March 11, 2014
When President Barack Obama warned of “international fallout” if Israel fails to embrace the latest U.S. Middle East peace proposal, Newsmax asked noted author and Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz to comment on the growing talk of a European boycott against Israel.
Why are so many of the grandchildren of Nazis and Nazi collaborators who brought us the Holocaust once again declaring war on the Jews?
Why have we seen such an increase in anti-Semitism and irrationally virulent anti-Zionism in western Europe?
To answer these questions, a myth must first be exposed. That myth is the one perpetrated by the French, the Dutch, the Norwegians, the Swiss, the Belgians, the Austrians, and many other western Europeans: namely that the Holocaust was solely the work of German Nazis aided perhaps by some Polish, Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian collaborators.
False.
The Holocaust was perpetrated by Europeans — by Nazi sympathizers and collaborators among the French, Dutch, Norwegians, Swiss, Belgians, Austrians and other Europeans, both Western and Eastern.
If the French government had not deported to the death camps more Jews than their German occupiers asked for; if so many Dutch and Belgian citizens and government officials had not cooperated in the roundup of Jews; if so many Norwegians had not supported Quisling; if Swiss government officials and bankers had not exploited Jews; if Austria had not been more Nazi than the Nazis, the Holocaust would not have had so many Jewish victims.
In light of the widespread European complicity in the destruction of European Jewry, the pervasive anti-Semitism and irrationally hateful anti-Zionism that has recently surfaced throughout western Europe toward Israel should surprise no one.
“Oh no,” we hear from European apologists. “This is different. We don’t hate the Jews. We only hate their nation-state. Moreover, the Nazis were right-wing. We’re left-wing, so we can’t be anti-Semites.”
Nonsense.
The hard left has a history of anti-Semitism as deep and enduring as the hard right. The line from Voltaire, to Karl Marx, to Levrenti Beria, to Robert Faurisson, to today’s hard-left Israel bashers is as straight as the line from Wilhelm Mars to the persecutors of Alfred Dreyfus to Hitler.
The Jews of Europe have always been crushed between the Black and the Red — victims of extremism whether it be the ultra-nationalism of Khmelnitsky to the ultra-anti-Semitism of Stalin.
“But some of the most strident anti-Zionists are Jews, such as Norman Finkelstein and even Israelis such as Gilad Atzmon. Surely they can’t be anti-Semites.”
Why not? Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas collaborated with the Gestapo. Atzmon, a hard leftist, describes himself as a proud self-hating Jew and admits that his ideas derive from a notorious anti-Semite.
He denies that the Holocaust is historically proved but he believes that Jews may well have killed Christian children to use their blood to bake Passover matzah. And he thinks it’s “rational” to burn down synagogues.
Finkelstein believes in an international Jewish conspiracy that includes Steven Spielberg, Leon Uris, Eli Wiesel, and Andrew Lloyd Webber!
“But Israel is doing bad things to the Palestinians,” the European apologists insist, “and we are sensitive to the plight of the underdog.”
No, you’re not! Where are your demonstrations on behalf of the oppressed Tibetans, Georgians, Syrians, Armenians, Kurds, or even Ukrainians? Where are your BDS movements against the Chinese, the Russians, the Cubans, the Turks, or the Assad regime?
Only the Palestinians, only Israel? Why? Not because the Palestinians are more oppressed than these and other groups.
Only because their alleged oppressors are Jews and the nation-state of the Jews. Would there be demonstrations and BDS campaigns on behalf of the Palestinians if they were oppressed by Jordan or Egypt?
Oh, wait! The Palestinians were oppressed by Egypt and Jordan. Gaza was an open-air prison between 1948 and 1967, when Egypt was the occupying power. And remember Black September, when Jordan killed more Palestinians than Israel did in a century? I don’t remember any demonstration or BDS campaigns — because there weren’t any.
When Arabs occupy or kill Arabs, Europeans go ho-hum. But when Israel opens a soda factory in Maale Adumim, which even the Palestinian leadership acknowledges will remain part of Israel in any peace deal, Oxfam parts ways with Scarlett Johansson for advertising a soda company that employs hundreds of Palestinians.
Keep in mind that Oxfam has provided “aid and material support” to two anti-Israel terrorist groups, according to the Tel Aviv-based Israeli Law Group.
The hypocrisy of so many hard-left western Europeans would be staggering if it were not so predictable based on the sordid history of Western Europe’s treatment of the Jews.
Even England, which was on the right side of the war against Nazism, has a long history of anti-Semitism, beginning with the expulsion of the Jews in 1290 to the notorious White Paper of 1939, which prevented the Jews of Europe for seeking asylum from the Nazis in British-mandated Palestine. And Ireland, which vacillated in the war against Hitler, boasts some of the most virulent anti-Israel rhetoric.
The simple reality is that one cannot understand the current western European left-wing war against the nation-state of the Jewish people without first acknowledging the long-term European war against the Jewish people themselves.
Theodore Herzl understood the pervasiveness and irrationality of European anti-Semitism, which led him to the conclusion that the only solution to Europe’s Jewish problem was for European Jews to leave that bastion of Jew hatred and return to their original homeland, which is now the state of Israel.
None of this is to deny Israel’s imperfections or the criticism it justly deserves for some of its policies. But these imperfections and deserved criticism cannot even begin to explain, must less justify, the disproportionate hatred directed against the only nation-state of the Jewish people and the disproportionate silence regarding the far greater imperfections and deserved criticism of other nations and groups — including the Palestinians.
Nor is this to deny that many western European individuals and some western European countries have refused to succumb to the hatred against the Jews or their state. The Czech Republic comes to mind. But far too many western Europeans are as irrational in their hatred toward Israel as their forbearers were in their hatred toward their Jewish neighbors.
As author Amos Oz once aptly observed: the walls of his grandparents’ Europe were covered with graffiti saying, “Jews, go to Palestine.” Now they say, “Jews, get out of Palestine” — by which is meant Israel.
Who do these western European bigots think they’re fooling? Only fools who want to be fooled in the interest of denying that they are manifesting new variations on their grandparents’ old biases.
Any objective person with an open mind, open eyes, and an open heart must see the double standard being applied to the nation-state of the Jewish people. Many doing so are the grandchildren of those who lethally applied a double standard to the Jews of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.
For shame!
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School. His latest book is his autobiography, “Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law.”
dweller Said:
Where is the “hard evidence” for this statement?
dweller Said:
I stated my reasons in the post as being based on the 2000 year serial history plus the links I posted.
You did not answer my question.
dweller Said:
None of your assertions here have any scientific basis:
there is no evidence that anti semitism is spritual and if it was the question begs ” isnt everything spiritual”? furthermore, why cant something spiritual also be genetic? Anti semitism is certainly considered an emotional/psychological/mental pathology and the links I gave you demonstrate that genetic influences are considered significant in addictive behaviors.
Furthermore, genetic influences do not negate the presence of other influences.
dweller Said:
There is no more reason to consider non genetic factors as to consider genetic factors. The reason to consider genetics is the long term repetitive serial nature. Furthermore, you appear to have the notion that a behavior influenced by cultural family transmission cannot ALSO be influenced by genetics. the links I posted point that more than one factor is often involved.
dweller Said:
you apparently did not read any of the posted material which demonstrated that different factors can be present at the same time, and have been. “Intrafamilial interaction” as an influence does not preclude genetics as an influence, neither of which are proven.
@ bernard ross:
What is YOUR basis for ascribing to European anti semitism the “appearance” of an addiction?
@ bernard ross:
Jew-hatred isn’t the same, isn’t similar, isn’t analogous. All those other conditions are obvious physical &/or emotional pathologies. Antisemitism, whatever its origin, is SPIRITUAL at its core; so there’s no way that it’s ‘genetic.’
The only thing it has in common with those other behaviors is that its non-rational. Not enough of a reason to suspect genetics, which seems to have become the favored catch-all these days for explaining the non-rational. The notion, e.g., that homosexuality (or the inclination) is also genetically based is similarly nonsensical.
@ bernard ross:
Wrong. No interest in discussing it personally, as I find it a dead end. Nor is my reaction a knee-jerk one; rather, I see it very clearly as barking up the wrong tree. But if YOU want to discuss it, knock yourself out; why would I care one way or the other? Speaking for myself, I find no reason to ‘block’ OR ‘censor’ what anybody else wants to toss around. My guess would be that Dr Sklaroff takes a similar view, but remains silent so as to keep from being thought rude by addressing this interest of yurs head-on, as I have done.
Only insofar as it’s nondeliberative, nonrational & irrational. If you know of some other way it’s akin to those things, show me.
I rather doubt that the moon is made of green cheese. At the same time, I’m unaware of any research that’s been done on the proposition. Yet it’s doubtful that I could disprove the notion if I em>had to. OTOH, I do know ENOUGH about the moon (or I think I do) to harbor sufficient confidence that any attempt on my part to explore the question would constitute an unconscionable waste of time & resources in a world where life is simply too short to sweat the small stuff.
— For me, the attention is better directed elsewhere. But if anybody else wants to pursue the matter, mazal tov.
@ yamit82:
Seen it before, and I did read it — or tried to read it. It was gobbbledy-gook the first time you posted it; it remains gobbledy-gook today. I meant you’d never offerred anything SERIOUS in support of the proposition (and it appears you STILL aren’t prepared to).
As for THIS tired item, not only does it not show how YOU arrived at the conclusion that Edom = genetic Xty (or even the genetic Roman Empire, or even genetic City of Rome) — but it ALSO doesn’t show how any of the cited sages arrived at it either
— and even that’s assuming even THEY meant it in a literal, genetic sense rather than a strictly figurative, symbolic one.
That’s all you’ve got? THAT’s what this is all coming from? — a MIDRASH???
vey iz mir!
So Zepho built Rome. Nu, and what happened to Harpo, Chico, Groucho & Gummo? — what, they all got waylaid on the Vegas strip?
Look, Yamit, when you find a way to check out the DNA of the ethnic OR religious parties in question & correlate them, then you come on back & we’ll talk. Until then, spare me the obligatory hockin’-a-tchynik.
dweller Said:
That arrogant, ugly, misogynistic, little twit.
dweller Said:
ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dweller Said:
After posting on this blog I have come to believe [ excusing myself of course] the braggadocios is genetic.
yamit82 Said:
I don’t think [ from you’re own accounts] you were ever lonely. Darlin
@ honeybee:
“Xenophobia” is weak as explanations go.
The human creature also exhibits a natural attraction for the exotic
— perhaps a stronger one, in fact, than that found in the comfort of the familiar. (Witness the mate-matches that people make.)
@ honeybee:
As I said earlier, more likely the product of family interaction than the genes..
@ yamit82:
Do YOU have any hard evidence that European anti semitism is not a product of demonic possession???
Every one of those Jew-haters also had a mother and a father. Lots of pathological behaviors have their origins in intrafamilial interaction. No need for a genetic basis to THAT.
And if they encountered somebody who they didn’t know was Jewish?
Even if true (and I do not concede the point, yet EVEN if it were so), that cannot ,of itself, make the conclusion necessarily one of genetics.
@ honeybee:
It’s species-specific to man — so in that sense, it’s ‘genetic.’ (“Man is the only animal that blushes — or needs to.” Mk Twain)
— But that doesn’t mean it comes any more naturally than any other character trait.
@ yamit82:
Did you read about the volunteers from Gonzales. It put me in mind of the young soldier from Padre Island.
Avigail Said:
Your words to G-d’s ear. 🙂
Avigail Said:
We Are a special people.
Thousands pay their respects at funeral of lone soldier
Golani fighter Sean Carmeli, who split his time between Ra’anana and Texas, is laid to rest amid huge crowds in Haifa
http://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-pay-their-respects-at-funeral-of-lone-soldier/#ixzz3gba0MREF
A Story that should be made known. I was also a Lone soldier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kZOSMUe78M
@ Avigail:
http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/gonrelief.htm
@ Avigail:
Joining the battle is a Texas tradition:the men of gonzales texas history
computer Loki II is misbehaving
@ honeybee:
Only in Israel:
Soccer Fans to Flood Lone Soldier’s Funeral
Carmeli’s two sisters live in Israel as well, but that is apparently the only family he has in Israel – so officials of Maccabi Haifa decided to step in and provide an “honor contingent” to accompany the fallen hero to his resting place.
News channels say that over 18,000 people came to show respect to the brave “lone” fighter.
@ yamit82:
@ Avigail:
Read the comments : http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/texan-sean-carmeli-is-the-2nd-idf-soldier-killed-fighting-hamas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=texan-sean-carmeli-is-the-2nd-idf-soldier-killed-fighting-hamas
@ yamit82:
Nothing pleases Deborah more then when her ” Dichas ” are appreciated.
@ yamit82:
Yamit, I can’t thank you enough for this video.
?? ????? ???? ????
Dude, after 20 years of Oslo brainwashing, there are still Jews who think this Land is ours?! Gideon Levy is gonna have a heart attack lol.
I have replied to your ignorance and stupid responses in many posts which you either never bothered to read or conveniently ignored.
Re-post: Origin of Edom, Babylon, and Rome, or Christianity
also-
Amos 9:11 “In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent.
I will repair its broken places,
restore its ruins,
and build it as it used to be,
12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations that bear my name, [f] ”
declares the LORD, who will do these things.
13 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman
and the planter by the one treading grapes.
New wine will drip from the mountains
and flow from all the hills.
14 I will bring back my exiled [g] people Israel;
they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them.
They will plant vineyards and drink their wine;
they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant Israel in their own land,
never again to be uprooted
from the land I have given them,”
says the LORD your God.
“The great kingdom of Rome was built by Zepho, son of Eliphaz, son of Esau. (Yelamdeinu, Batei Midrashos 160).”
The Great Wise Men and Rabbis Kimchi, Ibn-Ezra, and Maimonides, and Abarbanel, all unite with the foregoing Scripture testimony in saying, that all the Gentile christians are the seed, or children, of Esau, or Edom, and that “the prophets did not only prophecy against the land of Edom, which is in the neighborhood of the land of Israel, but against the seed of Rome, or Edom, which is of the root, or rather children of Kittim, or Chittim.”
Kimchi says, in his commentary on Joel 3:19, “Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for their violence against the children of Judah.”
“The prophet mentions Egypt and Edom; Egypt on account of the Turks, and Edom on account of the Roman Empire; and these two have now had the dominion for a long time, and will continue until the redemption. This is the fourth Beast in the vision of Daniel. And this is said because the majority is composed of Edomites. For although many other nations are mixed among them, as is also the case with the Turkish Empire, they are called from their root,” or origin. Kimchi wrote in the 12th century, and therefore includes the Greek empire, because the government of Constantinople was long before overturned.
Ibn Ezra says, “Rome, which led us away captive, is of the seed of Kittim; and so the Targumist has said, in Num. 24:24. ‘And ships shall come from the coast of Kittim.’ And this is the same as the Greek monarchy, as I have explained in the Book of Daniel, and there were very few who believed on the man of whom they made a God. But when Rome believed, in the days of Constantine, who changed the whole religion, and put an Image of that man upon his standard, there were none in the world who observed the New Law, except a few Edomites, therefore Rome is called the Kingdom of Edom.” See his comment on Gen. 20.
Abarbanel says, “From this you may learn that the prophet (Obadiah) did not prophecy only against the land of Edom, which is in the neighborhood of the land of Israel, but also against the people which branches off from thence, and is spread through the whole world, and is the people of the Christians in this our day, for they are the children of Edom.”* Abarbanel’s comment on Obadiah.
The great Maimonides gives a like testimony. “The Edomites are Idolaters, and Sunday,* the first day of the week, is the day of their festival, therefore it is forbidden to have commerce with them in the land of Israel, on that day.”
honeybee Said:
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/sm/cmicsfee.gif
yamit82 Said:
Its the f***ing you get,,, for the f***ing you got !!!!!!!!! Or so Iam told.
yamit82 Said:
Waste not, Want not !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yamit82 Said:
I appreciate their enthusiasm, but don’t they know how to use a pitch pipe.
More Arabs killed TODAY in Iraq than in Gaza.
No calls for cease fire and an end to violence on all sides. Hardly a mention in the News and no leftist or Muslim/Arab protests in Europe or Turkey??
I wonder why??? 🙂