The Return of the Protected Jewish Minority in Europe

/72 Comments/in /by

Contrary to the standard narratives of Jewish ‘history,’ a prominent feature of the historical presence of Jews in Europe has been their protected status. The common context for this status was a symbiotic relationship between the Jewish minority and exploitative or tyrannical elites. As agents of the feared elite, as foreigners, as exploiters in their own right, and with interests antagonistic to those of the non-Jewish majority, the Jews would not be long in incurring the wrath of the peasantry. The elite, often in the form of the Crown, was keenly aware of this, and numerous measures were taken to increase security for Jewish populations across Europe. The now infamous “identifying badge,” normally a yellow star, originates from one such period, the 13th century  — though it is a lesser-recalled fact that it was first introduced to better facilitate the recognition of Jews by their official protectors.[1]

With this in mind, I’ve been intrigued, but not very surprised, by one of the broader developments arising from the Charlie Hebdo shootings. I’m often slow to form judgment of events such as what occurred recently in France, preferring to let the dust settle and to look for interesting patterns or opinions which may emerge in the aftermath. One such pattern, inescapable in its current scale, has been the Jewish co-opting of the jihadist murders. At TOO, and in Nationalist circles more generally, we are aware of what the narrative should be. We know that what occurred in France was the result of the actions of an Islamist fifth column which remains rooted in, and continues to thrive on, the Muslim mass immigration to Europe. In addition to this, we are only too aware of the Jewish role in facilitating this monstrous migration.

But this was not the narrative served up by the media. Instead we were treated to a confused and emotive chronicle, full of vacuous bleating about “free speech,” debates over whether the journalists “deserved it,” and how the actions of “a few cranks” certainly don’t typify “all Muslims.” As familiar and diseased as this narrative was, it was at least slightly more honest than the one now creeping into public prominence. You see, the events in France have now taken on a new aspect. In this new narrative, it is the kosher supermarket, rather than the unassuming office at 10 Rue Nicolas-Appert which has become the primary focus of the political fallout from the Charlie Hebdo incident. The attacks, clearly a symptom of disastrous immigration and foreign policies, are now redrawn as an allegory which offers a lesson to Europe on how it should treat its Jews, and the need to tackle what is imagined to be Europe’s ‘anti-Semitism problem.’ Read more

Spectator Sports and the Decline of the West

/36 Comments/in /by

Spectator sports today is used as a perfume to hide the aroma of our decaying society. It has ushered in an age of sports ritualization. It is used as an escape mechanism for a lost identity, an identity which now accepts and believes in the entrance and mixture of all races into all Western societies. It is Exhibit A for successful multiculturalism and interracial harmony and cooperation. In the ancient world, the Greeks used sports as a competitive technique to tone the reflexes for battle — it was used to prevent entry. Today, the body now has become a professional vocation which leads to spiritual rot. This article discusses what was and what sports has become.

Sports in the Greek world

It all began in 776 B.C. The Greeks believed in disciplining the mind (soul) and body — that they go hand in hand. It was the spirit of the soul which moved the body. The body was considered a mechanism with the spirit housed within. The higher thought processes were considered to be the highest virtue.

The Greeks believed that pain was not felt by the body, but by the spirit within the body. Exercise of the body was to test and enhance the movement of the body. This discipline also applied to women; the ideal that the Greeks favored for women can be compared to that of a ballerina of today, even though women were absolutely forbidden to attend the Olympic Games. Read more

Towards ‘Kosher Nationalism”? (4): The Rise of Éric Zemmour and the Case of France

/17 Comments/in , , /by

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

The Jewish dilemma on immigration is perhaps most apparent in France. The French situation is unique in many respects:

  • The largest Jewish population outside of Israel and the United States (about 600,000 people or 1% of the population).
  • A staggering Jewish intellectual/cultural presence, perhaps more influential politically than in the U.S., because French power networks tend to be more centralized (whereas American power networks, being polycentric and based in several different autonomous industries and geographical locations, strike me as more difficult to completely capture).
  • The largest Muslim community in Western Europe (guestimated at perhaps 6 million or around 10% of the population).
  • Relative physical proximity to Israel (one can fly from Paris to Tel Aviv in four hours), dual French-Israeli citizenship, Jewish education for children and life being perfectly practical and practiced by an increasing number of French Jews.
  • An intermediate intermarriage rate over 30% generally and 40% for under 30s.

These factors together mean that French Jews are coming up against the problems posed to them by multiculturalism quicker than in other Western countries. Certainly, American Jews worry about Hispanic antisemitism, but this is a cakewalk compared to French Jews’ difficult task of getting Black and Arab Muslims to feel guilty about the Shoah. Indeed, Arabs and Muslims can only be “anti-Zionist” given Israel’s oppression of their kin of blood and faith in Palestine and French Jewish organizations’ ardent support for Israel. Read more

Martin Luther King was a “Conservative Republican”

/22 Comments/in /by

That’s what $arah Palin, Glenn Beck, William Bennett and a whole bunch of other conservatives would have you believe. They tell us that King stood for freedom, liberty and limited government.

Conservatives love to proclaim “Bull Connor was a Democrat! And Martin Luther King was a Republican!”

Here’s just a few examples:

Martin Luther King Jr Was a Conservative Republican

Martin Luther King’s Conservative Legacy from the conservative Heritage Foundation

The Conservative Virtues of Dr. Martin Luther King from the Heritage Foundation and William J. Bennett, the Book of Virtues author

Houston group says Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican

And don’t miss this, from a Black conservative:

King recognized the tyrannical nature of the government, and he would be standing shoulder to shoulder with Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Herman Cain, Allen West, and many others in an attempt to free not only blacks this time, but the entire nation from the very same government that was oppressing blacks during King’s lifetime.

Well, if there’s been any presidential candidate on a major party ticket who believed in those things since World War II, it was Barry Goldwater. And he was the nominee of the Republicans, allegedly King’s own party. So surely Martin Luther King must have voted for Barry Goldwater, right?

Uh, no.

Read more

Towards ‘Kosher Nationalism’? (3): Jewish Ideologies and the Myth of the Golem

/25 Comments/in , /by

Part 1.
Part 2.

I argued previously that individual Jewish intellectuals tend to adopt a personal ideology, generally in their younger years and for life, which is a conscious or unconscious rationalization of their ethnic interests. However, it is also true that particular Jewish intellectuals will often consistently pursue and enforce their ideology throughout their lifetime, either for reasons of personal prestige and interest or sheer pigheadedness, even to the point of self-destructiveness to Jews and Jewish interests. This, I believe, may explain the not uncommon phenomenon of liberal/leftist Jews that are relatively critical of Israel and open to miscegenation.

Jewish ideologies and evolutionary strategies recall the Jewish folk tale of the golem: A rabbi creates a anthromorphic being out of mud and magic to defend the community against anti-Semitism. However, eventually control of the being is lost and it backfires, possibly desecrating the Sabbath or going on a murderous rampage. Communism or individualism/multiculturalism, taken to their conclusion, are in this sense golems, because taken to their logical conclusion in a West populated by non-Western peoples, they end up undermining Jewish interests. Read more

Towards ‘Kosher Nationalism’? (2): On Jewish Intellectual Power Struggles

/21 Comments/in , , , /by

Part 1.

I do not think there is a conscious Jewish endgame[1] but I would like to suggest a pattern, whether caused by Jewish culture, social position (especially, being a minority) or psychological predisposition, in the behavior of many Jewish intellectuals and their power struggles. It goes something like this:

  • The young intellectual settles into an ideological system, which is, consciously or unconsciously, a rationalization of his ethnic interests in that particular time and place.
  • The intellectual will then powerfully and eloquently argue for this intellectual system, ruthlessly criticizing and ridiculing alternative systems (after all, all systems and societies have flaws). If he triumphs, he attains prestige and cultural power for both himself and, indirectly, his community.
  • The intellectual will enter into pitched battles with other Jewish intellectuals if they have sharply opposing systems, typically challenging the ideology of Jews from a previous generation or different social milieu. The most eloquent critics of a particular Jewish ideology are often rival or successor Jews. (For example, Alan Dershowitz on the previous generation’s Communism or the current ongoing struggles between liberal Jews like Paul Krugman and Glenn Greenwald and overtly ethnocentric Jews such as American neoconservatives and Israeli nationalists).

In this context, an ideology is a system of rules and values which is turned into a kind of “cultural programming” for any given society. The society’s trajectory will be powerfully influenced by the particular rules, values, norms, taboos and so on that it has internalized. Ideology determines what is normal behavior, who is moral, and who are pariahs.

As the historian Paul Johnson has noted:

For 1,500 years Jewish society had been designed to produce intellectuals… Jewish society was geared to support them… Rich merchants married sages’ daughters; …Quite suddenly, around the year 1800, this ancient and highly efficient social machine for the production of intellectuals began to shift its output. Instead of pouring all its products into the closed circuit of rabbinical studies, …it unleashed a significant and evergrowing proportion of them into secular life. This was an event of shattering importance in world history.[2]

Read more

Towards ‘Kosher Nationalism’? (1): The Unstable Jewish-Gentile Dialectic

/70 Comments/in , , , /by

 

I have been somewhat puzzled by recent developments in the French media, namely, the emergence of the so-called “nouveaux réactionnaires” (new reactionaries) advocating restriction of (overwhelmingly African/Muslim) immigration and a defense of French identity. “None of the neo-reactionnaires – not even Camus – claims allegiance to the FN [French National Front],” the BBC helpfully notes. “Many of them are Jewish.”

That would be an understatement. Four of the five listed in the article are Jewish: Éric Zemmour, Alain Finkielkraut, Élisabeth Lévy and Gil Mihaely (an Israeli dual national), all of whom strongly identifying as Jews. The only non-Jew mentioned is Renaud Camus, who has been blackballed for years for criticizing Muslim immigration (he coined the term Grand Remplacement or “Great Displacement”) and for once noting that a radio show on France Culture was entirely run by Jews. All of this is a bit of a théâtre juif (Jewish theater) as Alain Soral might say.

We have this strange phenomenon where Jews are on television promoting FN talking points on Islam and immigration. Simultaneously, the FN is still informally excluded from making political alliances with mainstream parties. There has also been backlash from parts of the Jewish community against the new reactionaries, and in particular against Zemmour, who has lost one of three media jobs. Read more