!

"People hurl around accusations"

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:12 (4 months ago) Permalink

Which is a bigger problem in the world: Anti-semitism, or false accusations of anti-semitism?

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:13 (4 months ago) Permalink

I think that is a false dichotomy

― mh, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:16 (4 months ago) Permalink

Ridiculous question. One is worse, both are bad. The existence of anti-semitism doesn't give you license to make accusations of anti-semitism and dismiss any alternative interpretation.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:17 (4 months ago) Permalink

I think that if someone says that they find something anti-semitic you can take them at their word and not assume it's a conspiracy to label critics of Israel as anti-semites in order to shout down their criticism.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:18 (4 months ago) Permalink

I wouldn't mind so much if you hadn't linked to a blog which compared it to a Goebbels poster which it looks nothing like. If you compare a cartoonist with no record of anti-semitism (afaik) to one of Goebbels' pet hatemongers then some people are going to disagree.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:19 (4 months ago) Permalink

Oh poor thing, he's been accused of drawing an anti-semitic comic and he doesn't even have a record!

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:20 (4 months ago) Permalink

I'm in agreement with you about this cartoonmordy. But I think that the over zealous tendency of groups like the ADL to label things as anti Semitic can be unfair both to people who say things and to Jewish people in general, who get unfairly lumped in with Israel, when through are actually from Baltimore or wherever.

― how's life, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:21 (4 months ago) Permalink

If only the Jews hadn't declared this anti-semitic, surely this cartoon would've brought down the Likud government I'm sure!

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:21 (4 months ago) Permalink

Isn't there some degree to which you're shouting down the criticism, as hackneyed as it is, of the cartoon by just labelling it and its author antisemetic or at least of having a hatred of the Jews?

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:21 (4 months ago) Permalink

xxp I don't defend everything Abe Foxman says!

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:21 (4 months ago) Permalink

If someone says they find something anti-semitic, then I can take them at their word that they find that thing anti-semitic. If I think it aligns with known features of anti-semitic thought, including physical characteristics, I may make the same conclusion. If a number of people explain they find that the case, even if I don't see it, I'll submit that for all intents and purposes it is anti-semitic.

It's intent versus interpretation, and interpretation wins every time, even if it's not the original intent. I think the idea is that no one person is an arbiter of what is or isn't racist or anti-semitic. The problem is that people aren't smart enough to make a clear case without showing their inherent biases in these fucking godawful political cartoons

― mh, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:22 (4 months ago) Permalink

xp As far as I can tell there is no legitimate critique this cartoon is making that is being ignored by focusing on its anti-semitism. Can you see a legitimate critique?

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:22 (4 months ago) Permalink

i learned there are two different shitty british cartoonists, scarfe AND steve bell. always saw these as from the same dude.

― goole, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:23 (4 months ago) Permalink

I think Steve Bell has more "issues" in this area.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:24 (4 months ago) Permalink

Like, if he drew a cartoon about a Palestinian man who couldn't get a visa to visit his family in the West Bank and was trapped in Gaza, and instead of focusing on this point I kept complaining that the border guard had a possibly Jewish seeming nose, I could get that it would seem like I'm shouting down a legitimate critique. But what's the legitimate critique here? He's condemning Bibi's policy of killing Arabs and baking them into walls?

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:25 (4 months ago) Permalink

. always saw these as from the same dude.

apart from the fact that their drawings look nothing alike??

― Ward Fowler, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:26 (4 months ago) Permalink

But the question here is not "Is this a good and informative cartoon?" Because no it's not.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:26 (4 months ago) Permalink

Gukbe wrote: "Isn't there some degree to which you're shouting down the criticism, as hackneyed as it is, of the cartoon by just labelling it and its author antisemetic or at least of having a hatred of the Jews?"

I'm asking what the criticism is that Gukbe thinks I'm shouting down.

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:27 (4 months ago) Permalink

Anyway, it's not anybody's place to say whether or not you personally should find something anti-semitic but when some Israeli Jews are on the record saying that it's not it's at least up for debate.

― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:28 (4 months ago) Permalink

There are Jews who think all kinds of sick shit is fair game:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilad_Atzmon

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:29 (4 months ago) Permalink

on some level, everything is up for debate; the bigger question is always "is this a debate worth having?"

― Bel-Air the Fresh Prince, sitting in a chair (DJP), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:32 (4 months ago) Permalink

re: Atzmon the "self-hating Jew" accusation always seems weird/wrong to me

― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:37 (4 months ago) Permalink

apart from the fact that their drawings look nothing alike??

― Ward Fowler, Monday, January 28, 2013 3:26 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey, i saw the bibi cartoon and thought it looked the same as the shitty chimpy-bush and big-eared blair cartoons that make it onto ilx. i'm not a great student of british political cartooning i'll admit.

― goole, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:38 (4 months ago) Permalink

self-hating Jew is a cute Freudian trope, but i don't think it's a great explanation of particular behavior. maybe he internalizes anti-semitic critiques and is reproducing them, or maybe he's just a sick provocateur, or maybe he's really dumb, or maybe he's incredibly cynical. xp

― Mordy, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:39 (4 months ago) Permalink

wow, all british cartoons look the same to you huh goole? sick

― max, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:42 (4 months ago) Permalink

goole - most british political cartooning is p terrible, you're not missing out on much. but scarfe is really an illustrator more than a cartoonist (there is a bit of a 'debate' about why there are many similarities between the work of scarfe and ralph steadman), whereas bell is heavily influenced by r. crumb and certain vintage britishes comic strip artists like leo baxendale or ken reid - or - sharp lines vs. soft edges.

― Ward Fowler, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:45 (4 months ago) Permalink

fwiw i find it equally hard to distinguish between american political cartoonists, who all seem to draw in the same (oliphant-derived?) style and format (not getting the 'joke' half the time doesn't help)

― Ward Fowler, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:47 (4 months ago) Permalink

(there is a bit of a 'debate' about why there are many similarities between the work of scarfe and ralph steadman)

lol i was gonna say

― goole, Monday, 28 January 2013 21:51 (4 months ago) Permalink

I recognize that, like many Jews, I tend to be a little bit on edge about the representation of Jews in the media. It's like when Matt Taibbi called Goldman Sachs a "vampire squid" -- on one hand, you can probably make a pretty good case for Goldman Sachs being a vampire squid. On the other hand, the use of that language, specifically to refer to not even wall street generally, but to the bank with basically the #1 most Jewish sounding name, and with the CEO who, sorry, looks a little like a nazi caricature of a Jew (which, I realize, is no one's fault). Did I think Taibbi had any malicious intent toward Jews in using that term? No moreso than he has malicious intent toward everyone in his litany of bad guys. But I still felt pretty uncomfortable with it.

The thing about anti-semitism vs. anti-zionism is that, yes, there are many people who legitimately criticize israel and are even against the idea of a jewish state altogether and yet bear no ill will toward jews. So I recognize the distinction. But I have also witnessed a tendency to just kind of relocate antisemitism to antizionism, much as people who say "I don't hate black people, I just hate N**GERS" don't really get away from the dehumanizing aspects of racism, they just create a large subset to impose them on. (not a perfect parallel, but I think it illustrates the point).

So being that I'm a person who is largely critical of Israel, and even ambivalent about its existence as a Jewish state, I am very open to harsh criticism of Israel. But I still bristle every time that criticism starts to look anything like old anti-semitic tropes. Saying "I don't hate Jews, I just hate bloodsucking zionists" is hardly reassuring to me.

― space phwoar (Hurting 2), Monday, 28 January 2013 22:37 (4 months ago) Permalink

He's here to help

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21239917

― DG, Monday, 28 January 2013 22:51 (4 months ago) Permalink

Is it in any way anti-semitic to be extremely skeptical of evangelical Christians who have weird ideas about Israel and feel some sort of religious calling to support leaders of their government? They're the only unabashedly pro-Israeli state people I feel funny about.

― mh, Monday, 28 January 2013 22:57 (4 months ago) Permalink

why would it?

― Why they hide the bodice under décolletage? (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 28 January 2013 22:58 (4 months ago) Permalink

― mh, Monday, January 28, 2013 5:57 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't even care if you "feel funny" about pro-Israel Jews in general, as long as you don't imagine their support for Israel as coming from some kind of demonic lust for Palestinian blood

― space phwoar (Hurting 2), Monday, 28 January 2013 23:12 (4 months ago) Permalink

Scarfe did all the Pink Floyd Wall stuff, so I think he's very distinctive. But I don't like Pink Floyd, so that might go some way in explaining why I have a low opinion of his political cartoon abilities.

Re the criticism: I said it was hackneyed, but when the Israeli army kills x number of Palestinians versus the number of Israelis dead, or they reportedly use white phosphorus on citizens, not to mention the entire settlement absurdity, I don't think it's totally out of nowhere. It's not like there isn't a huge fucking wall of note in the region, not to mention the "building" of settlements in supposedly Palestinian regions. But I thought this wasn't the place for that kind of discussion. My point was that if people berate those who attack something anti-Semitic as a way to sidestep an argument, surely charging something is antisemetic works in the same way. You said earlier that you find a lot of leftist antiIsrael arguments to be a smokescreen for anti semitism, which is fine and probably fair a decent amount of the time, but writing something off as an innate hatred within the person making the argument is also a way of delegitimising their argument.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 23:19 (4 months ago) Permalink

I should add that I think there are a lot of these problems that are very specific to Bibi and his regime. I wouldn't assume all Americans are for drone strikes and extrajudicial killings just because their president is.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 23:20 (4 months ago) Permalink

Should say "our" president but I'm in the UK on holiday so I'm taking a break from being an American.

― Gukbe, Monday, 28 January 2013 23:22 (4 months ago) Permalink

― space phwoar (Hurting 2), Monday, January 28, 2013 5:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

― zero dark (s1ocki), Monday, 28 January 2013 23:52 (4 months ago) Permalink

I think I was just gauging opinion

I don't feel in any way qualified to judge any of this, but I'm quietly nodding along to Nilmar/Hurting right now

― mh, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:01 (4 months ago) Permalink

also you can be anti-israel without bringing the word 'zion' into the picture

― iatee, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:04 (4 months ago) Permalink

yes, it's not like people use the term "americaists" in criticizing the USA (although zionism was an actual thing, it seems like it's more of a convenient epithet these days)

― zero dark (s1ocki), Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:05 (4 months ago) Permalink

Yeah, I don't like the Zionism term.

― Gukbe, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:06 (4 months ago) Permalink

anyone who pretends like its a neutral term is full of shit

― iatee, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:07 (4 months ago) Permalink

I agree with Hurting, btw, I just don't think this cartoon adheres to those tropes.

― Gukbe, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:07 (4 months ago) Permalink

Well, just on a gut level it immediately made me uncomfortable. At that point I tried to ask myself whether that might just be because I am needlessly taking it personally, in a reflexive sort of way, when it isn't actually aimed at me. It kind of has the look and feel of anti-semitic cartoons, if that makes any sense. There's certainly a deep hostility in it and an attempt to demonize -- it makes it look as though Bibi is a monster for whom killing Palestinians is an end in itself. But maybe it's just a sophomoric cartoon with not much to say, and nothing more.

― space phwoar (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:13 (4 months ago) Permalink

If I am allowed to hate a good many of the actions and policies of my own nation, while still feeling able to see many good traits and qualities in it and its people, then I can just as well hate many of the actions and policies of Israel without getting confused about whether I "hate jews". But, as a goy, if I criticize Israel's policies, I'm never going to be free of the suspicion that I'm just disguising that I am anti-semitic.

**imploringly throws his hands skyward, tilts head back and speaks as if to god**

SUCH an aggravation!

― Aimless, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:16 (4 months ago) Permalink

I think it's a sophomoric cartoon, but it didn't make me uncomfortable. It's just another absurd political cartoon. That said, I didn't see it as a cartoon about Bibi desiring the death of Palestinians as an end to itself. I think it's suggesting he's building what he's building on the oppression of the Palestinians.

― Gukbe, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:17 (4 months ago) Permalink

I do feel he is, to some extent, rallying people behind him by playing up an anti-Palestinian bent.

― Gukbe, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:18 (4 months ago) Permalink

it's not like people use the term "americaists" in criticizing the USA

we prefer "imperialist dogs" thanks

― mh, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 00:49 (4 mon