Jewish Dopers: Have you ever watched the film "Defamation"?

[FinnAgain]

@Ibn_Warraq

What is George Tenet doing on that list?

Collateral damage. I’d wager that his name ‘sounded Jewish’.
Interestingly enough, racist sites like Jew Watch and Radio Islam both list Tenet as a Jew.

@Ibn_Warraq

Also, what is Michael Chertoff doing on that list of people with “dual-loyalty”?

Or members of Obama’s administration, or people who’ve had no actual evidence of any malfeasance, at all, but who are Jews who disagree with Red’s politics on Israel. They’re all Traitor Jews.
Also interesting, again, Rev. Wright was most likely talking about Axelrod and Emanuel when he made his “them Jews” comment and quickly changed it to “I was only talking about Zionists.”

@Ibn_Warraq

RedFury, I implore you to explain why you claim that Michael Chertoff is more guilty of “dual-loyalty” than Karl Rove or George Will.

When a gentile politician has a ‘certain’ view on Israel, they’re either manipulated by the Lobby or just wrong. When a Jew does, they’re probably a traitor with Dual Loyalty to the seat of Global Jewry, that which nobody can dare criticize lest they be called an anti-Semite.

@Hypnagogic_Jerk

Come on, FinnAgain, you know that everybody holds at least a few prejudices for or against one group or another. (I use “prejudice” with its literal meaning of “pre-judging” interactions with members of such group.) But not everybody’s a racist. It only becomes a problem if you deny the individuality of those you meet and judge them only through your prejudices. That’s what bigotry is.

No, not necessarily. There are degrees of racism. Most racists have a concept of a “good negro” (or what have you) whereby their target group can elevate themselves out of badness. Good Jews are those who don’t support Israel. Good Blacks are those who don’t get too uppity. Good Gays are those who don’t share public displays of affection. Etc.
Someone who prejudges blacks as stupid and brutish but comes across a black man and remarks “Why, he’s so eloquent, he doesn’t use ebonics at all.” isn’t not a racist because they allowed for individual difference.

You do have a point, though, in that particularly virulent racists will generally have a “they’re all the same” attitude that does demolish individuality in their view. But milder racists/bigots can still hold negative views about racial groupings even if they do have an occasional moment of “Wow, that gay man didn’t act like a faggot,* at all*.”

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

@FinnAgain

You do have a point, though, in that particularly virulent racists will generally have a “they’re all the same” attitude that does demolish individuality in their view. But milder racists/bigots can still hold negative views about racial groupings even if they do have an occasional moment of “Wow, that gay man didn’t act like a faggot,* at all*.”

But if you’re surprised that this gay man didn’t act like a sissy, it’s because you expected him to. And he’s obviously the exception, so you’re going to expect the next gay man you meet to be a sissy. You’re still letting your prejudiced expectations colour your interactions with individual people.

On the other hand, you may believe that there is a tendency among gay men to be effeminate, which is definitely a stereotype, but at the same time evaluate every interaction with a gay man on its own, and not be surprised if he happens to be really masculine. I wouldn’t call someone who did this bigoted or homophobic.

[FinnAgain]

No, that’s still six of one, a half dozen of another.

“Gay men are faggy and I was surprised that this particular fag wasn’t all limp wristed and lispy. Who’d a thunk it?” isn’t all that different from “Gay men as a group are generally faggy, but I will give the next fag the benefit of the doubt and not automatically assume that he will be all limp wristed and lispy.”

“Blacks are dangerous, violent thugs like angry gorillas and you can’t trust them, but I met a black man who didn’t try to rob me, sell drugs to me or rape me, so I was surprised.” isn’t all that different from “Blacks as a group are generally dangerous, violent thugs like angry gorillas and you can’t trust them, but I will treat the next black man I meet as an individual and will give him the benefit of the doubt that he will not try to rob me, sell drugs to me or rape me.”

“Jews are conniving, duplicitous, clannish traitors to their homes willing to betray good and honest gentiles for the sake of Global Jewry, but this Jew had the correct politics, so I am surprised.” is not all that different from “Jews as a group are generally conniving, duplicitous, clannish traitors to their homes willing to betray good and honest gentiles for the sake of Global Jewry, but I will give the befit of the doubt to the next Jew I meet and will allow that perhaps he has the correct politics and is not in the process of betraying my nation for Israel’s benefit.”

[Ibn_Warraq]

@FinnAgain

Having someone as an official second class citizen is persecution, just like Jim Crow would have been racial persecution even if there weren’t lynchings. And it’s hard to argue that the history of massacres and pogroms of Jews in the Muslim world didn’t evince “Jew hatred”, just that it was cyclical as it often is. Violence against Jews in Granada, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Aleppo, etc… all speak to the fact that “Protocols Style” anti-semitism is a fairly new arrival on the scene, but the region had a long history of anti-semitism and anti-Jewish murderous violence.
And that’s the whole point. Yes, sometimes Jews were ‘just’ seen as second class citizens who might be useful and tolerated. But bad times and/or a need for a scapegoat often saw murderous violence directed at the Jews. Monstro is incorrect.

Well, again, I think you’re exaggerating.

The Islamic view of Jews was dramatically different than the Christian view of Jews. Christians were upset at Jews because they blamed Jews for supposedly killing their God.

Muslims didn’t have this sort of animus because, to be blunt, Muhammad conquered the Jews he came into contact with.

Now, were there instances of Jews being slaughtered? Yes, but such killings were few in number, particularly when compared to what Jews faced in Europe.

In fact, Christians for the most part faced more discrimination in the Islamic World because the rulers were more suspicious of them.

Now you’re using the term “Dhimmi” so it’s pretty clear you’re familiar with the term but for those who aren’t it comes from the Arab word “Dhimma” meaning “pact” or “contract” and the term “Dhimmi” means “people of the pact”.

Essentially Muhammad respected Christians and Jews as fellow “People of the Book” who had yet to recognize that their religions had been abrogated and believed they were worthy of both respect and tolerance.

As a result, Christians and Jews within the Islamic World were to be accorded respect and protection so long as they showed a certain amount of “submission” to the Muslim authorities and paid taxes which, generally speaking, were almost nominal.

Now some, most notably Bat Yeor, have dramatically misrepresented this and been criticized by actual scholars such as Bernard Lewis and Norman Stillman.

What the Jews of that time faced was certainly, by modern standards, discrimination but comparing it to apartheid or Jim Crow is ridiculous, if for no other reason than it ignores how many Jews thrived in the Medieval Islamic World. Blacks in the Jim Crow South were certainly not better off economically than Whites, but the Jews of the Ottoman Empire, if anything, fared better economically than their Islamic brethren.

Personally I’d compare there treatment to the “Coloureds” or “Gens De Coleur” of antebellum Louisiana.

Many of the ideas that we identify with modern, European anti-Semitism began to filter in to the Arab world decades before the establishment of the state of Israel.

I won’t dispute that a real wave of anti-Jewish sentiment spread throughout the Islamic world of the 20th Century, but that was as a result of Zionism.

And no, that’s not meant to justify the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Muslim countries, including Iran, where I was born.

[Marley23]

@Ibn_Warraq

Huh?

I didn’t accuse him of being an anti-Semite.

Even if you really did tell a friend about RedFury’s post and he really did respond the way you said he did, the comment you posted was not appopriate for this forum. The question about the about the Palestinians is fine. The nonsense about penis size is not an argument and is insulting, so if you have to post that kind of thing, do it in the BBQ Pit.

[clairobscur]

@Lakai

I corrected my mistake in post 62. The reason Israel can’t take the same approach as Spain is because Basque country isn’t controlled by terrorists while the Palestinian territories are.

[…] The ETA just wants independence.

Quite irrelevant in this thread, but it’s a little more complicated than that. Despite all the Txioria Txori, the ETA has a peculiar conception of democracy in the areas it controls politically (or thinks it should control), besides the fact that it plants bombs (or at least did until two weeks ago).

I suspect that an apparent superficial understanding of the Basque issue is the reason why dragging it in this thread by way of remote and vague similarities grates on Nava’s nerves (I think she’d rather see you leaving the Basques alone expect if you intend to discuss the issue more in depth. Of course I might be mistaken).

That said, indeed, I think that both issues have almost nothing in common (only almost because of course looking at the way a government deals, successfully or not, with a “liberation” movement might always bring some insights, I guess).
Sorry for interrumpting the flow of the debate.

[clairobscur]

@Ibn_Warraq

For those confused, it happened in the last thirty years and involves a word beginning with the letter K.
.

I am officially confused. The first thing I thought about took place more than 30 years ago (and doesn’t include a K), and the second that came to my mind doesn’t include the letter K, either.

By checking Wikipedia , I found two “K” words somewhat related to those two events, respectively Karameh and Kahan. But that would be only oblique references.

[FinnAgain]

@Ibn_Warraq

Well, again, I think you’re exaggerating.

How so? Being a second class citizen under the law is persecution, and Jews were second class citizens under the law. Periodically they were also slaughtered for being Jewish. That it was “Arab style” anti-Semitism and not “European-style” anti-semitism doesn’t mean that it wasn’t still hatred of Jews. And there are plenty of massacres of Jews that went on under Islamic rule.

I could mention the 8th century rule of Idris I and his brutalization of the Jews. I mentioned Granada in 1066, I could mention the ghettos in Morocco and the Pogroms of 1465. I could mention the Almohads’ slaughter of Jews in 1785. I could mention numerous massacres of Jews in Morocco and Algiers in the 19th century. And so on.

@Ibn_Warraq

As a result, Christians and Jews within the Islamic World were to be accorded respect and protection so long as they showed a certain amount of “submission” to the Muslim authorities and paid taxes which, generally speaking, were almost nominal.

Having to show “submission” and pay a tax while legally standing as a second class citizen isn’t any less an act of racism than the pogroms, it’s just a different kind. Again, just because it was Muslim/Arab anti-Semitism rather than European anti-Semitism doesn’t mean that legislating a race into second class citizenship evinces something less than race-based contempt and/or hatred. That Jews and Christians were treated less harshly than others doesn’t change the fact that we’re talking about legislated second class citizenship. Jim Crow wasn’t less bad because we massacred the Native Americans.

And again, it was hardly simple “submission” in many cases. The Almohads in particular were markedly brutal and instituted the policy of Jews having to wear a yellow identifying badge. The rule of Moulay Rashid and Moulay Ismail, Mohammed III and his successor Yazid in Morocco also saw mass butchery and robbery of the Jews.

The concept that Jews succeeded (sometimes, in some places) so it wasn’t comparable to Jim Crow misses the point that anti-Semitism is often cyclical and Jews who succeed one day can be cause for a purge of “those parasitic Jews” the next.

@Ibn_Warraq

the Jews of the Ottoman Empire, if anything, fared better economically than their Islamic brethren.

A comparison to Jim Crow isn’t at all beyond the pale, Jim Crow was just more comprehensive and designed specifically to hurt blacks. And the status of Jews in the Ottoman Empire (hardly all roses and tea) doesn’t change the history of massacres and second class citizenship afforded to the Jews. Especially since even the difference between “European style” and “Arab/Muslim style” anti-Semitism was largely being eroded by the middle of the 19th century as the Damascus Affair evinces, as does the history of the Blood Libel in the Ottoman Empire.
[

@H.E.W. Young

The attitude of the Muslims toward the Christians and the Jews is that of a master toward slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension to equality is promptly repressed.

](The Jews of Islam - Bernard Lewis - Google Books)

@G.E. von Grunebaum

It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizeable number of Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained to high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and recognized intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for Christians. But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms.

Or if you like Bernard Lewis, he noted himself that anti-Semitism was hardly absent from the Ottoman empire, while noting that it too followed a cyclic pattern.
That European anti-Semitism was somewhat different from Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism (up until the mid 19th, at the very least) doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a tradition of Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism. It’s just a different tradition than the European one. That hatred of, oppression of and violence towards Jews in the Arab/Muslim world is somehow a consequence of Zionism is simply a myth.

[leander]

@Alessan

I think one key point that you have to know about the Holocaust, and one that helps explain Israel’s attitude toward it, is this: most of the world holds Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Israel doesn’t. The Israeli Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day is held on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the day the Jews fought back.

That seems rather odd considering how badly they lost then. Care to extrapolate?

[SecondJudith]

It’s about Jewish people as agents instead of passive victims. “This is the day the Allies saved the Jews from the concentration camps (eventually)!” isn’t a great narrative unless you’re non-Jewish and invested in being perceived as the good guy.

[Nava]

@clairobscur

I suspect that an apparent superficial understanding of the Basque issue is the reason why dragging it in this thread by way of remote and vague similarities grates on Nava’s nerves (I think she’d rather see you leaving the Basques alone expect if you intend to discuss the issue more in depth. Of course I might be mistaken).

Which would be a different thread and… ugh… I get tired just thinking about it. And Lakai is ok as it goes… simplistic views but no endorsing I can take without my blood pressure shooting through the roof.

I’d just generally appreciate it if people who can’t find Euskal Herria with both hands and a map after being dropped into San Cernin’s well would lay off.

Back to the actual subject, for me it certainly makes sense to have the remembrance of the Holocaust on the anniversary of an uprising against it than on any other date. My own reaction to Alessan’s post was “of course, when else would you celebrate it? ” - but then, one of the local holidays of Madrid is 2 de Mayo, the day of the uprising against French occupation, and 5 de Mayo celebrates the same for Mexico.

[Capitaine_Zombie]

I think you’re wrong. Cinco de Mayo celebrates the victory at the Battle of Puebla and is a Californian celebration. They dont celebrate it in Mexico except in the State of Puebla.

[leander]

@SecondJudith

It’s about Jewish people as agents instead of passive victims. “This is the day the Allies saved the Jews from the concentration camps (eventually)!” isn’t a great narrative unless you’re non-Jewish and invested in being perceived as the good guy.

Fair enough, though it does seem a little sad.

[Alessan]

@SecondJudith

It’s about Jewish people as agents instead of passive victims. “This is the day the Allies saved the Jews from the concentration camps (eventually)!” isn’t a great narrative unless you’re non-Jewish and invested in being perceived as the good guy.

Exactly. Better to die on your feet than die on your knees.

It taps into Israel’s fundamental mythology. The stated purpose of establishing thing country was not just to found a new state, but also to invent a new breed of Jew. According to the gestalt, the people who got on the trains were “old Jews”, while those who fought in the ghetto were “new Jews”.

It may be somewhat inaccurate and even unfair, but that’s national mythology for you.

[tomndebb]

@Ibn_Warraq

That’s not exactly correct. She’s arguing that “Jew-hating” was a recent addition to the Middle East and, prior to the 20th Century, she’s correct.

Actually, monstro is not arguing anything in regard to this point. She made a single observation in a tentative mode, expressing in that very post that she was not sure of her facts.

You and Finn are welcome to hammer out where the lines between “second class citizen” and “persecution” may lie, but both of you need to stop attributing statements and opinions to her that she has not actually posted.

[ /Modding ]

[leander]

@Alessan

Exactly. Better to die on your feet than die on your knees.

It taps into Israel’s fundamental mythology. The stated purpose of establishing thing country was not just to found a new state, but also to invent a new breed of Jew. According to the gestalt, the people who got on the trains were “old Jews”, while those who fought in the ghetto were “new Jews”.

It may be somewhat inaccurate and even unfair, but that’s national mythology for you.

Wow. Talk about throwing them under the bus.

[Capitaine_Zombie]

@leander

Wow. Talk about throwing them under the bus.

Sadly, nothing new here.

[SecondJudith]

@leander

Fair enough, though it does seem a little sad.

Why?

[FinnAgain]

@tomndebb

stop attributing statements and opinions to her that she has not actually posted.

You’ve got it backwards tom, as I haven’t actually done that. Monstro has.

If you recall, she was the one who attributed statements and opinions to me that I hadn’t actually posted. Like how I’d somehow claimed that “Everything about the Jews is Different and Therefore Special”, or that I have a “Holier-Than-Thou Approach to Jews and Everything Jewish”, or that I evinced “protectiveness about the Holocaust and everything about it. Like people are trying to take something away from Jews when they dare mention it.”

Please don’t claim that I’ve attributed any statements or opinions to her that she didn’t actually make while I have not only not done that at all, but she’s done so in three rather egregious examples and is evidently allowed to continue.

[Alessan]

@leander

Wow. Talk about throwing them under the bus.

There was a strong undercurrent of contempt for Holocaust survivors in Israel back in the 1950s and 1960s; fortunately, one effect of the emphasis on learning about the Holocaust has been to put that attitude to rest, thank God. Still, it goes with the Israeli belief in self-reliance and constant improvement - “it won’t happen to us again because we’ve learned from it, and now we’re better than we were before.” I suspect it’s also a bit of a defense mechanism; you can’t really deal with what happened unless you convince yourself that it can’t happen to you.