I suppose if you want me to be precise what he said was many American Jewish lobbyists and political figures have dual loyalty.
I’m not accusing him of Jew-baiting or anti-Semitism and moreover such a claim can only be deemed an accusation of anti-Semitism if you believe it to be anti-Semitic to claim many Jewish Americans have dual loyalty.
There are clearly many on this thread who don’t believe such a statement is anti-Semitic and, I suspect, Damuri is one of those.
Given that the sum total of all lobbyists and politicians who are Jewish make up a tiny percent of the number of Jews in the country, the more precise phrasing would have passed by with no comment from me. You changed what he said and that is not appropriate.
No I didn’t and I’m reasonably sure that Damuri will agree with me.
He was specifically talking about “the Jewish lobby” which he believes does exist and was making it clear that believes that many though not most Jewish lobbyists and political figures have dual loyalty.
Again, I’m not accusing him of anti-Semitism or Jew-baiting.
To be blunt, you’re the one who seems to be insinuating that he is engaging in those because you seem to be implying that you think it’s anti-Semitic to claim that many Jewish Americans have dual loyalty.
I’m merely asking if he could tell us who the Chairman or President of the Jewish lobby is and if he could list some of the Jewish political figures he thinks have dual loyalty and why as well as which gentile political figures he suspects have dual loyalty and why he thinks that Doug Feith has “dual loyalty”.
Those are perfectly reasonable questions.
Again, Damuri, if I have misinterpreted anything you said, please correct me.
To be blunt, you used the phrase “many American Jews” in the context of “dual loyalty” and now you are backpedaling and trying to transfer the phrase to me. I have noted only that he never said “many American Jews” engaged in dual loyalty.
I am not going to spend all night going back and forth with you, but you imputed to him a statement he did not make.
No I didn’t. Damuri certainly seems to believe that many, though not most Jewish political figures have dual loyalty.
As I noted in my original post, he does think this is true of gentile political figures as well, but based on the way he said it, he clearly seems to think that more Jews feel this way.
Again, Damuri can freely correct me if he thinks I misrepresented what I said.
One of Israel’s apparent reactions to the vote was extremely childish. Israel controls access to and from the West Bank including to foreign nationals employed within. As a result foreign nationals, such as academics who wish to go into and out of the West Bank have to get temporary tourist visas from the Israeli government which may be revoked at any time.
Rima Merriman, a Palestinian-American teaching American literature at Al-Quds University found out the hard way that whereas her “visit” permit(foreign nationals working at Palestinian universities are not issued work permits by the Israelis) had previously been marked by the Israeli government “Palestinian Authority only”(restricting her access to only those areas under control of the PNA) the Israelis were now stamping her permit “Judea and Samaria only.”
For those who don’t know, “Judea and Samaria” is the term the far-right in Israel uses to refer to the West Bank and the new stamp is clearly one way of the Israeli government saying “fuck you” the Palestinians.
Israel appears to also have de facto annexed the West Bank while refusing to grant citizenship to the people living there.
It’s a classic anti-Semitic trope. Much the same charge was leveled at American Jews who thought our country should provide support for England in its battle against Nazi Germany before America’s entry into WWII (it was claimed that Jews were pushing America into war because of Hitler’s actions against Jews. This charge mostly evaporated after Germany declared war on the U.S. in December 1941).
Suggesting that many or most American Jews have “dual loyalty” is tantamount to claiming disloyalty. It is both untrue and bound to foster great resentment, making one wonder if the purpose behind this statement has anything to do with promoting better understanding and peace.
Assuming I am reading this correctly, on what planet does this viewpoint originate?
American Jews overwhelmingly have the same concerns and issues as other Americans - the economy, jobs, health care, national security, the environment etc. If Jews’ concerns are “mostly” focused on Israel, it would be difficult to explain why they again went overwhelmingly for Obama this past November, despite Romney’s almost fawningly pro-Israel stance and attempts by Romney surrogates like the Wall St. Journal to peel off Obama’s Jewish support on the basis that he was hostile to Israel’s security interests:
*"In Democrats’ own election night polling, sponsored by the liberal pro-Israel group J Street, Obama received 70 percent of Jewish votes nationally, 69 percent in Ohio and 68 percent in Florida.
Pollster Jim Gerstein, who ran J Street’s surveys, said the shift in Obama’s share of the Jewish vote from 2008 reflected similar downward trends this year among other Democratic constituencies, including Catholics. But he said Jews trusted Obama more than Romney on all issues, from protecting Social and Medicare to fixing the economy to dealing with Iran and Israel."*
Well, it’s not so much an issue of the fact that Elvis’ arguments display astounding ignorance, illogical snarls of twisting bullshit, and his own personal prejudices presented as fact… Here the issue really is that Elvis has such warped, pathological, dangerously and wilfully ignorant views that he actually thinks that only the small minority of all the issues that Jewish people care about, have to do with something other than Israel. Elvis has such a diseased view of Jews that he pictures us tying our entire political cosmology into a foreign nation, and he’s willing to champion the use of “The Jewish Lobby” because it aligns with his pre-judging of Jews.
Good gods, but I’m glad that such views are relegated to people like Red, Newcomer and Elvis. When people’s worst involves incoherent ranting on an anonymous message board, it’s clear that politically impotent to the point where they’re no actual threat. Let them worry and rant about Traitor Jews. Worrying and ranting is all they can do, these days. And it’s about time.
Jackmanii, since you’re asking in apparent good faith, that has already been answered: *Supporting *Israel can, and often does, mean *opposing *its current government and its actions and, by extension, the people and attitudes that have put them into effect. Many American Jews, and non-Jews, understand that, and it is behind the facts you cite. Israel =/= Likud =/= Israeli Jewry =/= American and global Jewry, despite your conflating them. Granted, that’s a common approach you’re using, one which often appears to be intended to avoid participating in a serious discussion in favor of the joys of self-righteous bluster.
You others, please continue to enjoy participating in your self-made train wreck as much as I’ve been entertained by reading it.
Elvis, that’s called projection.
You are the one who claimed that the bunch of American Jews were somehow Likudniks, and when challenged to provide any support for your anti-Jewish prejudices, you refused to cite anything at all. I will say that your tactics are repugnant, even for an argument such as yours. Now you’re actually arguing that it’s other people who are conflating American Jews with Israeli political parties. And your twisted, diseased non-reasoning for that? Well, some Jews, the Good Jews, why, they have the correct politics. Ya know, politics that agree with yours.
And despite the ideas that you champion, outside of dog whistlers like Walt, you still have almost no societal currency. People won’t get behind your racist ranting about The Jewish Lobby and the dangers of American Jews who are loyal to Likud. Your vile little narrative is utterly powerless. You have failed. Now get used to the fact that even Jews are allowed to have political opinions, or you’re going to be very unsatisfied in your efforts to intimidate Jews into holding your politics.
We won.
People like you lost; the Bad Old Days you want the nation to sink back into will not come again. And despite the fact that you want to rely on intimidation and slander, because your argument is so very, very weak, Jews will continue to enrage you by making up our own minds and voting for what we believe in.
Get over it.
Elvis, I specifically addressed your claim about American Jews “mostly” being focused on Israel to the exclusion of other issues, which runs counter to polling data and election results. I can’t tell what you’re haranguing me about, but I’m beginning to conclude that your perspective is not only extraplanetary but from another dimension altogether.
But that’s utter BS. Simple visit to http://www.aipac.org/en/issues shows that top three issues AIPAC is concerned with are exclusively Israel issues where Israel is doing everything possible - from outright buying out members of Congress to Israeli PM meddling in US Presidential elections - to make Israeli issues artificially become American issues too all the while undermining any reasonable US effort in managing those issues.
AIPAC is something akin to NRA - well-organized, well-funded group that artificially maintains and manages irreconcilable political framework where democracy and good government for all is being subverted for the benefit of the few.
I mean, how in the hell do you get 2/3 of the Senate and large majority of Congress - you know, the US Congress, the legislative body that has lowest approval rating ever - how do you get these people to sign a letter to Obama - the guy that later got re-elected - a letter that is telling him to stop bitching about Israel all the time. You get that by subverting democracy that’s how. You can paint that any way you want but there is no way of escaping how these things go down.
Only if you’re unable or unwilling to comprehend the facts. Or base your thinking on fallacies, fiction and ignorance. Speaking of which:
…do you even know what the acronym AIPAC means? No shit they’re interested in Israeli issues. The point, rather obviously, is that AIPAC doesn’t speak for anybody but AIPAC, and AIPAC certainly isn’t “The Jewish Lobby” or “The Jewish” anything, as it’s defined by political ideology not ethnic or religious membership.
Yes yes, subverting democracy. Can you please now elaborate on exactly what you believe the Mossad’s connection is to 9/11 using short, declarative sentences?
Now, if we scale back from your Conspiracy Theory about how the Zionists have Occupied the Government, you might notice that polls are also reliably and regularly strongly pro-Israel with a very small pro-Palestinian contingent in the US. That the Congress in the US might actually reflect the will of the people is welcome. That you’d actually have a worldview in which elected officials following the will of their constituents is a sinister Zionist conspiracy to subvert democracy?
Well, y’all are doing a great job posting in this thread and I’d advise you to redouble your efforts. And really elaborate.
This is hardly surprising, given that AIPAC is a lobby group entitled “The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee”.
What you seem to be missing is what the argument here is about - not that AIPAC is a pro-Israeli lobby (if you look at that site, they describe themselves as “America’s Pro-Israeli Lobby”, and the “about us” page states as follows:
So yeah, everyone agrees that AIPAC is a pro-Israeli lobby group. What we are here arguing about is whether it is the “Jewish lobby”.
It isn’t. Not all Jews are members of AIPAC and not all members of AIPAC are Jews. Simple as that.
Oddly, for some reason this very simple and basic point seems to be in some way controversial. I for one don’t understand why one bit.
Although I don’t necessarily disagree with your general sentiments, what you’ve offered here is irrelevant. Not all Jews live in Israel, and not all Israelis are Jews, but the failure of the Palestinians to call it the “Jewish State” is taken as a tremendous insult by important Israeli leaders.
Since it’s not only germane to the subject under discussion, it is the subject under discussion? Well, your claim that whether or not AIPAC is “The Jewish Lobby” is “irrelevant”? It shows you’re not following the plot, Tony.
This is what we like to call “a non sequitor”.
Do you have any idea what the discussion is that you’re interjecting into? As a hint, it barely relates tangentially to your half-accurate comment about Israeli nomenclature.
IMO it’s hardly ever relevant (or correct), at least in informal discussion like this, to say “X is not Y because X is not 100% Y.” I’m sure there are atheists who go to church every week to please their spouses, or whatever. That doesn’t make the church they attend non-Christian.
My comment addressed your reasoning, not your conclusion. I’m not saying you are wrong, I’m just saying that it’s not as “simple as that,” as you asserted, because 100% is typically an impossible criterion to meet.
Of course not. But it is a fact that Israel does call itself the Jewish State, and its population may be less homogeneous in its pro-Jewish sentiments than is AIPAC. I am not claiming the “Jewish State” as proof of a general concept, but as a single counterexample, it is IMO sufficient to disprove the universality of your assertion.
I readily admit I have no idea what you are talking about.
It is really very simple. AIPAC is a lobby defined by one goal: American support for Israel. In America, that support is not confined to Jews. Nor do Jews all, or even mostly, support this lobby. Indeed, significant numbers of Jews do not. It is, therefore, completely incorrect to call it “the Jewish lobby”. It isn’t even “a” Jewish lobby. It’s a pro-Israeli lobby.
A Christian Church would admittedly be Christian even if non-Christians went to it. Know why? Because that’s what it’s for. If you looked up the mission statement or whatever of the Church, it would probably mention something about Christianity, correct?
There is no good reason to call AIPAC “the Jewish lobby”. It reeks of bad reasons.
