Harry's Place

I don’t know if I agree with Quinn – there is something about the Cassipoedia project that rings alarm bells, but I certainly sympathise with some of the views he expresses in his article.

This will get me labelled an anti-semite. Fine. But words can mean many things – so before we go any further, would you care to actually define what you mean by “anti-semite”?

You seem to imply that criticism of Israel is anti-semitic. Indeed, you go as far as to imply that this is the only possible conclusion that can be drawn. This is so patently absurd that I suspect that I am misinterpreting you. Could you elaborate?

“This really is an important test”. Yes, sir, Mr McCarthy Sir. Will my details be plastered all over the internet with the label “anti-Semite” if I answer the wrong way? If I fail the test?

OK, “criticism of Israel cannot be anti-semitic” – wrong. “Criticism of Israel must be anti-Semitic” – wrong. “Criticism of Israel is neither necessarily anti-Semitic nor not anti-Semitic” – correct. Is Tatchell’s piece on Pakistan anti-Pakistani? Because by the objective standards used here (he singles out a country, when other have done the same or worse) it surely is.

With regard to Israeli control of the media – I would never say that. I would say there is media bias in the US in favour of Israel. I would say this is less the case in the UK, but still the general condition of the Palestinians is barely reported and barely understood here. But I would say that Israel controls anything in this regard. The lobby surely influences things, but no-way would I accept the word “control”. Same goes, times a 100, for “control” of “Washington”.

ERROR!!! I mean’t “I wouldn’t say Israel controls anything in this regard”. That surely is obvious anyway.

look, we all know who and what you are.
did you read the article? why don’t you tell us what you think of it?
i mean, you couldn’t possibly seem like more of an idiot to most people here, so you have nothing to lose.

Here’s another ERROR, Irie:

‘But I would say that Israel controls anything in this regard’

Aren’t I nice to you?

Quinn: “Is it possible that the vast majority of critics of the Israeli government are motivated by a sense of empathy with the suffering of the Palestinians, and outrage at the Israeli government as the source of that suffering, rather than a bizarre and unrelated hatred of Jews? And is it possible that those who refuse to accept this contention and instead condemn government critics as “anti-semites” do so because they themselves simply do not, or cannot feel such empathy for the oppressed? Is the problem here that we are essentially talking different ‘languages’?”

I think that is highly possible, yes.

Z – that is what I was correcting, see.

I’ve just read Quinn’s piece on the murder of Litvinenko. You’ll never guess.

Snip:

The era of mere ‘double agents’ is long since gone it seems. In today’s world we must try to wrap our brains around not ‘double’ but at least ‘quadruple agents’, individuals who are used abused and often sacrificed by their Russian, Israeli, British or American oligarch masters in the hope that they can spin a web so complex that no one will see the men behind the curtain. Who are they? They are the psychopaths in power – the pathocrats – those men and women who, as a function of their inability to feel empathy for another human being, have risen to the very top of the game here on planet earth. They control banks, governments and the mainstream media and as a result, much of the rest of human society. They are the architects of the current end game of our civilisation also known as “the global war on terrorism”, and they play both sides – Islamic and Judeo-Christian – against each other. To what end? Read the news. The answer should be more than clear.

And finally:

So are we beginning to see a pattern here, albeit a rather complex one? A snaking trail of deceit involving Israeli passport-holding Russian oligarchs; South African and Israeli apartheid; the production and trafficking of nuclear, biological, chemical and ethnically specific weapons by those nations; the participation of the US military and hired British, American, South African and Dutch mercenaries to effect the overthrow of sovereign states by way of manufactured false flag “terrorism”, which is also used to drive a wedge between the West and the Islamic world; all of which brings us full circle back to nuclear, biological, chemical and ethnic specific weapons, and the final solution plan of the last remaining “democratic” apartheid state: Israel.

The man’s ill.

TheIrie

Tell us what you think of Quinn’s article, as a whole.

Do you think that Quinn is a racist, who has just ascribed to ‘Israel’, ‘Israeli oligarchs’ and ‘their sort’, standard conspiracies about control of Washington and global media which have been ascribed to Jews since the Protocols.

Seriously

What do you think?

Is this anti-semitism or not?

I didn’t even get past the cartoon. Need I say more?

Brownie, yes, I read that too. Bonkers. At the end of his babbling, Quinn writes: “A final note: All of this has much more to do with Douglas Reed’s book The Controversy of Zion, that you could possibly imagine“.

TheIrie, wouldn’t you agree that Joe Quinn is a “relatively apolitical liberal of some sort”?

I honestly can’t decide, David, whether that is a legitimate question to put to me. I mean, your not asking out of idle curiosity, or to debate the issues involved (some of which I’ve commented on above). You are asking in order to denounce me (or not). It’s McCarthyism.

criticism of Israel cannot be anti-semitic

That is false.

But so is this:

criticism of Israel is anti-semitic

TheIrie: it isn’t to denounce you, but genuinely to ascertain your worldview. It would be interesting to see, when you read that article, whether you notice the very old, well-worn ‘Protocol’ tropes or not. If you do not, I don’t think this makes you an antisemite, but simply that you do not have a grounding in such things.

i wasn’t aware that denouncing racists falls under “mccarthyism”.

a racist would claim that it does, though.

Do you, or do you not, on the evidence of the Quinn articles you have read here think that Quinn is an anti-semite

This isn’t ‘McCarthyism’. This is a simple question.

I read the first paragraph – I’m not up on the whole UCU boycott matter – I only took some interest because of the closing down of the site (well done, JD!!) but I fisked it so far:-

Every year since 2002 the University and College Union (UCU), the largest trade union and professional association for academics working in further and higher education throughout the UK, has attempted to implement some form of boycott of Israeli academic institutions that have been shown to be complicit in the ongoing persecution of the Palestinian people. [Isn't it all Israeli academic institutions, "complicit" or not that are supposed to be boycotted? ]And each year, amid much acrimony and cries of “anti-semitism”, boycotters meet with significant resistance from pro-Israeli members of British academia, and other institutions. [Wouldn't they get significant resistance from people who are generally anti-boycotts in general, or who think the boycotters are lot of politico tossers or have judged that it's a poor way of solving the Is/Pal situation? Not necessarily "pro-Israeli" as such.]

Anyway I’m not knowledgeable about the issue but I think a good fisking is in order.

I wouldn’t bother KB. This guy is a general nut. It isn’t just Jews/’Zionists’.

His significance is limited to whether self-identifying anti-racists can recognise this guy an an anti-semite.

TheIriot

“I honestly can’t decide, David, whether that is a legitimate question to put to me. I mean, your not asking out of idle curiosity, or to debate the issues involved (some of which I’ve commented on above). You are asking in order to denounce me (or not). It’s McCarthyism.”

This is a blog. Over a long period of time you have spent a lot of time here. You have never agreed with anything on this blog, have frequently lied and yet have been fully indulged and allowed to put forth your (frequently irrelevent, spurious and dishonest) point of view. You have not been censored even though there has frequently been a good case for deleting your comments because you have simply made a conscious attempt to derail and sidetrack debates.

You are being asked your view on an article and whether or not you think it is antisemitic.

You are not the victim of Mcarthyism. You are (in my view, not necessarily that of this blog) a nasty, unpleasant individual, and are virulently anti-semitic. I base that not on this thread, but several months of your frequenting of these threads.

Personally I have no interest in your views on Quinn, or anything or anyone else. But I do need to ask the question…… Are you totally stupid?

Yes, that was rhetorical.

Resounding silence from Benji and TheIrie on the question I asked.

European Union definition of anti-Semitism

Well, it plainly is McCarthyism – the question is posed, explicitly as a “test”. None-the-less, this isn’t the US senate, so I’ll indulge you to this extent. I will answer whether I think that article is anti-Semitic. First I’m going to read the whole thing. Torno Subito.

He does appear to hold non Israeli oligarths accountable for the own actions. And is still a nut.

Irie (too many keystrokes for your full name), please tell us where David advocates the pros loore their jobs for that reason. Such is McCarthyism. Just as is demanding Israeli academics be ostracized for their nationality.

Oh, sow deh lar, Benji.

Resounding silence from Benji and TheIrie on the question I asked.

Dear me, David, I’ve obviously been a naughty schoolboy who needs to stay for detention. I have not read Quinn’s article because – it isn’t of great interest to me.

Ah I see. Joe Quinn is a slightly more intelligent version of Flanker:

You see, your job, as a docile civilian, is to accept responsibility for the actions of your ‘leaders’. When they commit crimes against humanity (the humanity that you allegedly share in) you also commit crimes against humanity.

You must understand, they are the “elite”, you are not. The fact that they are the elite, is proof that they deserve to be the elite. If they did not deserve to be in their positions of almost complete control over you, they would simply not be there. Likewise, the fact that you are a dumbed-down mind-controlled idiot prooves that you deserve to be in that position. Got it?

I hope your ok with that.

http://www.sott.net/signs/editorials/signs20060809_PsychopathsMurderChildrenYouPickUpTheTab.php

Read the original article as well, TheIrie.

“I have not read Quinn’s article because – it isn’t of great interest to me.”

Game Over.

Well, it plainly is McCarthyism

Only if you think people asking questions of you on a blog have the capacity to take away your means of earning a living and stick you in prison for answering the “wrong” way.

Can I suggest this is a litte fanciful?

Though I do understand.

We all know how busy you are, Benjamin, Jeremy etc ;-)

But Benji

You’ve been holding forth on this whole business for a week now.

Do you mean to tell me that you’ve not read the Quinn article that Delich promoted? And you haven’t bothered to consider whether or not it is anti-semitic or not?

David T – just read the whole thing. You’re right – it’s not worth it.

Ministry of Truth has good bit about the culture of Quinn’s Signs of the Times site:-

“Delich’s ‘interesting reading’ was sourced from the website of David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and is, itself, merely a repost of an article which orginally appeared at ‘Signs of the Times‘, which is your classic ‘alternative news’ website, i.e. run by bunch of conspiraloons and chock full of laughable articles. For sheer bull goose lunacy can I recommend this gem, by Laura Knight-Jadczyk, which claims. amongst other things, that the destruction of the World trade Centre, in 2001, may have carried out using a super secret orbital beam weapon and, in one of the finest pieces of specious circular ‘logic’ I’ve seen in many a long year, that a super secret intelligence community, which is, in ‘reality’, working for their secret alien overlords, is responsible for faking alien abductions in order to discredit, amongst other thing, the 9-11 ‘truther’ movement, which appears to include a disproportionate number of self-styled abductees, and more generally for faking alien abductions in order deflect public attention away from whatever it that the real alien overlords, rather the fake ones, might be up to.”

http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/08/27/harrys-place-sued-over-typo/

Game Over

Er, why? I am supposed to read some crappy article about something that is not of great interest to me in order to answer questions at Harry’s Place? All rather odd.

“But Benji

You’ve been holding forth on this whole business for a week now.

Do you mean to tell me that you’ve not read the Quinn article that Delich promoted? And you haven’t bothered to consider whether or not it is anti-semitic or not?”

Oh dear Benjamin.

Antisemite!

He referred to ‘oligarchs’. Isn’t this a reference to Russia and Tsarists? And aren’t these the people who wrote the Protocols Forgery?

So, isn’t he just sending us a code?

You can not bother commenting here at all, if you’d like.

Benjamin

I dont engage with you because you are to all intents and purposes a total waste of space; something not dissimilar to that Mr Logic character on Viz.

If you cannot see how this thread has exposed you for the total joke you are then Im afraid I cannot bothered to explain it to you.

Perhaps a more giving, generous soul will do so.

You’ve been holding forth on this whole business for a week now.

I stated clearly that I thought it was wrong to link to anything on the DD website. I did not agree with legal action against HP.

I was primarily concerned with some of the methods involved; I do think there are some issues there, longer term, I have concerns about trial by internet, and the potentially rather unpleasant consequences – indeed I detected a note of such concern in David Hirsh’s comments asking folk to lay of Delich. Those issues are far wider that the particular case of Delich.

“Some of my best friends are Jews” is no defense to a charge of ANtisemitism since thes Jews in question may be self-hating anti-Zionists like the Nutty Kutty mob who Galloway so admires, for example.

“I don’t hate Jews” doesn’t cover it because it is possible to express oneself believing it is not motivated by Jew-Hate but casual repetition of Antisemitic canards as if they were now accepted facts would re-label the discourse as Antisemitic.

Its like MPAC UK who try (badly) to disguise any emnity towards Jews.

Do you think Quinn is an anti-semite?

Yes or no?

I think it was wrong for her to link to the DD website. That’s disgraceful. As for the article itself, it does not interest me. Personally, I was more interested in the methods employed against her, I thought they were interesting. Looking forward they may have implications, and its interesting to see how technology affects the course of these things. Of course, if folk are more interested in the article, fair enough. Different strokes for different folks.

Can we ban Benjamin now?
Forever?

BTW, the time it takes for Irie to answer the question is proof by itself of his answer. Or it is proof that he is a troll too.
Can we ban him too? Or is the Sisiphusian thrill of smashing him up in the comments one of the things that atract people to HP?

Yes, trial by internet is obviously the issue here.

Dunno why some loons have been trying to sidetrack the whole debate into anti-semitism ;-0

I’m very happy to leave anti-semites and other types of racist alone.

My only interest in them is if they engage in political activism.

No, I won’t read the original. I’ve just trawled through a lengthy tiresome article you claimed was the basis for a test of whether or not one is anti-Semitic – don’t start moving the goal posts. The whole gist of the article is to repudiate the charge of anti-Semitism. I just read the EU working definition of anti-semitism, via a link above, which says one way anti-Semitism may manifest itself is:

“Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective – such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

Well, Quinn does talk about “Israeli” “control of the press”. I think this is the closest he comes to what, by the definition given, is anti-Semitism. However, is his charge “mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical”? Is he, by talking about Israel talking about “Jews as collective” (which he has explicitly rejected in the article, where he wrote “Is it possible that the vast majority of critics of the Israeli government are motivated by a sense of empathy with the suffering of the Palestinians, and outrage at the Israeli government as the source of that suffering, rather than a bizarre and unrelated hatred of Jews?”).

Other points worth making are supporting the boycott is not anti-Semitic in and of itself. Nor is the use of the term apartheid.

So, you could argue about this if you took that one aspect – “control”(which I think it plain wrong), and ignored the rest of the article. So, my answer – no, I don’t think that is an anti-Semitic article.

David T

I have not read anything by Quinn, nor know of him, so I can’t answer your question. Its certainly a possibility. I may do some reading about it later.

“I’m only making statements about Israel/Zionists” is no defence if the statements are from classical Antisemitic canards like control of the press or manipulation of governments.

If its ONLY about Zionists then the test must be “Does a Christian Zionist from Arkansas manipulate the press?” “Does the local church with its pro-Zionist preacher manipulate the press”.

When you distil this question you discover he only means Jewish Zionists.

The same for using Israel as the object of discussion. Does he mean that 1.5m Israeli Arabs manipulate the press? etc.

Hence, when you distil the argument he ONLY means Israeli Jews!

Personally David, I think he likes upsetting the applecart of consential reality.

Can we ban Benjamin now?

What for not reading an article by Quinn? Seems rather odd.

Well, Quinn does talk about “Israeli” “control of the press”. I think this is the closest he comes to what, by the definition given, is anti-Semitism. However, is his charge “mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical”? Is he, by talking about Israel talking about “Jews as collective” (which he has explicitly rejected in the article, where he wrote

GOTCHA!

So, if he DOESN’T mean Israeli Jews then does he equally mean that Israeli Arabs manipulate the press?

GOTCHA! because you will answer No!

Then I’ve got checkmate! If you discount the Israeli Arabs then you are left with Israeli Jews living in The Jewish State.

BUSTED!!!

Don’t bother repkying it will be as lucid as Obama without teleprompter.

Is Tatchell’s piece on Pakistan anti-Pakistani? Because by the objective standards used here (he singles out a country, when other have done the same or worse) it surely is.

The difference between Tatchell and the boycotters is that PT does not just concentrate on one country, and ‘anti-imperialists’ call him things like ‘the pink end of the khaki war machine’ for his pains in standing up to abuse in Iran, Zimbabwe and some other of their preferred regimes. And he’s had a few choice words to say about the UK.

The boycotters have concentrated on Israel, Israel and Israel, and have set the terms of the debate so that only the destruction of the state itself will satisfy their requirements. PT, I think, does not call for the dismemberment of Pakistan.

Fabian

I took a look at your blog and nearly all of it seems to be in Spanish. Am i missing something? If not, perhaps you could write a few more pieces in English?

I must confess Ive always been at something of a loss as to why Benjamin and Iriot are indulged.

But… I guess DavidT would answer that this thread is proof of why.

Similarly you have had that rather upset Dermot or whatever his name is appearing on every thread over the last day or two. Had he been banned, then people would not have seen the type of person that he was/is.

Marc

So, you could argue about this if you took that one aspect – “control”(which I think it plain wrong), and ignored the rest of the article. So, my answer – no, I don’t think that is an anti-Semitic article.

Maybe yoy think someone can be a little bit pregnant too.

If a piece of meat only has a tiny bit of green mould then its OK to eat because 95% of it doesn’t!

If I place typhoid germ in a glass of water then its OK to drink because its only a tiny bit of typhoid (no need to do the Homeopathy resply)

Thanks TheIrie

You’ve made your position very clear.

Neither you, nor Delich, nor Sue Blackwell think that Quinn is an anti-semite.

I say you’re wrong. A clearer piece of anti-semitic conspiracy theorising it would be hard to find.

That you – and Delich, and Blackwell, and a whole bunch of the boycotters – can’t identify the clearest statements of anti semitic conspiracy theorising, replete with theories about Israeli oligarchs, their ‘ilk’, control of the USA, control of the media by ‘Israel’, speaks volumes.

You, and people who share your mindset, are the reason that the Palestinian Solidarity Movement has been infiltrated by racists.

Is Tatchell’s piece on Pakistan anti-Pakistani? Because by the objective standards used here (he singles out a country, when other have done the same or worse) it surely is.

But if he said that Pakistan sought to solicit the kiling of westerners by terrorism or sought to spread Shariah law then it would be clear that out of the Pakistani people he would be expressing opinions that identify Muslims from Pakistan and no others, such as Christians. Hence it could be labelled Islamistphobic (not that being so is anything terrible)

“I have not read anything by Quinn… yada, yada, yada… No, I won’t read the original, blah, blah, blah…”

Wow. To quote David Byrne, “Slippery People”

Well, I do find it curious why folk are getting worked up about this. Just relax. The article is not of particular interest to me. That’s fair enough isn’t? Its a bit like someone handing me a copy of Autocar and then quizzing me on the Bugatti. I would protest I have no interests in cars.

I suppose I have a vague interest in Israel and related issues, but its not a big blip on my radar.

Benjamin, you spent the week commenting on various blogs that the Delich affair was trivial and absurd. You now reveal that you didn’t bother reading the piece that the whole thing was about. Why do you think it is valid to comment on things about which you know nothing?

The man is clearly antisemitic based upon his article about the Madrid Bombing alone. I think in my looking at his articles there may have been one that blamed Israel for the Hariri assassination.

Some of the clueless types seem to make a false assumption. It is acceptable to claim paper X is pro Israel. It is another thing to talk about any group controlling the media. This is especially absurd in an era where media choice is greater than ever.

When we talk about cabals controlling the government this is generic
Jew hatred that probably even predates the infamous Protocols. Those
who criticize Jewish or other groups lobbying for Israel are forgetting
that this is a legitimate part of a democratic process. Does anyone complain when Greeks lobby for a pro Greek policy? I do not see this criticism of any other community other than the Cuban Americans?

Perhaps those of you who obsess over politician X meeting with AIPAC
or any other group need to come back to reality. Is there similar outrage when this person speaks at a CAIR function or a local mosque.

“It’s McCarthyism.”

“You, and people who share your mindset, are the reason that the Palestinian Solidarity Movement has been infiltrated by racists.”

Just try to wrap your head around this. A group of antisemites with control over an academic union make it their goal to exclude Israelis from their workplace and in the process alienate and intimidate the majority of Jewish scholars working in the UK. Despite being scholars, these antisemites base their understanding on the Israel-Palestine conflict on the most ludicrous and obnoxiously misleading conspiratorial articles one can find on the web

And now, their main defense seems to be screaming “Libel!”, “McCarthyism!” and in general, seeking sympathy over the negative effect that publicizing their own ideas, in their own words, has caused them.

Benjamin, you spent the week commenting on various blogs that the Delich affair was trivial and absurd

Yeah, its probably in that sort of ballpark. Of course what she did was wrong, but its not the Pentagon Papers guys. As I said, I was more interested in the conduct of the investigation and its possible repercussions.

Benjamin: “Its a bit like someone handing me a copy of Autocar and then quizzing me on the Bugatti. I would protest I have no interests in cars.”

No, it’s a bit like you hanging around on Autocar’s forum for years on end, criticising the writers, the commenters and the car itself, before admitting that you were actually just a pointless troll.

I forgot to add the classic Israel was behind 9-11 or had advance warnings of 9-11 as stated by Quinn are antisemitic and firm proof of crank status.

Tim,

The analogy doesn’t quite work, as David T doesn’t talk about antisemitism 100% of the time, and HP is not solely focused on the subject.

Considering their information sources, these subtle questions regarding different grades of antisemitism content are too difficult for UCU members. I think we should start the “McCarthyist” quiz several levels up:

“Do you think that Jews have horns?”

Or perhaps to account for the conspiracy theory readers out there:

“Can one prove that Jews *don’t* have horns?”

David T

Quinn points to an article by Dave M here in which he describes the Arabic language as “one big exercise in denial” and describes the Arabic world as “an environment that prohibits any sort of critical thought”.

Evidently, there are a lot of people around here who think of themselves as anti-racists, who read Dave’s article on HP, agreed with its content, and concluded that it is not a racist article.

This is an important test, because it seems to me that that post is the blatant anti-Arab racism.

Do you agree?

Yes or no.

Benjamin, it wasn’t really an analogy. It started off that way, but ended up more as an assertion that you are a pointless troll; a bit like if you were in the pub annoying all the other customers, by talking loud, uninformed bollocks, and whingeing obsessively about Harry’s Place, and I came up to you and pointed out that you were a pointless troll.

“… I was more interested in the conduct of the investigation and its possible repercussions.”

No, you were more interested in the sneering opportunities, and correctly surmised that a total ignorance of the underlying article was no impediment to finding your angle.

There is a very big difference between

- characterising the media of a series of totalitarian states, which imprison, torture, and otherwise repress journalists who do not toe the party line of that particular state; and

- claiming – without evidence – that Israelis control the world’s media, including that of all free countries

If you can’t distinguish between the status of the press in free and totalitarian countries, you’re a fool.

If you think that the press in free countries is controlled by a cabal, you’re a nutter.

If you think that controlling cabal is ‘Israelis’ ‘Jews’, ‘Zionists’ etc, you’re an anti-semite.

OK?

Shmuel, I don’t think you’re giving them enough credit. Perhaps a realistic and useful McCarthyite test should be to evaluate whether the following statements are antisemitic:

1. Zionists have horns.
2. Mossad are poisoners of the well.
3. Israelis use the blood of Aryan children to make their matza.

David T,

well done, I wondered when TheIrie would jump feet first into this thread and his supreme level of idiocy never ceases to amaze

TheIrie can’t decide if the article is racist or not, because that would require him to think, think independently, and he’s careful to avoid that at all costs

But David, you made it easy for him by explaining it in http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/08/27/going-nowhere/

not that TheIrie would have troubled to read that either

I have to ponder why TheIrie, who rarely reads ANYTHING and is perpetually ignorance on most political topics, feels the need to communicate his imbecility to a wider audience?

TheIrie bizarre even by Benji’s and Flanker’s low standards

I completely agree with what you say David.

But it doesn’t have anything to do with my question, because this sort of chatter about the Arabic language and the Arab world goes a very long way beyond “characterising the media of a series of totalitarian states”:

It’s not like European languages, which are basically verbal ways to convey information on who did what, where, when, how and why. It appears to me that having developed in an environment that prohibits any sort of critical thought, especially in the fields of religion and politics, Arabic has become a means to avoid dealing with difficult issues… In the end it just becomes one big exercise in denial.

So, Dave’s article: racist or not racist?

Posted at SOTT.net’s forum:

Is THEODOR’ HERZL the author of the “Protocols”?

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=7948.0

As you well know – because you’ve quoted the section in question – DaveM is talking about the development of language under conditions of political repression, I.e.:

“in an environment that prohibits any sort of critical thought, especially in the fields of religion and politics”

You might as well ask whether a similar observation about the writings and language of those living under Communism in the USSR was anti-slavic.

None of this has anything to do with the question we’re discussing.

TheIrie,

for you and others that have problems with these rather simple issues, my slight updated guide:

http://modernityblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/for-ucu-activists-how-to-avoid-re-posting-from-neo-nazi-ku-klux-klan-or-white-power-web-sites/

not that you’ll read it, too many big words and not enough picture?

MarcC: I got tired of translating everything to English on my blog.
Best,
Fabián

Fabian, why not post a link via google translate? not perfect but good for the gringos! http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmodernityblog.wordpress.com%2F&langpair=en%7Ces&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

How the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis by Joe Quinn

‘To this, of course, we must add the Fact of Zionist collaboration with the Nazis during WWII. In Lenni Brenner’s book, ‘51 Documents: Zionist collaboration with the Nazis, we read:

The Zionists also had a trade plan with the Berlin government by which German Jews could redeem their property in Nazi goods exported to then British-occupied Palestine. And to top it all off, the infamous SS-Hptscharf. Adolf Eichmann, had visited Palestine, in October, 1937, as the guest of the Zionists. He also met, in Egypt, with Feivel Polkes, a Zionist operative, whom Eichmann described as a “leading Haganah functionary.” The chain-smoking Polkes was also on the Nazis’ payroll “as an informer.”[...]

After the Holocaust began in 1942, Eichmann dealt regularly with Dr. Rudolf Kastner, a Hungarian Jew, whom he considered a “fanatical Zionist.” Kastner was later assassinated in Israel as a Nazi collaborator. At issue then, however, was the bargaining over the eventual fate of Hungary’s Jews, who were slated for liquidation in the Nazi-run death camps. Eichmann said this about Kastner, the Zionist representative, “I believe that [he] would have sacrificed a thousand or a hundred thousand of his blood to achieve his political goal. He was not interested in old Jews or those who had become assimilated into Hungarian society. ‘You can have the others,’ he would say, ‘but let me have this group here.’ And because Kastner rendered us a great service by helping keep the deportation camps peaceful. I would let his groups escape.”

Readers, too, will be surprised to learn, that after the Nuremberg Anti-Jewish Race Laws were enacted in Sept., 1935, that there were only two flags that were permitted to be displayed in all of Nazi Germany. One was Hitler’s favorite, the Swastika. The other was the blue and white banner of Zionism. The Zionists were also allowed to publish their own newspaper. The reasons for this Reich-sponsored favoritism was, according to the author: The Zionists and the Nazis had a common interest, making German Jews emigrate to Palestine.

However, according to Greenway, the Bush regime and the Zionists in Israel, the root cause of any possible threat to the future of the Jews of Israel is the ‘bogeyman du jour’ President Adhmadinejad. ‘Evidence’ for this ‘fact’ is provided by the oft-repeated yet entirely false claim that the Iranian president has “called for the destruction of the Jewish state.”

The minor problem with this ‘fact’ is that it is a lie. What Ahmadinejad actually said was that the “Zionist entity” (meaning the small group of Zionist leaders) should be “wiped from the pages of history”, and given the clear and present danger that these psychopaths pose to not only the Jewish people but the entire planet, who but the most ignorant could disagree with him.’

http://one-state.net/quinn.html

From an article at the Guardian:

‘Have some commentators responded to the Iranian regime’s threat to the state of Israel in the same way as Oranians? The question is raised in a new study (PDF) by Joshua Teitelbaum, an academic who lays out exactly what the Iranian president and other Iranian leaders have been saying about doing away with Israel, and how far it all is from the efforts among western commentators to exculpate and minimise.

Juan Cole of the University of Michigan has claimed that Ahmadinejad did not say Israel ‘must be wiped off the map’ but merely that ‘he hoped its regime … would collapse’. Teitelbaum shows that Ahmadinejad not only punctuates his speeches with “Death to Israel” (marg bar Esraiil) but on Iranian TV on June 2, 2008, he said “Thanks to God, your wish will soon be realised, and this germ of corruption will be wiped off the face of the earth”.’

http://tinyurl.com/5pvx3e

What Iranian Leaders Really Say About Doing Away With Israel by Joshua Teitelbaum

http://www.jcpa.org/text/ahmadinejad2-words.pdf

Have a read of this.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/125018-Litvinenko-By-Way-Of-Deception-Litvinenko-By-Way-Of-Deception

Conclusion: Litivinenko was killed not by Putin, but by an enemy of Putin – specifically, “Russian Jewish billionaire” Boris Berezovsky.

Yep. Joe Quinn is an antisemitic conspiracy theorist.

Just realized that Brownie beat me to the Litvinenko piece by about 5 hours. Well, there ain’t nothing wrong with reiterating what Brownie said about Quinn: “the man’s ill.”

Ben Cohen

If he’s saying that I would concur.

I am just not bit prepared to trawl through all that stuff – there are better things to do.

SWP’s still in denial:

“201. Fabian – as you won’t let it lie, I’ll reply. I’m an SWP member, a Trotskyist. There are formulations I wouldn’t use is TrotSpeak for She’s not a Trot. We are from different political tradition, and i wouldn’t write the way she does. But I don’t see anything she has said in that selection of posts quoted by her detractors earlier posts which is either openly anti-semitic or ‘dog-whistle’ anti-semitism.

Comment by chjh — 30 August, 2008 @ 2:04 pm”

If you haven’t read it, don’t comment on it.

“Don’t you have better things to do?”

This will be the question I’ll be asking you next time you post here.

I was referring to what Ben Cohen posted.

Ah, relax, David.

Thanks mod

And lo and behold, sentence is passed on me.

Actually, back on planet reality, I quite explicitly refused to pass any judgement on Quinn – I said I would judge a single article you linked to as evidence of anti-Semitism. I have said nothing for or against Quinn, or whether or not he, as an individual is an anti-Semite. I gave an equivocal assessment of that article, and said that on balance I don’t think it is anti-Semitic, especially given the lengths he goes to to make clear that he distinguishes between the people of Israel, Jews and the Israeli government. The problem is you want to ignore statements like that.

This is absolutely relevant, David, because we’re discussing people’s sensitivity to, and ability to recognise racist rhetoric.

David T: DaveM is talking about the development of language under conditions of political repression

DaveM: The Arab world is full of the most wonderful poetry ever written in any language, but nothing in the way of scientific or technological development. This cannot solely just be down to repressive governments, because China has a large IT sector, and it’s no beacon of democracy. Unlike the UAE, it’s not reliant on foreign workers to fill the skills gap.

The problem is much deeper than that. As the language, culture, religion and value system are all interconnected, maybe they all need to be examined and reassessed.

TheIrie,

David T explained it here:

“The article she recommended was written by another far right conspiracy nut, Joe Quinn, and contains the following:

“Yet the Israeli government does a very good job of convincing the whole world that it is the victim in the conflict. How can this be? Israeli control of the press? Could that ubiquitous “conspiracy theory” actually be closer to a conspiracy fact?”

The article concludes:

“To the Israeli oligarchs, the death of Palestinian civilians is “superb”, and they feel nothing when they kill women and children. What more can I say – either someone does something about these sick pyschopaths, or they, and their kind in Washington and around the world, will destroy us all. “ (my emphasis)

To those who state that all Delich did was link to a perfectly reasonable article written by a perfectly reasonable man but just failed to notice that it was hosted on David Duke’s ‘white nationalist’ site, it is worth noting that Quinn believes Mossad carried out the Madrid bombings.”

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/08/27/going-nowhere/

What precisely do you ascribe the lack of scientific and technological development to, if not a regions’ history, culture, economy, and politics?

The simple fact is that the Arab world excels – as DaveM says – in some artistic achievements, but does very poorly in science and technology. The UN sponsored review by Arab academics of the under-development of the Arab world noticed precisely the same thing.

You are making bricks without straw.

The Irie

You don’t think that it is classic anti-semitism to claim that Israel controls the media?

Forget it, David. Don’t discuss with fanatics.

I think it is classic anti-semitism to claim that Jews control the media.

I think if someone says Israel controls the media, its borderline, and one should figure out what they mean by Israel. Do they mean Israelis? Zionists? The Israeli government? The Israeli Lobby? Well, Quinn says he is talking about the Israeli Lobby. I don’t know if that is anti-Semitic. I think its wrong. I think its not constructive. But I don’t know if its anti-Semitic.

Yet you pass judgement on posters here. Including accusing oe McCarthyism David who, in the past, has defended you when we’ve named you.

You ungrateful brat.

How “The Israeli lobby controls the media” is less antisemitic than “the Jews control the media”?

Who can control the media!?

If the response is that by Israeli lobby you include non-Jews, let me tell you that in the “Protocols” the Jews are helped by the Freemasons and asorted groups. Maybe the Protocols are not antisemite either, since the Jews are not the only ones to control the media.

I am done. Good bye.

This is old stuff for “TheIrie”. I recall him justifying Craig Murray’s “Mossad – why not?” as a possible explanation for the thwarted Piccadilly car bomb last year. Simply replace the word “Jew” with “Zionist”, “Israeli” or “Mossad” and – voila! – “criticism of Israel cannot be construed as antisemitism”.

“TheIrie” claims that “criticism of Israel cannot be antisemitic” is wrong, but this sounds like a debating point. Is “Zionists have horns” an antisemitic statement, “TheIrie”?

Fabian – if you can’t separate Israel and Jewishness that is your problem. You appear to be saying that to criticise the Israel Lobby is anti-Semitic because most people in said organisation are Jews (Maven said exactly the same thing above). By that logic, any criticism of any organisation that contains Jews for any reason is anti-Semitic.

Doesn’t the fact that a huge part of Quinn’s output consists of outlandish conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the media, committing assasinations of anti-Putin journalists, acting as Al Qaeda’s puppet master make you think that, well, your radar on these questions is a bit fucked up?

Tim – “Simply replace the word “Jew” with “Zionist”, “Israeli” or “Mossad” and – voila! – “criticism of Israel cannot be construed as antisemitism”.” If we were to take this point seriously, think through the implications. You are again like others putting forth an argument that there can be no criticism of Israel that is not anti-Semitic.

I am rarely surprised nowadays. but I really cannot believe that there is a “serious” debate about whether an article that states quite categorically that Israel was behind 9/11; that Israel has sufficient and necessary power to stop this “truth” by control of US government and intelligence agencies and its control of the “mainstream” media is or is not antisemitic.

Any basic introduction will tell you that for a conspiracy theory to even begin to be effective, a kernel of truth is necessary. In this case this kernel of truth is that there is, “media bias in the US in favour of Israel” (for many complex reasons) becomes, “Zionist control of the press” (in which all complexity is erased and reduced to a single “truth”.

Likewise, conspiracy theory always contains sentences, paragraphs, etc. that can be quoted in isolation that appear completely reasonable, but, when placed in context, are reduced to mere pieces of “evidence” for the global libel. Fact: Many, many Palestinian children have died and been killed by the IDF in the Occupied Territories, becomes “evidence” that Israel has a deliberate policy of infantacide (fiction) Or, again, US support for Israel (fact) becomes “Zionists” control US foreign policy (fiction).

To me, the “real” question, as our comrades in the SWP say, is not whether it is or is not antisemitic (it obviously is) but why is this nonsense being believed now.

But, of course, this is the internet!!

David – for the love of God – I’ve said nothing about Quinn, or his broader output. What I’m questioning is your McCarthyite technique for determining who is and isn’t an anti-Semite.

And Larry was onto something above. DaveM’s article, unlike anything I’ve seen by Quinn, wasn’t talking about governments, institutions, lobbies, but people. The nature of the Arab people. The discussion of anti-Semitism has moved beyond such blatant racism, because its very rare – that is racism explicitly associated with people. The discussion of anti-Semitism largely focusses around what is and isn’t an acceptable way to present an argument against the Israeli Government or other institutions. Not Jews. No one talks about Jews. But yes Arabs. We can talk about Arabs.

I declare myself with Fabian on this one.

As if talking about the “Israel Lobby” cannot but be antisemitic.

Again, this is not the “real” question.

The “real” question is how the idea of the “Israel Lobby” is no longer automatically recognised as antisemitic, but has become a “legitimate” subject for discussion.

I too am out of here.

“Israel lobby” in itself is not antisemitic: there are all sorts of lobbies – Saudi Arabian lobby, Muslim lobby, car lobby, oil lobby, etc.

“Lobby” can be seen as negative term, of course; moreover, “Israel lobby” can be used by antisemites, but by non-antisemites too. If it’s exclusively used by antisemites, then it can be viewed as an antisemitic term. However, fundamentally, it should be uncontroversial – that’s how politics work – interest groups lobby government.

read more Quinn’s filth:

“Not exactly the result the Mossad had hoped for when they perpetrated the Madrid bombings. I suppose sometimes things just don’t go the way you plan them. The abortive Madrid bombings are unlikely however to be the end of Israeli attempts to bring the Spanish people into line with the psychopathic world view of the American and Israeli governments. The Mossad, and their international banker handlers, are not the type to just walk away from failure. When one tactic fails to satisfy, there are other ways and means.”

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/133429-Madrid+Bombings+Redux+-+What+Really+Happened

So let’s conduct some literary criticism and analysis.

Modern day anti-Jewish racists don’t always use an explicit “Jew” when they wish to attack their foe.

Rather they will cloak their intent in words like “Zionist”, ” Cosmopolitan” or “Mossad”, it’s not a very sophisticated way of deflecting blame from their comments, just a euphemism

Quinn’s use of “international banker” is a dead give away, the vicious racial stereo type of Jews as Bankers, money lenders is well known enough and shouldn’t need restating, but for the benefit of TheIrie (who’d probably have problem detecting antisemitism in Mein Kampf) here are a few examples:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/ford.html

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/control_of_fed/print.asp

I don’t know why I’m bothering, but still…

If you read an article by a writer on the subject of immigration, which asserted that;

“West Indians rape white women”

you might look at it and think:

“well, it is an odd thing to say, but perhaps he’s just talking about some rapes and some West Indians, and not recycling the racist canard about black men wanting to rape white women”.

If you read on, and found that he gave as proof a list of rapes, and the nationality of the rapists, together with the line:

“There are no doubt lots of perfectly nice black men who oppose the West Indian predeliction to rape. I am just talking about West Indians, and their supporters, facilitators, enablers and apologists”

would you conclude that the man was not a racist?

Let’s say that you thought it possible that the author was a racist. If the author’s racism was an issue, would you bother searching around for other material by the author to confirm or confound your suspicions?

Let’s say you did search around.

If you then discovered that the author had produced a series of articles about West Indians being responsible for all rape, theft, and murder in the UK, and claimed that a conspiracy of West Indians, and their ilk, was suppressing this truth, might you then think that this person was a racist?

Or would you say:

“Well, everybody knows that West Indian people do sometimes commit crime. It is clear that the man is talking about West Indians and not all black people. And the liberal media will often not report black crime, because of their political correctness”

Basically, I think that the only reason that somebody wouldn’t recognise these sorts of statements as the hallmark of racism, is if they have racist views themselves, or near racist views which have wholly desensitised them to racism.

Please Mr T condemn me as an anti-semite. Please Please.

Damn, like a Brunuel film………
A case in point…….

Truth – there is a series of lobby groups organised around support of Israel.
becomes,
Fiction – it is singular.
becomes,
Fiction – all those who comment about antisemitism are part of “the Lobby”.
becomes,
Fiction – it controls US foreign policy, media, etc.

Fiction – the “Israel Lobby” exists.

One is talking about the use of language here. To deny the existence of an Israel lobby – indeed a Jewish lobby, or any other lobby – is simply politically illiterate. Although “lobby” may be a negative term, there is nothing necessarily illegitimate about interest groups lobbying government – certainly it is part of the process. However, the term “Israel lobby” can be co-opted as an antisemitic term – and hence used somewhat differently.

“TheIrie”,

Let’s say you were a reasonably intelligent antisemite, who was well aware that accusing Jews of controlling the media, causing war, and being all-round bad eggs, tended to sit badly with most people. What would you do. Personally, I’d couch it in terms of Zionists and Israelis, because that would be enough to satisfy the stupid and the wilfully blind.

You have absolutely no grounds to say that the implications of my argument are that all criticism of Israel are antisemitic: it’s a mere assertion for which you provide no argument.

Do you think it is mere coincidence that Quinn’s implying that Israel controls the media, is conceptually so close to the Jews controlling the media? Do you find no significance in the fact that he didn’t say that WASPs, or Muslims, or Czechs, or the Saudi Lobby controls the media?

Modernity – Now that is anti-Semitic. No doubt. Long may Quinn remain irrelevant, and I sincerely hope that progressive organisations will distance themselves from him. OK – I have not commented on Quinn as an individual yet, but now I will – I think you’re all correct, he is an anti-Semite.

DavidT – I honestly don’t see how that analogy fits into what we are discussing.

“TheIrie”: “DavidT – I honestly don’t see how that analogy fits into what we are discussing.”

Reminds me of this.

Saying “Israel controls the media” is just plain wrong, apart from anything else. There is a stronger case that this is a ‘tell-tale sign’ of antisemitism. If, however, he had that “Israel influences the media” that would of course be correct, and whether or not that is motivated by antisemitism is debatable, but still possible.

I have no doubt his work on the Madrid bombing and Litivinenko represent strong supporting evidence for the prosecution.

Tim – That some racist people might do what you suggest doesn’t mean everyone who criticises “Israel” is talking about “Jews”. That is what I’m saying, so the reverse of your formulation – i.e. if you want to understand what critics really mean replace “Israeli” with “Jew” – is wrong.

Also, I said right from the start that the problem is the word “control”. I would be quite happy to say there is pro-Israel bias in the US media. That doesn’t imply control, which is altogether something different. Is the use of the word “control” anti-Semitic? Maybe – I don’t think its obvious.

Well, obviously, David.

But if you’re going to discuss these things, you might want to watch your language, and try and make some careful, detailed points, rather than hyperbolic, sweeping statements. Ideally, too, you should have some vague idea what you’re talking about.

Otherwise you might end up glibly dismissing a language spoken by hundreds of millions of people as “one big exercise in denial”, or declaring that in the entirety of the Arab world, “ideas such… critical thought are, sadly, outside most people’s comprehension”.

Are these intelligent, insightful comments, would you say? Are they are a useful contribution to debate? Or are they… something else?

To my mind, this is exactly analogous to the difference between a measured, evidence-based discussion of the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in the US, versus simply declaring that “Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory”.

Thanks TheIrie

You aren’t blind to racism, after all

Otherwise you might end up glibly dismissing a language spoken by hundreds of millions of people as “one big exercise in denial”,

Err… that’s not quite what the article states though, is it?

In some Arabic-speaking countries, asking ‘how’ and ‘why’ can get you imprisoned. Therefore the more skilled you are at it, the better you are at avoidance by using ever bigger words and ever more flowery metaphors. In the end it just becomes one big exercise in denial.

That is, because of political repression in certain Arab countries, the language has developed in such a way as to seem increasingly opaque.

You have mischaracterized the argument quite substantially.

Well, I’d look at the writers output generally, and decide on the basis of what I read.

DaveM lived in Syria, and wrote about life generally, including language use, in a totalitarian state.

Most if not all Arab states a severely repressive.

It is, quite literally incredible that you’re arguing that description of Arab culture under political repression is anti-Arab, ratherr than anti-repression.

This is akin to saying that a description of filth and squalour in a Darfurian refugee camp was a racist attack on Darfurians!

“TheIrie”: “That some racist people might do what you suggest doesn’t mean everyone who criticises “Israel” is talking about “Jews”.”

Well, hello Straw Man! Where, exactly where did I say that? Antisemites are a subset of critics of Israel. It’s a simple point.

You’re right, “TheIrie”, that when people talk about Israel, they usually don’t mean “The Jews”. However, when they do it in a context where the substitution of “Jews” for “Israelis” would leave you with something indistinguishable from a classic antisemitic canard, it’s a reasonable assumption that that person is the real deal.

Why do you conflate this with “criticism”? Is accusing Israel of controlling the media, “criticism”?

That you think there’s an issue with the word “control” but still conclude that the article is not antisemitic doesn’t help your defence. It shows that you go out of your way to defend the indefensible, and to give the benefit of the doubt to the antisemite. You are not so charitable here when you conflate condemnation of Islamists with an attack on Muslims per se.

Tell me, how is it that others imagine antisemitism in an article by Quinn where you see none, and then lo, it turns out that to a large degree, antisemitism informs his worldview? Do you think that HP highlighted an innocuous article by someone who, by a stroke of luck, happened to be antisemitic?; or are you, like UCU, completely blind to this, and destined forever to find yourself shilling for people who, it turns out, are antisemites?

Tim – your argument (which I now understand) is not completely unreasonable. However, I would argue that if you were faced with someone who said “Israel controls the media” (and not the rest of it) this is not enough to dismiss them out of hand. I mean, I disagree with M&Walts thesis, in so far as I’m aware of it, but I do think it’s a unreasonable topic for discussion. And their thesis is more or less a version of “the Israeli Lobby controls the media”. I think the statement can be challenged and discussed.

This is totally unlike the claim that Mossad, and their international banker backers, are responsible for the Madrid bombing. That is beyond the realm of civilised discourse.

bugger – I meant I do not think its an unreasonable…

For a passionately anti-repression piece, doesn’t it strike you as a bit odd that the only mention he makes of his central theme is to say “This cannot solely just be down to repressive governments, because…”?

Regardless of whether “DaveM” is or isn’t a conscious racist himself – and I’d guess that he isn’t – and regardless of what he might have written elsewhere, just look at how many racist tropes appear in the article Larry’s discussing.

An entire language is reduced to “one big exercise in denial”. The Arab world — extremely complex and internally differentiated – is presented as if it had just one “language, culture, religion and value system”. There are patronising remarks with not much evidence offered to back them up: “ideas such as democracy and critical thought are, sadly, outside most people’s comprehension”. There’s Orientalist cliché: the Arabic he wants us to consider from the TV show is “passive, emotional, and all about feelings and sensations”, rather than being about “goals that can be analysed and measured.” (Phwoarrrr – feel that Occidental rigour!) There’s Arab exceptionalism: European languages are “basically verbal ways to convey information on who did what, where, when, how and why” whereas, hey, Arabic is different. “It’s just a language, right? Yes and no.” And so on. “DaveM” saves the best for last — the piece ends by invoking the classic racist staple that Arabs are shifty people, who all, whenever they speak or write in their own language, apparently, have “something to hide”.

Again and again, this text slides very quickly from observations based on the writer’s own experience from his time in Syria to colossal generalisations about everyone, or “most” people, or “the overwhelming majority”, in loads of different countries with very different histories and traditions. And the writer’s attention is highly selective in ways that, if this was a discussion about a different population living quite close to Syria in the contemporary Middle East, people on this discussion board might think was highly suspicious. In trying to raise what we might call, for instance, legitimate questions about “the language, culture, religion and value system” of the Arab world, he nowhere considers or even mentions blindingly obvious points that count against the line of argument he’s making – e.g., if it’s so hard to do analysis and measurement in Arabic, how come there are quite so many people studying technical subjects in Arab universities?, or if there’s something about the language has something to do with technological under-development, why was there quite so much achievement on this front in the Arab world in the early middle ages?

Of course there can, in theory, be serious discussion of the intersection of sociology and language-use with topics in political and economic development, and so on, which aren’t racist apologetics. But they should be undertaken with very great care and sensitivity by people with real expertise. Otherwise, given that so much racism has been spat out by racists and by people who just don’t have a very good idea what they’re talking about in the last few centuries, these are topics that it’s generally best to avoid, especially in a weblog entry like this one, if – well, if you don’t want people to think that you’re churning out offensive and racist nonsense.

(Whoops — left off the closing tag after “legitimate questions” — sorry about that!)

theire is a great example of why racists have very successfully infiltrated left organizations.
he has very high tolerance for anti-semitism if it’s couched in anti-zionist language.

TheIrie, you seem to avoid walking into this trap so let me set it again.

I think it is classic anti-semitism to claim that Jews control the media.

I think if someone says Israel controls the media, its borderline, and one should figure out what they mean by Israel. Do they mean Israelis? Zionists? The Israeli government? The Israeli Lobby? Well, Quinn says he is talking about the Israeli Lobby. I don’t know if that is anti-Semitic. I think its wrong. I think its not constructive. But I don’t know if its anti-Semitic.

So, if Israel controls the media is it ALSO true to state that “Israeli Arabs control the media” since they are part of Israel? If its is NOT acceptable to you then all that is left is that you mean that its ONLY Israeli Jews who ‘control the media.

So, do we include Israeli Arabs or do we exclude them. If we exclude them then we are surely making a racist statement by selecting Jews by default or excluding Arabs. So, which is it?

Unless you make a distinction then the statement “Israeli Arabs controls the media” must be true too.

Now, there is a difference. Attacking Arabs is anti-Arab racism,. Attacking Jews is Antisemitism. We are discussing Antisemitism.

In any attack on the integrity of Israel simply ask if this includes 1.5m Israeli Arabs. They will always say no. You can always reply, “So its just the Jews then”!

People fond of conspiracy theories are often anti-semitic.

I had parused this SOTT site several days ago, before I’d even heard of Mr Quinn, and stumbled upon some of the man’s articles, all of which I thought were completely over the top .

The guy has some serious, serious issues, if you ask me.

That said, not all criticism of Israel is anti-semitic; people have a right to criticise gov’t policies. In fact, I’m uncomfortable with some policies of the Israeli gov’t.

However, when that criticsm becomes a selective obsession, and when Israel is singled out for intense and endless scrutiny, especially when that scrutiny takes no account of any context or circumstances attentuating events, then such “criticsm” crosses the line into a form of racism.

And Mr Quinn DOES allude to Jewish controle of this and that ( media etc), but employs the term ‘Israeli’ in a lame and predictable attempt to avoid charges of anti-semitism.

His *theories* are a but slight rework of the old ‘Protocol’ canards and Quinn, thus, is an antisemite.

TheIrie wrote:

“OK – I have not commented on Quinn as an individual yet, but now I will – I think you’re all correct, he is an anti-Semite.”

I am glad that I could do your thinking for you, mores the pity that you can’t.

Here’s a discussion on Stormfront about Delich:

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/anti-zionist-lecturer-posts-kkk-518234.html

It hardly bears reading Danny. Not “discussion”… Just the usual egotistical ranting, by someone who calls himself “Cleanse By Fire”. I mean, really…. That’s the thing about extremists – they just have no discernible sense of humour, apart from the unintentional stuff.

Actually Benji, I’ll agree with you here: discussion is too grand a term for what goes on at Stormfront.

My point was merely that they know now about Delich approving of the Quinn article that was featured on Duke’s website.

Now that Quinn has leaped to Delich’s defence, will Duke do the same?

And will she and her supporters in UCU disown Quinn’s and Stormfront’s support?

“TheIrie”: “Tim – your argument (which I now understand) is not completely unreasonable.”

How very gracious, now that you understand it.

“However, I would argue that if you were faced with someone who said “Israel controls the media” (and not the rest of it) this is not enough to dismiss them out of hand.”

Well, I would dismiss them as an antisemitic conspiracy nut. I can imagine theoretical scenarios where this might not be the case, but it’s a good, workable rule of thumb.

“I mean, I disagree with M&Walts thesis, in so far as I’m aware of it, but I do think it’s a unreasonable topic for discussion. And their thesis is more or less a version of “the Israeli Lobby controls the media”. I think the statement can be challenged and discussed.”

Actually, Walt and Mearsheimer are more interested in whether Jews, sorry, Zionists, control the US government make America fight its proxy wars. I am not against anyone discussing the machinations and power of any lobbies, but any thesis that defines a lobby by chucking together disparate and often diametrically opposed groups as though they were acting in concert, and then draws the conclusions that W&M do, is worse than wrong. Even if it’s got footnotes and everything.

I agree with David Hirsh, I feel sorry for Delich (in a way). She knows not what she has kicked off. But this will quickly burn out in the thicko far right ether.

Chris Brooke -

An entire language is reduced to “one big exercise in denial”.

No, it isn’t. I’ve already pointed this out to Larry Teabag. Let’s look at the paragraph in question.

In some Arabic-speaking countries, asking ‘how’ and ‘why’ can get you imprisoned. Therefore the more skilled you are at it, the better you are at avoidance by using ever bigger words and ever more flowery metaphors. In the end it just becomes one big exercise in denial.

As is quite clear, this is not a ‘reduction of an entire language’. It is a description of how, under conditions of political repression in (note) some Arab countries, the language has necessarily become veiled and opaque. You can disagree with this analysis if you like, but to describe it as the reduction of the language as a whole is frankly absurd.

There’s Orientalist cliché: the Arabic he wants us to consider from the TV show is “passive, emotional, and all about feelings and sensations”, rather than being about “goals that can be analysed and measured.”

As the programme in question is a “Conspiracy Files” special which asserts (amongst other 9/11 lunacy) that the film “The Long Kiss Goodnight” reveals the secret ways in which the CIA intends to frame the Arab world, it’s hardly likely to be a repository of clear-thinking and common sense, is it? Perhaps you could assert that picking on this particular programme as representative is unfair, but honestly does the fact that such a programme is being shown on one of the most popular Arabic channels tell us nothing?

“I would be quite happy to say there is pro-Israel bias in the US media.”

Are you a media monitoring organisation? Have you ever heard of CNN?

Sorry but who is this Quinn non-entity. Why give webspace to someone so obviously stupid and so obviously racist.

So, if Israel controls the media is it ALSO true to state that “Israeli Arabs control the media” since they are part of Israel? If its is NOT acceptable to you then all that is left is that you mean that its ONLY Israeli Jews who ‘control the media.

So, do we include Israeli Arabs or do we exclude them. If we exclude them then we are surely making a racist statement by selecting Jews by default or excluding Arabs. So, which is it?

Unless you make a distinction then the statement “Israeli Arabs controls the media” must be true too.
…
In any attack on the integrity of Israel simply ask if this includes 1.5m Israeli Arabs. They will always say no. You can always reply, “So its just the Jews then”!

Maven: When you say ‘part of Israel’ what do you mean ?

Unless the law has recently been changed, as far as I know, the Israeli state itself does not recognize any ‘Israeli nationality’ that isn’t Jewish. Indeed the state of Israel apparently denies there is any such nationality as `Israeli’ which is distinct from Jewishness.

As far as I understand it, Arabs do not belong to the ‘Israeli nation’ but they may apparently be ‘citizens’ of Israel.

The Israeli state itself answers your question through ‘.. selecting Jews by default or excluding Arabs.’ from Israeli nationality.

Your argument is thus self trapping as, by your own definition, Israel is a racist state.

http://web.archive.org/web/20031230014656/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/376724.html

first, you have to give credit to TheIrie for admitting — finally — that quinn is anti-semitic.

however, i don’t understand his assertion that “israel controls the media” is a viable topic for discussion. What always gets left out is HOW does little Israel control the media? Well the only way would be through those media owners who are, ahem, “zionists.” This implies that most of the media is owned by jews (it isn’t), and that most of those jewish owners are Zionist (some are some aren’t). Worst of all, the definition of “zionist” is never given, but in my experience when it’s used by anti-zionists it usually means anyone who doesn’t agree with their anti-zionist position (ie most jews). I’ve also noticed a new predilection to call anti-anti-zionists pro-occupationists without even a consideration of their views of the occupation and/or settlements.
all quite anti-intellectual, racist and disturbing.
All in all, though, by conceding that Quinn is in fact an anti-semite, Irie stands in much higher regard than most other anti-zionists who can’t bring themselves to utter those words. congrats.

Hatred of non-Jews (anti-Gentilism) existed before anti-semitism.

Cause —-> Effect

Why is this so difficult to understand?

Hatred of Robert Wilson by all rational people, because he’s a cunt…

Excellent points Chris Brooke. Our DavidT is a shifty character but even he can’t argue with your points, surely!

Here is an article from the “good site” where Quinn’s article was published. http://www.sott.net/signs/signs_suicide_bomb_supplement.htm

In the above link, Sign of the Times seems to be implying that the suicide bomb attacks Israel faced in 2003-2004 were self-inflicted. They don’t come out and say so, but that’s what one would infer reading their so-called “timeline” of events.

Not all the site is anti-Israel, by the way. They also concern themselves with the conspiracy to prevent us from knowing that meteors and comets will destroy earth sometime soon.

good to know.

Rastalion,
I come from an Arabic-speaking family that was “constructively dismissed” from their Arabic homeland by Arab nationalists because we’re Jews.
I don’t see anything inherently racist about criticising a language, particularly when discussing the Arabic equivalent of “Newspeak” that has emerged under the various paranoid Arab dictatorial regimes we still find in most of the ME. Of course, I think much of what was said in the article in question was arbitrary and probably rubbish, but I didn’t actually find anything actually “racist”.
You should, however, ask yourself a simple question: how come there are so few scientists and Nobel-prize winners in the Arab world? This question, in case you’re too stupid to realise, has nothing to do with so-called race or genetics. It does however have everything to do with basic lack of human rights, society, culture and education. If you can’t get your head around any of that, then please do carry on sniggering at anyone who seeks to analyse and address what the fuck is going so wrong with the Arab world today. But the last laugh will be on you, mate.

Excellent points Chris Brooke. Our DavidT is a shifty character but even he can’t argue with your points, surely!

Don’t be ridiculous! David T is the shiftiest character out there! I mean I know for fact that every time he posts, he narrows his eyes and looks craftily from side to side, seeing what sneaky evasions he can slip past people on the net.

No chance!

From another thread here:
Robert Wilson: “Soon, you won’t be able to hide from the Truth. More and more people are waking up to Jewish lies and hypocrisy. Nothing is as evil as Jewish Supremacism. Nothing. The Talmud … no comment.”

Robert Wilson is neither an anti-semite nor a racist. heres why: 1-he apparently has read the Talmud, no mean feat; 2-he no doubt meant to say Zionist but he forgot; 3-anyone can make a mistake.

Mark T – that really did make me laugh.

Or is the Sisiphusian thrill of smashing him up in the comments one of the things that atract people to HP?

Yes, and for the same reason I used to read every thread where Iran was mentioned so I could watch Sonic go apoplectic.

Mark T – that really did make me laugh.

I’ll echo that for vildechaye’s comment!

You appear to be saying that to criticise the Israel Lobby is anti-Semitic because most people in said organisation are Jews

In the USA the Israel Lobby is probably 80% Christians and 20% Jewish. You clearly have absolutely NO idea and are just trying to squirm. Its amusing watching you lose the debate.

Unless the law has recently been changed, as far as I know, the Israeli state itself does not recognize any ‘Israeli nationality’ that isn’t Jewish. Indeed the state of Israel apparently denies there is any such nationality as `Israeli’ which is distinct from Jewishness.

Your argument is thus self trapping as, by your own definition, Israel is a racist state.

Incredible!! The rights of non-Jews as citizens of Israel was established in 1948 with the Declaration of Independence.

It tends to be numbskulls or Antisemites who peddle this crap about Arabs not being citizens. Which would you say you are?

What is AN “Israeli Nation”???? Never heard of that term before. You must have invented it or inherited it from an Islamist or Neo-Nazi website. Let us know which one.

“he has nothing against Jews: indeed, some of his best friends are Jewish”

Blah bloody blah.

“I would say this is less the case in the UK, but still the general condition of the Palestinians is barely reported and barely understood here”

You are either stupid or a liar.

Benjamin babbles:

“criticism of Israel is anti-semitic” [is a wrong statement].

Yes, child, we know that.
Move on.

“Unless the law has recently been changed, as far as I know, the Israeli state itself does not recognize any ‘Israeli nationality’ that isn’t Jewish. Indeed the state of Israel apparently denies there is any such nationality as `Israeli’ which is distinct from Jewishness.

As far as I understand it, Arabs do not belong to the ‘Israeli nation’ but they may apparently be ‘citizens’ of Israel.

The Israeli state itself answers your question through ‘.. selecting Jews by default or excluding Arabs.’ from Israeli nationality.

Your argument is thus self trapping as, by your own definition, Israel is a racist state”

Utter nonsense. To be generous, I’d say that this nonsense stems from a linguistic misunderstanding, not from ignorant antisemitism.

The (British) English term ‘nationality’ equates to what in many languages, including usually American English and certainly Hebrew, is called ‘citizenship’.

The Hebrew term you are equating to ‘nationality’ (le’om) means something quite different, namely ‘ethnicity’.

Many Arabs are Israeli citizens, or what we would call Israeli nationals. But of course they don’t have Jewish ethnicity but Arab ethnicity. Jews have Jewish ethnicity. Arabs do not.

Maven: Apparently you can’t read.

As I said; Arabs may be ‘citizens’ of Israel, therefore the ‘crap’ you are refering to about ‘arabs not being citizens’ does not come from my post.

As to Israel as a NATION, the Balfour declaration itself talks of a ‘NATIONAL’ home for the Jewish people, and indeed, amongst other things Israel has a NATIONAL football team and as one might expect, a NATIONAL anthem, as well as of course, an ‘Israeli NATIONAL Security Council’, obviously to deal with the security of that ‘Israeli Nation’, so please dont blab on about neo nazi web sites, and indeed, read the Haaretz article.

As I also said, the State denies there is any such thing as an Israeli nationality which is distinct from ‘Israel’ as defined by Jewishness.

As I referenced, the state ruling is that “..to be an Israeli one must be a member of “the Jewish nation.” which means that a ‘citizen’ of Israel is not an ‘Israeli ‘ unless they are Jewish: Jewishness therefore defines Israeli nationality.

So, the arab ‘citizen’ of Israel has already been excluded by Israel itself: he is NOT by law, an Israeli.

Ken W: since you seem so fond of splitting hairs, let me split one for you. If there’s no such thing as an Israeli nationality, then there’s no such thing as an “israeli,” other than an israeli citizen, which as you know, an israeli arab is. By the way, since there is an Israeli Arab cabinet minister, is he too not israeli (not that, by your definition, there is any such thing).
And you are correct. The article you referenced, clearly states what you don’t. That the Israeli state says there is no Israeli nationality, just Jews, Arabs, Samaritans, Druze what have you.

You have twisted that in your twisted little mind. Again, this no Israeli nationality, not for jews or anyone else. There are only citizens of Israel, of different nationalities. that clear enough for you? it should be. It’s from the article you referenced, but apparently refused to read or read very selectively from. Always a bad move.

Ken, can you actually read?
If you can, read my post above, and try to get your little brain to grasp it.

vildechaye, I basically agree with you, but perhaps you are still conflating ‘nationality’ as used in this country (as a synonym for ‘citizenship’) with nationality as ‘ethnicity’ ;-)

Irie:

“back on planet reality”

LOL.

“if it’s so hard to do analysis and measurement in Arabic, how come there are quite so many people studying technical subjects in Arab universities?”

Irrelevant. We are talking about political thought, not about measuring cylinders and voltmeters.

vildechaye:

I agree there is something twisted here, but it certainly predates me.

If, as we agree, the Israeli state says there is no Israeli nationality, then what does it mean when the ruling states: ‘”I can fully declare that there is no Israeli nation that exists separately from a Jewish nation.”?
If the original Hebrew for ‘nation’ in both cases here refers to le’om: ethnicity, then “there is no Israeli ethnicity that is separate from Jewish ethnicity” ?

And what of the amendment to the law ruling that to be an Israeli one must be a member of “the Jewish nation.” Is that le’om again?

If so, then surely I am surely perfectly correct in saying that, in Israeli Law, to be an Israeli one must be Jewish and that non Jewish ‘citizens’ cannot therefore be Israelis.

Ken w: no. there is no such thing as Israeli nationality. Now I do know where you’re coming from, but rather than getting all convoluted, i think what is at the heart of this disagreement is that Israeli Jews enjoy a few rights that other Israeli citizens don’t have. Nobody can dispute that. There are, of course, historical reasons for this, which have resulted in the notion of Israel as sanctuary for Jews. Whether you accept it or not, it must be acknowledged. And of course, those few rights that, say, Muslim or Christian citizens of Israel don’t have would surely be given in time if it weren’t for the constant state of war that Israel has been in since its founding. In other words, make peace with Israel, and all Israeli citizens will enjoy the same rights, with the exception of the Law of Return, which as i mentioned earlier exists because of the Jews’ unique history of persecution, culminating in the holocaust.

In short, what they mean by there is no Israeli nationality outside the Jewish nation is that Israel was created to be the state where Jews could find sanctuary. Other than that, the concept of israeli nationality doesn’t exist; of course in the real world, the Arab Israeli finance minister is an israeli, though he and others may prefer to refer to him as an Israeli Arab. Again, practically speaking, an Arab member of the Israeli soccer team is an Israeli in the popular vernacular, unless he decides he doesn’t want to be called that. But it’s just a name, and has no legal standing whatsoever. So the whole argument is kinda dumb.

What you should be addressing is the issue of those few rights, and, as i said previously, most of those would be forthcoming with peace. shalom.

Larry Teabag

Chris Brooke

Is the point of your whatabouttery re Dave M’s post about contemporary political discourse in Modern Standard Arabic as found in current media outlets in the Arab world solely deflectionary, or is there a genuine question about representations of race and racism buried beneath a rather transparent foil?

If you bother to read the actual thread, you will realise that, apart from the predictable appearance of johng to accuse Dave M of racism, the premise of Dave M ’s post (of which he was not fully cognisant being an Arabist not a specialist in linguistics) has a well researched academic history and is known as linguistic relativism (or determinism) or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Contrary to your rather glib assertion that a degree of determinism between language, categories of thought and the social realities of speech communities is necessarily racist or orientalist,

such relativism was a result of early 20th C anthropology’s insistence on disproving a universal evolutionary paradigm that saw cultural difference as primitive or advanced rather than as simply a different culture with a different worldview.

In fact a Chomskian view of universal grammar and a language free origin for thought is comprehensively discredited and while the radical or extreme determinism of the SWH (in fact only ever a theoretical arguing position not an empirical one) is also considered wrong a weak version of the hypothesis is generally accepted as a result of advances in linguistics neuropshychology and the development of computer coding languages.

In other words thought, though not entirely determined by language is interdependent with it.

The prevailing social conditions shape the language of a speech community as the community shapes and molds the patterns of thought readily expressable in a contemporary language as actually used by actual people.

So influential has the SWH been that entire constructed, though living, languages have either been influenced by it or designed in order to test its central hypothesis.

Computer coding languages specifically seek to conceptually engineer thought for precise ends.

The central premise of language determining thought has been a huge influence in speculative science and non-genre fiction from George Orwell’s 1984 to the Culture novels of Ian Banks

I should add that the results have been somewhat inconclusive for the SWH (though in its weak form it has explanatory power) though devastating for the hegemonic absurdities of Chomskian linguistics as the novelists have shown what creative people have always known;

We use metaphor and context to give meaning to that which current language useage seeks to deny or finds difficult.

Sometimes however the meaning of a text is plain, even when regurgitating the canards of the oldest of tropes, what looks like a duck quacking its way out from under a newspeak oilslick is still a duck no matter how much double-thinking is deployed to deflect its meaning.

vildechaye

My original post was to point out that Maven’s assertion concerning Israeli Arabs was merely self-trapping:

” If we exclude them then we are surely making a racist statement by selecting Jews by default or excluding Arabs. ”

As noted, the Israeli Government itself makes such distinctions in law between a citizen of Israel and an Israeli, who by law must be Jewish.
As you have pointed out, the consequence of this is that Israeli Jews enjoy rights that other Israeli citizens don’t.

I’m sure it’s not what he meant to prove, but Maven’s ‘Law’ does nothing but underline Israel’s own racial divides.

Such an argument simply cannot be used to ‘detect’ racism or anti-semitism.

I can’t speak to Maven’s argument one way or another. But i disagree totally that the Israeli government distinguishes between a citizen of Israel and an Israeli. There is no “israeli” category. That’s where you’re messing up, creating a category that doesn’t exist in law.
As I mentioned in the last post, it is true that Israeli Jews enjoy a few rights others dont, and the reasons for that are obvious, as I also stated. Whether the “right” to be drafted to the IDF and serve till youre 50 is something to be “enjoyed” is another matter. It’s also worth pointing out that the status of non-Jewish Israeli citizens is far superior to the dhimmi status (de facto or de jure) of the few remaining jews in all Arab / Muslim countries, other than Turkey, which is a secular state.
Finally, I didn’t understand Maven’s “law” either. Nor do I believe that “anti-zionists” are by definition anti-semitic; certainly, critics of Israeli policies who accept the fact of the state aren’t. I do, however, believe that the obsessive anti-zionists (i.e. people who seek the destruction of the state or who somehow believe it could be dismantled; ever heard of a state dismantling itself before? could you imagine any other state doing it) are obsessive and deluded, and are doing the Palestinians a grave disservice by giving false hope, when all they will get is years if not decades more misery.

Ken W. You simply don’t understand.

“If, as we agree, the Israeli state says there is no Israeli nationality, then what does it mean when the ruling states: ‘”I can fully declare that there is no Israeli nation that exists separately from a Jewish nation.”?”

“As noted, the Israeli Government itself makes such distinctions in law between a citizen of Israel and an Israeli, who by law must be Jewish.”

The first decision means, and listen carefully, that when a Jew came to the authorities asking to inscribe him as of Israeli nationality, the authorities refused, saying that there is only Israeli citizenship for him or for an Arab. That there is no such thing as Israeli nationality that the state will recognize.
That ruling, as I am explaining, came about, not because an Arab wanted to belong fully to the Israeli nationality to which you think Jews already belong, but because a Jew wanted to register in his ID that he belongs to the Israeli nationality, that doesn’t exist. Only exists Israeli citizenship. For Jews and for Arabs.

The second statement of yours, however, exists only in your confused head. Maybe as a result of having not understood the first point.

An analogy: there is no Scottish or English citizenship, only UK citizenship, which, in the context of Israel is equivalent to Israeli citizenship. But there is Scottish and English ethnicities which, in the Israeli context are the equivalent to Jewish and Arab nationalities.

What your second comment says,
“As noted, the Israeli Government itself makes such distinctions in law between a citizen of Israel and an Israeli, who by law must be Jewish.”
Could be understood in your context as:
“As noted, the UK Government itself makes such distinctions in law between a citizen of the UK and an UKish, who by law must be English.”

’sorry, Irie, I was being a moron. Zkharya

’sorry, Irie, I was being a moron. Zkharya

“Nor do I believe that “anti-zionists” are by definition anti-semitic”

Anti-Zionism means opposing the right of the Jews to have an independent country in their own homeland. That is antisemitic by definition.

Let me endorse what mettaculture has said above. Could I also suggest Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus as a good starting point for anyone genuinely interested in finding out more about this area of enquiry.

Albert, are you OK, honestly?

David T,

To use Joe Quinn’s article as a sort of “test-case” to see what people’s standards were was a good idea, but in my view it failed because, though we can see quotes from Quinn, we cannot see the evidence upon which they are supposedly based. To take one instance, Quinn states that Israeli interests can see to it that any investigation into spying can be quashed, and goes on to imply certain things about 9/11; and this is presumably one of those cases where you say he is “recycling and promoting long standing ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ theories about Jewish control…”

But if you look at the article from which the quote is taken, it seems that he has based his claim on a 2001 Fox News report by Carl Cameron. In it, Cameron states that investigators have told Fox News that to pursue certain Israeli spying cases would be “career suicide”. He also says that the Israelis had intelligence on 9/11 but did not share it. Unfortunately for Quinn, the report was pulled by Fox shortly afterwards, presumably for lack of evidence. So while Quinn is very probably wrong, we cannot simply say he was recycling ‘Protocol’ type statements. (Quinn was trying to milk the male goat, and you were trying to catch the produce in a sieve).

Whatever we might make of Quinn’s claims in the light of these new facts, the point I am making is that before we can decide whether something is an “antisemitic canard (or trope)”, we have to see both the claim and the evidence that is put forward to support it. For this reason I would like to challenge you on a different case for which there is much more reliable evidence.

The claim is that, in the run-up to the Iraq war, some Jewish Neoconservatives acted inappropriately in order to make war with Iraq more likely in the hope that Israel’s position in the region would be strengthened. This is claim is usually made in regard to people like Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, David Wurmser and so on. Unsurprisingly, the claim is often dismissed as an antisemitic canard, but in my view the claim is certainly not baseless.

But it is obvious that for reasons of space I cannot adduce all the evidence that is used to substantiate the claim. Indeed, I cannot do that even for a single individual. But since my goal is not to prove the case, but only to see whether you, David T, think that the whole affair is baseless antisemitism, I will take a single “test-case”, that of Douglas Feith, in the knowledge that if the claim is antisemitic in regard to him, it is so in regard to them all.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Douglas Feith was the third most important individual in the United States Department of defence, behind Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. Feith is from a Zionist background, and has strong links both to American Zionism and to Israel. He has been a board member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and he and his father were honorary guests in 1997 at the Zionist Organization of America’s 100th anniversary banquet, where their “Service to Israel and the Jewish people” was acknowledged.

Moreover, in 1996 he was part of a study group which produced the Clean Break report for Benjamin Netanyahu advising Israel to overthrow Saddam, and in 1998 was one of the signatories to an open letter to the Clinton administration which also advised the US to overthrow Saddam.

He was also a senior figure in the US administration in the lead-up to the Iraq war, and it is at this point that his activities become very interesting. For Feith helped set up and then ran the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Unit and the Office of Special Plans (OSP).

These groups produced much of the spurious evidence which was used to build a case for the war in Iraq; and subsequent inquiries have shown that these departments also manipulated evidence, misled officials, and deliberately bypassed normal intelligence channels. Moreover, a number of figures who encountered these groups have stated that their activities were highly questionable, and that the departments were run solely with the intention of presenting unsubstantiated material as evidence.

These facts are all in the public domain, and Feith’s conduct has been extensively analysed, so there is no reason why what I have said cannot be posted. Here, in fact, is a link to a Statement made at the Senate Armed Services Committee by Senator Carl Levin, which supports what I said above. (It was Carl Levin who first investigated the character of the pre-war intelligence):

http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=269010
http://www.senate.gov/~levin/issues/index4.cfm?MainIssue=Iraq&SubIssue=IraqIntelligenceInquiry

Of course, this is plainly only a very brief outline, so anyone interested will have to do a search on Feith’s name, but such a search which will reveal that there are a whole range of articles critical of Feith and supporting the contentions above.

And, in any event, my aim is not to prove conclusively that the charges against Feith are true; I only want to know from David T whether, on the evidence supplied, it would be antisemitic to say that at least one Jewish Neoconservative acted inappropriately in the run-up to the war in Iraq with Israel’s security in mind

So, David T, is the statement that Douglas Feith acted inappropriately to benefit Israel an “antisemitic canard”? And would it be antisemitic to believe it? And if you think it is, you can perhaps explain why the same conclusion has been reached by some Jewish commentators as well.

I hope you can see why I selected this case. The claim can be supported by senate reports and other evidence, so we do not have to veer off into generalities. And to say that it is merely a conspiracy would be a contemptible tactic.

Mark T: yes: you can produce a more charitable reading of DaveM’s claim about “it’s all a kind of denial”, and perhaps I should have done so. But you (and David T) need to recognise (as Larry indicates) that when you try to give non-racist explications of what DaveM was trying to say, the text itself resists those explications. So when David T suggests that he’s making an argument about the effects of political repression, analogous perhaps to the ways people communicated in the USSR, it’s important that we have, in the text, the claim that “This cannot solely just be down to repressive governments” and “The problem is much deeper than that”, as these are remarks that specifically resist the interpretation that David T is offering, which therefore can’t serve as an adequate explanation of what’s “going on” in the language of the post.

Note also that even if I’m wrong on points of detail – e.g., even if the description of the TV show is a reasonable one – it can still be the case that it’s contributing towards the construction of a racist text. After all, he’s still using a racist cliché (Arabs communicate in emotional ways) as part of an argument to support a racist conclusion (Arabs, when they write, tend to be shifty). In the same way that sometimes when the BNP claim in their leaflets that a particular white girl has been sexually abused by Asian men, the narrow point may be true but it’s still racist, as a racist cliché is being used to support racist politics. DaveM’s text is more subtle, and it isn’t as nearly as poisonous as a BNP leaflet, but the racist structure of the presentation is pretty much the same.

Here’s another classic example of racism in DaveM’s post. One of the most controversial moments in Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech is when he refers to a letter from a constituent. Powell can’t say, “The trouble with black people is that they put shit through letter-boxes”, as that’s obviously impossible for a politician to say, even in 1968. So he describes a letter from an elderly constituent who complains about this. Powell can thereby give expression to the most disgusting racism, while at the same time distancing himself from it. We get – rhetorically – the same move in this piece by DaveM: the conclusion about how Arabs generally have “something to hide” when they write in their own language is really quite racist, but the remark gets ascribed to a Kurd DaveM is chatting to, rather than being presented as an original opinion of the author himself. It’s the same distancing move – less toxic in the Powell example, true enough, but the logic of the rhetorical presentation is the same.

And notice what a fantastic anecdote this is, from the point of view of lowest common denominator Harry’s Place politics! It celebrates an insightful, witty Kurd and Nick Cohen’s book (and HP likes Nick Cohen and the Kurds) while linking two groups that Harry’s Place people have mixed feelings about (Arabs and post-modernists) together under a common critique. Rhetorically, it’s brilliant. And just as when we respond to Enoch Powell’s speech, it isn’t really the right response to demand that he show us the letter in order to prove that it’s genuine; it doesn’t really matter whether that letter was made up or not, because in the speech it serves a rhetorical function for gross racism, and its importance is rhetorical and political rather than as a possible claim about whether a particular letter was in fact sent to Powell or not. So too, it doesn’t really matter whether this anecdote is genuine or not (it may very well be); from the point of view of a post at Harry’s Place, it is just perfect.

David Hirsh is a friend of Harry’s Place, and he has written insightfully about racism in general and anti-semitism in particular. And when he’s writing about “institutional racism” one of the points he makes (this is from memory, but I think this is right) is that institutional racism enables and encourages people to say things they wouldn’t otherwise say, even if no one is consciously beating up on a minority group. So if a union branch-meeting always ends up talking about the evils of the Israeli government, and never about other governments’ iniquities, and especially if this happens in a way that makes Jewish members of the branch uncomfortable, you can begin to make a case that there’s institutional anti-semitism operating in the union’s structures and practices, even if everyone there takes themselves to be overtly anti-racist, and no one there in fact is consciously prejudiced against Jews. Consider this post again, in that light: the conclusion is pretty gross – as I say, that Arabs always “have something to hide” when they write, and it’s gross because it redeploys the classic racist stereotype of the shifty Arab, without really being conscious that that is what it’s doing. And whereas you couldn’t begin a blog-post by saying that, because it would just be extraordinarily offensive, a carefully constructed bit of rhetoric – like this post – can contribute towards the presentation of this view in its concluding passage, so that when we do reach the (rather offensive) conclusion, it doesn’t seem so outrageous after all to many of its readers (witness the generally warm reception the post got on the comments thread).

Metaculture / Brett: of course there are serious issues in linguistics and philosophy concerning various kinds of relativism that might be relevant here. But this isn’t a post inviting us to assess the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or to think about Wittgenstein’s arguments about the limits of my language being the limits of my world, and it doesn’t make a serious argument about how the Arabic language, or Arab culture, or Arab religion, might contribute to the phenomena in which DaveM is interested. It’s an arm-waving gesture in the direction of, as I say, a pretty racist argument, and the post doesn’t really show any awareness that that is what it is, in fact, doing.

Metaculture: you mention “whatabouttery”. I don’t think this is changing the subject to any significant extent. The post is about, among other things, people’s blindness to certain kinds of racism and that this is bad. I agree with David T and with the Harry’s Placers that there are anti-semites out there who make anti-Zionist arguments, and there are some people who profess to support the interests of Palestinians who aren’t as sensitive as they should be to anti-semitic language and politics. My point, and, I think, Larry’s point (though he can speak for himself), is that we aren’t especially impressed by Harry’s Place being used as a pulpit for this particular sermon, because we think (and other people think, too) that the crowd here is often blind to other kinds of racism, in this case, anti-Arab racism.

Sometimes you hear the claim that the Harry’s Place comments boxes get filled up with racists because David T (or whoever) is pretty relaxed about who can comment, and they don’t like to delete comments, but that the people who edit the site are staunch anti-racists, etc. This post is interesting because there are various ways in which it displays anti-Arab racism (again, to repeat, regardless of whether DaveM is conscious of any of this, or harbours subjective negative feelings towards Arabs himself), and yet it somehow not only made its way onto the main body of the site, but was also warmly received by the community here. I think that shows a certain kind of blindness towards certain kinds of racism, and I hope that my remarks here, and Larry’s, can draw attention towards what some of these are.

Finally (and apologies for the length of this post). Ask yourself what would have happened if this post had appeared on Harry’s Place, say between the Summer of 2003 and 2005. I think it would have been criticised sharply by the commenters. If DaveM had written of any significant Arab population back then that “ideas such as democracy and critical thought are, sadly, outside most people’s comprehension”, he would have been roundly abused as a racist on this comments board, perhaps as one of those “stoppers” who was making apologies for dictatorship by suggesting that Arabs couldn’t really cope with the idea of democracy, and we should all unite behind the secular, democratic Iraqi democrats and wave our purple fingers, etc. I think a post like this can appear at Harry’s in 2008, and be well received here, because the political forces HP supported in 2003-5 were so badly defeated in 2005-7, especially, and this post, appearing here, now, is a consequence or a symptom of that failure. And a balance is needed. There was a huge amount wrong with the HP analysis of the war and Iraqi politics and society back in 2003-5, which is why so many people here gave their support for so long to such a war that unleashed such disastrous consequences for the people of Iraq, but they were not wrong to think that the Arabs of the Middle East had substantial democratic potential, and to be optimistic about an alternative, democratic future for the Arab Middle East. Now that things haven’t turned out so well for the HP project of secular democracy in Iraq, the last thing anyone should be doing is giving space to racist explanations of why the project might have failed, because, perhaps, “ideas such as democracy and critical thought are, sadly, outside most people’s comprehension.”

(Sorry for the length, thanks to the discussants so far for keeping things relatively civil, and apologies to Larry T if he thinks I’ve butted into his critique of the DaveM essay.)

(And the usual follow-up correction: it should read “less toxic THAN in the Powell example, true enough”. Apologies.)

I’ve not got much to add to Chris’ excellent comments. But a minor thing on “whatabouttery” – it wasn’t me who introduced DaveM’s post to this discussion, it was Quinn in his response:

To get an idea of what “democratic-left” means to ‘Harry’, see this link

So as well as being broadly relevant, the question of that post’s racism – and HPers’s ability to recognize it as such – was already directly involved.

Chris B –

Thanks for your long (and civil) reply.

you can produce a more charitable reading of DaveM’s claim about “it’s all a kind of denial”, and perhaps I should have done so.

Well, I wasn’t suggesting that you had to specifically be more charitable, rather that you could give a correct (dare I say honest) rendering of the relevant passages from DaveM’s piece. The trouble is, almost immediately in your comment, we have another inaccurate presentation of the argument -

So when David T suggests that [Dave M] is making an argument about the effects of political repression, analogous perhaps to the ways people communicated in the USSR, it’s important that we have, in the text, the claim that “This cannot solely just be down to repressive governments” and “The problem is much deeper than that”

Again, if we revisit the article, it is quite clear that both those quotes deal specifically with the fact that there has been little scientific and technical advance in the Arab world in the recent past. They are not, as you present it, suggesting that the nature of evasive language is as a result of something other than repressive government. You have ripped those quotes from one context (lack of scientific advance) and attached them to another (the development of language).

Here’s another classic example of racism in DaveM’s post. One of the most controversial moments in Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech is when he refers to a letter from a constituent. Powell can’t say, “The trouble with black people is that they put shit through letter-boxes”, as that’s obviously impossible for a politician to say, even in 1968. So he describes a letter from an elderly constituent who complains about this. Powell can thereby give expression to the most disgusting racism, while at the same time distancing himself from it. We get – rhetorically – the same move in this piece by DaveM: the conclusion about how Arabs generally have “something to hide” when they write in their own language is really quite racist, but the remark gets ascribed to a Kurd DaveM is chatting to, rather than being presented as an original opinion of the author himself. It’s the same distancing move – less toxic in the Powell example, true enough, but the logic of the rhetorical presentation is the same.

I was frankly a bit baffled by this. Enoch Powell’s anecdote is racist because blacks don’t put shit through letter boxes – or rather, if one or two of them do, it is racist to generalize from that to blacks as a whole. That was clearly the intent of Powell’s anecdote.

Dave M’s anecdote, on the other hand, comes at the end of a piece which has been arguing that flowery and opaque language in the Arab world has developed as a result of political repression. The thing is, you don’t even challenge this thesis. You just assert that is a priori racist to suggest that Arabic language has evolved to become opaque.

Has it, or hasn’t it? I’m not sure of the answer – but to claim that an author theorizing that it has is ‘constructing a racist text’ is really a step too far. It is also interesting how you interpret the idea that ‘Arabs have something to hide’ when writing as speaking as a claim of ’shiftiness’ when in fact the claim was being (again) in the context of not explicitly stating opinions for fear of political punishment.

If I were to be uncharitable, I could suggest that it is you who is leaping towards an interpretation of Arabs as being ’shifty’.

And notice what a fantastic anecdote this is, from the point of view of lowest common denominator Harry’s Place politics! It celebrates an insightful, witty Kurd and Nick Cohen’s book (and HP likes Nick Cohen and the Kurds) while linking two groups that Harry’s Place people have mixed feelings about (Arabs and post-modernists) together under a common critique. Rhetorically, it’s brilliant.

HP-ers have mixed feelings about Arabs? Really? I know you’re trying to show that this anecdote is a ‘perfect construction’ but that’s a bit much. Likewise, it is fascinating how Dave M’s account of what his friend said is presented by you as a ‘celebration of an insightful witty Kurd’. No, it’s not. It’s just an anecdote. Nothing more than that. No geopolitical points being made – he happens to be friends with a Kurd.

I think a post like this can appear at Harry’s in 2008, and be well received here, because the political forces HP supported in 2003-5 were so badly defeated in 2005-7, especially, and this post, appearing here, now, is a consequence or a symptom of that failure.

Quite frankly this is bollocks. I think you know it is bollocks, so I won’t bother to go through all the reasons why. Of course I’ll be happy to do so should you wish.

The paragraph in the middle should read

It is also interesting how you interpret the idea that ‘Arabs have something to hide’ when writing and speaking as a claim of ’shiftiness’ when in fact the claim was being made (again) in the context of not explicitly stating opinions for fear of political punishment.

Sorry about that.

Chris Brooke

I have been away and i return to read of the debacle at UCU.

I put it that way after having spent several depressing days reading the original articles and posts and the commentary upon the UCU at socialist Unity and though I am very unhappy about the way this link to the Quinn article was exposed I am ashamed at the response from so many at UCU and its defenders.

I am ashamed as a lifelong socialist, that such a morally bankrupt position could be taken by so many people who dare to acquit themselves of any institutional culpability for an obvious anti-semitic, racist screed as a result of their own self-congratulatory award of lifetime immunity from the need to ever put their own house in order, because they are convinced that their political actions being pure, exempt, excuse or justify their motives and behaviour from examination.

With the honourable exception of Andy Newman and a few others who see that the end does not justify the means, most commentators responses are more concerned that their motivations and methods have been revealed, over and above any other consideration.

From reading the SU blog I have learned that;

the conspiracy theory driven anti-semitic inflammatory drivel by Quinn in question is either;

- not really anti-semitic, despite its content and provenance,

-no big deal, in the important scheme of things (opposing Zionism)

-possibly anti-semitic but this is easily overlooked as the kind of mistake anyone could make

- that the person reproducing the article by linkage and personal affirmation of its contests could have easily been misled by her ignorance of such flagrant anti-semitism by virtue of her geographical origins,

- her mother tongue not being English

- or that being an oppressed person who had been subject to ethnic cleansing provided her with a compelling defence for approving of such sentiments.

Further I learn, from socialists and trade unionists, that should the person at the centre of the allegations have committed any kind of indiscretion then it is of minimal significance as;

She is a ‘marginal figure’ not central to the strategic activities of the ‘key players’ who are the force behind the boycott initiative,

and further she is not a ‘real academic’ but a lower status ‘lecturer’ in a ‘college’ thus even more marginal as an actor in this affaire.

I learn that any wrong that has been perpertrated is by the ‘mole’ who has leaked this information to the ‘enemy’ (a term that even Andy Newman shares).

The ‘enemy,’ it is clear, is Harry’s place which is universally described (Andrew Coates being the loan dissenter) as a pro Zionist, right wing, pro- imperialist, pro war, racist, islamophobic, anti arab etc etc.

In other words HP is the embodiement of the antithesis of all goodness of the values of self- proclaimed socialists, whose sole tactical concern incidentally appears to be opposing a particular view of imperialist evil embodied by the state of Israel, by seeking to boycott its academics.

Dsquared (’hell hath no fury’) asserts that HP ‘regularly publishes material calling for the repatriation of British Muslims’

The origin of the current accusation by implication that HP is racist because of the guest post by Dave M and his views of the relationship between current political discourse in the mainstream Arab media and what he sees as a linguistic restraint in modern Arabic useage, appears, predictably enough, from johng.

The fact that such people would seek to lecture anyone on the meaning of racism when they seek, according to the law of the UK and the EU, to unlawfully racially discriminate against Israeli academics based upon their national origin and/or current nationality, is simply gut churning as the boycott strategy seeks to cause harm by their attempt to treat actual people less favourably solely on grounds of their nationality language.

Their boycott and the language of rights and anti-racism and liberation and national self determination that they deploy in this context is nothing short of Orwellian violence to language itself.

It is shamefull and I am ashamed that they would call themselves socialists or anti-racists.

The group think that has been established by this cadre, this gang, of anti-Zionists is so poisonous that even Michael Rosen who I have a lot of time for and who appears to be so attantive to tropes of anti-semitism at work in ostensible anti-zionist discourse, has shockingly conceded that contemporary Zionism has at its heart (at least partly) a race supremacist imperative.

That he should replace the political actions of the Israeli nation state with a mythos of judeo-centrism does the work for the anti-semite who seeks to equate jews and judaism as a collectivity with the state of israel, and thus collectively culpable for all Israel’s alleged wrongs.

Dear God doesn’t Michael Rosen think that those anti-semitic Zionism=Nazism obscenities are fed by myths of jewish racial supremacy?

Since when did Israel become a jewish supremacist state?

What kind of distorted ‘volkisch’ projection onto zionism and its diversity in principle and fact does this represent.

The regrettable means by which this story of the rot at the heart of the UCU activist list has come to light is now way beside the point, as is the alleged culpability of a member for the dissemination of links to far right anti-semitic screeds.

This is now a pressing story of genuine public interest and breaches of confidentiality are of subsidiary concern now that the prescence of a persistent clandestine activist group that is inent on pursuing a course of action, in all likelihood an illegal one against the democratic will of the voting members of the UCU and against the electoral promises of candidates who have been elected to oppose such an illegal boycott.

A UCU activist list has been revealed as, is an undemocratic, unaccountable cadre or cell within the UCU that has attempted since 2002 to enforce a prohibition on academics, uniquely Jewish academics from the state of Israel, a democratic nation subject to the rule of law, contrary to our laws and the expressed will of the UCUs voting members.

Confidentiality is a red herring, we do not need to see photographs or know addresses or personal details of the hard core gang of instigators of this repeated attempt at boycott, but as this is a public sector union of government employees representing the interests of tertiary sector education workers and the students whose interests they serve, we do have every right to know their names and political biographies and their degree of involvement in this clandestine, dishonest and shameful affaire.

Bril, metta, simply brill, it should be made as a guest post.

Well said mettaculture.

Mettaculture – brilliant though it may be, why is that post directed at Chris B? It has nothing to do with anything he said, unless you want to argue that because Quinn’s article was racist, DaveM’s couldn’t have been.

Mark T – your emphasis on some Arab countries doesn’t hold water. In the paragraph previous to the “one big exercise in denial” para, the same point is made:

It appears to me that having developed in an environment that prohibits any sort of critical thought, especially in the fields of religion and politics, Arabic has become a means to avoid dealing with difficult issues.

No talk of “some countries” there, but broad-brushed attack on a monolithic “Arabic” tongue (and that’s true regardless of any more nuanced pieces he may have written elsewhere). Of course it constitutes a grossly simplistic reduction of the language as a whole.

DaveM’s essay was about the Arabic language. If the section (two short paragraphs) about scientific and technological development is entirely separate and self-contained, as you argue, it’s hard to understand what it’s doing there.

According to you, DaveM is arguing that the opacity of the language is a solely a product of repressive government. But he makes a brief detour to observe that the Arab world has scientific failings, and these are a consequence of something deeper. Well, I’m sorry, but that is simply not the argument he makes.

You say: DaveM’s arguments “are not, as you present it, suggesting that the nature of evasive language is as a result of something other than repressive government.”

DaveM says: “[These scientific and technological failings] cannot solely just be down to repressive governments… The problem is much deeper than that. As the language, culture, religion and value system are all interconnected, maybe they all need to be examined and reassessed.”

He is explicitly linking the two (language and science), and presenting them as separate symptoms of the same underlying phenomenon: a broad, unspecified failure of culture. So, yes, he is undoubtedly saying that evasive language is as a result of something other (deeper) than repressive governments alone.

Given there numerous articles attacking Mugabe and Zimbabwe its clear that HP are ant-black racists

Given there numerous articles attacking Mugabe and Zimbabwe its clear that HP are ant-black racists

The sad thing is, you are deadly serious.

Larry. Let us suppose the paragraph read

It appears to me that having developed in an environment that prohibits any sort of critical thought, especially in the fields of religion and politics, Russian has become a means to avoid dealing with difficult issues.

I doubt you would be on here bleating about anti-slav racism, or the author making a broad-brushed attack on the Russian language.

Look, I can accept that the article generalizes.

But racism? Anyone who has read the entirety of Dave M’s posts will realise that he is frustrated by the effect that Assad’s awful regime is having on ordinary Arab people.

The fact that you are holding up one of his pieces as evidence that HP tolerates the kind of racism that Quinn demonstrates is insane.

Again, Mark, you say,

“Anyone who has read the entirety of Dave M’s posts will realise that he is frustrated by the effect that Assad’s awful regime is having on ordinary Arab people.”

This reading, as has now been pointed out several times, is flatly contradicted by the post itself: “This cannot solely just be down to repressive governments… The problem is much deeper than that.”

I’m not saying that it is “the kind of racism that Quinn demonstrates”. But racist it undoubtedly is, yes.

It is racist to suggest that Arabic countries lagging behind other countries in scientific and technical achievement cannot solely be due to government repression?

Are you sure?

DaveM has written a whole host of articles on Syria and his ***subjective*** experiences, these are in NO way comparable (to anyone remotely rational) with the racist filth from Joe Quinn (Mossad crap, International Bankers, 9/11 Zionist, etc)

OK I’m bailing out here.

Chris has written two excellent, detailed explanations above – so you’ll either get it or not.

My only concern in my last two comments has been to tackle your attempted rebuttals of his arguments. So no, Mark, I’m not “sure” – that on its own was never the argument.

I was pointing out that your complaints against Chris’ and my arguments (made at @ 30 August 2008, 3:59 pm; @ 30 August 2008, 6:17 pm; and @ 31 August 2008, 2:11 pm (first half)) are based on misreadings which are wholly unsupported by DaveM’s post.

Larry, if you think that Dave M being “frustrated by the effect that Assad’s awful regime is having on ordinary Arab people’, based on a reading of all his posts, is “flatly contradicted” by one sentence then I can understand why you are bailing.

(Needless to say it is clear that the sentence does no such thing)

People with shite blogs that noone reads – Benji, teatamponbagbloke, lindsay (altho he is obviously a fruitbat) etc seem to spend all their hours making hopeless arguments they don’t really give a shite about on these threads.

Why not try to attract a reader or two to your rather miserable looking blogs, rather than bore the rest of us with your waffle?

Its a suggestion, rather than a question, obviously.

Matt

To be fair, i speak for no-one but myself – other people might like to read the posts of the aforementioned.

Personally I now scroll down – but it means I miss quite a lot of more relevant/intelligent stuff posted by others.

nearly oxfordian: unfortunately, your view/definition of zionism/anti-zionism is so narrow that the more than 50% of jews who opposed Zionism prior to WWII could also be called anti-semitic.

In the end, it’s all about what the definition of zionism actually is. I think it varies from person to person, which makes the issue even more confusing. I think those who argue that Jews have no right to self-determination are most likely anti-semitic, but i also believe that many anti-zionists don’t hold that view (though, admittedly, they are usually vague on where that self-determination is supposed to occur).

to equate saying “the problem [with the arabic language] goes deeper than [the current repression in Arabic countries] with Joe Quinn’s conspiratorial nonsense is laughable. Those problems do go deeper, stemming as they do from the continuous invasions and defeats of the Arabs starting in the 13th century by various Mongol and Turks [and, in spain, by Berbers], which utterly destroyed what had previously been a glittering culture. To note these things is hardly racism;
on the other hand, to witter on about how l’il Israel controls everything is racist to the core. After all, as someone has already noted, the Protocols doesn’t mention jews either, rather, elders of Zion. i could go on and on, but i suspect there’s no point.

(OK – I’m certain that DaveM is “frustrated by the effect that Assad’s awful regime is having on ordinary Arab people”. But that isn’t where his argument starts or finishes in the post under discussion.)

After all, he’s still using a racist cliché (Arabs communicate in emotional ways) as part of an argument to support a racist conclusion (Arabs, when they write, tend to be shifty).

This is such a tortured distortion of what is being said that it is barely worth commenting on and could only be even considered by somebody determined to ignore you the context that the “arabs” in question are communicating in these ways in order to avoid the oppression of other arabs (their leaders.) The whole conceit of the criticism relies on an assumption that DaveM is some kind of “other” just as those who criticised Orwell’s Animal Farm attempted to suggest that the author was being racist by suggesting that Napoleon the pig/Stalin used the control of language as an instrument of power.

The whole attempt to label Dave M’s post as “racism” has a whiff of Stalinist desperation about it.

“(OK – I’m certain that DaveM is “frustrated by the effect that Assad’s awful regime is having on ordinary Arab people”. But that isn’t where his argument starts or finishes in the post under discussion.)”

There you are, there’s no better way to avoid the main issue than bringing in something completely irrelevant as a diversion!

How about making a separate post on what is or isn’t racist about criticising how languages are misused and abused by and under repressive dictatorships? In the meantime, how about cutting to the chase and accepting the central thesis that any idiot who links to a Neo-Nazi website and agrees with a patently anti-semitic tract, really ought not to have any position in the UK’s educational system, and that those who claim the tract was not anti-semitic are just as awful and inexcusable.

sorry, I meant “position of authority”. No one should be denied education, whatever their views.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/164862

larry teabag

Perhaps I should have addressed my comments to you equally with Chris brooke or to neither as the second of my comments was more by way of general observation.

My first comment was to do with the substance of the guest post by Dave M on contemporary political discourse in mainstream arab media and some of the legitimate socio-linguistic issues raised by it.

That you both seek to raise a Saidian argument to impute , at the very least, an unwitting orientalist discourse to Dave M’s single guest post is one thing, that you do so now in response to the current conflict between some pro boycott members of UCU, and their supporters, and Harry’s place is quite another.

You say that the orientalism (or worse) alleged in Dave M’s post is a legitimate issue of fair comment as it is part of Quinns defence (of 29th Aug) to his original article in which he accuses HP of anti-arab racism.

Well maybe but I read this criticism of HP first on the 28th Aug at the socialist unity blog in a comment by johng;

‘ There was no need for those who publish articles asserting that dictatorship and war (as well as dishonesty of course) is built into the very structure of the Arabic language, to intervene, in order to point this out to Palestine Solidarity Activists.’

This comment appears among a torrent of vitriol directed at HP for leaking the UCU members linkage to the Quinn article via the Duke website.

There is a lot of condemnation of HP as a racist, zionist, Islamophobic right wing, pro war site, but it is clear that the criticisms are largely directed at the extremism of some comments found at HP owing to a general policy (especially by David T) of non censorship.

Now in the rage directed at HP there is clearly a desire to shoot the messenger even though there seems to be little editorial content found in the postings of HP to give any real traction for an attack as the best form of defence strategy.

the only possible substantive post referred to is this very same Dave M piece kindly offered by the SOAS academic known as johng.

Now I am not prone to conspiracy theories, unlike members of the self styled revolutionary left, but I do know how such activists work.

Fortunately despite their own warnings of the non confidential nature of their communications it is impossible for members of the hard left not to see an enemy against which they must conspire.

In this case the enemy is HP and the objective as helpfully described to us by Andy Newman himself (poor man after his roasting as a traitor he must feel the need to give the attack cadre types some sense of purpose);

—-
”We have to take it as a given that HP exist, that they have the hostile political views that you correctly ascribe to them, that they have access to the UCU list, and they will use that information.

That is our vulnerability landscape.

How should we mitigate the risk.

Well firtsly UCU activists should really recognise that their discussion list is not de facto a confidential forum

In this case someone – for whatever reason – posted a link to a coded but clearly anti-Semitic article from a nazi web-page.

We can take it as a given that the Zionists would exploit that. As you recognise this is part of a long running campaign from them seeking to link anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. So that campaign will continue wheter or not they have ammunition, but when they have ammunition they will surely use it.

So how do we manage that situation.

We are faced with two issues. i) How do we defend the palestinian solidarity movement from association with anti-Semitism; and ii) how do we minimise the damage to reputation of the individual concerned.

There are impoernat tactical considerations,”

Oh dear how to defend the palestinian Solidarity movement from association with anti-Semitism and how to minimise the damage caused by the recent ‘leaks’?

Such a burden! such an enormous responsibility! What on earth to do?

I know!

What do you suppose if we launch a devastating blow against the Zionist enemy HP by…. attacking them at their weakest spot….. their exposed underbelly of racist filth….of course there is that arabic language post by someone a while back….wow na nannanna na! we’ve got you now ow!

Sorry don’t mean to be rude and all that and I am really interested in political culture and sociolinguistics and I put my arguments calmly and reasonably to Dave M at the time while trouncing johngs , but i really can’t take this to be a serious argument right here right now.

I think the dreggsy nature of the mixed metaphors at the bottom of UCU (and friends) rebuttal barrel is pretty plain to any reasonably informed observer too.

This is really clutching for windmills out of molehills stuff.

Maybe UCU should get a PR agent, better still, why not just get it right?

When I read the introduction to DaveM’s post, about the relations of language to culture and vice versa, comparing European languages to Arabic I thought, that’s something that needs a book, not a blog post, and a book written by someone pretty exceptional in their grasp of languages and linguistic theory. I think DaveM’s post would have been fine if it had been separate short posts on Al Jazeera’s programmes and on what it’s like learning a language in a repressive regime, without trying to make a thesis about Arabic and its relations to politics and truth, which is a gigantic undertaking.

Yeah, Joe, we saw it the first time. It’s still shite.

Joe Quinn posting comments at HP?

well, Mr. Quinn have you seen any “international bankers” recently? [nudge, nudge, wink, wink]

btw, do you really believe that nonsense about “dancing Israelis” and 9/11??

finally, why do you think that you are so so popular on neo-nazi, KKK type web sites?

Fabian, you say:

The second statement of yours, however, exists only in your confused head. Maybe as a result of having not understood the first point.

An analogy: there is no Scottish or English citizenship, only UK citizenship, which, in the context of Israel is equivalent to Israeli citizenship. But there is Scottish and English ethnicities which, in the Israeli context are the equivalent to Jewish and Arab nationalities.
———————————————-

The ‘confused head’ is not mine Fabian, but yours: as is your analogy.
There is no such thing as Scottish nor English ‘ethnicity’.

Scotland and England are Nation states who joined in a union. The citizens of that union are UK /British citizens – not even the Scottish National Party claim that there is any such distinct ‘ethnicity’ as Scottish.

On your other attempt at such an ‘analogy’:

“As noted, the Israeli Government itself makes such distinctions in law between a citizen of Israel and an Israeli, who by law must be Jewish.”
Could be understood in your context as:
“As noted, the UK Government itself makes such distinctions in law between a citizen of the UK and an UKish, who by law must be English.”

- Is equaly wrong. there are no divisions at all concerning classifications nor rights of citizens in the UK. All nationalities belonging the Union have equal rights and thus what you say above is senseless as well as muddled.

As to your other post, you propose that I listen to you, but what you say likewise makes no sense at all :
you say that there “only exists Israeli citizenship. For Jews and for Arabs”.

but the rights conveyed by such ‘citizenship’ in both these cases are markedly different and these differences are defined by ‘ethnicity’. This ethnicity is apparently defined by the judge’s statement:

‘”I can fully declare that there is no Israeli nation that exists separately from a Jewish nation.”

As I said, if Nation here is translated from a Hebrew ‘ethnicity’ then only Jews can be be Israelis.

This is not my logic, btw but that of the Israeli state.

Ken W,

There is NO ISRAELI NATION. There are CITIZENS, of an ISRAELI STATE, of JEWISH, ARAB, DRUZE, GREEK, ARMENIAN etc NATIONS. Some of them even hold dual-citizenship in their “nation”, particularly the Greeks and Armenians. Not even a Jew is an “Israeli national”, but rather an idealized abstraction which is an Israeli citizen.

You are pretending that Israel’s law is discriminatory when in fact its inclusivity raises the level of abstraction to the ultimate. There is no “Israeli nation” for a Jew, because he is a member of “the Jewish nation.” There is no “Israeli nation” for an Arab, because he is a member of the “Arab nation.” And both are full citizens of the legal entity which is the State of Israel.

there’s no such thing as scottish ethnicity? or english ethnicity? gee someone tell my old grade 9 teacher. She was ethnic scottish to the core. you are really losing it by prolonging this argument. And yes, Israel’s situation varies somewhat from the traditional euro nation state because of the unique historical circumstances of the jewish people. If you can’t accept that, who really cares?

Off topic:

Fabian,

Ken does not seem fully informed, there are several forms of British citizenships (if that is the correct usage), I forget them all, something like British overseas territories (Hong Kong, etc) and they are not all equal. Someone with a better memory could explain the details.

back to the topic:

Ken W,

what exactly do you hope to prove? that Israel is particularly nasty and exceptional, compared to the 190+ other nations or what?

what is your goal, in this discussion?

I am curious because that’s not the topic of the thread.

Ken W, do you think, from reading Joe Quinn’s work, that he’s hung up on Jews? or has some strange views?

please do answer, I’d like your views on Joe Quinn

Joe Quinn:

You shouldn’t have linked to the article in your site. It simply shows what a racist you are, not to mention those who post on your site. Without dragging myself into the gutter too deep, here is a quote from your book that you then justify (incorrectly) as being anti-racist:

“There is one more reason that is raised as to why this kind of biological weapon is unlikely to be as effective as the ideologues would wish. As Nazi doctor Josef Mengele put it, “Scratch a Frenchman and find an African”. Humanity has existed for many millennia. In the context of all our past tribal and intertribal connections, it is not far from the truth to say that we are all brothers. “Over the many years of human existence, ethnic groups have intermingled to such an extent that the genetic structures determining ethnic identity have blurred and become difficult to recognize”, notes Prozorov.”

Now, how can it not be OBVIOUS to you that the reason that Mengele was referenced was because the “ethnic specific weapons” being worked on by US and Israeli governments present frightening parallels to the genetic experiments of Nazis like Mengele?

It’s not obvious, because that isn’t what you did. Mengele is being used as a source to show that we’re all alike under the skin. It’s quite a non-racist comment, but of course he went on to do experiments on and murder jews (who as he said were humans like you and me) just because. So no, it isn’t obvious at all, and the fact you think it is confirms the worst about you… that you would even think to use that quote from mengele indicates that you are every bit as racist, not to mention incredibly stupid, as everyone already believes.

As for your posters, the fact you don’t remove the posters who talk about (dis)gus(ting) anti-gentilists and the like also speaks volume.

and by the way, goyim doesn’t mean cattle. it means nations. but what’s a little mistranslations among bloody racists.

Ken W.

“As I said, if Nation here is translated from a Hebrew ‘ethnicity’ then only Jews can be be Israelis.”

Bollocks, again. As I told you, Jews wanted to get registered as belonging to an Israeli nation, and they were rejected, on grounds that you cannot belong to something that doesn’t exist.
Jews, Arabs and others can be Israeli citizens. Nobody, Jew, Arab or other, can belong legally to an “Israeli nation”.

Again, you have UK citizenship. But you don’t have UKish people. If an English guy went to the state and asked to be registered as belonging to an UK ethnicity, he would be rejected. That is the best analogy there is, giving the circumstances.

Most English and Scottish, and Welsh, and Irish recognize each other as somewhat different. Not just because they live north or West, or East or South of a certain paralell or meridian, but because they have some different traits, which they carry, at least for a while, sometimes all their life, wherever they live. You don’t want to call that “ethnicity”, fine by me, but it is the best analogy one can find.

Every Israeli citizen has the same basic human, civil and political rights in Israel.

As an aside, what the Israeli state did is to keep the traditional differentiation by communities that nor it, nor the Jews invented. They reflect the Millet system of the Ottoman empire, kept in place by the British Mandate and inherited by Israel.

Reproduced from Boycotted British Academics blog
http://boycotted-uk-academic.blogspot.com/2008/08/harrys-place-and-bullies-of-ucu.html

YET ANOTHER PRO-BOYCOTT UCU ACTIVIST

From the distance of a few thousand miles I was amused to read recently on the aptly misnamed Socialist Unity [http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2766#comments] site that the case for an academic boycott of Israel had been made and won. Apparently this was because posters on the activists’ list have ‘generally been patient, nuanced and well informed’. Some of these posters are said to have ‘long records of opposition to anti-Semitism, racism and fascism’. I’m sure that this must be true of several individuals. Indeed, I’m glad about that. But sadly it can not be true of all those who want to boycott Israeli academics.

I know that it is difficult to avoid mentioning Jenna Delich’s name, even after she turned litigious, emailing a reporter on the Jewish Chronicle: “If you or anyone else mention my name or anything to do with me anywhere in the media or a public place, I will sue.” [http://thejc.com/articles/charities-not-being-open-enough%E2%80%99?q=node/4872]. What with Delich’s legal threats and Harry’s Place being temporarily taken down, it leaves the pro-boycott argument that the ‘Zionists’ shut down debate looking pretty thin. Not to mention that if the ‘Israelis’ supposedly control the media then they must be losing their touch.

Anyway, now that Delich is the internet equivalent of fish and chip paper (though she’ll find disposing of the stories a lot more difficult) it’s time to move on.

Enter Keith Hammond. I would suggest that his contributions to the list have been neither patient, nuanced or well informed. Here’s some examples.

‘I am sooooo pro-Boycott’; ‘But here we gooooo’; ‘Pleaseeeeeeee …. Stop twisting my words in this hysterical way! It is obscene and completely OTT’; ‘I hope all this does not sound too Vanessa Redgrave’.

Hammond also specialises in personal attacks (no doubt his defenders will note the irony of this post). Here he is again.

‘This is a brilliant union and this online facility is brilliant – even if people like Eve do not like honest concerns being expressed’ [that’s Eve Garrard, who has since resigned from the Union (http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2008/07/resignation-letter-by-eve-garrard.html)

‘And then towards the end of your contribution [Eve] you really get a bit of wind behind your sails and say it is British academics you are thinking about because it “will drive Jewish members out of the union” … “which will no longer be a fit place or safe place for them”. Now that is downright false. Most people who battle for Palestine have outstanding anti-racist records AND YOU KNOW IT !!!!’

‘David’s concerns for equality are encouraging. But they are twisted – as so many of the contributions moving around his politics of denial … These people were clear; they did not twist things in this horrible way that has now become the standard for David’s statements.’

‘Lots of derangement on some of these postings. I just wonder what it is all about sometimes … Let the mad people rant on … The boycott just will not go away!’

‘Now doubt I am opening up a space for a whole battery of nutters to start writing to me or ringing me and leaving foul messages – which I am now getting used to’

‘Members might be interested in looking at the allegations made against the Union on Engage. The piece is headed: Why break UCU confidences now – David Hirsh.
See what you think? And this is what some people want to be admitted back onto Dan? Jenna [Delich]’s case is totally different to this sort of persistent and intentional rubbish … I keep wondering if some people are well’

It’s also worth pointing out that ‘of course’ Hammond thinks ‘there are arguments to be made and a lot of listening to be done … But the arguments have to be made on the basis that they are right’.

Here’s the substance.

1) Hammond equates Nazi treatment of Jews with Israeli treatment of Palestinians:

‘the conditions in the Aida camp square with the conditions of the Warsaw ghetto’
(22 September 2007)

2) Hammond compares Israel with South Africa under apartheid

‘what was fascinating about [Mark] Regev’s statement was that it showed the language of Israel is gradually working towards an open embrace of the Apartheid vocabulary … I find this fascinating about Israel, they do not go in for any of the crazy waffle that defenders of Israel spew out on the DAN. It was fascinating (as well as horrible) and quietly disturbing. The team that Regev represents do not care a hoot about law! It really was instructive. It reminded me of Keith Joseph and Thatcher and those people. These Zionists are of another time.’

3) Hammond regards Israel as a militaristic, undemocratic country

‘The whole Israeli education system – from nursery to university – is embedded in the Israeli obsession with war as some sort of ‘defence’ against who knows what … The minute I tried to probe the fears of the Israelis I met the conversation moved into something that I can only describe as a dreadful mix of possibly real and totally unreal anxieties about Europe in the past, Biblical history, contemporary Judaism, work, land and the American dream … These conversations were a gush of insecure and often irrational stuff that I tried to understand. But I could not’
(19 September 2007)

‘Israel’s academics are totally at one with the occupation’
(22 September 2007)

‘the whole HE system in Israel that supports the military occupation of Palestine.’
(26 September 2007)

4) Hammond opposes what he sees as the influence of a Zionist lobby

‘It is all about scoring points for Israel and not looking at the situation out there. It is racist right down to its core. It is the aim of those supporting Palestinian academics to expose this rotten Zionist. Why is that so difficult to understand?’
(2 October 2007)

‘Issues of Palestine are now determining tenure issues in the States. Can we expect the Zionist lobby to go the same way here … Bread and butter issues cannot be neatly compartmentalised so that we have separate arrangements for what is “safe” (and does not threaten Zionism) and “not safe” (in what actively opposes Zionism).’
(4 October 2007)

‘I still fail to see how boycotting the institutions of a racist state on the grounds that they are racist could be covered by the RRA. Sure that Act was all about protecting people from racism – just like the boycott – and so how could there a conflict?’
(8 October 2007)

‘This protection of Israel at all costs approach is about doing exactly what it is doing right now. There is no clarity. It is like a madness.’
(24 November 2007)

‘Israel is only able to get away with its atrocities because it claims to be this universal victim that is completely outside of international condemnation.’

5) Hammond believes antisemitism is little more than a ‘tactic’ used by “Zionists” in bad faith to silence debate

‘[Canadian academics have started to move towards a boycott position] and so have a tiny group in Germany – the Germans have been held back with a historical guilt that has really crippled debate.’
(23 September 2007)

‘What is interesting however is that the same old tactics are employed. Israel claims to be a Jewish state THEREFORE anyone who criticises Israel is anti-Jewish but there are more and more Jewish people who are revolted by Israel’s racism. These people of course are supposed to be self haters’
(1 October 2007)

‘Everything put forward in good faith gets distorted by David H. and his team and it is obscene. It is not just about different plays on words, it is a whole campaign of denial that started in 1948’
(2 October 2007)

‘I am not going to bore anyone by reviewing the various episodes of the current hysteria about anti-********. I am tired of these manic postings’; ‘So how about some education on Zionism Marian? But there I go again. I keep forgetting myself. Sorry. I had forgotten Mearsheimer and Walt tried that one.’
(26 November 2007)

6) Hammond thinks that ‘No one should be scared off by this “anti-Semitism” stuff’’. ‘Let the anti-Semitism slurs fly – it is not as though the tactic is new or unexpected.’

So it really came as no surprise when Hammond recently posted:

‘What your contributions always add up to is that Israel and its denial of Palestine and the Palestinians is not a unique case. There are many other situations in the world just like Israel? So your strategy is to show there is suffering and injustice all over the place and we academics not there boycott poor old Israel elsewhere. But you never actually succeed in this argument. Why? Could it really be that Israel constitutes a unique case? So you pick some feature of the Israeli situation and then say the logic is that there should thus be many boycotts? Or better still no boycott proposal at all! You allude to something along the lines that like cases should be treated alike? But Zionism is completely unique. Its denials are unique – Israel even denies that it is about an occupation and therefore not compelled to follow international law as it applies to occupations. I think you jump the gun if you will excuse the phrase. Zionism is a completely different to so many other cases of injustice. Nothing comes near to it. I am not going to spell out the nuts and bolts of the case – just go through all the UN documents that detail the situation. There is no NGO that has a remotely good word for Israel. Its treatment of the Palestinians and strategy of squeezing the Palestinians off their land with settlements and now the wall is beyond anything we have experienced to date … thank goodness.’
…
‘I want to reiterate that Zionism is particular project that has to be stopped. It is poison. Do you think this poison is acceptable? I know … You think all of us who oppose Zionism are misunderstood huh? I cannot believe you are so confused …’
(26 August 2008)

I don’t know why, but another quotation came to mind. This was about a fanatic’s ‘merciless opposition to the world-poisoner of all peoples’. He, however, did not call it ‘Zionism’ but ‘International Jewry’.

Still, at least so far Hammond has not brought up the French Revolution, Bolsheviks, Freemasons or Rotary Clubs.

Unlike these guys
[http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html].

YET ANOTHER PRO-BOYCOTT UCU ACTIVIST

From the distance of a few thousand miles I was amused to read recently on the aptly misnamed Socialist Unity [http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2766#comments] site that the case for an academic boycott of Israel had been made and won. Apparently this was because posters on the activists’ list have ‘generally been patient, nuanced and well informed’. Some of these posters are said to have ‘long records of opposition to anti-Semitism, racism and fascism’. I’m sure that this must be true of several individuals. Indeed, I’m glad about that. But sadly it can not be true of all those who want to boycott Israeli academics.

I know that it is difficult to avoid mentioning Jenna Delich’s name, even after she turned litigious, emailing a reporter on the Jewish Chronicle: “If you or anyone else mention my name or anything to do with me anywhere in the media or a public place, I will sue.” [http://thejc.com/articles/charities-not-being-open-enough%E2%80%99?q=node/4872]. What with Delich’s legal threats and Harry’s Place being temporarily taken down, it leaves the pro-boycott argument that the ‘Zionists’ shut down debate looking pretty thin. Not to mention that if the ‘Israelis’ supposedly control the media then they must be losing their touch.

Anyway, now that Delich is the internet equivalent of fish and chip paper (though she’ll find disposing of the stories a lot more difficult) it’s time to move on.

Enter Keith Hammond. I would suggest that his contributions to the list have been neither patient, nuanced or well informed. Here’s some examples.

‘I am sooooo pro-Boycott’; ‘But here we gooooo’; ‘Pleaseeeeeeee …. Stop twisting my words in this hysterical way! It is obscene and completely OTT’; ‘I hope all this does not sound too Vanessa Redgrave’.

Hammond also specialises in personal attacks (no doubt his defenders will note the irony of this post). Here he is again.

‘This is a brilliant union and this online facility is brilliant – even if people like Eve do not like honest concerns being expressed’ [that’s Eve Garrard, who has since resigned from the Union (http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2008/07/resignation-letter-by-eve-garrard.html)

‘And then towards the end of your contribution [Eve] you really get a bit of wind behind your sails and say it is British academics you are thinking about because it “will drive Jewish members out of the union” … “which will no longer be a fit place or safe place for them”. Now that is downright false. Most people who battle for Palestine have outstanding anti-racist records AND YOU KNOW IT !!!!’

‘David’s concerns for equality are encouraging. But they are twisted – as so many of the contributions moving around his politics of denial … These people were clear; they did not twist things in this horrible way that has now become the standard for David’s statements.’

‘Lots of derangement on some of these postings. I just wonder what it is all about sometimes … Let the mad people rant on … The boycott just will not go away!’

‘Now doubt I am opening up a space for a whole battery of nutters to start writing to me or ringing me and leaving foul messages – which I am now getting used to’

‘Members might be interested in looking at the allegations made against the Union on Engage. The piece is headed: Why break UCU confidences now – David Hirsh.
See what you think? And this is what some people want to be admitted back onto Dan? Jenna [Delich]’s case is totally different to this sort of persistent and intentional rubbish … I keep wondering if some people are well’

It’s also worth pointing out that ‘of course’ Hammond thinks ‘there are arguments to be made and a lot of listening to be done … But the arguments have to be made on the basis that they are right’.

Ken W

What country is a member of the Souix Nation, or a Seneca government council chief a citizen of?

What country is a member of the Cree Nation or the First Nations a citizen of?

geddit?

Fabian.
You propose I don’t understand and state your own understanding of the ruling:

a Jew came to the authorities asking to inscribe him as of Israeli nationality, the authorities refused, saying that there is only Israeli citizenship for him or for an Arab. That there is no such thing as Israeli nationality that the state will recognize.

That ruling, as I am explaining, came about, not because an Arab wanted to belong fully to the Israeli nationality to which you think Jews already belong, but because a Jew wanted to register in his ID that he belongs to the Israeli nationality, that doesn’t exist. Only exists Israeli citizenship. For Jews and for Arabs.
———————————————–

Yet the Haaretz article states this petion came about because the petitioner:
Georg Rafael Tamrin returned from a visit overseas to find a new law – an amendment to the law following the “who is a Jew” affair – ruling that to be an Israeli one must be a member of “the Jewish nation.” …

So either Haaretz is wrong and there is no such ammendment to the law ruling that to be an Israeli, one must be a member of ” the Jewish State” ,or you are wrong and there is.

Sorry: …one must be a member of ” the Jewish nation”

strange how a thread on Joe Quinn’s racism gets side tracked into discussing, in a very pointed way, ‘what is an Israeli’?

if I didn’t know better I would be surprised, but having seen numerous discussions ’stray’ from this type of topic, particulary when someone is hung up on Israelis

I am not even going to question Ken W’s motives, still less his obvious ignorance of the various levels of British nationality, however, it is curious that he had nothing substantive to say on Joe Quinn’s racism, but was positively fixated on the who, what and where’s of Israel citizenship.

that’s the kind of unhealthy attitude which got us here in the first place.

Mr. Quinn, I think you’ve found a new reader: Ken W.

Mettaculture

Sorry to disabuse you of your conspiracy theory, but I have no involvement in UCU, and nor do I have any sympathy for their boycott.

So my involvement in this not “tactical”. It ran as follows: when DaveM’s post was first published, I read it, was struck that it was transparently racist, and was surprised that HP would agree to publish such a thing.

Now the subject has come again – for reasons not of my doing – and what’s more it’s come up in the context of people being set “important test[s]” on their ability to recognise racist rhetoric when they see it. And my conclusion is that for a significant number of people around these parts, that ability is not what it should be.

So yes, you bet I think it’s a “is a legitimate issue of fair comment” here and now – though to be clear, my purpose is absolutely not to use it as any sort of defence for Joe Quinn, or to play a role in any pro/anti-Zionist disputes.

I do have some rudimentary faith in people’s ability to consider the two questions separately.

Anyway, your concern that this may overshadow the more pressing business of the UCU’s list is palpably absurd. Look around the internet, and see how many blogs are discussing Jenna Delich, David Duke, and Joe Quinn, and how many are discussing DaveM’s post.

In any case, even if it is horribly inconvenient for this question to re-appear now, the moral’s a pretty straightforward one: don’t publish anti-Arab racism on your blog, and this problem won’t happen.

“Georg Rafael Tamrin returned from a visit overseas to find a new law – an amendment to the law following the “who is a Jew” affair – ruling that to be an Israeli one must be a member of “the Jewish nation.” …”

“So either Haaretz is wrong and there is no such ammendment to the law ruling that to be an Israeli, one must be a member of ” the Jewish State” ,or you are wrong and there is.”

You see that your two statements are not equivalent. In the first you mention the “Jewish Nation” and in the other “the Jewish State”. The first one is simply wrong, and I would like to see the original article in Haaretz. The second one is a tautology, since Israel is called also the Jewish State.

I have found the original in Haaretz.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=376724
Yes, there is a mistake. Maybe the wording is wrong. This:
“the Israeli state does not recognize any Israeli nationality that isn’t Jewish.”
Is simply a mistake. It should be explained better. There is no Israeli nationality, as is explained in the following statement: “Even the Supreme Court ruled in 1970 that there was no such thing as Israeli nationality.”
There is only Israeli citizenship, as it is made very clear in the article.
Jews, Arabs and others can be citizens of Israel. Nobody, not a Jew, not an Arab, a Druze, an Armenian or other, can claim to be of an Israeli nationality, and again, that is very clear also in the article (that is its main subject, the rejection by the state to a group of Jews and others to their demand of being registered as belonging to the Israeli nationality).
The single line you, Ken W. quote all the time to prove your point, is simply a mistake. Possibly made in translation.
If you keep on banging on that, I would advise you to come personally to Israel and ask the clerks for a clarification.

“There is no such thing as Scottish nor English ‘ethnicity’. ”

The ignorance and stupidity are mind-boggling.

“nearly oxfordian: unfortunately, your view/definition of zionism/anti-zionism is so narrow that the more than 50% of jews who opposed Zionism prior to WWII could also be called anti-semitic. ”

Simply untrue. Large numbers opposed the creation of a modern state NOW, as it were (i.e. in 1935, say), but not as a future goal. Only tiny numbers of Jews opposed an independent Jewish state in principle (and those were mostly demented communists or other believers in world government, and they held similar attitudes towards ALL states, unlike those antisemites we are talking about who oppose ONLY a Jewish state, not e.g. a Chinese one). The rest opposed it on pragmatic grounds (’the political circumstances are not right as yet’) or religious ones (’we have to await the messiah, and when he comes there will be a Jewish state’).
Do read up on the history of Zionism and Jews in general.

Larry –

The piece makes generalisations.

It is not racist.

Repeating the same accusation over and over again will not make it so.

Did that idiot Ken really claim that gentiles means cattle?

“You mean Laura Knight-Jadczyk? I wasn’t aware that she is anti-semitic. Can you point out some examples?”
Hey Joe, I can…I think Laura posted this on the cassiopaea web forum reference http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=6697.15.
Guess the topic? ….Holocaust Revisionism.Now here is her take on it followed by what I think is yours if you post as Percival and sign off as Joe.Here we go prepare to sink low into the cesspit…..
“This subject is a tar-baby and has been set up that way on purpose. People get so stuck in the numbers, even in thinking that the number itself is going to get them somewhere, when it won’t. Even if a group of people proved, unequivocally that the number was manipulated, all the brainwashed public would say is: well, so what?

You have to realize that you are up against a global, monolithic conspiracy. If your objective is to really do something valuable and effective, you can’t go tilting at windmills.

SOTT spent some time at one point examining the evidence, looking at the claims, etc, and one thing we discovered was that the Revisionists go from “they lied about the numbers to they didn’t really target the Jews (and they did, along with several other groups) because there is no evidence of it in Hitler’s words. to Hitler was a good guy.”

Now, who does that kind of thinking serve? Why, it serves the Zionists, of course. You can’t have a captive population remembering constantly how much they need the psychopaths ruling over them if they aren’t terrified at the resurgence of “neo-Naziism.”

Bottom line is: if the Hoax-a-caust promoters want to claim 6 million dead, we will agree with them… AND we will continue to expose them for being responsible for all of them. Maybe by the time they are thoroughly exposed, they won’t be so attached to numbers, and neither will anyone else”
Next hold on tight and prepare to vomit …
“My take.
The Nazis killed about 12 million, a significant portion of which were Jews. There are many lies told about all wars, because the victors write the history, WWII is probably no exception. We’re not into “holocaust revisionism”. We prefer to talk about the real actors behind WWII. Lenni Brenner’s book “51 Documents: Zionist collaboration with the Nazis” provides historical evidence that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis in engineering the “solution to the Jewish question”. So the Zionists can have any number they like, at the end of the day, they played their part in creating that number. THAT is what should be exposed. Not pointless arguing over the numbers and flirting with the law. As Laura said, pick your battles.

Joe”

Well, well, well. After the silly insults and straw men, Modernity dusts down his dog-eared copy of the “Decent Debating Book” attempts a dose of “Will-You-Condemn-A-Thon…” a smear of the strange “suspicious” and then goes for the full blown “Decent telepathy”, (For all definitions of course, see Malky Muscular )

Yet it is Fabian who finally gets it. He actually reads the Haaretz article and realises that there is indeed a problem. Even worse, it is not Ken W’s invention (but Ken W. is no doubt ‘suspicious’ anyway): it is in black & white, not on a neo-nazi website but in a respected Israeli newspaper- Well done Fabian.

As I said, Fabian, either Haaretz was wrong or you were. You now claim it is Haaretz when they state:

“the Israeli state does not recognize any Israeli nationality that isn’t Jewish.”

…which you contend is probably a translation error, yet you offer no proof that this is so. Perhaps you might prove your case by providing a translation from the Hebrew?

Unfortunately it is not merely this single line which is the problem, but also that belonging the Judge as quoted:

: “I can fully declare that there is no Israeli nation that exists separately from a Jewish nation.”

Which, according to the Haaretz article and as I have pointed out several times now, was made in reference to a petition concerning an amendment to the law following the “who is a Jew” affair – ruling that ‘…to be an Israeli one must be a member of “the Jewish nation.” …”

Note that last line: “…to be an Israeli one must be a member of “the Jewish nation”

So in fact we have three statements: the first one is a quote from the words of Haaretz reporter Moshe Gorali whom you say is mistranslated or mistaken, a second, from the Judge Yitzhak Shilo which was backed on appeal by the High Court of Justice, and a third partial quote by Gorali: apparently from the legal amendment in question.
Are these ALL in your view mistaken or mistranslated?

So, until you can show me a retraction or correction in Haaretz concerning this article, there is not really much point in believing you: Fabian of Harry’s place, over Moche Gorali: the legal analyst for Haaretz.

Ken W,

I am NOT a decent, or decent in anyway, I am an antifascist and I recognize Jew baiting morons like you.

and why would you know any thing about British nationality laws?

you wouldn’t, because you’re too bleeding thick to see the hypocrisy that’s close to home?

anyway, you probably want to throw people out of the country too?

still I suppose you gain some pleasure from poking a stick at Israelis?

Sorry this is probably a bit late for this thread, but I have just spotted TheIrie’s comment

No doubt. Long may Quinn remain irrelevant, and I sincerely hope that progressive organisations will distance themselves from him. OK – I have not commented on Quinn as an individual yet, but now I will – I think you’re all correct, he is an anti-Semite.

He does get a lot of stick here, so kudos to him for this, at least.

Ken attempts to teach us how to argue. LOL.

Mark T,

TheIrie only came to that simple conclusion after it was explained to him, just shame he couldn’t see thru Quinn’s racism without assistance.

larry teabag

I did not accuse you of being part of a conspiracy but of being triggered to respond by a fairly transparent attempt at damage limitation by the UCU Israel academic boycott ‘lobby’.

Be that as it may and this is the way that political commentary becomes so tiringly reactive, you are perfectly entitled to argue that nonetheless there is a substantive criticism that may be made of Dave M’s guest post.

You can argue that point but unless you have an entirely novel definition of racism, particularly anti-arab, racism to surprise us all with, only the usual suspects (such as johng and his race and oppression speech monitors) are likely to agree with you.

The UCU boycott defenders have shown themselves to be blatant hypocrits on the issue of race, such that no-one need ever take them seriously on such matters again.

It is enormously wearing this fetish of largely white middleclass leftists accusing other white people of racism for the purpose of demonising them and politically sanctifying themselves.

However you do devalue the wrong that is racism by your casual deployment of a serious accusation of ‘less favourable’ treatment’ on grounds of ‘race’ for a personal and subjective view of the relationship of the Arabic language (by an ardent and fluent student of Arabic) to contemporary political discourse in Arab societies.

The most you could say of Dave M’s post is that he made some generalisations about linguistic determination, that are no longer accepted in such a broad or strong form by the majority of contemporary linguistic scholars.

The observations that informed the SWH originally were based on ethnographies of non-indo european languages where the forms of observed social and cultural difference seemed to be underpinned by very different linguistic structures that seemed to pattern cognition in very ‘non-western’ ways.

You have probably heard of the canard about the many Innuit (then called Eskimo) terms for snow?

Worf was seriously mistaken the Innuit have no more words for snow than the Irish have for rain, though a ‘nice soft summer rain’ is actually a conceptual formulation, in English, for , culturally, quite bearable precipitation in Ireland.

Sapir influenced by the general theory of relativity and by the Hopi language, which structures tense, hence the argument goes, time in a very non-linear, non Euclidean, way that should predispose the Hopi for nuclear physics.

This kind of non-western structures of thought and language stuff is actually (like most discredited theories) now the received opinion of salon society all that stuff about Buddha and the Dalai Lama liking quantum mechanics, the Dao of Physics etc, is it therefore racist larry teabag?

Or really just a bit of generalised orientalism?

Or really just a white person saying something about a brown person which you reserve the right to object to as a matter of salon society convention?

You see why your kind of deployment of the term racist is discredited and discreditable is that if the Dalai Lama comes out with this ahimsa/non being and quarks thats the Buddhist brain gumpf it is oriental wisdom.

If I were to say (which I wouldn’t because I can sniff out the censorious speech police a mile off) that the canons of Buddhist thought, the pali scriptures, hence Buddhist thought, means that a Buddhist is incapable of understanding causality and culpability in a way recognised by a court of law so that one always sees Judges at their wits end in court saying;

‘ no no Mr Lama it wasn’t you putting your face there, surely Mr Siva actually hit you with a stick’

You would say, if you felt like it and wanted to diminish my character or deflect attention to the argument, that it was racist rubbish,

although if I came out with the same patronising guff as a leaflet for the court service, stating that staff should be sensitive to cultural difference when dealing with Tibetans who might have different views of the the thing we in the west might call assault, so that they might think in terms of how they came to put their face in the way of a stick;

you might think that I was engaged in combatting racism and discrimination.

Years ago I met a Morrocan teacher of drama, dance and Yoga (he is a Berber) who assured me that it was absolutely impossible to teach Yoga in Arabic.

Now I had no reason to disbelieve him, and it would have been rude to tell him that he had internalised orientalist tropes, but I thought it might be more that his clients wanted to be taught Yoga in French because it was special.

Well I actually spent several years asking Arab speakers if they could learn Yoga in Arabic (I am weird but I can dignify the question with the justification of ‘experimental Anthropology’ for the sake of Saidian types).

Mostly the answers were of the ‘yo what’ variety

Now I am sure there is a way of teaching yoga in Arabic but to do so would require a contextually shared Arabic idiom for doing so, you see there is no great tradition of Arab yoga, and I would be hesitant to just start translating instructions to ‘just relax’ via babelfish.

As I pointed out in the original debate, it is a matter of historical fact that for centuries, the Caliphate including most arab Muslim lands, were subject to Imperial ottoman rule.

Ottoman Turkish was a trilingual amalgam of Turkish, Persian and Arabic.

The actual language of government and administration, of the middle class and literature was Ottoman and Persian and within the millet system Greek and Armenian.

An educated non Muslim Ottoman new Arabic via its presence (often via Persian) in Ottoman and in an ossified form as Classical Arabic, it remained the language of Islam but it was not the administrative and political language.

Arabic first in Egypt and then following the break up of the Ottoman Empire, elsewhere, went through a revival and modernisation, though the prestige languages of the technocratic elite, and much tertiary education, remained (as they do largely today) English and French.

If you had studied non latinised European languages you would know that this situation is far from exceptional, the vast majority of modern languages borrow from the Anglo-Romance International techincal and scientific vocabulary which is itself largely of greeco-latin origin.

In fact one of the constructed languages ‘interlingua’, influenced by the SWH is in fact neo-anglo-latin derived statistically from the enormous shared technical and conceptual vocabulary common to English and Romance European languages.

Any speaker of a modern Romance language or an educated English speaker can immediately start to read and understand ‘interlingua’ though it is harder for Slavic and Scandinavian language speakers, it is actually taught to Scandinavian and Asian students as a basis for the university study of both Western European languages and technical subjects.

Modern Standard Arabic on the other hand is itself something of a constructed formalistic and literary language.

Classical or Koranic Arabic remains (analogously to Latin until recent times)
the liturgical language and is the overarching form (together with its derived Modern standard) into which two educated speakers from different areas of the Arab world will upwardly lexify to aid communication 9rather the way that Spanish, Brazilians and Italians can converse).

Colloquial Arabic exists in many vernacular forms that are a continuum of dialects though largely mutually unintelligible from geographically removed regions (with Magrheb forms being extremely variant).

Egyptian Arabic, through its cultural products (film, TV, music, novels) is the most widely understood spoken form of Arabic.

Now a reasonable person when reading Dave M’s post would understand that he is not talking about the mental capacity of Arabs to understand logically particular concepts, but the degree to which the current useage of Arabic in non democratic, repressive regimes, militates against an easy and fluent expression of basic linguistic norms allowing for free debate and critical inquiry.

This is really not a very difficult concept to grasp, but for some reason Western Europeans living in a democracy seem to be so lazily conditioned by the untroubled freedoms of free expression and the abscence of a tyrannical surveillance state, that they perversely imagine they are living in a Bush-Blair fascist regime while the policed and spied upon in paranoid and repressive dictatorships are imagined to be perfectly free to think what they want and to communicate with whom they choose.

When members of a speech community lack specific lexical precision to understand certain concepts, fortunately we have metaphor and analogy to help comprehension.

So in order to avoid continuing blank comprehension about the underlying logic of Dave M speculative explanation;

I rest my case by turning for example to a work of fiction that is the locus classicus of the argument that thought is manipulated through language and that a totalitarian state will therefore seek to manipulate language in order to manipulate the minds of its masses so that certain thoughts of freedom will be literally unthinkable and rebeliion impossible;

George Orwells 1984, read it then go to Syria, who knows you might be able to think of something original.

Indeed, Ken W. you are mistaken, and the article in certain lines is not clear, at best, or wrong, at worst. It is not “Haaretz” who got it wrong (although they are partially responsible) but Moshe Gorali.

But if you read the whole article, you will see that what you claim those lines imply, is contradicted constantly by it, even in the subtitle: “The state denies there is any such nationality as `Israeli’”.
And by the fruitless attempts by many Jews to be part of an Israeli nationality.

How can you argue then that this means that there IS an Israeli nation, and that only Jews can belong to it, I don’t know.

This is my last message to you: come to Israel and ask here the clerks.
Otherwise, go fuck yourself.

You know, actually I have found the original in Hebrew, and, lo and behold! It was a mistake in translation! (and you can report this to every Pro-Palestinian propaganda outfit there is, that has copied the English version of Haaretz as truthful.
In English, the mistranslated paragraph says:

“Georg Rafael Tamrin returned from a visit overseas to find a new law – an amendment to the law following the “who is a Jew” affair – ruling that to be an Israeli one must be a member of “the Jewish nation.”"

In Hebrew, however, it says:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=376606&contrassID=2&subContrassID=2&sbSubContrassID=0

גאורג רפאל טמרין חזר לישראל מביקור בחו”ל ומצא חוק חדש (תיקון לחוק בעקבות פרשת “מיהו יהודי”), שקבע מבחן השתייכות ללאום היהודי, שהוא לטעמו “גזעי-דתי”.

Which needs to be translated as: “Georg Rafael Tamrin returned from a visit overseas to find a new law – an amendment to the law following the “who is a Jew” affair – that determined a test for belonging to the Jewish nation, that is, according to his taste, “racial-religious.”"

As you see, the paragraph was mistranslated to English by Haaretz. And you can ask anybody who knows Hebrew (if you know anyone, which I doubt), if my translation is accurate.

Now, please, go fuck yourself.

In case it is not clear:

1. Not a test to determine who is Israeli, but a test to determine who belongs to the Jewish nation.

The second part of the phrase is a complete invention. It doesn’t say “that to be an Israeli one must be a member of “the Jewish nation.”” but that he, Tamrin, finds the ammendment to be too “racial-religious” for his tastes.

I know about the whole Who is a Jew affair from before, and that is why I always told you that you were wrong. Now I see that it comes from a mistranslation.

Will you apologize?

Fabian,

Ken W won’t apologize or admit his ignorance

that’s why Jew baiters like Ken W should be ignored as they have nothing to contribute, they just want to stir up racial hatred.

a common way of spotting them is to notice how they’ll rarely engage with other’s points (that requires too much thinking) and the type of topic they pick to attack Israel on, whilst often ignoring their own country’s dual standards.

best ignore such thickos, back to Joe Quinn’s racism.

Mettaculture

I am not someone who screams “racist” at the drop of a hat. In fact I believe I deploy the term with rather more care than many. But nor, when I am confronted with something I do believe, on reflection, to be racist, then I will say so. And I’m unlikely to be cowed by patronizing jabber about “salon society convention”. If you find the argument “wearing” then you are welcome not to participate in it.

Furthermore I reject the allegation of making this argument for the purpose of demonising anyone or politically sanctifying myself.

After all this circumstantial ad hominem, your argument boils down to one simple question: at what point does orientalist generalisation become racist?

I don’t propose a full answer, but I will suggest two criteria which together are sufficient to place it well over the line.

(a) When it is overgeneralization to the point of parody, and can easily be recognized as such without any need for expert input. Example: “In the end it just becomes one big exercise in denial.”

(b) When it is resoundingly, unbendingly negative. Example: “bad writing… indicative of somebody with something to hide”.

DaveM’s post satisfied both of these in spades. Your Tibetan example does not.

Fabian

You claim that there are differences in the Hebrew version of this article concerning the partial quotation referring to the amendment, but you say nothing on the matter of the judges quote, nor indeed the original statement by the author Moshe Gorali which you originally vigorously disputed: both of which are of equal importance to the matter at hand.

I would imagine if Gorali found his article grievously misquoted in the English version of Haaretz he would have corrected it or indeed had a correction printed.
Yet it seems no such correction has ever been made in the intervening years, and I therefore assume he is quite happy with its verisimilitude. Besides, has it not occurred to you that the author may have also written the English version? He is indeed credited with no translator given.

So, if you dispute the nature of what he says in the article: i.e . that the term ‘Israeli nation’ or ‘Israeli nationality’ can in Law only refer to the ‘Jewish nation’ and that ‘Israeli’ is likewise properly exclusive to those of Jewish ethnicity/religion, I suggest that you direct your enquiry and demand for apology to him or to Haaretz: it is after all they whom you claim are mistaken.

No: the real problem for you lies not in translation nor the verisimilitude of what is stated in the article but that it presents in unvarnished form the ‘exclusive’ nature of the Israeli state: an exclusiveness which you would like to pretend does not exist.

As I said, above, until you can show me a retraction or correction in Haaretz concerning this article, I will continue to assume that what is reported in it is correct.

Ken W,

fascinating, you argue about Hebrew but you didn’t know about Britain’s implementation of second class nationality ?

strange, why’s that? not important to you?? too close to him?

Ken W.

There is no way to please you.
I am 100% certain that it is a mistranslation and I don’t need a retraction to prove it.
Simply put, the last section of the statement is a complete fabrication. Now you have the original in Hebrew too. So, again, you are welcomed to ask another Hebrew speaker about that or go fuck yourself.

There is a lot of rather good research in Israel on how other states with ethnocultural majorities from a single group (Greece, Germany, Austria, Armenia, Hungary, Rumania) define and favor their Diasporas in immigration. Mixing the issue of immigration rights with that of cultural participation in the state blurs boundaries. France has relatively free immigration and relatively free naturalization, yet someone whose cultural identity is dependent on a non-French language (Arab, Berber, Corsican, Catalan, Occitan, Breton) is not going to be happy with the unofficial or limited role(s) of these languages in public life and their exclusion from use as a language of government or official record. Whether they are native-born French or a naturalized immigrant. So there are barriers to effective participation in the state for Arabs in liberal France that are not there in Jewishly ethnocentric (officially Arabic-for-governmental-purposes-using) Israel.

Ah! Modernity…

Still attempting to work you way through the rest of the contents of Harry’s handbook I see!

Let me indulge you in your fresh bout of strawman-whataboutery. Certainly Israel’s racist divides concerning ethnicity and status do indeed bear a direct comparison with similar racist divides applied to the identities and status of the people of former colonies by the British government. This is hardly surprising given their similar nature as racist colonial enterprises.
But of course Fabian did not raise this matter, nor did I answer any such a comparison.

My reply was not to this unmade proposal but to the analogy which he did in fact make:
“… there is no Scottish or English citizenship, only UK citizenship, which, in the context of Israel is equivalent to Israeli citizenship. But there is Scottish and English ethnicities which, in the Israeli context are the equivalent to Jewish and Arab nationalities.”

What I said on this matter was entirely correct: no such distinct Scottish or English ethnicity is recognised in UK law.
Certainly if an individual wishes to claim a particular ‘ethnicity’, they may do so, but it has no legal standing.
For example, I can claim my ethnicity is English, Scottish, Welsh, Romany or Jewish, (- or Israelite!) or indeed I can make one up, but it is of no relevance whatsoever in the eyes of the law.
As I noted, this situation cannot be compared to the situation in Israel where the state and not the individual decides on matters of ethnicity and where such a decision has implications concerning status and rights.

Indeed, as far as Scotland and England are concerned, the only political parties which propose state recognition of Scottish or English ethnicities in such a manner are the likes of the BNP in England, and the even more obscure Siol nan Gael (‘Seed of the Gael’) in Scotland: both quasi fascist organisations, so, as you can see, your Israel is in good company.

Ken W,

you didn’t engage with the issues, a fairly typical approach from knuckle scrapers like you, just a nasty obsession with “Israelis” eh?

feel very proud of your self? got many tattoos? or just a bolt between your neck?

I read it, was struck that it was transparently racist, and was surprised that HP would agree to publish such a thing.

On the one hand we have accusations on this thread that an article about ME language is racist from two or three people who have never lived in the ME, can’t speak, read or write and never have tried to learn any ME language, and on the other, we have the writer of the article himself who moved to Syria and learned enough of the Arabic language to be functional in it.

It seems to me that someone who moves to a country, lives with her people and struggles until he/she can master a new language is pretty much the antithesis of someone who pens “transparently racist” articles.

Hey Ken W

The head of state in the UK has to be an Anglican by law and so unlike Israel the UK is racist in the extreme by treating all non-Anglicans as de jure second class citizens who can never be head of state and you apparently are a bigotted arsehole who approves of this discrimination. See you in the funny papers.

Ken W,

so there’s at least three or more classes (as lbnaz points out) of British nationality

Brits who can be head of state
Brits who can live in Britain “proper”, but not become head of state by virtue of not being Anglican
and British Overseas Territories citizens, not full Brits
then there is British Overseas citizens

not forgetting Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies.

pots, kettle?

“Hey Ken W

“The head of state in the UK has to be an Anglican by law and so unlike Israel the UK is racist in the extreme by treating all non-Anglicans as de jure second class citizens who can never be head of state and you apparently are a bigotted arsehole who approves of this discrimination. See you in the funny papers.”

Are you guys pooling you ignorance for greater effect?
A few very basic facts:

The Anglican church is a ‘Religion’. It is a ‘Protestant’ or Reformed branch of Roman Catholic Christianity.

You do not even have to be born in England: i.e. of English Nationality, to join.

Anyone can join the Anglican church: you just walk in the door and ask the man in the cassock / dog collar.

On ‘ethnicity’ you can tell the man you are an ethnic Martian. He may smile but he will still allow you to join.

That’s because belonging to the Church of England has also got fuck all to do with ‘ethnicity’.

If you become King/Queen (which has its own rules to do with being born from a particular historical family or ‘lineage’: which rules out most of the English) you become ‘Defender of the Faith’:i.e. head of the reformed Church in England.

That’s why A Dutchman (Dutchman=a man of Dutch Nationality.i.e. non Englishman) without a word of English called William of Orange who was a reformed Protestant and not an Anglican could become king of England and Head of the Church of England.

That’s why A Scotsman i.e. born in Scotland (= non Englishman)’ Presbyterian’: a separate reformed Branch (Non Church of England) like James I likewise could.

You got that? The word you are looking for is ‘Catholic’. You can be a Scottish king of England, even a Dutch king of England (Hell, if you have the correct lineage you can be from any Nationality in the world), but what you cannot be is a ‘Catholic’ That is because ‘Catholic’ is another ‘Religion’: This other religion is ‘unreformed’ and it has another head called the ‘Pope’ and Catholics believe other different shit.

That’s why you cannot be a ‘Catholic’ and head of the Church of England. Nothing to do with ‘Ethnicity’ nor indeed even Nationality. Its called ‘Religion’.

Now, your man Fabian made a dumb-fuck analogy and he was wrong. At that point it would be better to shut up, but no, you have now compounded this with another dumb fuck assertion proving you ignorance knows no bounds.

On the final bit of whataboutery which you bring up concerning British Overseas Territories citizens, British Overseas citizens not forgetting Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies.

Here we apparently agree. It is indeed a good analogy. As I have already said:

“Certainly Israel’s racist divides concerning ethnicity and status do indeed bear a direct comparison with similar racist divides applied to the identities and status of the people of former colonies by the British government. This is hardly surprising given their similar nature as racist colonial enterprises.”

- Though I have a funny feeling you wish you hadn’t mentioned it now.

So yes, your final analogy is a good one. Your Israeli state is racist. It is indeed as racist as anything produced by the British Empire, if not more so. Your espousal of it is racist, and your defence of it is not only racist but purblind stupidity.

At least Welsh, Irish, and Scottish “ethnicities” function for some multilingual citizens in the context of the UK system as Israeli “nationalities” do: as a cultural-linguistic community. Much as Greek, Armenian, Circassian in particular do in the Israeli context.

I am also a bit amazed that Ken W’s fixation on supposed inequalities of citizenship has completely bypassed the usual rhetoric, which opposes the inequalities regarding *acquisition* of Israeli citizenship, in favor of a craptastic linguistic infelicity. Law of Return not being fair viz. Citizenship Law of 1950, for example, as one form of the usual objection. So I suspect that he actually knows f*ck-all about Israeli citizenship law, or the citizenship laws of other Diaspora-favoring nation-states.

Chaim Gans’ _A Just Zionism_ is a great (if rather dry survey) of the relevant issues and court cases for English readers.

Or, given the Shalit and Brother Daniel cases, it is correct to say that one may not be a member of the Jewish nation, as an Israeli citizen, without being of the Jewish faith. “Citizenship: Israeli Nationality: Jewish Religion: Christian” does not work, nor does “Citizenship: Israeli Nationality: Jewish Religion: None.” “Leom” as such has also been dropped from ID cards.