School of Hard Knocks
Some of us need to be hit in the head before we adjust our world view so that's in more in line with reality. Others need a good swift kick in the pants. Then there are those who need who, unfortunately need to have their reality rearranged by having their family jewels attacked. Yes, I'm speaking of the
rabbi who conducted that recent ill-fated interview with the aged anti-Semitic Helen Thomas.
During an interview on CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, Rabbi David Nesenoff, known for exposing Helen Thomas’s anti-Semitic views, informed viewers that, up until now, he has considered himself to be a liberal Democrat – who even opposed the Iraq War and supported Barack Obama – but now asserts that "I have to really reevaluate liberal and conservative and really find out where I stand because I think I've been a little blind."
A little blind?
As Nesenoff recounted that he had previously agreed with Thomas in her opposition to the war in Iraq, and her challenging of President Bush on the matter, he now sees himself as unknowingly being allied with people who think that "Israel and the Jewish people don't have a connection." Before being interrupted by host Howard Kurtz, Nesenoff began to explain his evolution of thought:
He is one of the reasons that when it comes to backing Israel, I trust conservative evangelical Christians more than I trust liberal Jews, even liberal Jewish rabbis. It's not so much that his eyes have been opened, but he's been forced to reevaluate his willful blindness to the anti-Israel agenda.
I have to wonder if the rabbi is part of an interfaith group that is involved in outreach to local mosques. After all, the liberal belief in dialogue with "the other" is a core orthodox (liberal) belief. If so, he would do well to read and reread
this article.
Jewish residents in Malmo are furious after the Swedish town's mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, equated Zionism to anti-Semitism in an interview published on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
During the interview with Skanska Dagbladet newspaper, Reepalu was asked whether he considered a public condemnation of anti-Semitism in Malmo. The mayor responded that "Malmo does not accept anti-Semitism and does not accept Zionism," charging that both adopt extreme positions towards certain groups.
Reepalu added that local Jews bear some responsibility for the attitude towards them, noting that "they have the possibility to affect the way they are seen by society." The mayor then urged Malmo's Jewish community to "distance itself" from Israeli attacks on Gaza's civilian population.
"Instead, the community chose to hold a pro-Israel demonstration," he said, adding that such move "may convey the wrong message to others."
He (and you) need to read the whole thing, and then read some more about the current wave of unapologetic anti-Semitism sweeping Europe. Never again? Don't you believe it. It will happen again in Europe. It's
already started.
Labels: anti-semitism, Europe, Israel, Sweden
President of the World
Victor Davis Hanson gives an interesting analysis of The Obama's recent European venture.
Given Obama’s performance on his recent trip, three developments were quite astounding.
First, despite this fresh climate of atonement, there was a complete absence of a single apology from any other foreign leader — odd for the new shared spirit of multi-polarity and reciprocity.
Not a word came from Britain about colonialism. Nothing from Germany on the Holocaust, or its trade with Iran. Not a peep from France about Algeria or Vietnam.
Turkey was mum on the Armenian killings and its own tough anti-Kurdish policies. Russia said nothing about the 30 million murdered by Stalin — or its present assassinations abroad, much less its leveling of Grozny or its destruction of Afghanistan. Nothing came from China about the 70 million who perished under Mao or its present role in subsidizing North Korean nukes — or its violation of global copyright laws. We won’t hear anything in the “New Asian Hemisphere” about Muslim Uighurs or Tibet.
Second, there was no other example of “He did it!” about supposedly inept predecessors. Mr. Medvedev said nothing about Putin’s brutish rule. Sarkozy and Merkel did not trash the shady Chirac or Gazprom’s bought lobbyist Schroeder, and their role in harming the Atlantic alliance. Gordon Brown was quiet about Tony Blair and Iraq. China did not mention a reset button. The new Berlusconi did not trash the old Berlusconi.
Third, we saw no concrete evidence of any help — or hope and change — from any foreign leader. Zilch. There were expectations of American concessions, but nothing new or helpful from anyone else.
I've got nothing to add to what Hanson says, so go read the article. I will say, though, that one of the books that helped me appreciate the uniqueness of Western culture was Hanson's book,
Carnage and Culture. Sure, it's mostly about wars and battles between Western and non-Western armies, but Hanson also delves deeply into how the peculiarities of Western thought that have grown out of the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian strains of thought created a civilization that has, not just militarily, but in many ways, conquered the world.
But Obama and his true believers hope to change that . . . after he's done apologizing for it.
Labels: books, Europe, Obama, Victor Davis Hanson
Shut Up and Sit Down
On page 180 of Mark Steyn's
America Alone he writes that standing while peeing is frowned upon in Germany. There is an alarm you can buy for your toilet that gives off a scolding if the toilet seat is raised. Now I understand that many in Europe are giving up and letting their lives be run by nanny-state governments as they let their countries be overrun by Muslims who will force their children and grandchildren (if any) to adopt Islam or suffer for not submitting, but this seemed like a bit of Mark Steyn-brand humor.
Sadly,
it isn't. According to the Telegraph,
German men are being shamed into urinating while sitting down by a gadget which is saving millions of women from cleaning up in the bathroom after them.
The WC ghost, a £6 voice-alarm, reprimands men for standing at the lavatory pan. It is triggered when the seat is lifted. The battery-operated devices are attached to the seats and deliver stern warnings to those who attempt to stand and urinate (known as "Stehpinkeln").
"Hey, stand-peeing is not allowed here and will be punished with fines, so if you don't want any trouble, you'd best sit down," one of the devices orders in a voice impersonating the German leader, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. Another has a voice similar to that of his predecessor, Helmut Kohl.
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The manufacturers of the WC ghost, Patentwert, say they are ready to direct their gadgets at the British market.
Their prototype English-speaking WC ghost says in an American drawl: "Don't you go wetting this floor cowboy, you never know who's behind you. So sit down, get your water pistol in the bowl where it belongs. Ha, ha, ha."
They also plan to copy the voices of Tony Blair and the Queen.
So far 1.8 million WC ghosts have been sold in German supermarkets.
But Klaus Schwerma, author of Standing Urinators: The Last Bastion of Masculinity? doubts whether it will ever be possible to convert all men.
"Many insist on standing, even though it leads to much marital strife," he said.
In German, the phrase for someone who sits and urinates, a "Sitzpinkler", is equivalent to "wimp".
Just how much control will Europeans allow their government to have over them? If they can get men to become wimps who allow themselves to be shamed into sitting to pee, there really is no hope for Europe.
I was in Germany in 1979. Public transportation was insanely cheap, probably subsidised heavily by the government. People still balked at paying, and many times didn't. It reminds me, as others have pointed out, of the spoiled child who gets what he wants, but is never satisfied with what he's got. I assume they still have cheap public transportation, but just as there is a cost to children for their treats, now the German adult children's cost (for men) is to become increasingly whimpy. Unfortunately, what they need is strength.
And as Norman Mailer once said,
There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.
Labels: books, Europe
Just Remember, It's for Your Own Good
Michelle Malkin links to this
very disturbing report from Great Britain.
Parents could be forced to go to special classes to learn to sing their children nursery rhymes, a minister said.
Those who fail to read stories or sing to their youngsters threaten their children's future and the state must put them right, Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said.
Their children's well-being is at risk 'unless we act', she declared.
And Mrs Hughes said the state would train a new 'parenting workforce' to ensure parents who fail to do their duty with nursery rhymes are found and 'supported'.
The call for state intervention in the minute details of family life followed a series of Labour efforts to reduce anti-social behaviour and improve educational standards by imposing rigorous controls on the lives of the youngest children.
Mrs Hughes has established a national curriculum to set down how babies are taught to speak in childcare from the age of three months.
Her efforts have gone alongside a push by other ministers to determine exactly how parents treat their children down to how they should brush their teeth.
How long ago was it that the Sun never set on the British Empire? Now Brits can't even be trusted to raise their own children without the government looking over their shoulder to supervise. Talk about a once great society ending with a whimper.
Labels: busybodies, Europe
It's a Crazy World We Live In
Read this
post by
Tammy Bruce on Europe's reaction to Israel defending itself against the latest unprovoked acts of war from Hamas and Hezbollah. And yes, you should read the whole thing.
French President Jacques Chirac questioned whether Israel was seeking Lebanon's destruction. "One may well ask if there isn't today a kind of wish to destroy Lebanon -- its infrastructure, its roads, its communications, its energy, its airport. And for what?
"I find honestly -- as all Europeans do -- that the current reactions are totally disproportionate," he said in a live television interview on France's national Bastille Day.
Being French, you kind of expect that. But-
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano said Pope Benedict and his aides were very worried that the developments in the Middle East risked degenerating into "a conflict with international repercussions."
"In particular, the Holy See deplores right now the attack on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation, and assures its closeness to these people who already have suffered so much to defend their independence," he told Vatican Radio.
I thought Pope Benedict had taken a strong stand against Islamic imperialism. He's made friendly overtures to the Jewish community. Apparently that friendliness only lasted until Israel showed strength in the face of adversity and the fact that Jews do not need the permission of the Vatican anymore to thrive. Are we now back to our regularly scheduled Vatican-inspired anti-semitism? I hope not.
On the other side we have some Muslim countries who are properly
criticizing the terrorists of H & H.
Meanwhile, Lebanon sought support from fellow Arabs at an emergency session of foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday. But sharp rifts erupted over as moderate Arab states denounced Hezbollah for starting the conflict.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal called the group's actions "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible," telling his counterparts: "These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we cannot simply accept them."
Supporting his stance were representatives of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, delegates said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Even Russia's Putin, while offering weasel words, was less weaselly than the Europeans:
Putin said it was unacceptable to try to reach political goals through abductions and strikes against an independent state. "In this context we consider Israel's concerns to be justified," he said. At the same time, he said, "the use of force should be balanced."
What to make of this? I'm not sure, except that Europe is still in advanced appeasement mode, on their way to dhimmitude. The Muslim world, while still advancing the twisted cause of jihad, is as leery of the psychotic Iranian mullahs as the rest of us.
Labels: Europe, Israel, Pope Benedict XIV, Putin, Tammy Bruce, the French
Dershowitz on Zarqawi and Israel
Here is
Alan Dershowitz' take on the recent demise of terrorist bigwig and darling of dysfunctional Muslim societies, Abu M. Zarqawi:
As the civilized world justly celebrates the long overdue killing of Abu M Zarqawi, it must recall that his death was brought about by what has come to be known as "targeted assassination" or "targeted killings." This is the same technique that has been repeatedly condemned by the international community when
Israel has employed it against terrorists who have murdered innocent Jews. When Israel targeted the two previous heads of Hamas, the British foreign secretary said: "targeted killings of this kind are unlawful and unjustified." The same views expressed at the
United Nations and by several European heads of state. It was also expressed by various Human Rights organizations.
Now Great Britain is applauding the targeted killing of a terrorist who endangered its soldiers and citizens. What is the difference, except that Israel can do no right in the eyes of many in the international community. Surely there is no real difference between Zarqawi on the one hand and terrorist leaders from Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the other hand. If it is argued that Sheik Yassin was merely a spiritual leader of Hamas (a total lie since he explicitly authorized numerous terrorist acts), then it must be noted that one of the people targeted by the United States was Sheik Abd-al-Rahman, who was also described as a "spiritual advisor."
When the United States and British forces have engaged in targeted killings of terrorists, there have often been collateral deaths of non terrorists, as there apparently were in this instance as well. Collateral deaths are inevitable when terrorists hide among civilians and use them as shields. Both Israel and the United States make great efforts to reduce the number of collateral deaths and injuries but they do not always succeed.
I applaud the targeted killing of Al Zarqawi. His death will save many innocent lives. But I also applaud the targeted killings of anti-Israel terrorists whose deaths save numerous lives. All decent people must insist on a single standard of judging tactics such as targeted killing. It is nothing short of bigotry to approve this tactic when used by the United States and Great Britain but to condemn it when it is used by Israel.
And yes, I apologize, but I swiped the whole thing. I just love the way he exposes the hypocrisy of those who pretend they are nobly engaged in the war against Islamic terror while refusing to allow the leader in battling Islamic terrorism, Israel, the use of tactics they themselves use, and which will lead to victory against Islamic fascism.
The double standard used against Israel by European governments and the UN is the continuation of 1500 years of European anti-semitism, and if it continues it will lead to the demise of Europe and the creation of
Eurabia.
You cannot fight a war while demonizing the one country who should be your most important ally.
As long as we are on the subject, you should buy Dershowitz' book,
The Case for Israel.
Labels: Alan Dershowitz, anti-semitism, Europe, Israel, targeted killings, Zarqawi
Good Jews, Bad Jews . . . and Uncle Jake?
I found this
article in
Commentary Magazine. It's a disturbing little article on how some European Jews have found common cause with the anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian/pro-terrorist/Jew-haters.
Can the disease that is Zionism be cured? Yes, Rose and others assure us, but only by a thorough-going renunciation. In the pre-Israel past, she writes, “dissident voices” in the Jewish world warned against the terrible consequences that would flow from the effort to win a state for the Jews; although silenced and repressed then, they are needed more then ever today, during the Jews’ “dark night of the soul.”
No one can say that such voices have not been forthcoming. In the August 8, 2002 Guardian, 45 Jewish signatories, in a widely hailed act of public abjuration, repudiated their right of return to the Jewish state on account of its racist policies. Since the statement’s original publication, it has been signed by over 80 more individuals from around the world. One of the organizers subsequently explained that what motivated him to act was the “pitiless violence” of his “blood relatives,” i.e., the Israeli people—the “violence,” as he put it, of the “traumatized former victim, clinging to past wounds from generation unto generation.”
The publicity attending this and similar initiatives by European Jews, abetted in some cases by their Israeli counterparts, has been very great. There was tremendous excitement in Europe over the declaration by 99 Israeli academics that their government was planning an imminent “full-fledged ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinian people (a charge that was not withdrawn when the alleged genocidal atrocity failed to occur), and again over the refusal of a few hundred Israeli army reservists to serve in the administered territories. There was even greater excitement when several European Jewish academics turned up among the instigators of a movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions, and yet again when a number of Jewish politicians called for the boycott of Israeli commercial products.
Among the latter group was the British parliamentarian Oona King, who in June 2003, comparing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza with the Nazi treatment of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, spoke of her personal “shame” as a “Jewish person” (her father is Jewish). A year later, Gerald Kaufman, another member of the British Parliament, called for a boycott of Israeli goods on similar grounds, as, in South Africa, did Ronnie Kasrils, a government minister: “As a person who was born Jewish, I am morally obliged to speak out against what is being done by the Zionist state of Israel to the Palestinian people.”
Many others have likewise seen it as their specifically Jewish duty to denounce Israel. Their ranks include all three proponents of a motion, “Zionism is the real enemy of the Jews today,” aired at a public debate in London early this year. One of them was the historian Avi Shlaim. Like others before him, he too felt the need to advertise his Jewish virtuousness by writing about it for publication. In a subsequent op-ed in the International Herald Tribune, he justified the implacable anti-Zionism on which he has based his academic career by appealing to a faith he does not appear ever to have practiced: “One of the greatest accolades in Judaism,” he instructed his readers, “is to be a rodef shalom, a seeker of peace.”
[ . . . ]
Unlike the case in pre-Enlightenment Europe, present-day anti-Semitism does not expect Jews to abandon their religion. Today’s Europe is a self-consciously multicultural society. Although it cherishes secularism above all, it respects, if somewhat warily, religious pluralism. What the enlightened sector of today’s Europe would like Jews to do, in exchange for fully approved membership in the circle of approved opinion, is to renounce a core component of their identity: that is, their sense of Jewish peoplehood as expressed through their attachment and commitment to the democratic state of Israel and to the Zionist enterprise.
Unfortunately we have those "Good Jews" here in the United States and even in Israel. My only comment for them is, remember that the "Good Jews" who helped the Nazis were not spared the gas chambers. Their turns only came a bit later.
I was going to proudly claim my status as a "Bad Jew". Then I read this
Dennis Prager column. The column opens with:
Jews who support the Christian right are "Uncle Jakes."
So says a pro-Israeli Jewish official in his recent column for the Israel Policy Forum, a pro-Israel organization. "Uncle Jake" is M. J. Rosenberg's term for Jewish equivalent of "Uncle Tom." Just as the left sees conservative blacks as traitors to African-Americans, so it sees conservative Jews as traitors to the Jewish people. I am the "Uncle Jake" most criticized in the Rosenberg column.
That a Jew on the left would use this term to describe Jews who support conservative Christians gives one an idea of how irrational, how hysterical are the arguments of the Jewish (and non-Jewish) left. And lacking a rational basis, they frequently rely on name-calling.
Of course I had to read Mr. Rosenberg's
column. The origin of Rosenberg's "Uncle Jake" is as follows:
The concept of Jews taking positions hostile to the Jewish people in order to stay faithful to some political agenda is not an especially new phenomenon. Jews on the left have often gone along with stands hostile to Jews, Judaism and Israel to avoid being out of step with their political allies.
In fact, the very first article I ever had published, in New York's left-wing "Village Voice," was an attack on leftist Jews who were, like me, opposed to the Vietnam War but, unlike me, supported the left’s agenda on everything, including Israel.
"These are our Uncle Toms," I wrote "And our shame."
I even coined a name for them. "Let's Call Them Uncle Jakes," I wrote. (I chose the name Uncle Jake because, in 1969, Jake was a stereotypically uncool Jewish name. That was before a studly character on the hit show Melrose Place in the 1990's was called "Jake Hansen" and well before a Jewish actor named Jake Gyllenhaal became the hottest young star around. Nowadays Jake is a cool name for kids, Jewish and not).
While there are Jews who, as we've seen from the Commentary article do work to subvert Judaism, the name calling really bothers me. It's infantile, counterproductive, and as when Margaret Cho referred to Michelle Malkin as a "
race traitor" because Malkin had the audacity to deviate from the Left's "minority as victim of white racist oppression" script, and write a book in defense of the WWII internment of Japanese Americans (which Cho never read), it can be just stupid. Speaking of which, later, Mr. Rosenberg informs us that:
Most of today's "Uncle Jakes" are on the right
[ . . . ]
Right-wing Jews, have not only endorsed the right’s view on Christmas, they have signed on the dotted line to endorse the entire Christian Right agenda: opposing abortion, poverty programs, progressive taxation, laws that protect gays, affirmative action, the environmental movement, and feminism. The list goes on and on and will be added to each time the Christian Right comes up with a new issue (like Terry Schiavo) to use as a wedge for dividing Americans from each other.
[ . . . ]
Prager himself gives part of the answer when he says that, for Jews, "the one issue that overwhelms all others is the security of Israel." For Prager, it's simple. The Christian Right supports an uncompromising hard-line on Israel and despises the Palestinians; therefore Jews should support the Christian Right.
He conveniently ignores the fact that Christian Right support for Israel is largely based on a religious belief that Christ will only return after Jews are all in Israel accepting the divinity of Jesus Christ.
But, as Dennis Prager retorts,
That is the lie about Christians that the left spreads to prevent Jews from knowing the truth about Christian support for Israel: that it is rooted overwhelmingly in the beliefs that G-d promised the return of the Jews to Israel, that Christians are grafted onto the tree of Israel, that G-d blesses those who bless the Jews, that Israel is a humane democracy and its enemies are bloodthirsty and backward regimes.
To Rosenberg, conservative Christians are a caricature.
Rosenberg's charges that Jews who support Christian conservatives do so from nefarious motives and that Christians who support Israel do so from nefarious motives is typical of the left. They judge motives, not deeds. And the reason is clear. They are so certain of their moral superiority, they can only deduce that all those who differ with them are bad people. That's how a Jew who has devoted his life to the Jewish people can be called an Uncle Jake.
I wouldn't put myself in the same league as Dennis Prager when it comes to service to the Jewish community, but I'm prepared to go beyond "Bad Jew" status. You can call me Uncle Jake.
Labels: anti-semitism, Christian support for Israel, Commentary Magazine, Dennis Prager, Europe, Jews, Zionism
War's legitimate object is more perfect peace. Flavius Vegitius Renatus
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CHALLAH AKBAR
