Stop making Rense
Guest post by Judeosphere
In January, Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, who blogs at the Washington Post site, “On Faith,” stunned readers with a rant on the topic of Jewish identity: “We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity.”
He hastily issued a pseudo-apology, saying that he didn’t mean to imply “all Jewish people” (apparently, only supporters of Israel are going to destroy the human race). Not surprisingly, he was unable to quell the controversy, and he resigned from his position of president of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence at the University of Rochester.
But Arun did not go quietly, and his growing bitterness at you-know-who has become apparent with each subsequent interview he has given to the press. He lashed out against the “Zionist Nazis” who criticized him; he said his resignation reflected a desire to “sacrifice himself” so that the institute did not suffer the ire of the all-powerful “Jewish Lobby”; claimed that the same “Jewish Lobby” wields tremendous influence over politics in India; and, in an interview with the Rochester City Newspaper, he declared that Jews are indifferent to any genocide other than their own: “They say this will never happen again, but what they really mean is this will never happen to them again. They do not seem to be very concerned about this kind of violence taking place in other parts of the world.”
Recently, Arun found an audience that is guaranteed to be sympathetic to his worldview. According to this article on Rense.com, he was a guest on Rense Radio on April 30th.
For those unfamiliar with Rense.com, it is a website maintained by U.S. conspiracy theorist Jeff Rense who, in addition to his obsession with UFOs, frequently posts anti-semitic articles and denials of the Holocaust.
Did Arun Gandhi have a clue who he was speaking with? What do his supporters, who call him a “man of peace,” have to say about this?
A footnote: In February, the Washington Post ombudsman had this to say about the affair:
“The piece should not have been published. The apologies should have come sooner. The archived piece should have links to the apologies….It’s a risk to run a site on religion and faith that encourages robust dialogue among diverse panelists. But it is a risk worth taking in a world fractured by belief. Should Gandhi stay on the panel? Let’s wait to read what he writes about what he has learned.”
As of today, the archived piece does not have links to any of the apologies issued by Mr. Gandhi or the editors of the blog. As for what he has “learned” from the controversy, I would say, not much.
Comments
| 2 June 2008, 6:34 am |
I think his grandpa said a few silly things on a similar subject.
Anyway, inheriting a good name is not the same as inheriting a good brain.
Arun had a good living compliments of his grandpa; maybe he’ll have to work for a living now; looks good on him.
| 2 June 2008, 7:19 am |
Jeff Rense and his site are not even known popularly for his primitive “theories” but the lurid shock images his site provides of various conflicts and accidents.
| 2 June 2008, 7:34 am |
@YINever
Its interesting that you make that assertion;
Check out the article “A State of Inequity…” footnote 13.
Seems that this guy gets his cues from Rense – and check out where he works.
| 2 June 2008, 9:14 am |
Who is Jason D. Söderblom?
| 2 June 2008, 9:22 am |
an Analyst for the Terrorism Intelligence Centre, in Canberra
| 2 June 2008, 10:11 am |
Yeah, but which is what?
| 2 June 2008, 10:17 am |
i bet what gandhi learned is that if he takes the anti-jewish rhetoric up a notch, he’ll fill his calendar with talking appointments.
| 2 June 2008, 12:23 pm |
Like Chomsky, Napier, Wight and Kollerstrom, he likely didn’t expect to be caught. At the time, it was predicted he’d go and then start whining. Gramps said some *objectionable* things divorced from human feelingness, but he least he lived as a (randy) monk. AG is pampered, hysterical and as lacking in empathy as Streicher. After a narcistic injury, he’s lashed out and blames all but himself. Because he’s an important person for whom normal rules don’t apply. The PPU was crawling with his ilk in the 1930s.
| 2 June 2008, 12:31 pm |
his granddad did say a few things – however they were not silly. Have you read them? His point was that you cannot make a nation by forcing out the original inhabitants. He argued the Palestineans had a right to live there and the militias that were forcing the civilians out were wrong.
| 2 June 2008, 12:48 pm |
Del, did Gramps cite events other than Dier Yasin or express similar concern for attempts to force out Jews? Or did he, while greiving over dead Jews, blame everything on Jews staying not-dead?
While more Indians were dying in single days than Israel manages in 10 years, did he offer a single worthwhile suggestion?
| 2 June 2008, 2:44 pm |
“Even if the Allies were to go to war against Germany, Gandhi said,
their action could bring to the Jews no inner joy or strength. Inner joycame from suffering voluntarily forgone.” -N. Baker in his book, Human Smoke.
Gramps was, on some topics at least, an idiot. So’s Baker, who apparently approves of gramps’ advice even with the benefit of hindsight.
| 2 June 2008, 3:08 pm |
why is everyone so allergic about things that are true?
| 2 June 2008, 3:26 pm |
Gilad?
Gramps was an exagerated danger of deferring to Ven on international policy, but had the excuse of being pre Shoah and mass media, and showing an equal lack of concern for the mortal suffering of Indians. NB is demented National Bolshevik who gets his facts from Wiki, and blames Bomber Command for the deportation of Hanover’s Jews, and considers Himler an authority on Churchill.
| 2 June 2008, 9:10 pm |
Ghandi himself seems to have been an Antisemite and script-writer for the BNP
Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and in-human to impose the Jews on the Arabs
Yup “England for The English!”
| 2 June 2008, 9:17 pm |
Not an antisemite as much as a Third Positioner, Maven.
| 3 June 2008, 1:18 am |
@David T
http://www.terrint.com/news.htm
Its an influential think-tank in Australia and seems to be associated with the Australian National University (came in #16 in the THES-QS world uni rankings).
Strange that folks like these are using Rense as a source though isn’t it?
| 3 June 2008, 1:41 am |
Alec,
No, not Gilad.
–
I hadn’t known that about NB, though I’m not surprised that being an idiot re. the history of WW2, he’s also a Nat. Bolshevist. Who’s Ven?
| 3 June 2008, 1:47 am |
Mahamta Ghandi (Gramps) was like a lot of pre-war honest* liberals and radicals in that they could not imagine a state much more repressive then the British Empire in India. I.E. repressive sure, but influenced and restrained by outside opinion. The absolute ruthlessness of the totaltarians was beyond their imagination.
As for Ghandi’s statement about Palestine, that was mostly to do with his understandable desire to concilate India’s Moslems and to keep them from dividing the subcontinent with their own country. For a generation or so after Independence, India continued to give Israel a cold shoulder so as to not to stirr up India’s remaining Moslems. In the last 20 years, India and Israel have come together first as partners** in the fight against a common enemy, Islamic Terrorism, but also as partners in high tech industry and trade.
*honest in the sense that their belief in staying out of the war against Nazi Germanay was not influenced by whether or not Hitler and Stalin were dance partners. In other words they were not fellow travellers or pro-Soviet Apologists, etec. Here in the US, the liberal writer Sinclair Lewis and the long-time head of the American Socialist Party, Norman Thomas were examples of these honest anti-war liberals and radicals.
**Think of it as the alliance of the Elephant and the Mongoose!
| 3 June 2008, 10:54 am |
Gandhigeewhiz, t’was Zionist Lover I suspected of being Gilad. Ven is Venichka, our very own Dagenham Torquemada.
NB is more than an idiot. He’s a novelist who tries to apply his post modern technique of creation virtual reality on pages to explaining all of actual human behaviour. He describes himself as “always having had pacifist leanings” and does seem to follow the National Bolshevik line of seeing Hitler as a closet pacifist or, at least, forced into war.
Rather like TheIrie.
| 3 June 2008, 1:35 pm |
Arun Ghandi’s statements are terribly ignorant considering how many Jews (and Jewish NGOs) are involved in spreading genocide awareness even when Jews are not the primary target– even to the extent that it’s become routine for anti-Semites to claim that reports of genocide (say in Darfur) amount to Zionist propaganda.
If there is any apologia possible that allows us to portray Mr. Ghandi’s statements as a tragic blindspot and not as malice, we should consider that India has a long-standing reputation of never persecuting their Jewish communities, and as a consequence, Indians might not grasp that antisemitism is powerful historical force elsewhere in the world.
By the way, thanks to David All for filling in some historical context about some of the realpolitik compromises that even idealists have to make.
| 10 June 2008, 4:20 pm |
Fuck Israel.
| 16 August 2008, 8:44 pm |
Funny Melanie Phillips HPs poster girl says much the same thing about Muslims….
| 16 August 2008, 8:47 pm |
IanThal
“Arun Ghandi’s statements are terribly ignorant considering how many Jews (and Jewish NGOs) are involved in spreading genocide awareness even when Jews are not the primary target– even to the extent that it’s become routine for anti-Semites to claim that reports of genocide (say in Darfur) amount to Zionist propaganda.”
Yet funnily the zionist lobby was completely silent over the genocide of Muslims in gujurat in 2002- perhaps because it was perpetrated by their anti-Muslim fascist friends in the stongly pro-Israel BJP/RSS/VHP (wheras The sudan govt is anti Israel so theres was a bad genocide) and dont mention the silence and denial of the Nakba and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
| 19 November 2008, 2:47 pm |
All this bleeding heart anti racist poor jew crap thrills me. Tell me more.
| 19 November 2008, 2:59 pm |
Im thrilled that all the banks, all the governments and every position of influence in the world is held by a Jew. Is this racist to say this? After all they are superior to everyone else right? Is it racist to say this? I love living under the boot of Jews because it really turns me on. Is this racist to say? I get off watching Israelis kill Palestinian children, why shouldnt they? Is this racist? How about all the Jewish lawyers who have built such a wonderful system of justice, we certainly wouldnt want any goyim in charge of this. Is this racist I say this?
Rense is utterly foul, a very quick search revealed this disgusting item:
“Do Jews Control The World? By Henry Makow PhD”
http://www.rense.com/general78/jcontrol.htm
and yes, it is as bad as the title suggests
the author is as weird as they come, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Makow
there’s a lot more very sick stuff by Makow on Rense, not forgetting
“It’s Time To Re-Think David Duke By Israel Shamir” http://www.rense.com/general69/tmi.htm (that’s Gilad Atzmon’s old pal)