Posted on 09/10/2002 3:41:31 PM PDT by zapiks44
In 2002, 60 years after the Holocaust, a Jewish girl cannot go out to an anti-neo-Nazi rally and hold up the Israeli flag.
The past two years have been a perplexing time to be a young "liberal" Jew in America. As an Israeli American, I have often been required to defend Israel from her liberal detractors. An epidemic is crossing our nation's campuses, as confused college kids are lumping together the American civil rights movement with the anti-apartheid movement with the Palestinian independence movement.
Encouraged by groups like the Nation of Islam, black pride slogans have been appropriated for Palestinian protests and the language of Malcolm X has been subverted to serve the adherents of Yasser Arafat.
This has been particularly disturbing to me, as I have been extensively involved with attempts to heal the breach between the Jewish and African American communities.
During these troubling times, I remain proud of my Jewish heritage. During a mission trip to Israel with the International Hillel Organization, I learned that there are no absolutes in politics just as there are no absolutes in life. My sense of Israeli and Jewish identity was rekindled as I began to realize, together with my Jewish brethren in our homeland, that no matter how I or anyone else feels about the current actions of the Israeli government, the Israeli nation has the right to exist in its current form, as a homeland for Jews. I rediscovered that as an Israeli American, I could always hold my head up high. And I do.
Today I sojourned to the U.S. Capitol to join the counter-rally against a neo-Nazi demonstration. As I watched the neo-Nazis approach the south Capitol lawn, my ears were pelted with offensive slogans and vile rhetoric.
How can I describe my feelings as I watched them pass, with their swastikas, Aryan banners, anti-Israel posters and crossed out stars of David?
To these Nazi sympathizers, who applaud the victimization of minorities, of Jews, who extol the brutal slaughter of 12 million people including whole branches of my family tree, to them I wanted to sing out, "I AM A JEW! I AM AN ISRAELI AMERICAN! NOW IT IS YOU THAT ARE IN THE MINORITY. WE ARE STRONG AND WE ARE HERE FOREVER!"
Unfurling a blue and white Israeli flag, I walked briskly and purposefully toward the gathering of anti-Nazi protesters. Watching 300 neo-Nazis with their strident rhetoric, I felt small, isolated and helpless.
As I walked toward my compatriots, my fellow protesters, I felt more empowered with each step. These were people who believed as I did, rational tolerant people whose personal morality impelled them to stand together and denunciate hatred and intolerance. They would stand with me, protest with me, and perhaps attempt to educate -- with me.
Or so I thought.
As I walked deeper and deeper through the crowd of protesters, waving the Israeli flag high and proud above my head, I began to feel less and less welcome. I marched on, waving the flag even higher so each and every neo-Nazi could see the flag of the Jewish people.
Suddenly I realized that the cries and jeers at the sight of the flag, originated not from the neo-Nazis, but from the anti-Nazi protesters.
I continued through the crowd and tried hard to ignore the glares. Inevitably, I was confronted. Abusive, although not unfamiliar words assaulted me at first: "Israel is fascist!" "Zionism is racism!" An old woman with a sweet face screamed at me, "You are a Nazi!" she cried. What had started out as a protest against racism quickly turned into a forum of hatred and fanaticism. I and the flag I held were their targets.
What could I do? Would I turn around? Could I let them disrespect this symbol of my people, and retreat in fear? I held my flag even higher. And I attempted, among the threats, the jostling and chaotic vehemence, to reason.
"I am not the enemy! The enemy is right across the street. Please, let's share this common ground and fight together!"
Despite my intense rage, I stayed true to my nonviolent beliefs and fought her and the crowd that had begun to form around me, with my words.
The crowd of anti-Nazi protesters did not have the same nonviolent ideology. I was spat upon. I was physically and verbally threatened. Grown men accosted me and tried to rip the Israeli flag out of my hands. Several were very close to actually assaulting me. Police intervened and blocked the anti-Nazi protesters from approaching me. These were supposed to be the good guys, and yet the hatred they exuded was just as potent as that of the Nazis themselves.
When a police officer told me that I should leave for my own safety, I staunchly refused. With every shout, hiss, slur and threat, the Israeli flag stood higher in my hands. Blocking out all the defamatory statements about Israel, I stood at the forefront of the protesters and held up that flag as much for them to see as for the neo-Nazis.
I have never felt more proud or more alone in my entire life.
Eventually, I was made to relinquish the flag to its owner, who wanted to leave.
I didn't want to go and give them the satisfaction of my defeat, but I have never been so disgusted with humanity, and wanted to be as far away from these "champions of humanitarianism" as possible.
I wanted to show them the hypocrisy of fighting fascism by tearing down a flag and telling someone she does not have the right to be there because of her heritage. I wanted to give them glasses that would correct the myopic vision with which they saw as complex a situation as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one so clear cut and categorically absolute.
But all I could do was ask them, "Why are you doing this?" "Why are you doing this?" With all of the research I've done on the conflict, for all my convictions, all I could say was "Why are you doing this?"
I must admit that I, like many young Jews and Zionists my age, feel betrayed by American liberals. With regards to the Middle East, there seems to be no appreciation of the moral ambiguity, the political nuances, the multiple layers of media spin. Faced with such a complex situation, young people too often ask others to chew it, swallow it and digest it for them, and then tell them in absolute terms which side is most appropriate to their general belief structure.
Are you in favor of affirmative action? Are you for civil liberties and women's rights? Why, then, you must be pro-Palestinian! Anti-Globalization? Humanitarian? Pro- Palestinian! Ever voted Democratic/ Libertarian/Socialist or even abstained from voting for a Republican? Then Palestine is the side for you!
Strongly held political views in no way justify acting in such a callous and hateful way toward a fellow human being. With their blind hatred of Israel, these anti-Nazi protesters treated me as roughly as the neo-Nazis on the other side of the partition would have, had they but had the opportunity.
Today, I held my head -- and the Israeli flag -- up high; not in Israel, but in what I had previously considered to be a safe environment. For what better place to applaud the existence of a state for Jews than at a Neo-Nazi counter-rally on Capitol Hill?
I was sadly mistaken. As I went out to face the neo-Nazi demonstration, I found myself hated, both by the neo-Nazis and by those who were there to protest against them. I found myself alone in the middle. And for the first time in my life as an American, I truly understood the crushing impact of anti-Semitism.
In a very palpable way, I was an outsider, hated by everyone. With rabid anti-Semites on one side and anti-Israel fomenters on the other, surrounded by bystanders willing to do nothing as I suffered horrid abuse, I wept É and as Jews must do in this post-Holocaust world, I stood my ground. Truth.
A District resident, Sarah Kopelovich, 21, is a senior at George Washington University.
Check. Taking faintpraise out of the "land for peace" category and puting you into the "land for murder" category with Arafat and Osama.
Now, with the Jews taken care of, how should America capitulate to those murdered our innocents? Can we manage to match your plan for Israel; i.e., bring a final end to our representative democracy and ensure the eminent imposition of sharia law?
Meanwhile, they have been equally relentless in supporting a nation that is founded on the very same group-based identity that they have found so horrible in other whites.
While it is wrong to do so, some perspective is needed. In Europe, nationalism was almost universally tied in with viruelent if not violent anti-Semetism.
Should Israel have a Jewish star on its flag? If so...would she accept a cross on the US flag? (nope...it would make her feel like an outsider)
Bad analogy. The defining characteristic of Americans is not Christianity. If it were, how would we be differnt than European countries? We are A Christian nation, not the Chrsitian nation.
Israel is THE ONLY Jewish nation.
Should Israel bar immigration by anyone who isn't Jewish? If so....why shouldn't France or the UK only allow French and English descended people to immigrate? (nope....that would be 'racist')
Sounds like a good proposal to me.
Now...this same universalistic ideology is being applied to Jews.
Nothing new. Read "On the Jewish Question" by Marx.
I'm sorry if I sound a little cynical...but she's only upset that this stuff is being thrown her way for the first time. If this anti-Israel stuff blew over tomorrow...she'd be back on the anti-white political bandwagon in a NY minute.
She may or may not. However, many people do grow up after being mugged.
Jewish or not doesn't really have anything to do with it. There's actually quite a few Jews I would characterize as anti-semites. Quite regardless of Gottfried's race, religion or political views.
Posting a single anti-Semite does not make them anti-Semetic.
No. But posting a single high-profile and rabid antisemite makes them lean that way, and it also makes them a "natural resource" for people of like mind. It very clearly makes them not "mainstream". And when you find VDARE grouped together with other sites that seems obsessed with race, a few bells goes off.
So, since this is the not-so-ancient history, what, then, is your excuse for Arab/Palestinian attacks on Israel from 1948-1967? Even before that, Arabs were attacking Jews who lived there. This despite the fact that the Jews had established habitable, economically vibrant centers out of nothing. That is when the majority of Arabs came to these places -- after the Jews had done all the hard work. Before that, they had no interest -- there was nothing there but sand, as has been documented by visitors at the time (one notable one by Mark Twain) -- sand that no one gave a hoot about.
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| Quoting Mark Twain out of context on Palestine |
Posted on MAY-23-2002
The quote below (from "The Innocent Abroad" by Mark Twain depicting his journey to Lebanon, Syria, and the Holy Land in 1867) has been widely circulated in Israeli text books and media outlets as facts about Palestine in the mid-19th century. As we will conclusively prove below, this quote has purposely taken out of context for the sole purpose of deceiving its readers into thinking that Palestine was empty, destitute, and barren desert, of course until Zionist Jews "made" its desert bloom. Mark Twain wrote:
"..... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds... a silent mournful expanse.... a desolation.... we never saw a human being on the whole route.... hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country." (Mark Twain, p. 361-362)
Before analyzing what Mark Twain wrote, the following facts should be noted:
The arable land in Palestine is under 17% of the total land, click here to view Israel's profile at CIA's Worldfact Book.
Mark Twain's visit occurred during the middle of the hot Mediterranean summer.
Mark Twain visited the region soon after the hostilities between Christian and Muslims (mostly Druze) in Mount Lebanon and Damascus, where tens of thousands of Christian Arabs were massacred in 1861. This explains his apparent hostility and racist remarks against the Ottoman Turks and Arabs.
His visit to Palestine was brief by all accounts, which encompassed only the Biblical areas already cited in the Bible.
No statistical data whatsoever was provided by Mark Twain about Palestine's agriculture or demographic make up.
Mark Twain always compared the region to American cities and fertile lands, which is clearly unfair. Both are in separate world, environment, government, ... etc., which is similar to comparing impoverished Africa with eastern Europe these days.
It is not only that Mark Twain described Palestine as barren desert, he extended this description to Greece, Lebanon, and Syria. He stated:
"From Athens all through the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, we saw little but forbidden sea-walls and barren hills, sometimes surmounted by three or four graceful columns of some ancient temples, lonely and deserted---a fitting symbol of desolation that has come upon all Greece in these latter ages. We saw no plowed fields, very few villages, no trees or grass or vegetation of any kind, scarcely, and hardly ever an isolated house. Greece is a bleak, unsmiling desert, without agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, apparently." (Mark Twain, p. 203)
"Damascus is beautiful from the mountain. It is beautiful even to foreigners accustomed to luxuriant vegetation, and I can easily understand how unspeakably beautiful it must be to eyes that are only used to the God-forsaken barrenness and desolation of Syria. I should think a Syrian would go wild with ecstasy when such a picture bursts upon him for the first time." (Mark Twain, p. 262)
From the above quote, the reader may get the impression that Greece is empty since he stated: "We saw no plowed fields, very few villages, no trees or grass or vegetation of any kind," on the other hand, he contradict himself on the same page, he stated:
"The nation numbers only eight hundred thousand souls." (Mark Twain, p. 203)
By any standard, it is really surprising how Mark Twain described the St. Sophia Church (which was converted to a mosque by the Ottomans), one of the the architectural marvels of the old and the new world, he described the church as:
"I do not think much of the Mosque of St. Sophia. I suppose I lack appreciation. We will let it go at that. It is the rustiest old barn in heathendom. I believe all the interest that attaches to it comes from the fact that it was built for a Christian church and then turned into a mosque, without much alteration, by the Mohammedan conquerors of the land." (Mark Twain, p. 208)
Regarding the Muslim Ottomans, Greeks, and Armenians and their Capital, he had the following racist remarks:
"[In Constantinople,] Mosques are plenty, churches are plenty, graveyards are plenty, but moral and whisky are scarce. The Koran does not permit Mohammedans to drink. Their natural instinct do not permit them to be moral. They say the Sultan has eight hundred wives. This almost amount to bigamy. It makes our cheeks burn with shame to see such a thing permitted here in Turkey. We do not mind to see such thing in Salt Lake, however." (Mark Twain, p. 210-211)
"Greek, Turkish, and Armenian morals consist only in attending church regularly on the appointed Sabbath, and in breaking the ten commandments all the balance of the week. It comes natural to them to lie and cheat in the first place, and then they go on and improve on nature until they arrive at perfection." (Mark Twain, p. 212)
"Everybody lies and cheats----everybody who is in business, at any rate. Even foreigners soon have to come down to the custom of the country, and they do not buy and sell long in Constantinople till they lie and cheat like a Greek. I say like a Greek, because Greeks are called the worst transgressors in this line." (Mark Twain, p. 212)
"....I never dislike a Chinaman as I do these Turks and Arabs, and, when Russia is ready to war with them again, I hope England and France will not find it good breeding or good judgment to interfere." (Mark Twain, p. 268)
Mark Twain accurately described the Ottoman tax collection and its impact in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, he stated:
"The Syrians are very poor, and yet they are ground down by a system of taxation that would drive any other nation frantic. Last year their taxes were heavy enough, in all conscience----but this year they have been increased by the addition of taxes that were forgiven them in times of famine in former years." (Mark Twain, p. 256-257)
As Mark Twain entered Nablus and Jaffa cities, he stated:
"The narrow canyon in which Nablous, or Shechem, is situated, in under high cultivation, and the soil is exceedingly black and fertile. It is well watered, and its affluent vegetation gains effect by contrast with the barren hills that tower on either side." (Mark Twain, p. 322)
"We came finally to the noble grove of orange trees in which the Oriental city of Jaffa lied buried." (Mark Twain, p. 360)
Mark Twain is a renowned American author whose contribution to American literature is immense. On the other hand, what he wrote is filled with dangerous stereotypes, emotions, and in many cases contradictions. So it is dangerous and misleading to quote him and make him an authority of the region solely based on the description of his trip. Israeli and Zionist propagandists are the best of spinning the facts to their advantage, and quoting Mark Twain out of context is classic in this matter.
Zionist FAQ: Palestine was a destitute place until Israelis made its desert bloom
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You are most welcome to join the Republican Party, young lady. You would find a warm and congenial welcome for your views there.
Of course, monkeys will fly out of my butt before any significant number of Jews give up their love of socialist statism.
-ccm
I'd like to give this girl a hug and then tell her "No dear. You were not betrayed by American liberals. What few liberals remain in this country are for the most part over 80 years old. They weren't at that rally. The crowd you mistakenly walked into were hard leftists who are no damn different than the neo-Nazi's across the street. Both only survive on hate and fear."
As for who made what into a garden, just look at the Arab countries, with all their natural resources (oil) and compare them with Israel, with her little patch of sand.
Cutting and pasting a bunch of commentary from a pro-Palestinian website hardly qualifies for unbiased reportage.
She applauds the victory of barbarism in two instances, and then flip-flops and supports civilization only when her own kind is threatened?
The left opposes Israel because it is a civilized nation, just like the Old South, just like Afrikaaner South Africa, just like Rhodesia.
I pray that Israel survives and I pray that more young leftists like this realize that it is the left, and not a pathetic collection of neoNazi hobbyists living in their moms' basements, which presents the real threat.
Add in all the Poles, Serbs, Roma, Russians and a dozen other "non Arian" nationalities snuffed by the Nazis, and the total is 12 million. The Jews were their primary target, but not their only target.
True. But his articles seem to make up a great deal of the recent writings on the site, don't they?
Sam Francis is not particularly pro-Israel
Sam Francis is a racist nut, who was fired for trying to turn the paper he wrote for into a vehicle for his racialist agenda. He's a darling of such luminaries as John "Birdman" Bryant, which should tell you a little something if you're not perfectly aware already.
So Francis is basically bad news, not that different from another well-known scumball by name of Willis Carto. And recently he had to close his forum because he feared that the elements he had attracted might actually land him in legal trouble, which was understandable seeing as they liked to post stuff that looked very much like planning and inciting violent attacks against Jews, blacks and hispanics.
And he has a central position at VDARE. Let's just stick with him for a while, shall we?
No. But posting a single high-profile and rabid antisemite makes them lean that way, and it also makes them a "natural resource" for people of like mind. It very clearly makes them not "mainstream". And when you find VDARE grouped together with other sites that seems obsessed with race, a few bells goes off.
Does the same hold true for Townhall.com which links to Sam Francis?
The anti-semetism by association routine doesn't hold water.
As for obsession with race, what is wrong with this? Name one non-self-hating Jewish site that isn't?
Understatement of the week.
You are correct of course, but it is important for people to understand that other nationalities also suffered greatly under Hitler, albeit, on a smaller percentage basis than the Jews.
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