Joe Biden päästi sammakon (Finnish translation of “Joe Biden’s Faux Pas”)
Joe Biden päästi sammakon (Finnish translation of “Joe Biden’s Faux Pas“)
Stefan Molyneaux on Israel and the Nature of Judaism
A while ago Mondoweiss banned comments implying that Israel’s bad behavior had anything to do with the nature of Judaism. So it’s a safe bet that Stefan Molyneaux would be banned from the site. As a libertarian with a knowledge of history, Molyneaux finds the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the natural outgrowth of trends within Judaism going back hundreds of years—a view that is quite compatible with a biological perspective.
The essential plot line is as follows. Drawing on Israel Shahak (e.g., Jewish History, Jewish Religion and Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel), he paints a picture of historical Judaism in Eastern Europe as communities ruled by autocratic rabbis who had absolute control over life and death of their subjects. These were communities in which free speech and tolerance of dissent were ruthlessly suppressed, with ne’er-do-wells sometimes murdered. Then came the Enlightenment which is the origin of all the trends libertarians hold dear. Rabbis began to lose control of their congregations, and there was the rise of secular Judaism in Western societies.
Fearful of loss of power and the specter of assimilation, rabbis needed a new idea to retain control (13:33). They therefore welcomed Zionism because it prevented assimilation and would provide a new opportunity to create closed communities under strong rabbinical control. This is something of an oversimplification of the forces within the Jewish community favoring Zionism and their motives. For example, fear of assimilation and intermarriage also motivated the racial Zionists, many of whom were not religious, who were very prominent in early Zionism (see here, p. 157ff). In the words of Jewish racial Zionist Elias Auerbach, Zionism would return Jews “back into the position they enjoyed before the nineteenth century—politically autonomous, culturally whole, and racially pure” (John Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-de-Siècle Europe, 1994, 136). Read more
How to Criticize Israel without being Anti-Semitic: The Unofficial Guide
The news media have once again been ablaze with reports of Israel’s military attack on Gaza. The historic Israeli-Palestinian conflict has, consequently, returned as a subject of discussion at cafés, salons, and dinner tables.
The discussion, however, is not an easy one to have—unless, of course, you are foursquare behind Israel. Criticism of Israel very quickly lands the critic into trouble; accusations of anti-Semitism are fired back as if from an Uzi. What is more, these accusations can sometimes come accompanied by raised voices, red faces, bared teeth, waved fists, and even rude expletives. Sometimes, not even Jews can avoid them. So it is understandable that non-Jews desiring to avoid drama think it best to keep mum.
Noticing the problem, and apparently in the interest of free and open debate, a concerned Jewish blogger has recently made waves posting a 19-point guide on how to criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic. The Tumblr blog post has, at the time of writing, attracted 8485 notes. And the BBC deemed it so useful that they even reported it on their news website.
As TOO was created for purposes of free and open debate, including Jews and Israel, it seems pertinent that we examine the 19 points. Perhaps we will find in them the Philosopher’s Stone in our efforts to discuss important matters involving Jews without being accused of ignorance and moral turpitude. The points are meant to be considered in no particular order.
1. Don’t use the terms “bloodthirsty,” “lust for Palestinian blood,” or similar. Historically, Jews have been massacred in the belief that we use the blood of non-Jews (particularly of children) in our religious rituals. This belief still persists in large portions of the Arab world (largely because White Europeans deliberately spread the belief among Arabs) and even in parts of the Western world. Murderous, inhumane, cruel, vicious—fine. But blood…just don’t go there. Depicting Israel/Israelis/Israeli leaders eating children is also a no-no, for the same reason.
While one can understand the desire to avoid rehashings of the ancient blood libel, this seems a little paranoid in the case of “bloodthirsty”. Read more
Immigration gets on the public radar
An important aspect of immigration has been that for the most part it has occurred under the radar. Despite importing over a million mainly poor people every year and all that implies in terms of need for housing, infrastructure, welfare benefits, and medical care, immigration and refugee policy in the US is on auto-pilot, with the pro-immigration forces steadily removing every obstacle. Most White Americans do not experience it first hand and have no idea about the elaborate infrastructure that the pro-immigration forces have erected.
It’s probably not true that a frog will allow itself to be boiled alive if only the heat is raised slowly enough, but it’s an irresistible image nonetheless.
However, the anti-borders forces — on the left and the right — have counted on such passivity among the public to incrementally erode the American people’s ability to decide who gets to move here from abroad.
They have devised endless opportunities to appeal deportation decisions, prevented the implementation of needed control measures, pushed relentlessly to pierce numerical caps, and created strong incentives against government functionaries saying “no” to those who want to come. The motto over the doorway of the immigration office might as well be “It ain’t over til the alien wins.” (Mark Krikorian, “Hitting the boiling point over the border“)
Americans are passive because immigration, especially legal immigration, is rarely in the news. The same goes for refugee policy. According to Refugee/Resettlement Watch, the process of importing refugees is a “very quiet effort” rife with corruption (e.g., leading to chain migration of relatives; see their fact sheet). It is also thoroughly incentivized so that it’s a very lucrative business for organizations like the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (which describes the children pouring in from Central America as “gifts,” perhaps because the job of overseeing their recruitment pays $214,000 in salary and benefits supplied by US taxpayers [“Lutherans: “The children are a gift” and we need a second lobbyist in Washington to make sure the gift keeps giving ]).
But the crisis in Texas has brought it all to the public’s attention and it’s quite clear that quite a large section of the public are not at all happy with it, to the point that, as Krikorian notes, illegals are not being resettled in states where Democratic senators are facing tough reelection campaigns. And they are being transported in the least conspicuous means possible, hoping the public won’t notice.
But the public is noticing. There have been vocal protests in a number of communities, such as Murrieta, CA, Boston (!), Tennessee, and elsewhere. Read more
Also available at Barnes & Noble
Also available at Barnes & Noble
