Posted on 02/21/2006 2:31:17 PM PST by Alouette
Last week in England, the Cartoon Jihad was not all the rage. There was time aplenty to smear Israel. In truth, judging by the surge of anti-Israel rhetoric, one could almost be misled into thinking that it was not about Danish cartoons that Muslim mobs were burning European embassies and stoning European peace-keepers.
First, the Church of England's Synod voted to divest from Israel, proving - if any further proof were needed - that the Anglican Church has morphed into the liberal-democrats' party conference assembled in prayer.
Not to be outdone by their spiritual leaders, students hosted anti-Israel events: at Warwick University there was a debate on the alleged Palestinian "right of return"; at Oxford there was an "Israel apartheid week"; and at Cambridge the Student Union debated whether Zionism is the most dangerous threat to the Jewish people.
With Hamas in power, Iran ranting and going nuclear and the Middle East on fire on account of 12 cartoons, the Cambridge Student Union could do better than devote its yearly debate on regional issues to whether Jews have a right to self-determination. In the event, all it proved was that intelligence is not a prerequisite for admission into top British universities.
Needless to say, Jews featured prominently in all these events. Haifa University's Prof. Ilan Pappe spoke at both Warwick and Oxford, where he was introduced by his comrade, Prof. Steven Rose of academic boycott fame. Their UCLA colleague, Gabi Piterberg, offered the opening speech at Oxford (though he bailed out of the Cambridge debate at the last minute).
BUT IT WAS at Cambridge that the Jews took center stage. After all, the motion had to do with their identity. Accordingly, the Student Union ensured that the two opposing teams of debaters included Jews only. Perhaps that is why Piterberg bailed out: He did not want to be a member of a segregated panel where Arabs did not have the same right as Jews to discuss and demean Jewish identity.
In the end, though, what is good for the Jews was determined not by the Jews themselves - though the fight was fair and the arguments poignant - but by a vote of the assembled Union. This time it was a close call, with those defending Zionism losing by only four votes.
The Ayes won narrowly, 125-121, but the Jews would have lost anyway. In the minds of the liberal elites of tomorrow's Europe, Jews can never determine their own identity. Only others can, those who know better than the Jewish people what's good for them.
And though nearly half the Jewish people live in Israel and the other half overwhelmingly gives Israel a central place in their own Jewish identity, liberal intellectuals know better: We, the enlightened liberal elite, will dictate the conditions for a Jewish identity the world can tolerate. And when we do that, we can always find a token Jew to endorse this view.
Pitching Jews against Jews is not a novelty, and in the latest Israel hate-fests it appears to be the most popular show in town. The Cambridge event was a repetition of last year's Intelligence Squared debate that saw Melanie Phillips, Rafi Israeli and Shlomo Ben-Ami face Avi Shlaim, Jacqueline Rose and Amira Hass.
THIS TIME, the speakers were Ned Temko of The Observer, Daniel Shek of BICOM and London barrister Jeremy Brier defending Zionism against Oxford don Brian Klug, former Israeli journalist Daphna Baram and Richard Cooper, a representative for Jews for Justice for the Palestinians. Their arguments were as predictable as their victory: Klug decried the conflation of Judaism and Zionism, arguing that in the modern world there is no place for nationalism.
No place that is, except in most places, where nationalism is still proving a vital force for collective identity and political mobilization.
Baram pushed that line further by explaining that Israel's Jewish character means Israeli society is racist - the implication being that Israel must turn itself into "a state of all its citizens" and embrace multiculturalism. Given the ubiquitous nature of multiculturalism in the Arab world and the promise it holds for peaceful coexistence among religions and ethnic groups, one can excuse Baram for having permanently relocated to London.
But it was Cooper who, having compared Israel to apartheid South Africa, offered the best insight into the meaning of the debate. He complained about how the Jewish community marginalizes him on account of his political activism.
In the end, these self-flagellating Jews crave acceptance and recognition. Their views are moot inside the Jewish world, since they have, by and large, lost the argument against the Jewish mainstream and its commitment to Israel. Having been rejected by their fellow Jews, they put their venom to the service of Israel's enemies as a way of regaining a place in the sun.
Is it any wonder that they can win a debate about Jewish identity only when Israel's enemies define the terms of engagement, and have last say on the outcome?
The writer teaches Israel Studies at Oxford University. His book Israel's Electoral Reform will appear later this year.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
So the logic goes like this. If they bag on the
Jews, Islamo-fascists will leave them alone.
Where, oh where are the Lion Hearts?
Thanks for the ping Alouette.
American LIEberal Jews are not Israelis, don't forget that fact. Go to any NYT forum and you'll see Israel cut to pieces by Dems/LIEbs/LIEberal Jews etal.
It's not just liberal jews. A fair number of conservative orthodox jews are anti-zionist.
Yeah so EASY when you are a Jew HERE and Jewish Israelis are there.
BTW I'm Jewish too.
I bet these twerps never got into fights when they were kids--they probably never even got made fun of. Their parents gave them everything they wanted and never spanked 'em. I am convenced that when you have such an idyllic childhood, one tends to loose touch with reality.
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Noam Chomsky, Vladimir Zhirinovsky,...there are quite a lot. I also heard that in historical times, the people who are the terrible persecuters of Jews are conversos (ethnic Jews but "converted" from Judaism into "Christendom").
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Interesting. I always thought that the Jews who apothesized may in fact double their antisemitism so as to placate antisemitic Gentiles.
(Also as a Chinese evangelical Christian, I should stress that any antisemitism done in the name of Jesus are not Christian acts at all. They are clearly unbiblical and God clearly rebuked that attitude in Roman 11 when the Apostle Paul cautioned Gentile Christians at the Roman church of not becoming antisemitic:
"For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again."
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2011;&version=50;
This Bible passage has been, sadly, ignored by the generic Christendom time and time again
- NKJV)
BTW, are you Jewish? I'm curious since from the posts you made you seem to know many Hebrews that a Gentile in general would certainly not know.
I never could understand why there are so many self hating Jews, who are so eager to stand against Israel. Do they honestly think that they are seperating themselves from their heritage in the eyes of Jew haters, when they condem their own?
I consider myself an "adopted" Jew: and am very proud of it.
Therefore, I have no choice but to stand with my family and declare; May the Lord bless and protect Israel, and have mercy on the fools who curse and threaten her children.
Only the teeniest miniscule number of orthodox Jews are anti-Zionist. The Jewish people, Jewish religion and Jewish land are inextricably bound - one cannot survive long without the other two - the Liberal Jews of England are a proof case of this.
"Do they honestly think that they are seperating themselves from their heritage in the eyes of Jew haters, when they condem their own?"
Their Marxist parents and teachers taught them this. Comically some have been told that their attack on the Jews' historic homeland and the Jews' historic religion is a way to define themselves as Jews. Some Jews are still parroting the Reform Movement's pre-WWII antipathy to Israel, a position the Reform Movement quickly renounced after Kristalnacht. These anti-Israel Jews are profoundly disturbed and, if they have any intelligence at all, they can be no conclusion but that they are basically suicidal.
yeah.. except for all the Hasidim.
Don't be ignorant.
"I should stress that any antisemitism done in the name of Jesus are not Christian acts at all. They are clearly unbiblical and God clearly rebuked that attitude in Roman 11 when the Apostle Paul cautioned Gentile Christians at the Roman church of not becoming antisemitic:"
Amen, right-on, and you nailed it! Thank you!
There are different flavors of Hasidim. The Satmars are anti-Zionist, the Chabad (of which I am one) are very pro-Zionist. My son served a tour in an IDF combat unit. Since returning to civilian life, he was protesting the disengagement at Amona and was beaten on the head, dragged across barbed wire and broken glass and thrown into a cell.
The Left is against nationalism? Quick, someone alert La Raza Unida, and the IRA, and the PLO, and the ETA, and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, and Aztlan, and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, and the Black Panthers, and the Nation of Islam, and the Polisario Front, and the Scottish National Liberation Army, and the American Indian Movement, and the PKK, and Hugo Chavez, and Evo Morales, and . . .
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