Many question why the Jewish establishment in America is afraid of criticism of Israel, even when there is robust debate in Israel on the same issues.
In case you were wondering why, watch the clip. It’s because the American Jewish establishment fears that if it relaxes pressure, it will quickly embolden bigoted racists like the guy above.
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In case you were wondering why, watch the clip. It’s because the American Jewish establishment fears that if it relaxes pressure, it will quickly embolden bigoted racists like the guy above.
Click "Read More" to Continue---------->
These people may seem like a far-fetched threat to outsiders, but their theories have more currency in more parts of the world than anyone wants to admit. It keeps Jews very defensive. My parents’ generation, the generation that forms the establishment, grew up with parents who survived the Holocaust--the results of when guys like the one above were able to take power.
The man in the above video is of course referencing to Helen Thomas, a Lebanese-American White House journalist who recently declared that Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home…to Poland, Germany, America, and everywhere else.” Certainly, she missed the irony that she lives in America, and by the same argument, she should go home to Lebanon, and stop occupying Native American land.
On a more serious note, Jews in Germany and Poland weren’t just sitting around drinking sliwowitz (plum brandy, the alcohol preffered by Eastern European Jews) when suddenly they spun a globe and decided to move en masse to Palestine. They too were refugees. And nobody would take them—the ones who slipped in past the racial quotas to immigrate to the non-European West were the lucky ones. In 1938, before the war, representatives from 31 countries met in Evian, France, to discuss what to do with hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, Austria, and (parts of) Czechoslovakia. The conference quickly turned into a competition to see who could most eloquently explain why they didn't want Jews. America didn't even show up. Here is what the representative of typically anodyne Australia offered for the homeless Jews, for instance:
“…[it] will no doubt be appreciated also that as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one by encouraging any scheme of large-scale foreign migration... I hope that the conference will find a solution of this tragic world problem."
Those who survived the war were still refugees. In many cases, they did try to go "home" after leaving the death camps, but their houses were bombed out, looted, or occupied by Christians. In other cases, especially in Poland, they were attacked upon returning home. For the relative few that were able to stay in Poland, most were forced to leave after the government launched an anti-Semitic purge in 1968. And Germany? How do you say gutentag to someone who just recently was trying to stuff you into an oven?
Many European Jews concluded instead that it was time to take fate into their own hands, so they went to their “national” home, as described in the Bible, and helped to rebuild Israel.
Now, this doesn’t make expelling Arabs from their own homes right, nor does it mean that Israel is above reproach. But it also doesn't mean that the Helen Thomases of the world, in advocating for the Palestinian right to a homeland, should deny the same for Jews. Helen's comments were those of an incredibly insensitive person, willfully ignorant of a period she lived through, not of a hero who was slain by the omnipotent Jewish lobby, which is how this affair will be portrayed in many quarters.
- Jon
The man in the above video is of course referencing to Helen Thomas, a Lebanese-American White House journalist who recently declared that Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home…to Poland, Germany, America, and everywhere else.” Certainly, she missed the irony that she lives in America, and by the same argument, she should go home to Lebanon, and stop occupying Native American land.
On a more serious note, Jews in Germany and Poland weren’t just sitting around drinking sliwowitz (plum brandy, the alcohol preffered by Eastern European Jews) when suddenly they spun a globe and decided to move en masse to Palestine. They too were refugees. And nobody would take them—the ones who slipped in past the racial quotas to immigrate to the non-European West were the lucky ones. In 1938, before the war, representatives from 31 countries met in Evian, France, to discuss what to do with hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, Austria, and (parts of) Czechoslovakia. The conference quickly turned into a competition to see who could most eloquently explain why they didn't want Jews. America didn't even show up. Here is what the representative of typically anodyne Australia offered for the homeless Jews, for instance:
“…[it] will no doubt be appreciated also that as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one by encouraging any scheme of large-scale foreign migration... I hope that the conference will find a solution of this tragic world problem."
Those who survived the war were still refugees. In many cases, they did try to go "home" after leaving the death camps, but their houses were bombed out, looted, or occupied by Christians. In other cases, especially in Poland, they were attacked upon returning home. For the relative few that were able to stay in Poland, most were forced to leave after the government launched an anti-Semitic purge in 1968. And Germany? How do you say gutentag to someone who just recently was trying to stuff you into an oven?
Many European Jews concluded instead that it was time to take fate into their own hands, so they went to their “national” home, as described in the Bible, and helped to rebuild Israel.
Now, this doesn’t make expelling Arabs from their own homes right, nor does it mean that Israel is above reproach. But it also doesn't mean that the Helen Thomases of the world, in advocating for the Palestinian right to a homeland, should deny the same for Jews. Helen's comments were those of an incredibly insensitive person, willfully ignorant of a period she lived through, not of a hero who was slain by the omnipotent Jewish lobby, which is how this affair will be portrayed in many quarters.
- Jon
Comments
Jeff Friedman
06/08/2010 14:46
Hey Jon. I enjoyed the sliwowitz reference. Norman Friedman was talking about the Helen Thomas incident.
Dershowitz is coming to miami this thursday for a special briefing about what is going on in Israel. I going to listen to what he has to say.
AnonT
11/28/2010 12:23
I can't say I don't sympathize with her views. If it wasn't for the continued building of settlements in Palestinian land, if it wasn't for the many Palestinian homes bulldozed to the ground each year to make room for Jewish construction projects, I'd feel more sympathy for the Israeli people, but if they can't respect the basic property rights of the Palestinians I don't see why they deserve any more respect than what they show to others.
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