The dregs and bullies of BDS (the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement against Israel) just can’t leave the female staff of Ahava alone.
As you can see in the video below (thank you, scotfella) “MrAlexSeymour”, who is making a name for himself in “bravely” following these dregs around, edits the videos to paint his victim in the worst possible light.
In this instance his objective, in ten seconds of footage, is to make a female member of the Ahava staff look like a nasty Christian fundamentalist, which she isn’t.
To intimidate a woman on her own while she is trying to do her job and then put her on youtube is as low as I have known the BDS movement to go…..so far.
But then these actions are being encouraged by celebrated human rights lawyers like Michael Mansfield QC, who in is his recent speech to the Russell Tribunal encouraged this type of doorstep activism.
Mansfield’s message to anti-Israel activists is do what you want and you will be defended in court later on.
As you can see at the beginning of the video the woman is angry that the activists are now specifically targeting her!
Her apparent remark about Jews killing Jesus (although, no where in the footage do we actually hear her say that) is a remark to a male, Jewish activist who spends large proportions of his sad life hanging around outside the Ahava shop.
I don’t blame her for an off-the-cuff remark when confronted by a group of bullies.
I dare say that if the staff were burly men the activists might not be so keen to do what they do.
While laying on the floor of the shop having glued themselves together, as anti-Israel activists have done on three occasions so far, the male staff could well “accidentally” trip over them.
Alternatively, next time some activists invade Ahava and glue themselves together the staff should just close the shop for the rest of the day and leave the activists to fester on the cold floor for the night.
A BUYcott of Ahava could then be arranged to make up for the loss of business.
No doubt Mansfield would be rubbing his hands in glee seeing new clients coming his way complaining about their human rights having been breached.
RichardMillett's Blog 
That clip is lifted right out of context and too short to make much sense of. I’m very curious to hear the whole exchange. Surely no Jew would accuse another of deicide…the age old libel that spurred many to actively assist the Nazis with the Holocaust. So my guess is that she is a Christian and that subscribing to this view and at the same time working in Ahava must cause a corrosive cognitive dissonance.
my bet as to her remark is that she was being ironic in a weird round-about way.
at least I can imagine myself in a scene in which an Israel-hating Jew could seduce me into thinking it might be a clever remark in the context and I am an agnostic.
The girl is just a shopworker under tremendous strain from these very ugly Jew hating thugs, not least the dumpy little twerp, who is a self hating Jew, harrassing her in the video clip. If she did say that, and we can’t be sure as it is just a clip out of context, then she must have been totally unnerved by the nauseating taunting! She sits in that store every second Shabbat with this lot of Jew hating rabble rousers causing a great deal trauma to the staff especially when they charge in with their oil drums and lock themselves down in that small space. This action, apart from causing the store to close must make her feel trapped and kidnapped and I hope when they come to trial this time the CPS will do their job properly and put them away for a very long time.
The activist is Bruce Levy who famously said that Hamas should dig up Gilad Shalit and then bury him again. What a piece of dreck.
He is not an ‘activist’, any more than Mansfield is a ‘human rights’ lawyer.
Isn’t it a criminal offence to encourage people to commit criminal offences (and deliberate harrassment is a criminal offence)?
If I were rich, I might consider bringing a private prosecution against Mansfield.
The same Alex Seymour as speeded up the film of me speaking about Israel in order to make me look demented.
Ignorant arse.
Bruce Levy: “Why did you say I killed Jesus?”
Shop Assistant: “Because you’re Jewish”
Richard Millett: “I don’t blame her for an off-the-cuff remark when confronted by a group of bullies.”
I dare say you’d be equally dismissive of an anti-semitic comment from a protestor Richard 🙂
(Edited by RM: freethepeeps, i don’t mind you commenting but if you are going to defame me then there are plenty of your cowardly anonymous blogs where you can enjoy yourself doing just that)
Who is this absurd arse ftp?
Someone opposed to anti-semitism and bullying whosoever it comes from…
in short an angelic saint sporting myriads of halos
Yeah, sure.
I suppose those BDS creeps and thugs feel terribly bullied by Ahava’s staff.
Idiot.
Seymour is a sad grey little man of an indeterminate age who never says anything, he just takes the videos. Unusually he wasn’t there last time.
The next time they glue themselves to the floor or whatever, close the shop, turn off the lights, turn off the heat, lock the doors and chain them from the outside.
There’s nothing sad about any of those people Jonathan – they have made an active choice to promote ignorance and untruth based on hatred and indoctrination. They are dangerous not least to themselves as they are either evil and don’t care about any consequences of their actions so long as they can feed their own desires or they are stupid and are incapapble of understanding the enormity of the evil they are perpetrating. Either way they present a real and present danger to all who love freedom and life.
This is surrealistic. A staff member of an Israeli shop, comes out with one of the worst anti-Semitic libels in the book, and he is excused by posters on this blog, and Jonathan Hoffman, fresh from cavorting with the EDL pretends it hasn’t occurred. Imagine if an anti-Zionist had said half as much.
As we have always said, Zionism and anti-Semitism are two sides of the same coin and despite repeating it ad nauseum, boycotting a shop selling the goods of a land under occupation is an act of solidarity not anti-Semitism. This is exactly where Zionism leads to.
“Zionism and anti-Semitism are two sides of the same coin”
As stupid a statement as I have ever read on the Internet.
.
Tony, this isn’t boycotting a shop, this is targeting and bullying the staff. There is a huge difference.
How on earth can Zionism be anti-Semitic when Zionism is the creation of a state where Jews can live and develop their own lives?
It’s like saying Britain is anti-British.
‘Imagine if an anti-Zionist had said half as much.’
You did, Tony, remember? Trying to incite Anglo-Muslims to hate Anglo-Jews by fixing that poll? Did you forget?
It is not at all clear what was said. If she said the cameraman killed Jesus, because he is Jewish, that is unacceptable, and she should be reprimanded. But the cameraman clearly isn’t proud or forthcoming of what he said previously.
Suppose what he said was something along the lines of “You’re a Polish Roman Catholic Christian, how can you work for these Zionists, the sort of Jews who killed Jesus, especially at a time of year like Christmas?”
To which she may have responded that the sort of Jews who killed Jesus were the sort holding the camera.
It would have been anti-semitic baiting which elicited an anti-semitic remark. It doesn’t make it acceptable, but puts a different spin on things.
So let’s see the whole unexpurgated video.
@Greenstein
I didn’t ‘pretend it didn’t happen’ , Trot Moron.
As always you lie.
Alternatively, next time some activists invade Ahava and glue themselves together the staff should just close the shop for the rest of the day and leave the activists to fester on the cold floor for the night.
Ironically, this would probably lead to a false imprisonment suit.
Well, exactly. That was Mansfield’s point.
couldn’t a smart lawyer claim that they had gotten by now so used to them being around that they hadn’t noticed them being there one more time?
HI Richard, unfortunately this ugliness has travelled to Australia:
australianbdscampaign.wordpress.com
At the most recent Melbourne one, an instant buycott was organised and succeeded!
The anti-Ahava protest has nothing to do with Israel, occupation or anything of the sort.
It is a cover for bored, inadequate antisemites (they are on film chanting for the destruction of all Israel) to bully Ahava, its female staff, and even its neighbouring shops who have nothing to do with the Middle East.
Shame on all who support this cowardly vindictiveness, they do nothing to help the Palestinians or bring peace closer.
On a brighter note, I asked family and friends to buy me Ahava products for Xmas. So I can report that the London branch did an increasingly roaring trade of late, and that I have a festive period of pampering ahead.
Well, of course. Why else would TG be involved?
An anti-semite working for Ahava, well well, who’d have thunk it? I look forward to the pro-Israeli crowd moving over to the other side, quoting from the EUMC working definition of anti-semitism until they’re blue in the face and demand her sacking. What more of a slam dunk do you need, blaming the Jews for killing Jesus. Come on guys I’ll be right behind you on this one.
Lucky for her being anti-semitic is not a crime.
Mostly, I would like to see how you would react after being bullied repeatedly. The odd ironic comment aimed at a waster would not go amiss, i’m sure. And where is the rest of the video? Why only ten seconds? What are we not seeing? We didn’t see her say Jews killed Jesus. All we are seeing is someone putting it to her what she supposedly said. We are not seeing any context here.
Anyway, this is all a bit rich coming from you and your colleagues who love Hamas, the most anti-Semitic “organisation” since Nazism.
my Christian elders/teachers told me that Jesus is a synonym for charitable behaviour and compassion and that it was only a certain deluded and fanaticized crowd who asked for his death.
to evoke that image against a Jew who works for the destruction of Israel i.e. a person severly lacking in charity and compassion may be owed to a bit of roundabout logic but in the little we know of the context definitely not anti-semitic.
So if you get harassed & bullied repeatedly it’s OK to be anti-semitic? Are you serious? Sounds like you have explained why Hamas is the way it is.
Great to see you are demanding the full video, edited one’s can and do reflect the editors position. A bit like the stuff Israel released during the Mavi Mamara incident eh? Funny, don’t remember you being up in arms over that.
Let’s not forget, it’s not just about Gaza & Hamas, although it serves your agenda to focus just on that. Ahava is selling goods from occupied (sorry ‘disputed’ territory) land in the West Bank.
Finally, I don’t ‘love’ Hamas, as for my ‘colleagues’ you need to ask them.
“Sounds like you have explained why Hamas is the way it is.”
Well, that sounds like you support Hamas to me. Ensnared by your own words, Mostly.
Err no richard, you can support an organisation but not agree with all its actions and methods.
It’s easy and lazy to make everything a black and white issue, but then I suppose that’s part of what you always try to do.
So you do support Hamas, Mostly! Or maybe you just don’t support them blowing up Jewish families in pizza parlours and Jewish teenagers in discos. How very reasoned of you.
Richard, you have said that if one is bullied repeatedly, you might do things that you would not ordinarily do.
This is precisely where Hamas stands. Gaza was subject to a brutal occupation and the result of being repeatedly bullied, oppressed and subject to injustice as well as a whole host of other things, the people voted in Hamas.
Some of them are with doubt very unpleasant, but they also operate a sort of functioning system under very challenging circumstances.
They are a direct result of the actions of Israel, you know that thing called cause and effect. So if Israel keeps brutalising the effect will be a more extreme response, maybe that is what Israel is after?
I abhor the killing of innocent civilians, what about you Richard? Do you support the ongoing injustice and occupation?
Talk about a sad, useless, inadequate, Jew-hating person … Mostly ticks all the boxes.
Constructive, reasoned & nuanced comment, based on fact and genuine argument, as ever Yoni, thanks.
It is. It is based on the fact that instead of fighting antisemites, you dig and dig until you find one Jew who has made a remark when under pressure by bullies, and when taken out of context and truncated might conceivably be construed as a failed attempt at sarcasm. From that, you ‘deduce’ that she is an antisemite.
You are, as condemned from your own mouth, a sad, useless, inadequate, Jew-hating person.
‘It’s easy and lazy to make everything a black and white issue, but then I suppose that’s part of what you always try to do.’
You obfuscating creep.
It’s black and white for you with this fragmentary ‘evidence’ about this Polish Roman Catholic shop assistant.
And eliminating Israel is not a ‘method’ or ‘technique’.
It’s a GOAL you Nazi’s Whore.
‘Nazi’s whore’ is too strong.
I correct to ‘fascist’s whore’, below.
‘It’s easy and lazy to make everything a black and white issue, but then I suppose that’s part of what you always try to do.’
You obfuscating creep.
It’s black and white for you with this fragmentary ‘evidence’ about this Polish Roman Catholic shop assistant.
And eliminating Israel is not a ‘method’ or ‘technique’ of Hamas.
It’s a GOAL, you fascist’s whore.
This is about as low as it gets for the Ahava fans, willing to exuse anti-semitism just because it was directed at a pro-Palestinian activist. What do you really care about, anti-semtism or defending Israel?
We never actually see her speak those alleged words.
Bruce Levy: “Why did you say I killed Jesus?”
Shop Assistant: “Because you’re Jewish”
That can be heard as clear as day, I have no idea how you can deny she is an anti-semite. The first encounter wasnt recorded becuase Bruce isnt in the habit of recording every conversation he ever has with anyone in case they say something overty racist.
If she hadnt said it in the first place why on earth would she reply “because your Jewish” to Bruces question “why did you say I kelled Jesus”? If she hadnt said it why wouldnt she say “what on earth are you talking about” or something similar?
Maybe she was referring to a different Jesus?
Well, she has never said this to me and I’m Jewish. People can easily put words into someone’s mouth under pressure. If she did say it, which we haven’t seen, then she was probably being ironic. And Bruce doesn’t do the recording. There is the man that says nothing, although he asked me if i was Mossad, who carries the camera.
so Bruce has a camera team following him around
which means he is a veritable 21st century movie star/YouTube celebrity?
Therefore I beg you all to stop any Bruce baiting but show adequate deference and admiration. A bit of swooning may be even more adequate. There have been ugly chubby highly unattractive movie stars before, so his looks aren’t what he should be measured by …
(on the other hand does it signify that Bruce is so dumb he can’t be taught to operate a camera phone himself?)
We don’t know what was said. For all we know she was baited for being a Roman Catholic Christian serving the sort of ‘Zionist’ Jews who allegedly persecuted Jesus. To which she may have responded that those sort of Jews were holding the camera.
That wouldn’t excuse what she said, necessarily. But it would certainly put a different spin on things i.e. she was herself baited by an anti-semitic remark.
I’d be very interested in seeing what had happened in the few minutes prior to this. Based on the clip alone, she comes off looking pretty bad.
cba, exactly! You will never see what happened because there probably is no such footage. All you are seeing are words put into someone’s mouth. We never actually see her say those alleged words!
As I said there is no footage of her saying to Bruce “you killed Jesus” because Bruce does not walk around London with a camera tied to his head constantly filming everything that ever happens in his life. But is she hadnt said it in the first place why would she reply “because your Jewish” when asked “why did you say I kelled Jesus”?
Who knows? Any number of reasons. But unless we see hear her say it and the context you have no proof of anti-Semitism. And “MrAlexSeymour” has his camera on the whole time looking for this type of thing. That is his job.
‘As I said there is no footage of her saying to Bruce “you killed Jesus” because Bruce does not walk around London with a camera tied to his head constantly filming everything that ever happens in his life.’
Clearly he has a camera on him when he goes about baiting Polish Roman Catholic Christian shop assistants.
The irony is, as I said below, that the Palestinian churches led the Resistance to Nostra Aetate, and absolving Jews in general of the crucifixion of Jesus.
posting such a severly cropped video is such an obvious attempt at slander that you, darling cba should want to vanish into the earth out of shame about those anti-Ahava-activists’ depravity.
I can assure you I in no way support the activities of those @$$holes. On the contrary, I let any family and friends in the area know about the BUYcotts (I’m not in London myself), and have participated in BUYcotts that have taken place near me. I also have a huge amount of sympathy for all Ahava Covent Garden’s staff (and sympathy for the staff in the other shops that are affected by the jerks).
I’m not condemning her based on this, because, as you (and others) have pointed out, it’s very severely edited and I don’t know what else happened before and why she said what she said. Nevertheless–unless the clip was edited to make her appear to say words that didn’t come out of her mouth–then she did say, “Because you’re Jewish” in response to the @$$hole’s question, and that doesn’t look good.
I repeat: I want to see what happened in the few minutes leading up to this clip.
Agreed cba, some people though just can’t handle the truth.
You are one of them. Indeed, you wouldn’t recognise the truth if it bit you on your sorry ass.
I feel sorry for the lady. Has no one here ever said something under pressure or high emotions that they wouldn’t normally have said – and then regretted it later?
My guess is an appropriate appearance and polite sales manner would be high on the AHVA list of requirements for its floor staff.When Achva hires staff it doesn’t demand an experience in diplomacy, ability to think on one’s feet, academic cred or for that matter loyalty to the Jewish religion and/or Israel. So long as one’s political/religious opinions don’t damage the shop, for example, by causing tension with fellow staff or customers they are your own.
The enemy isn’t a flustered, threatened shop assistant who was manipulated into saying something but the people holding the camera who invade a legitimate business and harrass the staff.
Just out of interest, if a ten second video emerged of one of the anti-Ahava campaigners saying “because your Jewish” after one of the pro-Ahava campaigners asked them “why did you say I killed Jesus”, would your reaction be?
I wouldn’t make accusations of anti-Semitism. One should make them only when sure.
If the deicide libel isnt strong enough what would it take to make you sure? Wearing SS memorabilia whilst distributing free copies of the elders of zion? Smashing the windows of a synagogue? Attending a demonstration in support of Palestinian human rights?
Joe
could it be that you are into profiling yourself?
if so, I appreciate your willingness to share
I’d consider their explanations carefully and I don’t do anti-semitism-accusations anyway, I do stupidity, malignity, slandering, evil-mouthing, hating, etc. etc. accusations
oh and I forgot stupidity greater than the police allows (dümmer als die Polizei erlaubt)
Why? Plenty of manifest antisemitism all over the place.
Yoni
I try to avoid all ism-talk as much as possible for a simple reason because I am bad at it –
I lack the academic training to memorise let alone debate all those definitions
(German pro-Israel-ones make he regularly feel humble with their in-depth knowledge of the term, its use, its implications, its history etc.)
but prefer to concentrate on what I think I am good at i.e. detecting people who remind me of real life people I have met way too many of who salivate heavily at the image of something bad happening to a Jew.
Come on, Silke, you are plenty clever enough to read up on Alfred Marr, Streicher, Goebbels and Assad 🙂
Yoni
you must be far away from German speaking theorists …
they are an awesome bunch and I don’t dare to misspeak by using the same language they do, that’s why I rely on what my gut and or heart tells me “it” is
– Adorno for example is, except for quotes, way beyond me unless somebody explains him to me slowly and patiently 😉
as to the guys you mention, of course I can understand the rants of raving mass murderers but I can find Alfred Marr only as a cricketer and the name doesn’t ring a bell. I just checked Shirer, he doesn’t mention him.
As to Assad – don’t miss the two part interview BILD had this week with him. The guy must have a first class PR-staff gearing his rantings so perfectly to the taste of the do-gooder German audience or else the staff at BILD did the fine-tuning for him (horrible idea, they are the only not travelling in Israel-bashing major outlet we have)
Also notice the not so subtle sucking up to him they do in their first question:
http://www.bild.de/BILD/politik/2010/12/21/syrien-praesident-baschar-al-assad/interview-terrorismus-heute-staerker.html
Richard.I am really surprised at your attack on “nasty Christian fundamentalists” There are possibly millions of us who actively stand with Israel. Below is a part of the definition of fundamentalism.I do not know any “nasty ones” !!! Fundamentalism had multiple roots in British and American theology of the 19th century[8]. One root was Dispensationalism, a rediscovery of early Christian premillenialism in the 1830s in England as an outgrowth of applying the historical-grammatical method of hermeneutics to all of the Bible. It was a millenarian theory that divided all of time into different stages, called “dispensations,” which were seen as stages of God’s revelation. In this theory, the world is on the verge of the last stage in which Christ would return. An important sign is the rebirth of Israel, support for which is the centerpiece of Fundamentalist foreign policy
Jim, I know. I wasn’t pigeon holing. I only meant that was how they were trying to paint her.
Thanks Richard !
Joe,
There is a considerable difference between an innocent victim of bullying and a demonstrator who chooses to aggressively confront someone.
She is in no way responsible for the running of the store, the policies of the company or the politics in the country/ies from where the store buys its products. She is just a working woman trying to to earn a living. [Yes I know that is a supposition but she neither looks or talks like a manager nor like an upper class student earning a little extra].
If I managed ACHVA I would tell her, ” Next time, don’t argue with the demonstrators. They are not going to be convinced by anything you say and the aggravation isn’t worth it. You have my complete permission to refuse to serve or even speak to someone who is part of the BDS group”.
she is just a shop worker and until she exposed herself as a racist, noone from the anti-Ahava campaign had any problem with her personally. But all forms of racism are completely unacceptable, I cannot believe you lot are defending someone who is quite clearly an anti-semite.
You’ve lost it big-time, Joe.
“I cannot believe you lot are defending someone who is quite clearly an anti-semite,” says Joe, who probably supports Hamas.
BTW This thread shows the BDS group have scored a success by dividing their opponents.
Richard Millet. Are you in a position to ask the manager or the shop assistant for a reply? I would be extremely interested in hearing both P.O.V.s
The Bullshit, Dregs and Scum lot have done nothing of the sort. Anyone who starts screaming about SS uniforms in this context is not in the same corner as me, nor do I want them in my corner.
I would be very interested to hear from the woman herself. I didn’t react first, ask questions later to the Mavi Mamara incident and, as it turns out, was right to hold back.
Having spoken with some staff members at the shop, they are indeed frightened a lot of the time and for their personal safety.
However, I’m trying to get my head around what a strange exchange it was. If she did say it, then it’s totally unacceptable and my question would be “Why was that the first insult to come into your head and if you feel that way, why do you work for Ahava?” I’m hoping it wasn’t a Mel Gibson moment!
I’d like to hear what her explanation is.
Re: the Ahava protest, if the issue is over labelling, then why is the protest not over that issue, why is it so violent, threatening and nasty?! Why are the protesters asking for complete closure? – I think we know the answer.
The label says:Made by AHAVA Dead Sea Laboratories Ltd, Dead Sea, Israel.
In EU. AHAVA Cosmetics GmbH….Wiesbaden, Germany.
The EU labelling is ok. The other labelling, to be strictly correct, sh/could read: Produce/Product of Israel-extraction takes place on Israeli soil. Then: Processed at AHAVA….West Bank. Customer then gets to decide if ‘occupied’ or ‘disputed’, then buys product or not.
can you give an example when the anti-Ahava campaign has been been violent? Who was hurt and how badly? To say its a violent campaign is a very serious accusation, so please provide an example of any violence from anti-Ahava protestors or retract that comment
You are so dumb it hurts to read you.
Splashing paint repeatedly over the windows, glueing the locks, storming the shop, shouting at and harassing shoppers.
“Splashing paint repeatedly over the windows, glueing the locks”
all done to a commercial business, not a persons property, when noone was there
“storming the shop”
and hurting noone
“shouting at and harassing shoppers.”
which the ZF, especially Johnathan Hoffman, is far more guilty of than the ahava protestors
The video looks definitely clipped and she opened by saying “…but you shouldn’t talk about me..” and the whole response was a very angry retort, lash back with a look and tone of major sarcasm and fear. Either way, she shouldn’t have gone down this road and the protesters shouldn’t be intimidating and harassing her in this way.
Anyway to the issue of ‘Violence’:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/violence?view=uk
Definitions include: ‘the fear of physical violence’ and ‘the unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force’.
http://www.who.int/violenceprevention/approach/definition/en/index.html
‘Violence’ is particularly pertinent when it comes to gender power relations and it is the ‘perception’ of violence or threat thereof from the victim and not the perpetrator which is critical. As is the case with Bullying and Harassment legislation.
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/admin/personnel/thelaw.html#g
Throwing paint over someone’s place of work is ‘violence’ and the red colour, (for blood), acts as a further act of intimidation – imagery conjured can include blood, killing, murder, threats of death. This is psychological violence against individuals working in the shop. It is not the protesters ‘intent’ which is important, but the the victims’ perception. The real and actual victim is not the shop or the business, it is people.
There are tomes written about the effect and sequelea of psychological violence. It is the ‘fear of violence’ and the possibility that it could happen at any time, but you don’t know when or by whom – every customer therefore is a potential violator or aggressor. Or that you could come to work and find more ‘blood’ on your place of work. It is the similar to the mechanisms in domestic and child abuse; every time you go home you don’t know what’s coming.
Showing photographs of dead and maimed children, like a trophy, is to violate the dead. Every side in a conflict could wheel out their dead for a show, but some choose not to.
Calling for the elimination of an entire ethnic group is threats of violence.
The streams of video available and my own observations and personal experience at these protests, lead me to this perfectly logical conclusion. It is also one which the police have come to. They have the assessed the situation as being potentially threatening of ‘violence’ enough as to have the capacity to spill over into direct physically violent acts, otherwise they wouldn’t be there in such high numbers. On one occasion this amounted to 25 officers.
This is the shabby side of BDS. It is violent and nasty and deliberate.
very well thought out Isca
I think your motion is to be seconded eagerly – All these Chinese products and nobody tells me whether any Tibetan or Uighur workers were involved or whether it was manufactured exclusively by members of those parts of the population which are regularly accused of treating them badly.
So much I want to know and so little I am told on labels.
Also I absolutely want to know with each product whether the manufcturer allows proper union representation which in Germany would be the existence of a Betriebsrat. Then of course I’d also like to know whether said Betriebsrat is content with the behaviour of the management/owner or whether there are desired improvements we customers should lobby i.e. boycott for.
(satire alert)
Isca,
I commend your caution, but the truth about the MM was obvious to most people from the start. It’s only people who regard the IDF as SS stormtroopers anyway, who were throwing about the ‘massacre’ libel.
Joe
you cute little sweetheart you –
I am asking for the uncut video replacing the director’s cut
you want me somebody having been raised in the Christian fold to pass judgment on 10 seconds
you are so dumb it hurts to read you
please see my earlier comments regarding the video
Or: Produce of Israel. Processed at AHAVA Dead Sea Laboratories Ltd.
Has AHAVA ever simply been asked to reconsider its labelling thus? I might just do it. I did similar over the BT/Bezeq issue and got a fantastic reply from a colleague working for an Mid East – arabic telecoms company. They painted a very different picture of excellent, cooperative and peaceful business relations. Jointly promoting ‘connection’ not dissection and disinvestment. They explained the interconnected nature of their business with all their international partners, including Bezeq and other Israeli telecoms companies. They also help broker deals between, what are publicly depicted as warring, parties.
That Arab telecomms company is a traitor, betraying the ‘human rights activists’ of the Bullshit, Dreck and Scum movement …
Joe
if you had a shop and somebody would enter that shop in order to sh..t on your floor and rub the stuff in would you consider to have suffered from violence after that?
if you had a shop and somebody would occupy it by making such a nuisance out of him/herself thereby molesting your customers, would you consider to have suffered from violence after that?
I would!
I would consider to have suffered from violence if I were a house owner and a graffiti sprayer had “decorated my house – VANDALISM is violence. Lawyers may find all kinds of ways to argue around that but every sane person considers it to be violence.
when has anyone ever taken a shit on Ahavas floor and rubbed it in? Thats a very bizzare allegation to make up
Joe
in a free world I am free to come up with any analogy I like and the image of their doing their weird writhing contortionist stuff on the floor of Ahava suggested something unambiguously brown-coloured to me.
As I am German the colour brown is inevitably associated with Jew-molesting and harrassing for me and please notice that I restrict myself here to alluding only to the very early appearances of the so-clad hordes.
@Silke-nice one, you read my mind. I was going to add similar afterwards. I was being a tad tongue-in-cheek myself, because it’s not really about labelling as we know.
If it was we could fix a lot of worldwide conflicts very easily ;o)
@Joe-I’m on a B’berry, so will answer you question when I’m on my commputer, easier to type.
Joe,
I haven’t heard of defecating on the floor.
CodePink staged their protest in bikinis which would probably be considered an assault on the senses.
Two chained themselves to concrete blocks knowing they would be charged with aggravated trespass i.e. trespass to interfere with a legitimate business. This will allow them to plead in court that since the ‘occupation’ is illegal, the business wasn’t legit .
I still don’t see why AHAVA doesn’t sue in civil court for loss of income.
oops forgot the after senses
Depends on their attributes, surely? I don’t mind looking at Raquel Welch in a bikini, but draw the line well before that Jihadist Lordess.
But yes, it’s definitely worth suing for aggravated trespass. Come on, Ahava! You are unlikely to get ‘judge’ Bathtub.
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“I still don’t see why AHAVA doesn’t sue in civil court for loss of income”
mainly because a crime would have to have been proved first, and seeing as Ahava is unwilling to prosecute the perpetrators because they may have to justify the legality of their business in a court of law there have been no convictions for any of these actions
‘I still don’t see why AHAVA doesn’t sue in civil court for loss of income.’
Because the issue of a ‘lawful’ activity would come up which might be just a tad problematic for Ahava.
Err, no, trottel: the bullies, dregs and scum would have to prove that the shop is not a legal business, and they won’t be able to do that.
After the carpeting given to Bathtub, that would be a tad problematic to do.
With (a lot of) respect, I’m not sure it was wise to post this video here without gathering an explanation/other-side-of-the-story first. There’s a danger of doing the anti-Ahava mob’s dirty work for them otherwise.
But could I ask two questions of any anti-Ahava protestors who might be reading this?
1) At the demonstrations you regularly chant ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ Can you explain in practical terms what this means?
2) As you know your demonstrations are also very much harming Ahava’s neighbouring business in Covent Garden. These businesses have nothing whatsoever to do with the Middle East. How do you justify the damage you are doing?
Sorry, Wilhelm Marr, of course (I must have been unconsciously angry with Australian cricketers).
The Wikipedia article on WM is hilariously poorly written.
Maybe Bruce Levy – the Supreme Renegade Jew – can say what he meant when he said “Hamas should dig up Gilad Shalit and then bury him again”?
Bruce Levy is not into meaning anything, he is into evoking images with the explicit aim of creating as much pain as possible and then rejoicing in witnessing it.
I think the most common label for such people is SADIST.
oops I forgot to mention that in movies one tends to get the first hint that somebody has that affliction when one hears a grating on the ear giggle.
There is a saying which posters here could well do to take on board. When you’re in a hole stop digging!
Jonathan Hoffman is his normal articulate and courteous self. No Jonathan you didn’t ignore what had happened you just didn’t say anything about it, preferring to attack the person who captured the anti-semitic comments on camera! To most people that would be deliberately ignoring.
Strange this. If it had been an anti-Zionist who’d said these things it would have been all over this blog. If Tony Greenstein had said Jews murdered Christ would Richard Millettt and co. have made excuses? That I was a bit angry at being harassed maybe?
And this is a strange ‘explanation’ anyway. We all have our ripostes when we are angry. Jonathan Hoffman has several of them. I’m a ‘trot moron’ or sometimes a stalinist or just a self-hater etc. etc. But when someone comes out with racist comments when they have been antagnised it shows that underneath they are racists. Why call someone a ‘black bastard’ because they offended you when you wouldn’t call someone a ‘white bastard’ for a similar offence?
I remember having this conversation with a supporter of the BNP once who we were trying to wean away from fascism. I don’t expect it on blogs like this. The best u can do is put your hands up, not defend what she said.
Richard you say that ‘this isn’t boycotting a shop, this is targeting and bullying the staff. There is a huge difference.’ Well it would be if it were true. Truth to tell, when I’ve been there I haven’t even noticed the staff. They are phantoms. The reasons people are there has nothing to do with who the staff are, absolutely nothing.
You ask ‘How on earth can Zionism be anti-Semitic when Zionism is the creation of a state where Jews can live and develop their own lives?’ But that’s the point. Israel was predicated on the idea that Jews didn’t belong in the diaspora. As Pinhas Rosenberg, Israel’s first Minister of Justice wrote, ‘Palestine is an institute for fumigating Jewish vermin’ (Classic zionism and modern anti-semitism: Parallels and influences (1883-1914), Journal of Israeli History Vol. 4:2.
Anti-Semites in Eastern Europe used to campaign on the slogan Jews to Palestine. A Jewish state was quite compatible with anti-Semitism. Even in this country the anti-Semite AJ Balfour, as dedicated a Zionist as there could be, didn’t like Jews, hence his support for Zionism. Balfour it was who introduced the Aliens Act in 1905 to keep out Jewish refugees and only the Zionists in 1900 and 1906 supported the anti-Semitic East End Tories.
This tape, unlike JH’s tape of his ‘anti-semitic jeering’ is quite clear. The woman was asked why she had accused someone of being a christ killer and she said, ‘because you are Jewish’.
Is such a person fit to work in an Israeli Jewish shop? Well I guess so.
And just to reinforce the point, only yesterday Likud MP and Deputy Minister Ayoob Kara praised the viciously racist and pro-Nazi Freedom Party of the late Jorg Haider in Austria. The links between the European far-right, including anti-Semites and neo-Nazis and Israeli leaders and Zionism get stronger.
And then you have the chutzpah to accuse us of ‘anti-Semitism’
Joachim Doron
It’s like saying Britain is anti-British.
I didn’t realise Herzl, Weizmann and Jabotinsky were anti-Semites, Tony. You are very selective in your historic figures behind the Zionist movement.
You do it no justice.
We didn’t see her say that, Tony! We don’t know how she said it, why she said it and when she said it. She was probably playing devil’s advocate to shut Bruce up who was standing on her doorstep.
When a pro-Israel activist makes the serious accusation of anti-semitism you would accuse them of playing the anti-Semitism “card”. Well, now you are doing the same based on flimsy evidence.
“The best u can do”
How old are you, TG? About 12?
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Far be it for me, a gentile, to intervene in this fest of Jewish navel gazing but I have to take issue with Mr Greenstein. Viz:
“But when someone comes out with racist comments when they have been antagnised it shows that underneath they are racists.”
No it does not. We are all products of social conditioning. You may think you have free will, and you do to an extent, but it is not absolute. The interpretation of evidence is always seen through the lens of learnt conventional wisdom as understood by the viewer.
The use of the term “Nigger” is very different when used by the KKK as opposed to someone who is unaware of the background and connotations of that word.
We know nothing of the lady in the video.
Let he who is without sin…….
Listen Greenstein, you mendacious Trot scum
She and the other shop workers have been harassed mercilessly for months by Chief Renegade Jew Bruce and his henchmen. Her first language is not English. She is a shopworker – not a sad manipulative Trot blogger like you. Her livelihood is being threatened. Seymour spends his life videoing us in order to get shots which he then takes out of context.
Bottom line: You are a fraud. You profess to stand up for workers. Yet you are harassing this one. You’re a useless ugly nasty fradulent disgrace.
Tony, would you be willing to have a crack at answering these two questions? I’m genuinely interested to hear your response:
1) At the Ahava demonstrations in London they regularly chant ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ Can you explain in practical terms what this means?
2) As you know the demonstrations are also very much harming Ahava’s neighbouring business in Covent Garden. These businesses have nothing whatsoever to do with the Middle East. How do you justify the damage you are doing to the neighbouring businesses?
Greenstein: “Israel was predicated on the idea that Jews didn’t belong in the diaspora. ”
He has it completely the wrong way round. Israel was the Jewish response to antisemitism, not the Jewish desire not to live alongside non-Jews. His logic is straight from Soviet Russia. Hardly surprising from an unreconstructed Trot.
Jonathan I guess Trot stands for either Trotskiist or Trotskiite or so but it strongly reminds me that there is a German word
TROTTEL
I wonder whether it has a Yiddish sibling – in the meantime here is Google translate on it:
fool
idiot
jerk
sucker
moron
dope
sap
twit
ninny
booby
nincompoop
blithering idiot
wally
mug
clown
nana
http://translate.google.de/?hl=de&tab=wT#de|en|Trottel
“unless the clip was edited to make her appear to say words that didn’t come out of her mouth–then she did say, “Because you’re Jewish” in response to the @$$hole’s question, and that doesn’t look good.”
Why? Why can’t it be meant sarcastically? I have no problem at all with her saying it.
Come on, do be serious: would an antisemite work at Ahava, and willingly subject herself to the thuggish attentions of antisemitic scum?
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And it isn’t like she is going out there standing on a platform with a megaphone shouting it out like those on the fascist left do with their support for the expressly anti-Semitic Hamas. That is the real joke of all this. One girl possibly makes a faux pas under pressure, yet the fascist left all support Hamas!
Maybe she hasn’t read the EUMC working definition of anti-semitism?
Just been to TG’s disgusting blog. I knew what I’d find – TG’s vile reputation precedes him like the stench of rotting fish – but I thought, why not. What a sick mess of Jew-hatred and lies ….
“Jews experienced between 1933 and 1939 the kind of racism that Arabs in Palestine experience”
Never mind being a Trot: he is a sad excuse for a human being.
.
Yoni
that’s exactly why a Trottel is called a Trottel because he is a sad excuse for a human being.
Its not enough to simply trip over them . Best is to trip over them holding a bucket of ice cold water . It would be interesting to see how long they are prepared to tough it out in those conditions . How come Ahava dont have a couple of suits permanently on the door . It should not be that difficult to weed out the scum .
don’t forget to turn off the heat and create a draft …
Greenstein
How come the concern and crocodile tears over this supposed anti semitic comment . You demonstrate outside Ahava with your old muckka Levy demanding a one state solution . You stand shoulder to shoulder with a rag tag bunch of antisemites [ I have that from personal experience ] .
That you see fit to associate with such scum should come as no surprise .
I hear the scum are there from 5-7 each evening. Please be there today, tomorrow and Friday as an antidote to their intent to poison pre-Xmas shoppers.
To the idiots screeching about Ahava’s need to prove their ‘legality’:
Err, no: the bullies, dregs and scum would have to prove that the shop is not a legal business, and they won’t be able to do that.
After the carpeting given to Bathtub, that would be a tad problematic to do.
Fine let them test it in a court of law.
The video looks definitely clipped and she opened by saying “…but you shouldn’t talk about me..” and the whole response was a very angry retort, lash back with a look and tone of major sarcasm and fear. Either way, she shouldn’t have gone down this road and the protesters shouldn’t be intimidating and harassing her in this way.
@Joe Anyway to the issue of ‘Violence’:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/violence?view=uk
Definitions include: ‘the fear of physical violence’ and ‘the unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force’.
http://www.who.int/violenceprevention/approach/definition/en/index.html
‘Violence’ is particularly pertinent when it comes to gender power relations and it is the ‘perception’ of violence or threat thereof from the victim and not the perpetrator which is critical. As is the case with Bullying and Harassment legislation.
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/admin/personnel/thelaw.html#g
Throwing paint over someone’s place of work is ‘violence’ and the red colour, (for blood), acts as a further act of intimidation – imagery conjured can include blood, killing, murder, threats of death. This is psychological violence against individuals working in the shop. It is not the protesters ‘intent’ which is important, but the the victims’ perception. The real and actual victim is not the shop or the business, it is people.
There are tomes written about the effect and sequelea of psychological violence. It is the ‘fear of violence’ and the possibility that it could happen at any time, but you don’t know when or by whom – every customer therefore is a potential violator or aggressor. Or that you could come to work and find more ‘blood’ on your place of work. It is the similar to the mechanisms in domestic and child abuse; every time you go home you don’t know what’s coming.
Showing photographs of dead and maimed children, like a trophy, is to violate the dead. Every side in a conflict could wheel out their dead for a show, but some choose not to.
Calling for the elimination of an entire ethnic group is threats of violence.
The streams of video available and my own observations and personal experience at these protests, lead me to this perfectly logical conclusion. It is also one which the police have come to. They have the assessed the situation as being potentially threatening of ‘violence’ enough as to have the capacity to spill over into direct physically violent acts, otherwise they wouldn’t be there in such high numbers. On one occasion this amounted to 25 officers.
There is a difference between throwing paint over someones place of work and throwing paint at a business, the difference is who the paint is aimed at. The paint on Ahavas windows was aimed at the Ahava corporation, not at any of the workers inside.
No one on our side has called for the elimination of any ethnic group, all we want is for the Palestinians basic rights to be realised, it is your side that is complicit in the slow ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
the slow ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Joe
would you mind being a bit more explicit? I am getting a bit miffed here. I am a member of the master race who up to now could rightfully claim first price for its superb use of technology, bureaucracy and craftsmanship in the service of FAST ethnic cleansing.
We had considerable parts of our economy, manpower and creativity devoted to the task and now you tell me that there is something like “slow ethnic cleansing” taking place while the population “attacked” measured by all hitherto known standards increases and increases and increases.
I am intrigued because as every member of a clan I am eager to better my elders. Please please elaborate!
Thank you!
(satire alert)
“Either way, she shouldn’t have gone down this road”
Nonsense. That’s easy to say when you are not placed in a position of being subject to violent and abusive intimidation, which causes you to be highly stressed and physically fearful.
right Yoni
I could write up all kinds of dialogues in which I (Christian educated) might have said what she said with sarcastic intent and miss the target.
at Yaacov Lozowick’s Rabbi Tony Judtner shows up regularly writing his jokes, all are outrageous, some are really funny and some misfire and hurt those they aren’t meant to hurt.
just because they make it look so easy on TV lots of us (me included) think we can do it also.
and even if she is “just a comparatively uneducated shopgirl” she still may be a really smart person considering herself to be up to really hitting the bad guy,
I know it is mostly forgotten but smart ones exist amongst the lower orders, really, they do.
“smart ones exist amongst the lower orders”
Including my mother as one example 🙂
Grew up poor as dirt, missed out on university education, but sharp as a knife.
I have and worse and I didn’t, but that’s me.
I don’t judge her only what she allegedly said, I don’t know her and actually don’t really know what has happened, as I have said. I’m passing an opinion that IF this was what was said, then I can’t condone it, even if I understand why or how. In the same way I give little or no latitude, to other numerous anti-semitic comments made by people and then they back track with ‘I was tired’, ‘I didn’t mean it’, ‘I’ve been under a lot of strain’, ‘It was the drink’. I try to be as consistent, measured and fair as possible across my reactions. That’s me, that’s my way. It in no way means I don’t support this lady’s integrity.
There is mitigation in many things and I’ve fallen foul many times myself. However, sometimes it’s just best to say ‘sorry’, give your reasons and mean it.
As I have said, I don’t know the true circumstances and these are all ‘Ifs’. I haven’t met this lady, I must have spoken with three other staff members.
If you disagree, whatever the circumstances, then that’s your opinion. It just isn’t one I share.
In any event, my overall point in responding to ‘Joe’s’ question about violence, (I’m surprised I’d have to explain it to him), is to state in no uncertain terms that the treatment of these staff is threatening, psychologically violating and unacceptable, whatever the intent and motive and I’m actually surprised that they have shown the restraint that they have.
“I try to be as consistent, measured and fair as possible across my reactions”
The phrases you are looking for are “self-righteous” and “holier than thou”.
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The people who work there need to repeatedly pepper spray these morons.
One of them was arrested tonight
great let’s hope the heating breaks down, the water supply ices up or any of the other wonderful things out there happen to him while in jail
FANTASTIC!!!
Great news. Any more details? ‘Fell down’ accidentally while being pushed into a police car and broke his leg, by any chance?
Next post here: guest post by Mrs X [the mysterious shop Ahava assistant]: ‘How Nasty Dregs of BDSers Waterboarded Me into Saying Anti-Semitic Things!’
Gert, wit and reconteour in his own lunchtime.
Does he remind anybody else here of Concentration Camp Erhard in To Be or Not to Be?
Yoni
Gert doesn’t have lunch times – he is free to eat whenever the fancy takes him. He is between jobs, has once insisted he works on projects. One of the projects turned out to be website attempting to lure pyroenthusiasts by promising them to teach em something. last time I looked it fortunately didn’t like it was going to become a shmash hit.
and yes you are Gert trying to be witty is rather a sad spectacle.
You know there is the old Yiddish joke about the man brought to court on a charge of killing a chicken. When asked by the judge whether he killed the chicken he replied “Your Honour I killed the chicken”. Now without hearing the questioning intonation in his voice it sounds like an admission that he killed the chicken when in fact he was asking the question “[are you saying] I killed the chicken [how absurd as I did not kill the chicken].
Since whoever posted that very short edited clip expressly left out the crucial part of what the shop assistant actually said and how she said it, it is easy to arrive at the conclusion that the short little terd who was harrassing her was looking for a way to implicate her in insulting him, the Jew. In other words he was pulling the very race card he is creating by supporting and being a member of the Jew hating BDS bunch of gangsters.
How ironic that he should be so shocked at ostensibly receiving an accusation that he chucks at fellow Jews every time he opens his filthy mouth.
Re your story: It’s like the Harry Secombe and Robert Morley scene in the film Doctor at Sea, when Secombe wants Morley (the ship’s captain) to apologise to him, because Secombe turned up to dinner at the captain’s table wearing only a tie (!), having misunderstood the instructions.
Morley, gritting his teeth in fury, with an almost hysterical rising inflection: “I apologise to YOU?”.
Secombe: “That’s very decent of you, apology accepted”.
More details of the arrest will be posted here soon
FANTASTIC!! not really. There’s nothing they love better than being arrested.
So you are saying they shouldn’t be arrested, whatever they do, because that would make them feel worse?
Yes, they should be arrested, but hold the rejoicing until conviction.
At some stage they will have to face the music! Once inside they will see that there is nothing romatic about being in prison. Finally when they grow up as are many of those who are taken advantage of by the BDS propagandists and brain washers through their immaturity and lack of direction in their personal lives, they will learn that a CV with a prison conviction on it does not help in the job market.
The hateful boycotters are utterly ridiculous. First, they post a clip which has clearly been carefully edited. Are we supposed to believe that the exchange started at that point? Clearly, it did not. So how are we supposed to come to any impartial and thoughtful conclusion? It is easy to paint any piucture you like if you remove all context – as is the case here.
Secondly, the idea that these haters are all upset about antisemitism, when at these very demos, they cut the Star of David out of the Israeli flag and put it on the floor, is laughable. Indeed, on this very blog, you can see how mealy mouthed they are about Hamas, an organization which advocates in its founding charter the extermination of all Jews on earth. Indeed, some patently support Hamas (not agreeing with means, as one put it – but not repelled enough either). Note how they also don’t address their chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – meaning an end to Israel altogether. That is antisemitism – not merely a “criticism” of government policy, as they always try to pretend.
Thirdly, the notion that the Jews’ biggest threat comes from Ahava shop staff, and not the hate driven boycott and demonisation mob, who openly engage with and include virulent antisemites, is absurd in the extreme.
And they know it.
Greenstein also makes the nonsensical accusation that any comment said in anger shows your true feelins.
No it doesn’t. Are you telling me, Greenstein, that you have never said something when you were feeling vulnerable and hurt and angry, that you didn’t mean?
How very silly of you.
I’d also like to say that Greenstein’s cultural vandalism against the musicians of the Jerusalem Quartet was one of the most disgusting spectacles I have ever heard of. What kind of lunatic hatred fuels someone to scream abuse at a string quartet?
I was so glad the concert was rescheduled, and the musicians got a standing ovation. Bravo!
I see that once again, Hoffman resorts to shooting the messenger- this time, Tony Greenstein.
A few points. Bruce recorded the incident and it was not edited. He obviously turned the video on once he realised what she was saying. As Joe said, he doesn’t have a camera strapped to his head, (unlike Millett).
The so called violence, has nothing to do with the staff. They are incidental. The point is to shut the shop down and put it out of business because it is funding illegal Settlements.
The person who was arrested was not charged. So there! I hear that Millett was provoking him.
I think this whole thread is a wonderful expose of how Zionists like Millett and Hoffman, don’t really care about anti-semitism unless it can be used to silence criticism of Israel. Had the shop assistant not said it to a Jew critical of Israel, they would be condemning it, and had she said it to one of them, they would have gone straight to the police. Or maybe not. Maybe they would only condemn it if the comments were made by a critic of Israel. So far, I’ve only seen them make false allegations, and now we have a real instance of it, they excuse it. Yet they have too little insight to be even aware of what they are doing/saying.
Isca, I will send you documents to show you that the products originate in the West Bank but are mislabeled as Israel.
The so called violence, has nothing to do with the staff. They are incidental.
Humans and their needs are “incidental”
now what does that remind me off ???????
Clearly the woman is not racially anti-semitic, since she can work for Israeli Jews. She clearly doesn’t object to working for them on the grounds of alleged Christicide.
Which leaves the possibility that she MAY have been implying her Jewish detractors were equivalent to Christicides. It cannot have been for the mere fact that they are Jewish, otherwise she would feel the same way about her employers, with which fact Fink or Greenstein would have had little to no objection whatsoever, they, especially Fink, having made similar accusations themselves.
Remember Fink’s anti-Zionist Christmas Carols? Their whole tenor is that Zionism and Israel is Anti-Christ: that is there very raison d’etre.
If this woman is a not especially intellectual or articulate non-native English speaking Polish Catholic, she may be responding to an accusation of betraying Christianity by working for or with Zionist Jews (A VERY SIMILAR ACCUSATION TO THAT WHICH FINK’S CHRISTMAS CAROLS MAKE OR IMPLY) as best she can.
In any case, that Jews/’Zionists’ were or are the persecutors of Jesus, the prophets and their followers is such a pro-Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian nationalist commonplace, it makes all this sound very strange coming from the mouths of Fink and Greenstein.
If this woman said or implied that Jews are Christ-killers, that is unacceptable and worthy of reprimand.
But
a) it is not at all clear that is what she did do and
b) it does not absolve those who were baiting her, especially since it is not all clear how the accusation, if that is what it was, arose
Deborah,
I write to you from the Israeli occupied town of Netanya.
I don’t know you – and do not particularly like you, but then again I am not particularly enamoured by all those in the opposing camp, (no subliminal reference intended to the procurers of fine Israeli grown fruit and veg in Aramaic.)
But after goggling your picture, I am sure we can all be agreed on the fact that regional peace would be better served if you went to the trouble to have a shave.
I don’t know you Nick, but what I do know is that you are a nasty piece of work.
Even though he is being oh-so-very-witty about me – don’t give up your day job, Nick, you are a crap ‘comedian’ – he has a veeeery long way to go before he even starts approaching you in nastiness.
Mostly
if I were suffering as heavily from compulsive self-description while feebly trying to insult other people as you do, I’d see a psycho 3 times a day and’d pop all the pills I could get a hold of.
And you, Armless, are a fascist’s whore.
The above banshee-like screeching is a perfect example of how Jew-haters’ so-called minds work.
The settlements are not ‘illegal’, you utter loon. You can repeat this big lie until you are blue in the face and hopefully choke on it, but it’s still a lie, however many times you spew it.
Your sickening statement that the staff are ‘incidental’ is another perfect illustration of the bestial lengths to which scum like you sink. You would have been an excellent gulag functionary.
As to the rest of your desperate contortions, about who would have said what to whom if something had happened, that’s just to try and cover up the fact that the tape is doctored. Deny it all you like, you revolting creature: the fact is that it starts – how conveniently, isn’t it? – just at the point where you can use it to mount a witch trial, something that Trotskyite scum are experts on.
TG the messenger? Don’t make me laugh. His reputation precedes him like a toxic miasma. I would call the two of you poison dwarf and poison dwarfess.
Deborah/Tony/any of the anti-Ahava demonstrators, would you be willing to answer these questions? I’m genuinely interested in your stance on them.
1) At the Ahava demonstrations in London they regularly chant ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ Can you explain in practical terms what this would mean?
2) As you know the demonstrations are also very much harming Ahava’s neighbouring business in Covent Garden. These businesses have nothing whatsoever to do with the Middle East. How do you justify the damage you are doing to the neighbouring businesses?
Some hope. These cowards won’t and can’t answer those questions, because they would have to admit to being antisemites.
1) Most of us support the demands that were laid down in the unified Palestinian statement calling for a boycott of Israel in 2005. These demands are a) an end to the occupation b) the right of return to be realised c) equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel. As the demands are not just about the occupation, and relate to Palestinians accross historic Palestine, the river to the sea chant is relevant.
2) It is unfortunate that any neighboring businesses suffer because of the demos, we have nothing against them and at times have sometimes tried to mitigate the effect the demos have on them by leafletting and doing promotional work for them whilst the demos are going on. However, a lot of the time the extra disruption is caused by the police not letting us demonstrate outside Ahava itself and put us in front of the dry cleaners. Either way, when Ahava is gone, so will we be, so maybe its up to Ahava to do the decent thing and go peddle their stolen goods elsewhere, or up to trading standards to close down an illegal business brazenly operating out of covent garden
This idiotic ‘right of return’ has no basis in any rational world, CANNOT happen and WILL NOT happen, and scum like you know it. In fact, the neo-Nazi Fatah and Hamas know it, too, and make this demand in order to make sure that the war never ends.
Scum like you can screech about it being ‘illegal’ until you choke on your bile (inshallah), but it isn’t.
“I will send you documents to show you that the products originate in the West Bank but are mislabeled as Israel.” – Isca
The “West Bank” is part of Israel. I am an Israeli citizen and I live in Judea or what you’d call the West Bank. We are subject to Israeli law, Israeli police, Israeli government ministries, Israeli schools, Israeli everything. Historically, where I live was of the tribal area of Judah and later part of Mandate Palestine, to become a Jewish National Home.
You are only correct in one respect. Judea and Samaria have not (yet) been annexed by Israeli governments since being liberated in 1967. Presumably, were Israel to unilaterally carry out such an action in these areas you would no longer have any objection to “Made in Israel” being printed on Ahava items. However, while much of the the Israeli Right Wing, myself included, has consistently called for annexation, successive Labor and Likud centrist coalitions have opted not to do so, either seeing the future of these territories as subject to negotiation and compromise or for fear of international reaction to such a move.
This begs the question what you suggest be written on our produce. The “West Bank” is not a country any more than the West End or the US Mid-West. A consumer, quite rightly, wishes to know in which country a product originates, who are the people producing it? and maybe even the nature of the regime he is supporting.
For that reason, I have no objection to my friends and neighbors in Azaria printing “Made in Palestine” even though at this point in time, no such sovereign state exists. A UK consumer who purchases their wares knows that they are subject to “Palestinian” health standards, safety standards etc. He also knows that he is “supporting” the Palestinian Authority headed by the Fatah.
Similarly, it would be wholly misleading for an Israeli company selling cosmetics that were produced in a Judean settlement to write, “Made in Palestine” which I gather would be the alternative to “Made in Israel”. Besides everything else, an anti-what-ever-you-are” like your excellent self might inadvertently buy such a product thinking that you are supporting the heroic Palestinian people in their struggle, only to discover that you were financing a demonic Jewish settler like me. How would that make you feel?
In short, the Arabs of these disputed areas will continue writing “Made in Palestine” although it isn’t really, and we’ll continue writing “Made in Israel”. If you wish to support us buy made in Israel, if you wish to support the Palestinian Authority, or in the case of Gaza the Hamas, buy “Made in Palestine”. Of course, you could also buy neither or both.
Hope that clears everything up.
All the best,
DJM
“I will send you documents to show you that the products originate in the West Bank but are mislabeled as Israel.” – Isca
The “West Bank” is part of Israel. I am an Israeli citizen and I live in Judea or what you’d call the West Bank. We are subject to Israeli law, Israeli police, Israeli government ministries, Israeli schools, Israeli everything. Historically, where I live was of the tribal area of Judah and later part of Mandate Palestine, to become a Jewish National Home.
You are only correct in one respect. Judea and Samaria have not (yet) been annexed by Israeli governments since being liberated in 1967. Presumably, were Israel to unilaterally carry out such an action in these areas you would no longer have any objection to “Made in Israel” being printed on Ahava items. However, while much of the the Israeli Right Wing, myself included, has consistently called for annexation, successive Labor and Likud centrist coalitions have opted not to do so, either seeing the future of these territories as subject to negotiation and compromise or for fear of international reaction to such a move.
This begs the question what you suggest be written on our produce. The “West Bank” is not a country any more than the West End or the US Mid-West. A consumer, quite rightly, wishes to know in which country a product originates, who are the people producing it? and maybe even the nature of the regime he is supporting.
For that reason, I have no objection to my friends and neighbors in Azaria printing “Made in Palestine” even though at this point in time, no such sovereign state exists. A UK consumer who purchases their wares knows that they are subject to “Palestinian” health standards, safety standards etc. He also knows that he is “supporting” the Palestinian Authority headed by the Fatah.
Similarly, it would be wholly misleading for an Israeli company selling cosmetics that were produced in a Judean settlement to write, “Made in Palestine” which I gather would be the alternative to “Made in Israel”. Besides everything else, an anti-what-ever-you-are” like your excellent self might inadvertently buy such a product thinking that you are supporting the heroic Palestinian people in their struggle, only to discover that you were financing a demonic Jewish settler like me. How would that make you feel?
In short, the Arabs of these disputed areas will continue writing “Made in Palestine” although it isn’t really, and we’ll continue writing “Made in Israel”. If you wish to support us buy made in Israel, if you wish to support the Palestinian Authority, or in the case of Gaza the Hamas, buy “Made in Palestine”. Of course, you could also buy neither or both.
Hope that clears things up a bit
All the best,
DJM
Apologies. My above comments were directed at the lovely Deborah Fink.
Fink by name, Fink by nature.
Those scum don’t even accept Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Nick Kopaloff
If you are still around .
Deborah Fink is just one more As – a -Jew. For some reason best known to herself she has developed a passionate hatred of Israel so intense that she sees fit to stand alongside groups that support Hamas who as we know are rabidly antisemitic . Furthermore many of these self appointed NGOs contain more then a fair share of overt antisemites as I have found every other week outside Ahava . Fink is quite happy to airbrush out this inconvenient fact in her quest to demonise and delegitimise Israel . Maybe shes a self hating Jewess or maybe she has developed a mutant strain of Stockholm Syndrome whereby the persecuted eventually identifies with the persecutor . Personally I believe she is just a tad cuckoo especially when she goes into amateur operatic mode ,loud hailer included but then thats just me. She is a non entity and basically harmless but provides useful ammo for the” Bad Guys ” who exploit her as an example of the ” Good Jew” ie the ones who would see the eradication of Israel.
Dont worry about her .She is but a minor irritant -especially when she starts to warble . Pity she never met a nice Jewish accountant but then again lucky accountant.
Nick have you ever dated an operatic singer – maybe you could do us all a favour .
“The so called violence, has nothing to do with the staff. They are incidental.”
Of course. Just collateral damage. By any means necessary, don’t you know.
Ahava is breaking no law.
Contrast that with the haters, one of whom was arrested last night.
Most of the value-added from Ahava’s products derives from Israel. There is no law which requires the products to be labelled anything other than ‘Israel’. The haters tried to get Camden Trades Standards to rule that there is, but failed.
Oyvagoy, it is notable that the haters do not respond to your pertinent questions.
I also picked up on Fink’s fascistic use of the phrase “incidental” when referring to human beings. Furthermore, her contention that the settlements are illegal is false.
She also claims that the clip isn’t edited, when it clearly does not show the whole exchange. She is asking us to make a judgment on an incomplete cip, which omits context. I just hope she is never called to be a juror – as her prejudices and hatred obviously define her.
unified Palestinian statement
Joe
could you please give us the signatories to that statement?
have “Palestinians” signed it at all?
and if so:
are all the Fatah members who signed still alive and have those who signed died a natural death?
are there Hamas signatures on it?
if yes do they stand by their signature?
what have the Fatah signatories to say about that Unified today?
i.e. is the Unified Thingy still alive and well after the Hamas’ knee-capping spree took place and Hamas tested the ability of humans to fly unaided by technology?
http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52
Joe
no clicking on your filth
try your keyboard on an intelligent answer
the link is to a list of the 150 or so Palestinian trade unions, NGOs and community organisations that have signed up to the statement urging the world to boycott Israel,here they are;
Unions, Associations, Campaigns
• Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine (Coordinating body for the major political parties in the Occupied Palestinian Territory)
• Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizen’s Rights (PICCR)
• Union of Arab Community Based Associations (ITTIJAH), Haifa
• Forum of Palestinian NGOs in Lebanon
• Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)
• General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW)
• General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT)
• Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities’ Professors and Employees
• Consortium of Professional Associations
• Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC)
• Health Work Committees – West Bank
• Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC)
• Union of Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)
• Union of Health Work Committees – Gaza (UHWC)
• Union of Palestinian Farmers
• Occupied Palestine and Syrian Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative (OPGAI)
• General Union of Disabled Palestinians
• Palestinian Federation of Women’s Action Committees (PFWAC)
• Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
• Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
• Union of Teachers of Private Schools
• Union of Women’s Work Committees, Tulkarem (UWWC)
• Dentists’ Association – Jerusalem Center
• Palestinian Engineers Association
• Lawyers’ Association
• Network for the Eradication of Illiteracy and Adult Education, Ramallah
• Coordinating Committee of Rehabilitation Centers – West Bank
• Coalition of Lebanese Civil Society Organizations (150 organizations)
• Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), Network of Student-based Canadian University Associations
Refugee Rights Associations/Organizations
1.Al-Ard Committees for the Defense of the Right of Return, Syria
2.Al-Awda Charitable Society, Beit Jala
3.Al Awda – Palestine Right-to-Return Coalition, U.S.A
4.Al-Awda Toronto
5.Aidun Group – Lebanon
6.Aidun Group – Syria
7.Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Center, Aida refugee camp
8.Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced (ADRID), Nazareth
9.BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Bethlehem
10.Committee for Definite Return, Syria
11.Committee for the Defense of Palestinian Refugee Rights, Nablus
12.Consortium of the Displaced Inhabitants of Destroyed Palestinian Villages and Towns
13.Filastinuna – Commission for the Defense of the Right of Return, Syria
14.Handala Center, ‘Azza (Beit Jibreen) refugee camp, Bethlehem
15.High Committee for the Defense of the Right of Return, Jordan
(including personal endorsement of 71 members of parliament, political parties and unions in Jordan)
1.High National Committee for the Defense of the Right of Return , Ramallah
2.International Right of Return Congress (RORC)
3.Jermana Youth Forum for the Defense of the Right of Return, Syria
4.Laji Center, Aida camp, Bethlehem
5.Local Committee for Rehabilitation, Qalandia refugee camp, Jerusalem
6.Local Committee for Rehabilitation of the Disabled, Deheishe refugee camp, Bethlehem
7.Palestinian National Committee for the Defense of the Right of Return, Syria
8.Palestinian Return Association, Syria
9.Palestinian Return Forum, Syria
10.Palestine Right-of-Return Coalition (Palestine, Arab host countries, Europe, North America)
11.Palestine Right-of-Return Confederation-Europe (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden)
12.Palestinian Youth Forum for the Right of Return, Syria
13.PLO Popular Committees – West Bank refugee camps
14.PLO Popular Committees – Gaza Strip refugee camps
15.Popular Committee – al-‘Azza (Beit Jibreen) refugee camp, Bethlehem
16.Popular Committee – Deheishe refugee camp, Bethlehem
17.Shaml – Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Center, Ramallah
18.Union of Women’s Activity Centers – West Bank Refugee Camps
19.Union of Youth Activity Centers – Palestine Refugee Camps, West Bank and Gaza
20.Women’s Activity Center – Deheishe refugee camp, Bethlehem
21.Yafa Cultural Center, Balata refugee camp, Nablus
Organizations
1.Abna’ al-Balad Society, Nablus
2.Addameer Center for Human Rights, Gaza
3.Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association, Ramallah
4.Alanqa’ Cultural Association, Hebron
5.Al-Awda Palestinian Folklore Society, Hebron
6.Al-Doha Children’s Cultural Center, Bethlehem
7.Al-Huda Islamic Center, Bethlehem
8.Al-Jeel al-Jadid Society, Haifa
9.Al-Karameh Cultural Society, Um al-Fahm
10.Al-Maghazi Cultural Center, Gaza
11.Al-Marsad Al-Arabi, occupied Syrian Golan Heights
12.Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Gaza
13.Al-Nahda Cultural Forum, Hebron
14.Al-Taghrid Society for Culture and Arts, Gaza
15.Alternative Tourism Group, Beit Sahour (ATG)
16.Al-Wafa’ Charitable Society, Gaza
17.Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ)
18.Arab Association for Human Rights, Nazareth (HRA)
19.Arab Center for Agricultural Development (ACAD)
20.Arab Center for Agricultural Development-Gaza
21.Arab Educational Institute – Open Windows (affiliated with Pax Christie International)
22.Arab Orthodox Charitable Society – Beit Sahour
23.Arab Orthodox Charity – Beit Jala
24.Arab Orthodox Club – Beit Jala
25.Arab Orthodox Club – Beit Sahour
26.Arab Students’ Collective, University of Toronto
27.Arab Thought Forum, Jerusalem (AFT)
28.Association for Cultural Exchange Hebron – France
29.Association Najdeh, Lebanon
30.Authority for Environmental Quality, Jenin
31.Bader Society for Development and Reconstruction, Gaza
32.Canadian Palestine Foundation of Quebec, Montreal
33.Center for the Defense of Freedoms, Ramallah
34.Center for Science and Culture, Gaza
35.Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ramallah- Al-Bireh District
36.Child Development and Entertainment Center, Tulkarem
37.Committee for Popular Participation, Tulkarem
38.Defense for Children International-Palestine Section, Ramallah (DCI/PS)
39.El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe
40.Ensan Center for Democracy and Human Rights, Bethlehem
41.Environmental Education Center, Bethlehem
42.FARAH – Palestinian Center for Children, Syria
43.Ghassan Kanafani Society for Development, Gaza
44.Ghassan Kanafani Forum, Syria
45.Gaza Community Mental Health Program, Gaza (GCMHP)
46.Golan for Development, occupied Syrian Golan Heights
47.Halhoul Cultural Forum, Hebron
48.Himayeh Society for Human Rights, Um al-Fahm
49.Holy Land Trust – Bethlehem
50.Home of Saint Nicholas for Old Ages – Beit Jala
51.Human Rights Protection Center, Lebanon
52.In’ash al-Usrah Society, Ramallah
53.International Center of Bethlehem (Dar An-Nadweh)
54.Islah Charitable Society-Bethlehem
55.Jafra Youth Center, Syria
56.Jander Center, al-Azza (Beit Jibreen) refugee camp, Bethlehem
57.Jerusalem Center for Women, Jerusalem (JCW)
58.Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC )
59.Khalil Al Sakakini Cultural Center, Ramallah
60.Land Research Center, Jerusalem (LRC)
61.Liberated Prisoners’ Society, Palestine
62.Local Committee for Social Development, Nablus
63.Local Committee for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled, Nablus
64.MA’AN TV Network, Bethlehem
65.Medical Aid for Palestine, Canada
66.MIFTAH-Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, Ramallah
67.Muwatin-The Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy
68.National Forum of Martyr’s Families, Palestine
69.Near East Council of Churches Committee for Refugee Work – Gaza Area
70.Network of Christian Organizations – Bethlehem (NCOB)
71.Palestinian Council for Justice and Peace, Jerusalem
72.Palestinian Counseling Center, Jerusalem (PCC)
73.Palestinian Democratic Youth Union, Lebanon
74.Palestinian Farmers’ Society, Gaza
75.Palestinian Hydrology Group for Water and Environment Resources Development-Gaza
76.Palestinian Prisoners’ Society-West Bank
77.Palestinian Society for Consumer Protection, Gaza
78.Palestinian University Students’ Forum for Peace and Democracy, Hebron
79.Palestinian Women’s Struggle Committees
80.Palestinian Working Women Society for Development (PWWSD)
81.Popular Art Centre, Al-Bireh
82.Prisoner’s Friends Association – Ansar Al-Sajeen, Majd al-Krum
83.Public Aid Association, Gaza
84.Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies
85.Saint Afram Association – Bethlehem
86.Saint Vincent De Paule – Beit Jala
87.Senior Citizen Society – Beit Jala
88.Social Development Center, Nablus
89.Society for Self-Development, Hebron
90.Society for Social Work, Tulkarem
91.Society for Voluntary Work and Culture, Um al-Fahm
92.Society of Friends of Prisoners and Detainees, Um al-Fahm
93.Sumoud-Political Prisoners Solidarity Group, Toronto
94.Tamer Institute for Community Education, Ramallah
95.TCC – Teacher’s Creativity Center, Ramallah
96.Wi’am Center, Bethlehem
97.Women’s Affairs Technical Committee, Ramallah and Gaza (WATC)
98.Women’s Studies Center, Jerusalem (WSC)
99.Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling, Jerusalem (WCLAC)
100.Yafa for Education and Culture, Nablus
101.Yazour Charitable Society, Nablus
102.YMCA-East Jerusalem
103.Youth Cooperation Forum, Hebron
104.YWCA-Palestine
105.Zakat Committee-al-Khader, Bethlehen
106.Zakat Committee-Deheishe camp, Bethlehem
But Joe: Arab Untermenschen don’t count, that’s rule No 1!
Joe
I should have bet on you evading the question
I was asking for real live human beings i.e. people not for entities within entities within entities and so on and so on
That trick of hiding whatever one wants to hide is probably as old as mankind.
I could easily set up entity upon entity with fancy names to figure in lists of signatories, no big deal, just a bit of tolerance for a boring job needed.
However, if I wanted to sign as me I would have to learn about esoterics in order to make my Astral Body materialise enough to perform the very physical act of signing.
What I don’t understand about people like ‘mostly harmless’ is why they hide behind a keyboard extolling others to participate in violent acts. What’s holding them back? What not firebomb the store and stab the workers themselves? If they are so fanatically happy about being antisemites, why do they use aliases? It’s like the holocaust deniers who still love Hitler. How does that work? If there was no Shoah, wouldn’t your hero be a bit of a piker?
Oh well, as you know, when they run out of things to complain about they hurl the word ‘racist’ at you . Like clockwork.
Poor Gert, he thinks that everyone is as stupid as he is. Oy has asked you very specific and concrete questions, from which the cowardly BDS filth have run away instead of answering.
What’s pretty obvious is that those here in the BDS camp stick to the points whereas the Zionutzies have nothing but ad hominem of the most puerile sort. Not a shred of an argument in sight ‘apart’ from Dannenbaum’s ‘if we annex it, it’ll be ok’… Pity the religious nutcases who moved to Israel when they were 18 and promptly moved into stolen territo and now try and perform the role of the ‘Righteous’…
Howdy Gert
Nice to see you around, especially at this time of the year, when your contacts with the Pyroenthusiasts must overwhelm your capacity to help them out.
Have you p..ed into your precious sit-on-equipment recently?
When filth like you complain about ‘ad hominems’, one just knows that you will resort to the worst ad hominems in the book. Only utter filth resort to phrases like ‘Zionutzies’.
Tell us, filth: what is the reason for your Jew-hatred and obsession with Israel?
Yoni
you must grant Gert some warm-up time but actually as I am a sucker for good laughs I prefer his “I am the holy one” posturing to when he gets into filthing.
He just isn’t good at at, no creativity, no imagination, seemingly still at the level of mental maturity of that nice Facebook picture of a Gert Meyers who he says is another Gert Meyers but still all gets in a state when I remark that the Facebook Meyers looks like he has a skin prone to develop pimples thus being the perfect customer for what Ahava has to offer.
Arab Untermenschen
Get your history right, Troll!
I am German i.e. by birth highly qualified to pass judgment on who is entitled to Untermenschen-dom.
Arabs aren’t, they were considered to be pure-blooded enough to join the master-race as equals.
Since your family suffered so much from the occupation you really should remember who the ardent supporters of that occupation were.
Another BDS filth posts a long list of Arab bodies consumed by neo-Nazi Jew-hatred. Big deal. This is yesterday’s news. We know all about the neo-Nazi strain in Arab society. What is still not entirely clear is what mental illness, exactly, causes people from Camden – one of the worst places in the UK for Jew-hatred among the chattering but brain-dead and historially and morally utterly ignorant classes – to take up the cause of neo-Nazis, as the BDS scum have done.
Gert, that is demonstrably untrue. Oyvagoy has put specific questions. I have put specific questions. Neither of us have been answered.
What content did your last post contain? None at all.
Except you use terms like “Zionutzies” (nice, claiming Jews are Nazis, showing the emptiness of the boycotters’ newfound outrage about antisemitism) – whilst you complain about ad hom.
That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Many thanks to Joe for going to the trouble of cutting and pasting his exhaustive list of some 150 or so Palestinian trade unions, NGOs and community organizations that have signed up to the statement urging the world to boycott Israel.
I thought I would take a deeper look but failed to get past number 1 on his list: “The Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine,” which Joe describes as the coordinating body for the major political parties in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Apart from being exclusionist in its objection to represent oppressed non-Islamists, (which ironically would receive the most severe censure in an Israeli Court of Law), what is more worrying is that it seemingly does not even exist as an organization.
I would be surprised if honest Joe can supply any evidence to prove its existence beyond cutting and pasting its name.
This leaves us wondering about the next 149 organizations on his list, and casts bleak aspersions and poses embarrassing questions as to Joe’s very integrity.
It is hard for me to admit to the fact that as much as I have unswerving respect for him, I believe Joe has given integrity a bad name in the same way that Deborah Fink has given the homo-lesbian community a bad name, and to a lesser extent how Yoni has tarnished the good name of Aramaic scholars worldwide.
gonna have to take Jay-Z’s advice from the Takeover on this one;
“A wise man told me don’t argue with fools, Cause people from a distance can’t tell who is who”
with that, im done on thsi thread, you lot are idiots
beautiful – typical “reaction” for one of “them”
corner them and they tell you they are done
ignorant cowards they have shown themselves to be, every one of them
Well, cowards, hypocrites and screaming racists.
Nick, you are one dumb little tosser. I never claimed to have any Aramaic scholarship. I supported you above even though you had decided to resurrect DM’s filthy invective. Clearly, you are determined to pursue this vendetta, which I had hoped had run its course. So I give you fair warning: carry on like this, and I will respond in highly disproportionate fashion.
Yoni, I love your passion
Thanks. And I admire your persistence and rationality!
Hi Gert,
Actually I agree with what you say about the ad hominem attacks, which I also find quite tiresome. They really prove nothing other than who has the foulest mouth, and in this area we have you well licked, as our Yoni who can swear in English, Hebrew and Classical Aramaic like a ancient Babylonian sailor.
Your criticism of ad hominem attacks would, however, have been all the more convincing were they not proceeded by your pouring scorn and ridicule on my personal bibliography, Particulary hurtful was to be told by an out-of work Bridlington chemist that I have apparently wasted my life rebuilding the land of my fathers after a 2,000 year wait in exile.
Anyway, now we’re quits and ad hominems aside, I’d be intererested to hear your reaction to what I wrote regarding the “Made in Israel” dispute. I’ve always regarded you as one of my more thoughtful and informed adversaries, and at our age, I think that between the inevitable snipes and one-liners we should be able to talk too.
You want to resurrect and continue the vendetta, which I had hoped had run its course, you pathetic and shameless parasite? I would rather not, but have no intention of allowing you to get away with even more of your unprovoked filth.
See what I mean Gert. Show me one man in your camp who can do that!
I am a mere novice (if that) compared with DM, as anyone reading his stream of filth over a couple of threads knows only too well.
Yoni you a novice who holds his own so well …
have you ever witnessed Daniel giving the coups de grace to Gertie Baby? (there are several because Gert must have Zombie-DNA, like Voldemort he re-invigorates himself somewhere, usually he throws the towel, vows never again, then he probably takes some massages paid for by the NHS and back he comes pleading “beat me some more please” “beat me it turns me on so nicely”
You have practiced fencing with Daniel for 2 or 3 threads and show no sign of cracking anywhere. What a difference if I compare it to poor clamouring for a playmate even an abusive playmate Gert.
🙂
But please, the image of Gert having a massage … put me right off my food, that did.
Got me there Yoni mate! Sharp as a razor. Very nice.
Now, returning to the subject at hand….
And with a dramatic flourish (and without answering any of the substantive points put to him), Joe buggers off.
The idiot is you Joe.
Dannenbaum:
Spare me your faked politesse. What would be the point in answering that question to someone who believes that G-d gave them the land? It’s impossible to reason with those who have the fake ‘certainty’ of G-d on their lips… You are in essence the Taleban of Israel but lucky for you don’t have to do any fighting, all done for you, courtesy of the ‘secular’ state of Israel…
Now tell me, when Biblical Greater Israel will be established (not long now!), far more by the ‘grace’ of the AOF that by the ‘grace’ of G-d, what do you nutters plan to do with the “sandniggers”? Transfer to the East (vaguely rings a bell, that one…)? A Divinely ordained form of genocide? Treat them as the ‘New Amalek’?
Please G-d, deliver us from the Funny Hat Brigades the world over…
I am an atheist. So answer me instead, Nazi-filth-spewing idiot.
Gert of course won’t address the near complete ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Arab and Islamic worlds. He prefers to get all het up about a non-existant “Taleban of Israel” ethnically cleansing Arabs – which hasn’t happened, and shows no sign of happening.
Gert’s really got his priorities sorted.
But then again, Gert is a person who complains about ad hom attacks, whilst employing ad hom attacks in the very same post.
Logic isn’t really his thing.
Daniel has served
does Belgium have a military? if so did Gert leave in time to avoid serving?
I am an atheist. So answer me instead, Nazi-filth spewing idiot.
Yes, I mean you, Gert.
Have you been called me “sandniggers” you barsturd? Come to Palestine and called me nigger. I shall kiling you.
Gamil
I am glad to be vindicated in my conviction that you get some things right, many more things than poor leaking into his chair Gert.
Hi Gert,
From where you are you can be forgiven, my old friend, for knowing little of Israeli realities. Quiz me on the bingo halls of Bridlington and I’d have to plead ignorance too.
However, I know you as someone with a genuine thirst for knowledge so I’ll correct a few inaccuracies and then attempt to answer your most interesting question as well as I can.
The Greater Israel Movement was essentially a secular, not religious, movement established after 1967.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_for_Greater_Israel
“lucky for you don’t have to do any fighting, all done for you, courtesy of the ‘secular’ state of Israel…”
You appear to be confusing Modern Orthodox Zionist Jews with Ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews. The former have for a many years made a disproportionate contribution to military service in Israel. They are to be found in all of our most elite units.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Zionism
I served for two decades as a combat soldier both in the regular army and reserves. My son is also a reserves combat sergeant, while my daughter was in IDF intelligence. Rachelle will be joining the army next year.
Now in answer to your question: “what do you nutters plan to do with the “sandniggers”?” I assume the latter to be a reference to the Arab residents of the West Bank. Believe me when I tell you that this is the first time I have heard that expression. On Saturday night we have a family of “sandniggers” visiting us. Khalil was born in Hebron, but now lives in the UK. Incidentally, I could ask you about the growing Moslem population in Europe and what you plan to do, but I’m no racist.
I intend to do nothing but good to anybody who accepts my right to live a free and peaceful existence in my 0.25% of the Middle East.
All the best,
DM
Daniel:
I know you served, because you already told me (for the benefit of the pettiest of the Zionutzies here, Mizz Silke, I served too but I don’t see what relevance it has, apart from in your tit-for-tat tittle-tattle world…)
You missed my point: for all the religious blather (often on BOTH sides), without the 1967 war and military occupation by the Israeli army, you and your fellow religionists would not be able to live in that area, no: not even in Maale Adumim.
Well, that’s so sweet: do you also accept that I’m not a racist on the basis that indeed some of my best friends are Jewish. No, thought not…
Daniel, you seem to have expressed favourable views of the EDL (as did your really imbecilic friend Mike). Do you know these people are as VIRULENTLY ANTI-MUSLIM as once they were ANTI-SEMITIC? Here’s Paul Ray, founding father of the EDL, a bigger imbecile is hard to find. He has since fallen out with his creation because he falls out with anything he touches, including those who support him:
http://lionheartuk.blogspot.com/
Muslims should have completely equal rights to non-Muslims in this country but I bet your friend Yoni isn’t too keen on the idea… Not to mention quite a few others on this ship of fools that in Richard Millett’s (DEFINITELY NOT Carlsberg!) comment section…
And I say (and have said for many years) that Jews should have the right to live anywhere in the world, including Judea and Samaria and Gaza, as long as that courtesy is extended to those who also feel that have a legitimate, often also religious, claim on the land. It’s called a just one state solution, with equal rights for all those residing in Palestine/Israel.
But for that too I’ll get called a ‘Nazi’ (or worse) in less than 2 nanoseconds…
We are all in agreement that Yoni is a passionate and class act. Of that there can be no doubt.
But I was quite startled to discover that he went to the trouble of cleverly bolding some of his text regarding resurrecting Daniel’s filthy invective and threatening me with a disproportionate reply.
I was spellbound.
Next time I mention aubergines will he disproportionately trump me with pomellas. Were I to disclose that only this evening I consumed some delicious garden-grown manderines will he lash out at me with Babylonian bananas.
Although I think Yoni is over-reacting, and believe that within his angry exterior there beats a heart that involuntarily pumps out virtue by the gallon, I reread Daniel’s postings and my postings to see if we might have unintentionally said something improper. I could not for the life of me find anything out of order in Daniel’s pieces, while I on the other hand may have been out of line, not in my mention of Israeli fruit and Aramaic scholars, rather in having you listed alongside that nasty gruesome twosome, Debora “I give lesbians a bad name” Fink, and “I’ve got a long list of fictitious Palestinian organizations” Joe.
You certainly don’t deserve to be thrown in the mix with them two scoundrels. And so I submit to you my sincere and unreserved apology and I bow my head in passive submission.
But as the readers of this fine blog are my witness, I categorically refuse to desist from dropping references to Aramaic fruit and veg, convinced as I am that deep down you have the fortitude and strength of character to take it on the chin like the real man we all know you are.
Yoni
I am completely at a loss as to why you get so angry about being described as an Aramaic scholar .
Where’s the “filthy invective”?
Nick
May I suggest that you immediately apologize to Yoni.
This “disproportionate response” threat sounds really scary especially as he seems to have somehow convinced Gamil to support him!
Gert
You say to Daniel.
” but lucky for you don’t have to do any fighting, all done for you, courtesy of the ‘secular’ state of Israel…”
This may be true today as Daniel’s age and girth make it obvious that he would be more of a burden that an asset to the Isral Defence Forces.
This was however not always so .
He was a ferocious soldier in his youth and continued to serve for (unlike Yoni) for many a long year.
Yoni is a good man! He is the proud of Palestinan struggel.
If you will attack Yoni, you will attack all good and piecefull Palestinians which are wishing to have Isreal destroyed and four Jews like Yoni to run away!
Yoni! I am hugging to you and kisses on your tonge and mouths. Our day will to come!
Regards,
Gamil
I have little but contempt for the so-called ‘Palestinian’ struggle.
I would just like to congratulate Richard on his fine blog.
Respect especially for your liberal censorship.
Old Mike could learn a thing or two from you!
Yoni,
I respectfully remind you that I did painstakingly put together a roadmap for peace on this blog, and while Gamil begrudgingly accepted it, Eugene agreed to be an honest broker, both you and Goldman rejected it off-hand.
You were never asked to control your language or personal attacks on others, but only to freeze your Israeli fruit and vegetables purchases to the current 75% status quo. This hardly seems unreasonable.
In the light of your intransigence, nobody should be surprised if developments take place on the ground, that are beyond any of our control. Furthermore the reemergence of Gert as a regional power must have a destabilizing influence.
I believe that even in this eleventh hour further hostilities can be averted if we all exercise restraint and good judgment.
I don’t care a fig for your ‘respectfully’ hypocrisy. Until you apologise unreservedly for certain insults, you know perfectly well which ones I mean, I shall regard you as a contemptible little man.
“Incidentally, I could ask you about the growing Moslem population in Europe and what you plan to do, but I’m no racist”
Evidently, you know as little about Europe and about Islam as Gert knows about Jews and Israel.
Islam is not a ‘race’. Perhaps you need to read up on the distinction between race (and ethnicity, etc) and religion. At least, what Islam claims it is, namely a religion. It isn’t.
The growing Moslem population in Europe is a disaster, always ‘angry’, always ‘entitled’, always ‘special’ and entitled to special treatment, always demanding that non-Moslems defer to it, rarely deferring to other cultures, always demanding ‘tolerance’ but not extending it to the host culture. And of course, a huge source of antisemitic hatred.
So you call others racist, yet don’t know the meaning of the word racism? Daniel’s definition is at least 100 % correct. You really are the new dumbo on the block here. I thought Silke took the cake but you’ve managed to snatch the crown off her…
Gert, this could be the beginning of a …
I know it better than you do, illiterate Belgian jerk who like so many other idiots thinks he can teach native speakers their own language. You can’t be racist against a religion, dumbo, you can only be bigoted. Of course, you are one or t’other or both every time you open your mouth.
Nick, apology accepted.
You know full well, however, that the Aramaic fruit jibe formed part of DM’s non-stop stalking campaign against me, and as such I hope that you’ll desist.
Michael,
Same comment to you.
Moreover, you have no idea how old I am nor how many years I served in which IDF unit(s). I don’t intend to discuss those details, only this to give you some vague idea (without claiming any special virtue thereby): In June 1967 I was very close to Mandelbaum Gate, and from a week or so before the Yom Kippur war until April 1974 I served continuously somewhere due south of it.
here is something that has escaped Muslim demands for PC and people apparently like it quite a bit (via achgut.de)
Enjoy!
“…the term “racial discrimination” shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life”
Is that supposed to apply to Islam qua Islam? I would be fascinated to hear how.
PS to Nick:
“I could not for the life of me find anything out of order in Daniel’s pieces”
Oh, really? So calling me a traitor to Zionism is now unqualified praise?
.
Goldman,
I stand corrected. In an off-blog discussion I was convinced that on the basis of Yoni’s excitable temperament and lack of knowledge in many, many areas he was much younger than now transpires.
On the other hand Goldman was wrong about me being a “ferocious soldier”, so we’re even.
Our Yoni,
In the spirit of the season I accept your apology, and suggest that once again the time has come to move on.
All the best,
Guru Marks
I have not apologised to you, you comprehensive little shit. It’s you who should be apologising to me.
as Gert like so many others seem to think that “occupation” started to irk only after 1967, here are some old newspapers.
I know that Gert doesn’t click but others may consider the find interesting:
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/12/arab-diplomat-accuses-israel-of-illegal.html
Arab diplomat accuses Israel of “illegal occupation” – in 1959
but history and what is commonly called education and Gert are two things will not meet at least not in my life time.
how does one say in English
“who sits in a glass house better not throw stones”
Gert may not be racist but he sure wants to see blood, lots of it
and later on claim innocence like in “but I only meant well”
Gert is all sensitive about being called a Nazi, yet he freely dishes out the word himself (“Zionutzies” is his latest witty favourite, whilst he repeatedly calls Silke “Nazigirrl”).
What an inbred tosser.
Silke, I’ve seen that clip. Great music, great singers, great idea! And puts you right in the mood for Christmas (amongst non-Jewish readers!)
Adam
I have no doubt that Christmas song or not Jews are discriminating enough to enjoy Händel.
what do you think? can our confessing atheist Gert value art in praise of a religion?
No Silke – the beauty would be lost on him.
Now that everybody believes that they have rececived apologies and nobody believes that they have apologized we are all happy.
Daniel
As you yourself point out, you were not a very good soldier but ferocious you certainly were.
I remember the time that you had to return to the army but couldn’t find your socks.
A more ferocious soldier has rarely been seen.
Concernng Yoni
Though his lack of knowledge certainly pointed towards a younger man, it was his temperament that gave him away.
A younger man would laugh off the comments about being an Aramaic Scholar or the stuff about the fruit.
Yoni
You didn’t give me a vague idea, you more or less told me and I thank you.
Concerning the “Traitor to Zionism” comment.
You don’t actually deny it, you just say that you find it offensive!
That tells me all I need to know.
What a comprehensive little shit you are.
I’m quite a tall bloke, I was usually one of the tallest in my class and in the army was entitled to, but never received, double portions of food. It is also no secret that of late I’ve added a few kilos (British understatement).
For both of those reasons if someone calls me “little”, it’s hard to be offended. I often sigh and ponder to myself, “Were that he was right!” Yup, I think in strange English too.
However, call me fat and I may take offense. Not because it’s a lie, but because it’s not. Like my old nana Betty used to say, “The truth hurts.”
It is not by chance that among all the insults thrown at him, our Yoni has taken offense about my reminding him that Zionists aren’t supposed to leave Israel, but to live here. Of course in a free world everyone can choose to live wherever he wants, Jew and gentile alike, but that is hardly the question. The question is what someone who calls himself a Zionist should be doing with his life, if he wishes to be ideologically and intellectually honest.
I’m not surprised that my words hurt. The truth often does. The only question being where do we go from here? Should I apologize and say that I must have been mistaken and that leaving Israel is a Zionistic and patriotic thing to do? Or should our Yoni get on a plane and come home?
I promise him one thing. If he does I shall wait at Ben Gurion Airport with a big banner saying, “I’m Sorry, Our Yoni!” For me it would be an unimaginable honor to think that I had been a catalyst in his making such a wonderful life choice.
Regarding what Goldman wrote about socks, I can’t recall the incident, but it certainly sounds like me.
Yes, you really are a comprehensive little shit. And a non-stop liar of monumental proportions. I objected to ALL your insults, from the first one (that I am supposedly ‘ignorant’) through all the others without exception. It’s only in your utter mendacity and overweening arrogance that you have now concocted this lie that I was only insulted by one thing.
You are a shit, a total shit, a conceited liar and a very, very small man.
Thankfully Yoni has not rejected the idea of returning home off-hand.
I believe that his last posting should give up all hope, although I’m not driving to the airport yet (:
Cheer up, our Yoni. Might never happen.
I think DM is too dumb to follow what I said, probably in all of my posts. And of course, too conceited to actually make the necessary effort.
We already know that he can’t help lying, he is suffering from a clinical pathological condition that he needs to seek help for.
C’mon our Yoni! Join in the spirit of the season. Smile! Make a new friend. That’s what it’s all about mate.
You know what they say:
““The best vitamin for making friends: B1”
Yoni
I am very relieved to notice that you are not succumbing to this saccharine love feast either
– as much as I adore Christmas because it marks winter solstice (days are finally getting longer again – Hurrah!!!) I hate the “piep, piep, piep, wir ha’m uns alle lieb” part of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3q7Y3fgTIc
To recover from that one I recommend Latma’s new one “Jihad bells” – I was glad that they didn’t succumb either.
Yoni,
I have neither the time nor the inclination to re-comb through Daniel’s postings in search of filthy invective that I may have inadvertently overlooked the first time round.
Furthermore, it would not be in keeping with the prevailing seasonal spirit of goodwill.
But I can tell you that I share Michael and Daniel’s zeal and passion (if not their religious commitment) and would squarely look you, Richard and Adam in the eye and frankly note that the curse of the Jews having to wonder amongst the nations of the earth, was “miraculously” lifted in 1948. Yet most Jews inexplicably maintain that curse by choice.
There are many reasons precluding mass Aliya. They are invariably weak and feeble, yet it is wrong to single you out.
The ashes in the crematoriums could not realize this new beautiful reality – but Jews collectively, can.
“They are invariably weak and feeble”
Brainless, arrogant drivel. Once again, you have no clue what you are talking about, pathetic little man.
“So I give you fair warning: carry on like this, and I will respond in highly disproportionate fashion.” – Our Yoni
You were warned. Heaven only knows what might come next! ?
“Brainless, arrogant drivel. Once again, you have no clue what you are talking about, pathetic little man.”
True to your word about a disproportionate response.
Something touched a raw nerve Yet there was absolutely nothing in my words to warrant such a hostile attack.
Yours was a very sad, but characteristic response and one I am sure you are regretting already.
You have so much pent up steam and aggression to blow off and so you shoot in every direction. What that says about the underlying causes is anyone’s guess.
But Yoni, you are waging a war against the world – and you are losing. You can’t hate everybody and remain sane. I am reluctant to adopt the Christian ethos but what the heck – it is that time of year. So look where all this anger has got you. You are a mere shadow of your former self.
So as not to embarrass you on blog – if you send me your email address I can refer you to a Harley Street specialist who comes highly recommended. He was an old classmate and discretion is his middle name. If you need a second recommendation, I think Daniel can oblige.
I don’t think he can treat your Aramaic fruit and veg. phobia but he can definitely do something about your anger issues.
With affectionate compliments of the season
What an idiot you are, Nick. I don’t “hate everybody”. I detest assholes who tell me how to live my life, and who tell me that I am a traitor because I don’t follow their way of life, and who claim that my reasons for doing what I do – which they have only the very vaguest idea about anyway – are ‘weak’ and ‘inadequate’. Do you have no shame at all? Or no brain to see that you should be ashamed of yourself?
I owe you no explanation, let alone apology.
Piss off.
Dear Nick,
I thought that your words were most beautiful, and I am so glad that you’ve all apologized to each other and are good friends again.
I also accept Yoni’s apology and am sure it was just a silly old misunderstanding.
I think that people making friends is the lovliest part of this very lovely blog.
Richard,
What a wonderful gift this blog is. I recommend it to all my friends.
Dear Kathy,
Thank you for your kind words.
My Great Auntie Trudy has been very ill recently. In fact she was at death’s door. But as luck would have it, she made a remarkable recovery.
Since I can remember, Trudy was always a very weak and frail woman. Perhaps she was born that way, or perhaps her condition was a product of the many crippling years she spent in Auschwitz.
She married Great Uncle Shimon. He had been a very young inmate in Buchenwald Concentration Camp and in many other labour camps.
Apparently Shimon was a favourite of a German officer who gave him the title of “Schuhputzer” (his personal shoe-polisher).
Whenever there was a selection and Jews were sent to their deaths, that Officer would summon his “Schuputzer” for a polishing job, and Shimon would be saved.
After the war Shimon was asked to testify in favour of the German Officer.
Shimon and Trudy built a wonderful home in Israel.
I find that story both heart-wrenchingly sad and reassuringly invigorating.
One and All,
I believe it was Hamilton Mabie who said,” Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.” and though the great bells of Bethlehem cannot be heard in London, or even in Maale Adumim, who can deny he his heart has heard their chime? Who would dispute the effect their music has had on all commentators to this excellent blog.
All at once long-standing feuds that just a week ago had seemed unsolvable, disappear as if they never were. They are replaced by a “conspiracy of love”.
As in any family, there will be new pages and new discussions. There will be times of agreement and others of fierce debate. Alliances will rise and fall. Richard will continue carefully at the helm like an old sea captain who has seen much, but always has new information to impart and new ideas to address.
However, for a moment let us put aside our differences and focus on what unites us. Let’s all virtually join hands and pray that the next year will also find us truly in “a conspiracy of love”!
Dear Nick,
I’m sure that your uncle Simon was rightly proud of his nephew Nick making aliya. Am I right in guessing that you were born in England?
Though I’m new to this blog, I do so much enjoy reading every new posting and following the comments. I agree with Kathy and all of you and am happy that you’ve all made up and agreed to let bygones be bygones.
Shabbat shalom,
Merry Chrismass from Yoni and Gamil!
L0ng lives Palestine!
Yoni is a good man!
Gamil, have you looked into the possibility of a brain transplant?
(If you are a Mossad false flag operation, then of course you are doing sterling work).
I am pondering the possibility that Gamil Elias is an alter ego/avatar of one or several of our staunchest Zionists.
There is a certain inconsistency in his arguments which hint at him being the creation of a conglomerate of un-synched albeit brillant minds.
Some stones are best left unturned Silke.
I’m guess that you’re not a big churchgoer, but I’ll wish you and all our Christian bloggers a merry Christmas anyway.
Now’s as good a time as any to apologize for anything I might have unwittingly done that may have upset you during the year, I think I recall three.
Daniel (Guru) Marks
I am a non-Churchgoer
the last time I saw the inside of a church was on a history sightseeing tour and promptly a priest showed up in that no longer in operation church and demanded that we join him in speaking the “profession of faith”.
He offered no opportunity for agnostics, let alone atheists, let alone adherents of any other faith to leave before he started intoning and imposing, which meant the only way for us to escape would have been to behave with intolerable rudeness like remain seated or wiggle out through the rows while he was pouring out his stuff. Not joining the group in speaking it aloud as I did hurt enough feelings.
I left church decades ago in protest over their “non-Christian” behaviour towards of all people the poor of this world. Incidentally that was long before I knew anything about their finer “weirdnesses” concerning the Jews.
I live abroad but was in London for a few days last week and made a point of visiting the Ahava shop where I spent close to £300.
The young lady in the video is Polish, she previously worked at the nearby Travel Lodge in Drury Lane. She is a shop assistant, full stop. She is not responsible for Ahava’s policies neither should she be held accountable for them. I spent a long time talking to her while my wife was attended to by another, Portuguese, assistant.
The day I made my purchases there was no demo outside but a few days later I did have the misfortune to come across the disgusting little Bruce Levy and another person peddling lies about “genocide” and “apartheid” on the street.
I asked why they chose to protest against Israel and an Israeli business rather than say Sudan/Darfur. I asked if they thought it would be legitimate to boycott Chinese restaurants in protest against the illegal occupation of Tibet. They had no answer other than to claim that they did protest against “other things” too, but were unable to give me an example.
Bruce Levy is indeed a disgusting and evil individual who wastes no time in telling the world that he is a Jew and that he demonstrates against Ahava because he “has a conscience”. I spared no invective in telling him what I, as a Jew, thought about him and his behaviour.
By the way, Bruce Levy openly declares his support for a terrorist organisation dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the death of Jews everywhere, while prefacing his vile utterances with “I’m a Jew”.
For him now to claim to be the victim of antisemitism is beyond parody.
Biodegradable, good for you! I wish I had the chance to tell this small, small man what I think of him and his cohorts.
Well done on the purchases! Not living in London, I have been sure to make online purchases at Ahava. That’s what drives these haters crazy – that Israel is vibrant and successful.
Living only about 20 minures drive away from the Dead Sea itself, I think I’ll drive there after Shabbat and take a midnight dip.
That’s what really drives them crazy!!
What a shame it’s so difficult to drown in it.
I hate to intrude on private grief but I thought I’d write the comments up for peoples’ education
Kicked any shins recently?
and of course the link to the article about anti-Semitic Zionists
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/12/zionists-defend-ahava-staff-who-accuses.html
Wow
thanks a lot, Tony!
that’s my best Christmas gift to date i.e. as far as I am aware the first time ever somebody has done me the honour to fisk me on another blog.
Keep it going!!!
I’d love to become a celebrity. If it should get viral, my photogenic good looks would certainly be no hindrance on the path to achieve real fame.
As to my ancestors’ definitions of Untermenschen they were highly volatile. As even you must know, they were a totalitarian bunch and thus like all dictatorially minded believers in “was gebb isch for mei dumm Gebabbel von vorhin” – Google translate is amazing, it doesn’t quite get it, but comes close.
piece for the ISM London site about this thread and the shocking acceptance of anti-semitism from the zionists on display here
http://www.ism-london.org.uk/2544
and another one who found me quote-worthy
Delightful gifts galore, Saint Nicholas must really really like me.
Staying in the season’s spirit I respond with
“No matter how you boo and bray
Israel is here to stay”
Do you ever stop lying, Jew-hater?
“the obvious anti-Semitism of someone who labels Jews “Christ Killers”.
Lying swine.
From the River to the Sea,
paleswine Will Never Be!
Inshallah!
Merry Christmas !
and here are Season’s Greetings probably more suitable for those on this blog who inhabit more Southern regions – enjoy!!!
“Mele Kalikimaka”
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2862
The Palestinian Catholic churches were among the most vociferous opponents of Nostra Aetate, which absolved the majority of Jews, past and present, of the crucifixion.
It’s not at all clear what was said, and all we have is the BDS activist’s say so while editing the rest of the video. If she said something antisemitic she should be reprimanded. So why not see/hear what was actually said?
conchover
they won’t show it – they are a bunch of cowards, liars
propaganda and deception are their favourite pastimes.
no honour and no decency to be found in their corner.
Why should she be subjected to an inquisition on the say-so of lying antisemites?
She clearly says ‘You shouldn’t talk about me’. Clearly something has been alleged about her. Only then is it alleged she accused him of killing Jesus.
My guess is that they were trying to shame her as a Roman Catholic Christian for working for Zionists, the kind of Jews, they said, persecuted Jesus, especially at Christmas time.
i.e. they were using anti-semitic arguments themselves.
maybe they were using anti-Christian arguments to get her going? I wouldn’t put it beyond them …
if she is really Polish being Catholic might mean a lot to her
And the excuses keep on coming. The conjectures, the hypotheses about why she said what she said, as if that somehow excuses it. One thing is for certain. She doesn’t deny that she said that Jews are Christ-Killers and the Zionists/anti-Semites on this blog are quite happy with that. Silke one can understand since she probably has Nazi pedigree, but the rest of you?
Admittedly Yoni is only capable of abuse being so obviously intellectually challenged (‘Lying swine.’ etc.) and similar homilies. But is everyone other Zionist also as stupid and verbally challenged? I can understand Hoffman not wishing to comment, given that he puts his foot in it every time, but the rest of you?
Tony,
I take your point about Yoni being intellectually challenged, but rest assured his intellect does not reflect the level of other Zionists who contribute regularly to this fine blog. He simply has anger issues and it would be really Christian of you not to dote of them, (nor to mention Aramaic fruit and veg which really sets him off).
But then again you are not Christian are you?
And that reminds me of a little-known historical fact. After demobilisation from the German army after WW1, Anton Graf Arco Valley really wanted to join the radical Thule Society, the forerunner to the German National Socialist Party. However his application was rejected – because of his mother’s Jewish ancestry.
But he really wanted to prove he was worthy of admission.
So he took it upon himself to assassinate Bavaria’s Premier Kurt Eisner, who was of course Jewish. This threw the region into even more turmoil and set the stage for the Beer Hall meetings and Putsch and all the horrors that were to follow. He was released from cell No. 70 in the Stadelheim prison, to make way for a one Adolf Hitler.
You too are very worthy!
Nick, your arrogance is matched only by your stupidity. My university supervisors and hundreds of clients would be very amused to hear a halfwit like you calling me ‘intellectually challenged’, given my grades over the years and the praises lavished on my translations.
Go and do something more suitable for your 2 tired brain cells, like doing the dishes.
‘And the excuses keep on coming. The conjectures, the hypotheses about why she said what she said, as if that somehow excuses it.’
We don’t know what she said. Your friends haven’t deigned to release what she said.
It’s quite possible that they insinuated that her employers were the kind of Jews who persecuted Jesus, so why was she, a Christian, working for them. She may have responded that, No, you are that sort of Jew.
If English is not her native language, she may have struggled to express herself.
That wouldn’t excuse her. But it would mean she had been baited by anti-semites.
‘One thing is for certain. She doesn’t deny that she said that Jews are Christ-Killers’
She doesn’t have to. Nobody has to deny anything to prove they are not guilty of it. We don’t know she alleged it in the first place. If she was accused of betraying Christianity by working for the kind of Jews who allegedly persecuted Christ, and if her English is imperfect because she is a non-native speaker, it is not at all clear what she was saying, especially if baited by anti-semitic agitators like you, Tony (because that is what you did, Tony: anti-semitic agitating, remember?).
She says ‘You can’t say anything about me’: clearly something was being alleged about her. We don’t know what, because her accusers don’t release it.
The irony is, as I said, that Palestinian Catholics were among the most vociferous Resistors to Nostra Aetate, absolving Jews in general, past and present, of responsibility for Christicide.
Among Palestinian and other Muslims it is a commonplace that Jews were foremost among his persecutors, and that that spirit lives on in Jews today.
It’s an open secret that anti-semitism is rife among Palestinian Christians and Muslims and their anti-Zionist supporters. That ‘Zionists’ crucified Jesus is a commonplace. I suspect it can be found among the kind of thing you have said in the past, Tony.
‘ and the Zionists/anti-Semites on this blog are quite happy with that. ‘
This from the man who tried/has tried/continues to incite Muslims to hate British Jews by smearing them as supporters of the EDL.
‘The conjectures, the hypotheses about why she said what she said, as if that somehow excuses it. ‘
I don’t excuse it. If she did say that Jews in general, past or present, killed Jesus, that is inexcusable and should be reprimanded.
But we don’t know to what extent she was baited into saying it. She clearly isn’t racially anti-semitic, since she works for Jews.
I recall your defending Christian anti-Judaism in the past on the grounds that it was protective of Jews in a way that post-Christian anti-semitism was not (though you have since changed your tune).
She MAY have felt her baiters and abusers were the kind of Jews who did persecute Jesus. That is an opinion she is entitled to have. It may be wrong, it may be inaccurate. It may even be immoral. But most devout Christians, Roman Catholic or otherwise (your wife is Roman Catholic, Tony, isn’t she? You left off training to be a rabbi because you couldn’t stand alleged orthodox Jewish racism, no?), believe at least some Jews did persecute Jesus, and have analogues today.
Many contemporary Palestinian Christians, and their supporters do e.g. Stephen Sizer and Ben White.
The whole basis of Deborah Fink’s Christmas Carols is that Zionism is Anti-Christ. That is a pro-Palestinian Muslim as well as Christian nationalist commonplace.
So this indignation at the same charge being leveled against you or some of yours sounds a little strange. Plenty of your fellows are pretty free with it themselves when it suits them. You ignore it, for the most part, or indulge in or facilitate it yourself.
Tony, you are becoming boring. We don’t see her say it either. Meanwhile, you support Hamas so stop with your crocodile tears already. As for your attack on Silke; now that is a racist comment. Shame on you.
Richard
be patient with Tony, his budget doesn’t allow him to indulge his masochistic wishes on the market, so he comes here, trying to get beat up.
What do you think, should we give him Gert “Nazigirrrl” ‘s address? I think the two would make a fine pair crying on eachothers shoulders?
“… since she probably has Nazi pedigree…”
Because she’s Polish, WTF?
My, what a lot you read into that single fact. It fits with your “all Israelis are Nazis”, doesn’t it.
If she is an antisemite all the better – it shows that Ahava is an equal opportunities employer.
Another thing Mr. Greenstein; isn’t your call to boycott Ahava a form of “collective punishment”, something you so bitterly accuse Israel of enforcing on Gaza?
Here’s some real class writing from your blog:
But like dogs going back to their vomit, it is no surprise that the Zionists on Millett’s blog have shown their true colours…
Like I say, that’s real class!
Tony,
Having been off-line during the Sabbath I’m finding understanding this string quite difficult. I gather that you have asked some kind of question that everyone is avoiding, but I’m not 100% clear what it is.
If you’re asking whether we killed Jesus, we didn’t. If you’re asking why that woman said we did, I’d have to guess that either she didn’t say it or she did, but was mistaken. If you’re asking why she did, if she did, I’d have to guess that she was misinformed regarding the matter. If you’re saying that she did say it, and she was neither mistaken nor misinformed, but knew we that never did and said it anyway, I’d say, “Maybe. If you’re asking, “Assuming that she did say it and knew it to be wrong why is Ahava employing her?” I’d have to speculate that they didn’t know that she’d say it, if she did. If you’re saying that they knew she’d say it (if she did), but employed her anyway, I’d say it was not a great decision. Does that clear up the matter?
However, I will take issue with your saying:
“Admittedly Yoni is only capable of abuse being so obviously intellectually challenged (‘Lying swine.’ etc.) and similar homilies. But is everyone other Zionist also as stupid and verbally challenged?”
Nobody is denying that Yoni has a foul mouth and is not the brightest commentator on this excellent blog, however, I do take issue with your implying that he is a Zionist. Running away from you’re the Land of Israel and then buying vegetables and using very rude words on a blog does not make a Zionist in my book. On the contrary, he is a disgrace to both the State of Israel and the Zionist movement.
Furthermore, at least regarding this matter, as a decent, hard-working, intellectually honest anti-Semite I’m sure that, regarding this matter at least, you will concur.
All the best,
Tony,
Having been off-line during the Sabbath I’m finding understanding this string quite difficult. I gather that you have asked some kind of question that everyone is avoiding, but I’m not 100% clear what it is.
If you’re asking whether we killed Jesus, we didn’t. If you’re asking why that woman said we did, I’d have to guess that either she didn’t say it or she did, but was mistaken. If you’re asking why she did, if she did, I’d have to guess that she was misinformed regarding the matter. If you’re saying that she did say it, and she was neither mistaken nor misinformed, but knew we that never did and said it anyway, I’d say, “Maybe. If you’re asking, “Assuming that she did say it and knew it to be wrong why is Ahava employing her?” I’d have to speculate that they didn’t know that she’d say it, if she did. If you’re saying that they knew she’d say it (if she did), but employed her anyway, I’d say it was not a great decision. Does that clear up the matter?
However, I will take issue with your saying:
“Admittedly Yoni is only capable of abuse being so obviously intellectually challenged (‘Lying swine.’ etc.) and similar homilies. But is everyone other Zionist also as stupid and verbally challenged?”
Nobody is denying that Yoni has a foul mouth and is not the brightest commentator on this excellent blog, however, I do take issue with your implying that he is a Zionist. Running away from you’re the Land of Israel and then buying vegetables and using very rude words on a blog does not make a Zionist in my book. On the contrary, he is a disgrace to both the State of Israel and the Zionist movement.
Furthermore as a hard-working, intellectually honest anti-Zionist, I’m sure that, regarding this matter at least, you will concur.
All the best,
People like Greenstein who make excuses for the real antisemites of Hamas and Hizbollah (both organizations which openly advocate the extermination of all Jews world wide) are simply laughable. They worry about a shopkeeper who is incessantly bullied, like she is the real danger, whilst going on demos organized by people who support antisemitic terror groups – who actively kill Jews.
greenstein, you are one sick and twised individual.
People like Greenstein who make excuses for the real antisemites of Hamas and Hizbollah (both organizations which openly advocate the extermination of all Jews world wide) are simply laughable. They worry about a shopkeeper who is incessantly bullied, like she is the real danger, whilst going on demos organized by people who support antisemitic terror groups – who actively kill Jews.
Greenstein, you are one sick and twisted individual.
1. The parts of the video showing said staff member saying the Jews Killed Jesus haven’t been released because they never existed. Period. Is that difficult to understand?
2. I have no particular animus against Joni and I accept the points that Daniel makes and will say no more.
3. However foul mouths aren’t just confined to one individual. It is a recurring phenomenon with Zionists. Look at Jonathan Hoffman, who despite his enthusiasm for all things concerned with ‘anti-Semitism’ has failed to condemn what took place. Can’t imagine why?!!!
4. As my blog demonstrates, I have never ever supported Hamas politically. On the contrary I have been forthright in condemning Islamists in the Palestine solidarity movement, just as I’ve been forthright in condemning anti-Semites like Atzmon. It’s you lot, almost without exception, who are making excuses for this woman. You may not like what the video shows, it may be embarrassing, but stop making pathetic excuses such as it was tampered with. The last time Hoffman did that, over the clip of him dancing down the street with EDL member Roberta Moore, he had to make a grovelling apology. #
However it is simply untrue that Hamas advocates the ‘extermination of Jews worldwide’. Show me the statement and then explain why those Jews they come into contact with manage to escape intact, unlike all too many Palestinians vs the Israeli state.
Yes Nick, I’m well aware that some Jews were eager to prove how much they agreed with anti-Semitism and Nazism. How about the Stern Gang’s offer of military co-operation to Hitler when they said:
‘The NMO (National Military Organisation or Irgun-TG) which is well acquain-ted with the goodwill of the German’ Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion that… the establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis and bound by a treaty with the German Reich would be in the interest of maintaining and streng-thening the future German position of power in the Near East. Proceeding front these considerations, the NMO in Palestine offers to take an active part in the war on Germany’s side provided the above mentioned national aspirations of the Jewish liberation movement are recognised by the German Reich government. ‘
Or maybe the leader of the German Zionists, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, in his book Wir Juden p.154.
‘(The Jews) have been drawn out of the last recesses of christening and mixed marriages. We are not unhappy about it.. The theory of assimilation has collapsed. We are no longer hidden in secret recesses. We want to replace assimilation by something new. The declaration of belonging to the Jewish nation and the Jewish race. A state build according to the principles of purity of the nation and race can only be honoured and respected by a Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind.’
And there’s many such examples Nick if you want them.
And the person who says ‘This from the man who tried/has tried/continues to incite Muslims to hate British Jews by smearing them as supporters of the EDL.’ No I’ve never smeared British Jews as supporters of the EDL. Just British Zionists as you are demonstrating only too well.
And no, I’ve never defended Christian anti-Judaism. I might have explained it, but clearly the difference between defence and explanation is beyond the ken of most of those here.
5.
Tony,
Thank you for your reasoned response (and for refraining from mentioning Israeli fruit and veg in Aramaic which would have been met swiftly and disproportionately by Bonny Prince Yoni).
But a couple of corrections.
I would urge you for the sake of honest debate and hopeful reconciliation that you and your colleagues verify your facts before laying them down.
Joachim Prinz was never the “leader of the German Zionists” as you erroneously wrote.
He was a Zionist who was one of the most outspoken opponents to National Socialism and he even used some Nazi invective and rhetoric to encourage Jews to leave Germany.
Ironically, he was most hated by the Gestapo and Jews like your good self.
In the mould of Jabobtinsky before him, his unorthodox approach riled and stirred the Jewish masses. He saved many thousands of lives and as far as I am concerned, he is a hero.
In an era when the genocide of the Jewish people was at the doorstep, he never killed, hurt, or oppressed a single soul – but he used language (“purity of nation and race”) that offends the sensibilities of Tony for being politically incorrect. But maybe I have misunderstood something and I shall read the book again.
Your colleague Joe also cut and pasted the names of 150 Palestinian organizations supporting your Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign.
However when I challenged him to provide evidence that the No 1 on the list actually exists as a bona fide organization, he could not answer me and left the blog.
Could you please tell me more about the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine (Coordinating body for the major political parties in the Occupied Palestinian Territory), and if it is the united umbrella organization, then why does it ignore the oppressed non-Islamic forces?
I think I have conjured up a name for number 151. Council of National and Non-Islamic Forces in Palestine.
Happy holidays.
You are one sick individual.
Dear Tony,
Since we seem to have reached a broad level of general agreement regarding your points one and two, I suggest that we try to tackle point three.
Of course, I acknowledge that “foul mouths aren’t just confined to one individual”. I had heard all Yoni’s rude words, particularly his much favored use of the synonym for excrement, in the playground by the time I was ten, but frankly, I never thought I would hear them with such frequency and in such an imbecilic fashion an otherwise excellent blog, composed for the most part of thinking people. We all lose it sometimes and say things that we later realize were silly. I do so more often than I care to admit and I’m sure that you do too. In the case of our Yoni, however, that’s all you ever get. Charles Darwin might explain his theory of evolution and our Yoni would reply, “That’s because you’re a shit-faced monkey.” Garry Kasparov or Nick Kopaloff might show him a new move in the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian and he’d retort, “Your black pieces look like shit.” The man is in a class of his own and to compare him to any other would be to do him an injustice. I thank the good Lord daily that he has yet to discover the S word’s use as an adjective, verb and adverb.
Jonathan Hoffman is a wholly different kettle of fish. He is not my friend or otherwise. I believe that we exchanged two mails about a year ago. You may oppose his point of view, supporting us in the old Zionist entity etc, however, I’m sure that you would be the last to deny that he is an intelligent, eloquent spokesman for a cause that you do not support. In short, we don’t have to demonize each other just because we disagree.
Regarding your fourth point, do you need me to explain the difference between the Lechi and the Hamas? If so, I’d be happy to oblige. If not, then have a great anti-Zionist week, whatever exactly that consists of.
Daniel
For a dumb tosser who brought up the subject of excrement on people’s shoes in the first place, you do screech dementedly quite a lot about other people. Your lack of self-awareness is quite spectacular. As is your stupidity, as is your ignorance.
Hi our Yoni,
Sorry mate, this is a private conversation between Nick, Tony and myself. However, if we do need your opinion on any matters relating to Aramaic, fruit or excrement, we’ll be in touch.
Have a great week,
DM (Guru)
‘The parts of the video showing said staff member saying the Jews Killed Jesus haven’t been released because they never existed. ‘
This woman said that the Jew who was baiting her was Anti-Christ. She shouldn’t have done. And I cannot defend her for it. If I were her employer, and this was drawn to my attention, I would quiz her about exactly what happened, what she said, and why. Clearly accusing Jews of killing Christ merely on the grounds of their being Jewish, or even for any reason, is unacceptable, and I would insist on an apology and an undertaking not to do it again.
However.
Deborah Fink conveys the moral that Zionism is Anti-Christ with her Christmas carols every year, despite her excuse that they are merely British Volk songs.
That Zionism is Anti-Christ is the belief or assumption of plenty of your friends and allies e.g, Stephen Sizer, Ben White etc. That’s why they so vigorously oppose Christian sympathy with Zionism. They are trying to anathematize it as heresy.
Bashir Assad told the Pope that the ‘Zionists’ persecuted the followers of Jesus, even as they allegedly currently persecute the Palestinians. That is a standard Hamasism too.
I don’t see how this woman is saying anything intrinsically different: she is accusing a certain sort of Jew of being Anti-Christ. Just not the sort of Jew that Sizer et al. would say is Anti-Christ. She doesn’t seem to put her Israeli Jewish employers in the same category as Anti-Christ/Christ killers (although she may do, in which case she doesn’t seem to say it out loud). In which case she isn’t racially anti-semitic.
And we don’t know precisely what the lady said, or why. The fact is that plenty of Christians do believe that Jews did play a major role in persecuting Jesus, even as the gospels say (Palestinian ones certainly do). One has to live in the same world as they, work with them etc. I had to teach in a Roman Catholic school. I can’t force them to re-write the New Testament.
She is a Polish Roman Catholic, and probably has fairly normative, traditional ideas of the gospel account. It doesn’t stop her working for Israeli Jews. If she started saying anti-semitic things to them, she’d probably be fired in short order.
The fact is she probably doesn’t have the language to make such fine distinctions. She is after all both a non-native English speaker and comes from Poland, a country with an unfortunate reputation with regard to Jews. Isn’t that an excuse you constantly make for Palestinian anti-semitism? They say ‘Jew’, but they really mean ‘Zionist’? They are handicapped by their coming from a more ‘traditional’ society, among other things?
She may have some unfortunate baggage about Polish communist Jewish alleged anti-Catholicism, as well, but that is to speculate.
Perhaps she meant that ‘Anti-Zionist Jews’ killed Christ. After all, Christian tradition has been that the Jews were punished for rejecting Christ with exile and dispossession. To a more traditional Christian, a Jewish return and restoration is proof of divine mercy or forgiveness. It is those who seek to alienate the Jews from the land again, by whatever means, that are resisting the will of God. Who are Anti-Christ. Or fighting with God, as Gamaliel II is alleged to have said.
I think she would have a point. If someone accused me of killing Christ/being Anti-Christ, I would turn their accusation back on them in short order. And we do not know how this exchange began, or what was originally said about her, to which she took exception, because we are not told.
And I think a modern Jesus Christ, in this context, would be a Palestinian Muslim who had the courage to say to his fellow Palestinian Muslims and Christians that, Hey guys, maybe the Jews do have some kind of right of return. After all, we have been saying they were expelled for their sins for nearly 2000 years, if we are honest. Maybe we did wrong in denying them any kind of right of return , never mind threatening to expel or massacre them… If we are honest, guys, there was a kind of poetic justice in our getting partially expelled, since we threatened them with the same, or worse. It’s time to bury the hatchet, compromise and accept the principle of two states for two peoples, Jews and Palestinians.
For which he would be crucified, stoned, shot or whatever.
And you characters would turn a blind eye, because he would have been a traitor to the cause, in your view.
You would be Anti-Christ, or the equivalent in this context.
Hamas spokespersons, like Mahmoud Al-Zahar, use pretty conventional eliminationist or even genocidalist Christian-Islamic anti-Judaic/anti-semitic pronouncements and motifs about Israeli and other Jews.
You’ve never condemned that, so far as I can see, rather gone into obfuscating denial about it. By your criteria, Tony, which you apply to Jonathan Hoffman, the ZF and the EDL, that makes you a collaborator.
Hi, Tony,
you did defend Christian anti-Judaism (anti-semitism, you said, actually) with respect to post-Christian anti-semitism, actually. You said it saved Christian Jews, because it placed then in the category of non-Jew for Nazi purposes (you omit to mention that it was on condition the Pope say nothing about the final solution. This is odd because when Katzner tries to save a few at the alleged expense of the many, you call him the vilest of collaborators with the Nazis. Proof, in fact, that Nazism and Zionism are closely related):
“Z continues on his arrogant path. ‘Antisemitism came to see Jews as a people alien from the human race altogether, and even conversion from Judaism could not change his Jewish essence. If you do not know that, Tony, you know nothing.’ Oh dear. That is the point I am making. Anti-semitism changed as the Jews and society changed. In fact medieval christian anti-Semitism didn’t believe in this Jewish essence, that was a product of 19th century social Darwinism and the ‘science’ of race – Gobineau, Herzl’s friend Drumont etc. That was the key change between Nazi anti-Semitism and what had gone before. But being an ignoramus Z knows nothing other than nice fables.”
[odd, because Z clearly knows that Christian anti-Judaism is different from Nazi anti-semitism]
“Indeed what saved many Jews, not least in Germany, was that they were termed ‘christian Jews’ or in Slovakia or in Croatia to name but a few countries.”
You also engage in your own form of Palestinian Christian nationalism, by asserting that most Judean Jews converted to Christianity, despite all the ancient sources (and modern Palestinian Christians and Muslims) maintaining no such thing, rather the reverse. The archeology bears out Palestinian Christians being almost exclusively Greek speakers, the majority of Palestinian Aramaic inscriptions being Jewish, not Christian. Even Palestinian Christian Aramaic derives from a pagan form, not the Jewish as found in the Talmud. It’s true that Ashkenazim and Palestinian Arabs share much in common genetically. But Judean Jews were probably closely related to the neighbouring peoples anyway:
“Z says that ‘It doesn’t matter that a diaspora existed at the fall of the temple.’ But it does because if most had already left it was hardly a Roman exile was it? The Jews in Palestine by and large became Christians anyway, the poor Jews in particular so your version of history is just another fable, comforting perhaps but bears no relation to reality.”
Finally you reveal your prejudice that rabbinical students by and large believe Palestinians are untermenschen, and start insinuating your opponent believes the same too:
“But Z tries to be a smart ass too. My upbringing was not at all non-Jewish. In fact my father was an Orthodox Rabbi! I went to Yeshivah. It’s just I could stand the bigots who believed Jews to be superior and Arabs to be the untermmenschen. Which is why I’ve got the measure of you.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user-comments/antiracist?page=2
You’re a bit Christian, Tony. More Christian than Jewish, it looks like. Orthodox Judaism is racist, in your purview. Christianity, if not Christian anti-Judaism, or anti-semitism, saves Jews. Indeed, via conversion, Judean Jews became modern Palestinian Christians if not Muslims. You’re a bit Christian, and you’re a bit Palestinian, in spirit.
Another interesting opinion of yours:
“The fact is that not a few of the pogroms against “Jews” have been orchestrated by other Jews and then blamed on “vicious” and “irrationally prejudiced” Gentiles, Christians, Goyim. The infamous Pale of Settlement was one of these bloody internecine melees.”
“In fact medieval christian anti-Semitism didn’t believe in this Jewish essence, that was a product of 19th century social Darwinism and the ‘science’ of race”
It (preferring the term “Christian anti-Judaism”) did believe Jews were a race or ethno-national group, however, originally displaced or exiled from or of temple, Jerusalem and land. Simply that Jews could leave it by apostatizing to Christianity. And it is in 15th century Spain that a concern arises that Jewishness lingers via Jewish blood after conversion. And it is precisely mass conversion, on a scale unparalleled hitherto, rather than the more customary corpuscular or individual conversion, that leads to the shock to and rejection from the Spanish Christian body politic of Jewish conversos.
But, if I might observe, your attempt to smear British Jews as EDL supporters, in order to incite British Muslims against them, smacks of a certainty as to a Jewish essence: unless he or she is a (rather Christian flavoured) anti-Zionist like you, you are quite sure he or she is, in essence, an EDL supporter (if not a regarder of Arabs as untermenschen).
Conchovor,
You say “This woman said that the Jew who was baiting her was Anti-Christ.” If that is the case, then there is really nothing more to be said.
She is not a “lady” as David Guy, Weggis, Isca Stieglitz, Biodegradable and you yourself have ingeniusly chosen to term her. The woman is a Jew-hating monster. Neither pressures of work, Communism, Sunday school, unfamiliarity with the finer points of the English language or even her menstrual cycle excuse, or go any way to explaining let alone justifying such an utterance. Just to remind you, these were the words used by the church for 2,000 years to justify our persecution and murder.
You would, “insist on an apology and an undertaking not to do it again.” Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of an old Monty Python sketch.
“Look here, Miss Eva Braun or whatever your name is. You see we’re an Israeli company so we can’t have you calling Jews Anti-Christs – that just won’t do. Furthermore, if you insist on having any more Swastikas tattooed on your arm, we’ll have to ask you to wear longer sleeves during working hours. Oh and if you’d be kind enough to keep your Mein Kampf in your handbag and read it only during your coffee breaks.
Is all that clear? Jolly good! Back to work then. No need to goose-step, a normal saunter will do fine.”
I don’t know what you’re going on about. I’m not excusing or defending her. I’m saying the accusation of being anti-Christ is one routinely leveled or insinuated by the BDS lot. She just did it back.
I’m just the kind of guy that is prepared to accept repentance and a sincere apology.
If she did it again, or something like it, I mightn’t be so forgiving.
I really don’t understand what you are ranting about. Now you are insinuating I am a Nazi.
You’re a twit.
‘ The woman is a Jew-hating monster. ‘
Given that she works for Israeli Jews, that doesn’t look prima facie the case. Perhaps she does go around accusing them of killing Jesus, or persecuting him in the form of Palestinian Christians and Muslims (as a fair number of BDSers do or insinuate). Unlikely, though.
Daniel
your lack of knowledge of how Christians get brought up and how we get indoctrinated is appalling
and with that comes an apparent total ignorance of how hard it is if one isn’t a member of the “educated” classes to come by some correction of that indoctrination.
Just say ‘total ignorance’ and you will have covered it.
Yes, tell me about indoctrination Silke, teach me about brainwashing. What would I know about those indoctrinated to hate Jews. For eighteen years I walked with my scull-cap through the streets of London, called a Kike, a Yiddo, a Jew boy and to those with less colorful dictionaries, like our Yoni, just a fucking Jew. I was attacked for looking non-Jews in the eye and beaten for smiling in their direction, but I never took off my kippah. Tell me about indoctrination Silke.
Tell me about indoctrination and I’ll tell you of the hundreds of millions of Moslems whom I have chosen to live amongst. I’ll tell you of children hardly old enough to walk who threw stones at me in my own homeland. I’ll tell you of their eyes of hate, and I’ll tell you of the same children grown up blowing themselves up on my buses. Tell me about indoctrination and teach me about brainwashing. Did you think that until today I knew nothing of Jew hatred and you’ve now opened my eyes?
As a Jew and as human being, I believe with a perfect faith that every man and woman, whatever his upbringing, whatever his education must choose between good and bad. For some it is easier and for others more difficult, but the choice is ours. There is forest in Jerusalem for the Righteous Gentiles. Many of them were Poles. These were people who despite their indoctrination and despite fear of danger chose to be good when their friends and neighbors were evil. They chose to save the lives of their Jewish neighbors instead of calling them anti-Christ.
Every oak tree and every pine testifies to the truth that we must all choose between good and bad, and anyone can choose good, if they wish. Jews and Gentiles must choose. Israelis, Englishmen, Germans and Poles, we all must choose. You have chosen good. TheTalmud describes a woman like you as a “rose among thorns”.
If that woman said what she is quoted as having said, then she has made her choice. She has chosen evil. She is living in the UK in 2010, employed by Jews and she calls us anti-Christ! If that is what she said, she is wickedness. If I have to excuse her because she went to Polish Sunday school, what can I say to Ahmed who learnt the Koran and wants to slaughter my children?
Daniel
I witness in the “west” that the “educated” classes are losing out once again on the “lower” ones – they once again have lost the ability and the decency to speak their language (I think it is accelarating because a lot of them media guys and gals germanise English words of Latin origin into German Latin but not into “normal” German, but German Latin is not part of the vocabulary of us non academics. There even is a kind of fear of them. The first one comes along and the rest of the sentence is lost.)
Already in the 90s our most respected maintime TV news was mostly incomprehensible to my very smart and shrewd rural neighbours. So all they could grasp were the pictures. I don’t have a TV but judging from what I see magazines using, those must be terribly propagandistic.
Teenagers who in 2003 had been on a trip to Auschwitz not long before that remembered that it had “something to do” (irgendwas) with Jews. One was intelligent enough to become a lawyer’s apprentice.
I don’t know, if Ahmed is still reachable, but a lot of people, where i live, should be. A lot of them are utterly confused and the ones who giving them the black and white guidance are at best confused talkers of the high talk from the do-gooder-brigade.
I know nothing of the streets of London. As yet I have never seen a kippa wearing Jew in person. Probably some of my school teachers were re-emigrated Jews, it wasn’t mentioned at the time, but about the Holocaust I learned first at school in no forgettable or getting mixed up about it terms.
Despite that I had to wait till about the age of 25 and getting told about it in no uncertain terms before I made a mental connection that the then still common German saying “bis zur Vergasung” until having been gassed and/or dissolving into gasses was a most abhorrent thing to say.
(some say “bis zur Vergasung” originates from pre-Nazi-times. I don’t care. The fact that I didn’t realize by myself what I was saying haunts me to this day.)
She didn’t call ‘us’ ‘Christ killer’. She said something to someone who was baiting her, it isn’t at all clear what. Her baiters haven’t been forthcoming about the lead up. It is possible to bait someone into saying unacceptable or inexcusable, you know. For instance if you push them too far in their core beliefs. What if they had accused her of betraying Christianity and Christmas by working for Zionists, the kind of people, they alleged, who persecuted Jesus? As BDSers often insinuate, or more, in fact.
Remember Stephen Sizer, who wants to anathematize Christian sympathy for Zionism as heresy? He would say, or think, a Christian working for Ahava is working in such a manner as to be Anti-Christ.
She has a right to defend herself, and give her account. You can’t sack people without giving them that. If she said something unacceptable, she should be given, as a rule, an opportunity to express penitence and undertake not say it, or anything like it, again.
That Jews killed Jesus, or had a large part to play in his persecution, has been a Christian given (an Islamic given the latter) for most of Christian history. If you are going to exclude that as an unacceptable belief, you are going to have to exclude most Christians from your employ, and most Muslims too.
As a rule, people can believe what they want, so long as they do not express it in such a way or situation that causes injury or hurt. And it doesn’t seem, prima facie, that this woman puts her Israeli Jewish employers in the category of quasi-Christ killer (since she is unlikely to have believe her baiters had literally killed Jesus) or anti-Christ (which a good deal of the BDS lot would).
Having said that, maybe she should be fired. It didn’t really occur to me, because I just assumed something like that might be repented of. And simply sacking her if she showed genuine contrition would appear unnecessarily vindictive.
But, I am prepared to be persuade otherwise.
In either event, I don’t see how that makes me a Nazi, Daniel.
Greenstein, your case is absurd. Whilst you obsess about a shopkeeper’s remark, you excuse the genocidal antisemitism of Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hizbollah. You claim that Hamas does not advocate the extermination of all Jews. Hamas’ charter states the following:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. ”
What do you think that means Greenstein?
Elsewhere, the charter freely praises the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and is full of disgusting antisemitic allegations (Jews control the world, etc). That you are more vexed by a comment from a bullied shopkeeper (and I wonder if you have ever said anything you didn’t mean when upset and angry at being incessantly bullied – if the remark was indeed meant, then it is clearly wrong), than the considered philosophy of an Islamist movement which also promises to obliterate Israel and her people, is seriously off the chart insane. It demonstrates that your concerns over antisemitism are selective and vacuous, completely lacking any perspective. Which is the greater threat to Jews? The Hamas antisemitic movement which kills Jews, and delights in doing so, or a single shopkeeper?
That Hamas thugs leave you alone when you meet these fascists seems to suggest to you that they aren’t against the Jews – that they let you live . Of course they do – you are doing sterling work acting as a propagandist for them. You are a classic example of the useful idiot.
I would also like to say that your act of cultural vandalism in screaming abuse at the Jerusalem String Quartet in the middle of a concert is utterly disgusting. Only someone driven by completely irrational and visceral hatred would do such a repellent thing. I am glad it was rebroadcast, and the Quartet received a standing ovation – it was an answer to you and your cohorts. You should be ashamed.
Greenstein doesn’t do ashamed. He is a hateful and hate-filled loser.
Kicked any shins recently, Greenstein?
Tell me that pondlife like this is sane:
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/10/israels-mengele-auschwitz-squads.html
One further point Greenstein
You say that “Zionists” are abusive. You have no idea what abusive is. I have been subjected to the most disgusting antisemitic, hateful and foul mouthed tirades by the pro-Palestinian lobby on various sites, including mainstream ones like Cif. And I’m not even Jewish.
So you can get off your high horse.
Jerusalem Quartet back again on 7 May (Wigmore Hall). Please come to support them and sort out any troublemakers. Not that they will get in, the security and management now has a comprehensive dossier on Greenstein, Fink and their puke-making henchmen who pepetrate antisemitism on a daily basis but crow about a provoked shopkeeper’s retaliatory remark, dsiplaying it like some hard-won trophy. “Hypocrisy” is far too weak a word for it.
conchovor,
“In either event, I don’t see how that makes me a Nazi, Daniel.” –
If you understood anything that I said, to imply that I thought you to be that, it was in no way my intent. Nothing could be further from my feelings. I try to be as accurate as I can when articulating my opinion of other people’s views, and I just think that in this particular matter you’re wrong. No more, no less. Your opinion is both rational and that of an obviously thoughtful person, however, I don’t agree with it.
Neither shall I make any further effort to persuade you as I believe that I’ve already stated my viewpoint in two comments as best I can. I think on this matter we can just agree to differ. Next time you’re in Israel come over to visit. We’ll drink a good bottle of wine, eat Greek salad and chocolate chip muffins and really get to the bottom of the matter.
Daniel
conchovor,
A word of advise.
Beware of what Daniel describes as a “good bottle of wine”
By all means partake of the chocolate chip muffins of the Greek salad.
But if I were you I’d offer to bring the wine myself.
Goldman,
Three words of advice:
“Advice” not “Advise”.
You still serve crap wine!
With Goldman’s last comment, I believe that the time has come to move on. However, we shall conclude with a few classics lines from our Yoni all on this one page. Who said the guy has anger management issues? Enjoy:
Who is this absurd arse ftp?
Talk about a sad, useless, inadequate, Jew-hating person … Mostly ticks all the boxes
You are, as condemned from your own mouth, a sad, useless, inadequate, Jew-hating person.
you wouldn’t recognise the truth if it bit you on your sorry ass
You’ve lost it big-time, Joe.
The Bullshit, Dregs and Scum lot have done nothing of the sort.
You are so dumb it hurts to read you.
the Bullshit, Dreck and Scum movement …
Err, no, trottel: the bullies, dregs and scum would have to prove that the shop is not a legal business
“The best u can do” How old are you, TG? About 12?
Never mind being a Trot: he is a sad excuse for a human being.
To the idiots screeching about Ahava’s need to prove their ‘legality’:
Err, no: the bullies, dregs and scum….
Nick, you are a crap ‘comedian’
The above banshee-like screeching is a perfect example of how Jew-haters’ so-called minds work.
cum like you can screech about it being ‘illegal’ until you choke on your bile (inshallah), but it isn’t.
Fink by name, Fink by nature. Those scum don’t even accept Jerusalem
Poor Gert, he thinks that everyone is as stupid as he is.
When filth like you complain about ‘ad hominems’, one just knows that you will resort to the worst ad hominems..
Nick, you are one dumb little tosser…
you pathetic and shameless parasite?
Nazi-filth-spewing idiot.
I have not apologised to you, you comprehensive little shit.
What a comprehensive little shit you are.
Yes, you really are a comprehensive little shit. And a non-stop liar of monumental proportions.
Brainless, arrogant drivel. Once again, you have no clue what you are talking about, pathetic little man.
What an idiot you are, Nick. I don’t “hate everybody”. I detest assholes
Do you ever stop lying, Jew-hater? Do you ever stop lying, Jew-hater?
Lying swine.
Nick, your arrogance is matched only by your stupidity. ….Go and do something more suitable for your 2 tired brain cells, like doing the dishes.
You are one sick individual.
For a dumb tosser….As is your stupidity, as is your ignorance.
From the green pen of the comprehensive moron who started off this whole thing by saying that I am like something he scraped off the bottom of his shoe.
I have come to the conclusion that DM is a false flag operation by a very clever neo-Nazi, possibly a group working together, with the intention of giving Jews a bad name as stupid and racist. Quite a brilliant effort, really.
PS. Only a hate-consumed anal-retentive with a severe form of OCD, which DM certainly is and exhibits, respectively, would go back and catalogue my posts – and not for the first time, either.
Please seek help.
No, I (Gamil) is the false flagging.
Yoni is a good man!
Long live running awaying Jews from Isreal!
Long lives Palestine!!
One does not preclude the other, Yossi ‘Gamil’ Eliyahu.
Your efforts were amusing to begin with, but you are obviously a spoof. You have been overegging it. ‘Running awaying’, my foot. And the constant mispelling of ‘Israel’. Next time try to be more subtle, Yossi.
Yoni
I think the time has come for you to prove to Daniel that you can make comments without reverting to foul language and insults.
Why don’t you give it a try?
How about one week without being rude to anybody?
The time has come for you to take a very long walk down an exceedingly short pier. I don’t need to ‘prove’ anything either to you or to other rude idiots such as Daniel.
Yoni
This is more about proving somethingto yourself!
Make up your mind, then, halfwit. Which is it?
I don’t need to ‘prove’ anything to myself, least of all on the say-so of an idiot like you.
Psycho-Babble
Psycho-Babble is what Goldstein makes me think of
Dear Daniel et al
I’m afraid that I have been rather busy updating my blog and doing family things yesterday, being Boxing Day.
As promised I won’t reply to Joni because it only sets him off but it’s true that I posted on groups of Israeli soldiers and others who identify with the most terrible and evil of the Hitlerite monsters and their creations. http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/10/israels-mengele-auschwitz-squads.html
The fact that Israelis, in whatever numbers, could identify with Mengele or Auschwitz or say things like we should be more like the Nazis says it all for me. Sorry.
You say that Jonathan Hoffman ‘an intelligent, eloquent spokesman for a cause that you do not support.’ The problem is he’s not. He doesn’t listen to an argument, he repeats a slogan. And on this and other lists his only comments are of the ‘trot/stalin moron’ type. Intelligent? Hardly.
Now Conchovor thinks I defended Christian anti-semitism which shows he didn’t understand my comments. There is a difference between defending something and explaining. What I was doing was making a distinction, a very important distinction, between religious and racial anti-semitism. I hold, of course, no brief for either, but the latter was exterminatory and genocidal. The former in general wasn’t.
It is a fact that if you were a Christian Jew in Germany or under Nazi occupation you stood a much greater chance of surviving. This is true of all the mixed categories – Mischlinge categories 1 & 2, Christian Jews or those married to Aryans (privileged Jews etc). Indeed contrary to popular belief that Wannsee was primarily about planning the final solution it was mainly taken up with the thorny ‘problem’ of what to do about the Mischlinge in the widest sense. Now I’m writing this without consulting any notes as I don’t have time but when in February 1943 the Gestapo decided to deport Jews married to non-Jews there occurred the only known protest against the deportations – Rosenstrasse. http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2008/06/gestapo-tactics-israeli-army-attacks.html which forced the Gestapo to release some 5,000 Jews including even returning some from Auschwitz – itself unprecedented.
Conversion was a strategy that many Jews took as a means of saving their and their families’ lives. When the rumour spread in Budapest that Christian Jews would be exempt from deportation there were queues around the block of the church to obtain conversion. In his Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry Eugene Levai writes that ‘Rumour ‘that the baptized Jews would not be deported… As a result of this a veritable ‘fever of conversion’ broke out among the Jews of the capital. According to Budapest official records altogether no more than 4,770 conversions were registered, experts, however, declare that at least 80,000 certificates of baptism – the greater part of these faked ones – were held.’ p.292.
You are confusing the issue of not mentioning the final solution (there was no such condition) with the speaking out of the Catholic primate in the Netherlands which resulted in christian Jews being deported.
Kasztner was an individual and he followed the remit of the Jewish Agency. What he did was entirely different. It was to keep quiet about Auschwitz, to allay any doubts, to help in the round-ups, for example by providing lists of Jews, in exchange for the thousand elite Jews (in the end about 1650). That is nearly ½ million Jews were sent to their deaths in exchange for the leadership of Hungarian Jewry and in particular the Zionist leaders.
Modern Israeli archeology is a fraud, its conclusions arrived at before the evidence is sought. It is a nationalist driven ‘science’. Clearly most Palestinians are descended from Jewish farmers who became christianised, which was what Jesus and his reformers were about. Not that it matters a jot, since who cares about ethnic origins apart from Zionists?
The irony is that those who claim to be descendants of the ancient Hebrews are actually driving out those who are descendants! Do have a read of Shlomo Sands!
And I’m an atheist in fact, a Jewish atheist!
The Spanish Inquisition was in fact the beginning of racial anti-semitism. It is no coincidence that the 15th century was the century of Spanish imperialism, because imperialism brought in its wake, with the slave trade, the idea of ‘races’ for whom slavery was justified. However there was no general massacre of the Marranos, however bloody and barbaric their treatment and where did the Jews escape to? Primarily Poland to the north and the Arab countries, Morocoo in particular, to the South. What was that about Arab anti-semitism?
I have never attempted to ‘smear British Jews as EDL supporters, in order to incite British Muslims against them’. I’ve said that certain Zionists, some of whom inhabit this blog like one J Hoffman, have no problems demonstrating with them. An entirely different accusation. Hoffman doesn’t represent British Jews. But as you admit, British Muslims are clearly opponents of British racism and fascism whereas the Zionist Federation is happy to (unofficially of course) work with it.
You also doubt that the shopkeeper was anti-semitic ‘Given that she works for Israeli Jews’. Many anti-semites have worked for Jews I’m afraid. That’s what often gave them their credentials.
Yes Adam, I do claim that Hamas/Hizbollah don’t advocate extermination of Jews. That is entirely different from their religious views about the Day of Judgement. Don’t the Christian Zionists hold to the ‘return of the Jews’ so that the day of Rapture will be advanced when there will be a mass extermination of all but a few saved Jews?
Let me give an example or two. As is well known the Talmud holds that there is a difference between saving a Jewish life or killing a Jew and saving or not saving a non-Jew or killing them. We have seen that with the recent controversy over Torat Hamelech in Israel – a book which justifies the mass murder of non-Jews.
Because the Talmudic principle in general is that Gentiles’ lives must not be saved although it is forbidden to murder them outright. The Talmud [Tractate Avodah Zarah p. 26b] express this in the saying ‘Gentiles are neither to be lifted [out of a well] nor hauled down [into it]’. Maimonides [Mishneh Torah, ‘Laws on Murderers’ 4,11 Talmudic Encyclopaedia, ‘Goy’] explained: ‘As for Gentiles with whom we are not at war… their death must not be caused, but it is forbiden to save them if they are at the point of death; if, for example, one of them is seen falling into the sea, he should not be rescued, for it is written: ‘neither shalt thou stand against the blood of they fellow – but [a Gentile] is not thy fellow.’ [for more such, see Israel Shahak Jewish History, Jewish Fundamentalism]
But of course this fell into disuse and it was disallowed if such behaviour were to cause Jews to come under threat, as it certainly would. It is under Zionism in Israel, that these long fallen into disuse religious commandments have taken on a new life as Jews have power again over non-Jews (Palestinians). These are the religious views that are exterminatory, because those holding these views have power already of life and death over the inhabitants of Gaza. Hamas has no power.
I don’t know any Hamas thugs, I do know Palestinians and not one of them is a political supporter of Hamas! Not that it matters.
But I’m glad to see that Jonathan Hoffman has overcome the temptation to comment about the anti-semitic shopkeeper, despite sager counsel with his comment about ‘Greenstein, Fink and their puke-making henchmen who pepetrate antisemitism on a daily basis but crow about a provoked shopkeeper’s retaliatory remark, dsiplaying it like some hard-won trophy. “Hypocrisy” is far too weak a word for it.’
So the shopkeeper was provoked and saying Jews are Christ-killers was a ‘retaliatory remark’. Ah Jonathan – if there’s one thing I admire you for it is your ability to put your foot in it. Mazletov.
Hi Tony,
there’s 6 or 7 things in your response which I’d like to address but, like you, I’m a bit busy, so I’ll probably do it piecemeal.
‘Clearly’ isn’t an argument. It’s an assertion. And I suspect the only ‘academic’ work you can adduce is Sand’s. Sand’s being Professor of Modern European History, specifically Modern French History, even more specifically Modern French Cinema.
Here is the review of Sand by Martin Goodman, Professor of Jewish Studies, Oxford, with, unlike Sand, both a specialization and decades old reputation in the field:
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXaK5w3WAyCmYWg2c3hqbmRxOXFxXzQzNHhwdHA1NWhm&hl=en
More specifically, your thesis is contradicted in several ways:
the ancient sources do not posit a large scale Judean/Palestinian Jewish conversion to Christianity, rather the reverse.
In the 4th century, Epiphanius gives only one account, of a Jewish convert who tries to build a church in his old village, under imperial Christian patronage, and pretty much utter fails to convert his former compatriots (Stemberger, p. 79):
http://books.google.com/books?id=tu7esOXinfkC&pg=PA79&dq=palestine+jew+convert+christian&hl=en&ei=-yoaTaK8HcqgnAej-KmVDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=palestine%20jew%20convert%20christian&f=false
(Schafer/Hezser, p. 3)
http://books.google.com/books?id=_mkWzIlrwDoC&pg=PA3&dq=palestine+jew+conversion+christian&hl=en&ei=bi4aTe7hIY7YngfCjP2dDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=17&ved=0CHwQ6AEwEA#v=onepage&q&f=false
(Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS)
I include the Palestinian Christian sources, by which I mean Christian authors who define (rather than merely translate) their place of origin or habitation as ‘Palestine’ e.g. Justin Martyr (who is probably the first self-defined ‘Palestinian’ in history) or Jerome.
In the late 4th-early 5th century, Jerome writes, from a Christian Bethlehem, that town and villages deserted or bereft of Jews are being re-inhabited by gentile Christians. All ancient sources, Jewish, Christian or pagan witness to great destruction and loss of life following the suppression the Bar Kokhba revolt. The most detailed, that of Cassius Dio, is by a pagan, who has no particular axe to grind, Jewish or Christian.
From the 2nd century, Jewish communities are located primarily either in southern Judea or the north, in the Galil and Golan. And it is in the forme Judean heartlands that churches, culturally Greek, begin the spring up, albeit very slowly.
And, so far as I can see, the academic consensus is that the greatest source of Palestinian Christians were pagan converts, probably highly Hellenized, since Palestinian Christian inscriptions are almost entirely Greek, while pretty much every Palestinian Aramaic inscription is Jewish.
There are some rabbinic texts which are understood by some to refer to matters arising when a family member converts. But not many (Stemberger, p. 80):
http://books.google.com/books?id=tu7esOXinfkC&pg=PA79&dq=palestine+jew+convert+christian&hl=en&ei=-yoaTaK8HcqgnAej-KmVDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=palestine%20jew%20convert%20christian&f=false
Undoubtedly it happened, but usually on an individual basis, whereby a Jewish convert would join a pre-existing (gentile) Jewish community.
Who were these gentile Christian communities ethnically? Hard to say, but probably from the surrounding region i.e. ‘Syrians’. Christian Aramaic, which does not appear until the 4th-5th centuries, seems to be derived from a western pagan form, not that which is found in the Talmud or Mishna.
This would account for similarities between Ashkenazi and other Jewish with Palestinian Arab Y haplotypes. In any case, genetic evidence suggests that Palestinian Arab Y haplotypes are closest to Negev Bedouin, a group with both genetic and traditional ties with the Arabian peninsula.
Is this so surprising?
The penetration of Christianity into Palestine, especially the rural sector, was extremely slow, even in the 5th century (Safrai, p. 67):
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
In the 4th century, Eusebius’ Onomasticon testifies to only 3 Christian villages in Palestine. Most patristic accounts of conversion in Judea/Palestine concern pagans e.g. Saracens in the Judean desert (Safrai, p. 68; 76-77):
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
This comports with the general thesis that Palestinian Christians largely comprised converted pagan ‘Syrians’, and with the genetic evidence, as I suggested.
The conversion of Jews is unusual, and thus a matter of interest, for the church fathers. Before the 4th century, the list of Palestinian bishops is short. After the council of Nicea in 325 imperial patronage builds new (Hellenistic) poleis in Palestine, and it is here the number of bishops begins to grow with the congregations of converts drawn from them. (Safrai, p. 69):
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
But even this does not testify to the number of Christians, since the process was in no small part a top down affair, the reverse of the ‘liberation movement’, whereby Jesus ‘liberates’ the ‘Palestinians’ from Judaism, which you suggest. Yours is a very modern construct, which has more to do with how some Christians today find their history awkward or embarrassing, and how they seek to revise it to comport with more currently acceptable modes of morality and justice.
In fact, churches only begin to appear in the rural sector (those whom you call ‘the poor’, perhaps?) in the late 5th-early 6th century (Safrai, p. 70):
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Relatively greater ‘progress’ is made among the Samaritans, mainly because their religion is never granted as a a ‘religio licita’, and the suppressions of the revolts result in wide spread destruction, deportation and imperial seizure of buildings and property, some of which are forcibly converted into churches (Safrai, p. 72-73; 75-76):
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
The fact is that the spread of Christianity into Palestine is heavily indebted to imperial Roman destruction, deportation, ethnic cleansing and top down patronage. It is hard to disentangle it from a colonial process, which fact some modern forms of Palestinian Christian liberation theology, such as yours (or even Desmond Tutu’s?), try to disguise, ignore or revise. The first self-defined ‘Palestinian’ Christian (or not) in history. He was a citizen of the Greco-Roman polis-colonia of Flavia Neapolis, and he even writes to the emperor Antoninus Pius, in his 1st Apology, that it is his duty to continue to guard Jerusalem and the land, to keep Jews out or dispossessed, as biblical mandate demands, as punishment for their cosmic crime of Christicide.
As to the Polish lady. I said she is probably not racially anti-semitic as she is prepared to work for Israeli Jews and, if her behaviour or attitude to Jews was racist or objectionable, she would almost certainly be fired. Prima facie, she does not seem to put her employers in the category of ‘Christ killer’, or treats them as such. That does not excuse what she said, but, if she is prepared to be contrite, I do not think it should be a sacking offence.
I do not understand your assertion “Many anti-semites have worked for Jews I’m afraid. That’s what often gave them their credentials”, it does not seem to make to me any sense.
I am afraid I think your attempt to rig the JC poll was precisely an attempt to smear a sample of, and by extension, Anglo-Jews as Islamophobic EDL supporters. That was most arrogant, and assumed, I think, an Anglo-Jewish EDL supporting ‘essence’, unless reformed by such as you. It was an attempt to incite Muslim hatred of British Jews, which was both wicked and, in fact, anti-semitic.
With regard to your ‘explanation’, it explains nothing. ‘Z’ had already distinguished between Christian anti-Judaism and post-Christian anti-semitism, as you acknowledge. He had also maintained a connection/continuity between the two, not that the former was as bad as the latter, to which you took, at the time, vigorous exception.
‘Z’s point was that the anti-semite par excellence does not see the Jew as objectionably alien merely in custom, religion or ethno-nationality, all of which may be assimilated into irrelevance by e.g. conversion, inter-marriage etc.
The anti-semite par excellence sees the Jew as alien from this world altogether, indeed alien from the human race. ‘Z’s point was that what Anti-semites and Zionists have in common is the ‘understanding’ common between victim and victimizer, that the victim would rather be somewhere else.
Your identification with Jewish nationalists like the Bund contrasts with your total absence of Jewishness in any respect other than as adduced in your hostility to Israel. Most Jews chose to flee the Nazi menace and anti-semitism, including most surviving Bundists and their descendants. And history has hardly proven the Bundist thesis correct. The Jews of the USSR, who faced decades of state sponsored ‘anti-Zionism’ did not choose the Bundist path, any more than did the Jews of the Arab world. You can play games of Bundist identity, while wearing your various other hats, because your parents or grandparents did not stand and ‘fight’ anti-semitism, but chose to flee it altogether.
You leapt into apologetics for Christian anti-Judaism and anti-semitism, almost waxing lyrical about the fact that so many Jewish converts were saved.
But that came at price: the silence of Catholic church and Pope about the holocaust for the majority of Jews. What is odd is that, when Katzner allegedly keeps silent about the impending fate of the majority of Hungarian Jews, to save a mere 1200 of his own friends and family, you call him the vilest of traitors; the Catholic church you seem to put almost in the category of hero-saint. The Pope and Church had almost incomparably more power and influence than Katzner. Nor were they in imminent danger of extinction. But Katzner you consign, as it were, to the fires of the hell.
The difference is almost that between darkness and light, demon and angel.
That is why I said you attitude was odd. A bit…Christian, even.
And that Rosenstrasse protest, to save Jewish converts. It was brave and fine enough as it went, I suppose. But they didn’t do it for ordinary Jews. And it doesn’t seem to have been all that brave: how many were arrested or killed for it? And the chances are they knew they had a good chance of getting away with it. They knew the Nazis didn’t want to risk making an enemy of the Catholic church and Pope.
I’m not sure it was all that brave. And it was for their own, their immediate friends and family. Hardly a selfless act. They weren’t even going to be deported anyway, it turns out.
“The threatening possibility of even wider social unrest prevented the Nazis from being able to harm the non-Jewish protesters…According to Dr. Nagler and Nathan Stoltzfus, the predicament was too much for Hitler, who reportedly passed off responsibility by saying “I wash my hands of this.” Joseph Goebbels caved in to the pressure, decided that harming the protesters would trigger mass social unrest, and released the Jewish spouses. Most of them also survived the rest of the war.”
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5966792/rosenstrasse_how_nonviolence_prevailed.html
Don’t get me wrong: these people were entitled to look out for their own. And they did take a gamble that they might be harmed i.e. they displayed courage. But let’s not pretend that an act of Christian tribalism was some kind of universal protest against the Nazi regime and its Jewish policy in general, because it wasn’t.
What does it say about you for lauding it so much, especially over such as Katzner?
Not much.
As to the Spanish Inquisition etc, I am glad you agree me. I am not sure of the relevance of Spanish imperialism, except that it was the Reconquista that placed so many formally Andalusian Jews within its remit, many to most of whom had been fleeing the now persecutory Islamic regime of the Almoravids. And did I say anything about Islamic/Arab anti-semitism? I said nothing. Of course Jews fled to Islamic North Africa and elsewhere, and found refuge.
However, in the 20th century, when a Jewish state was born against the attempt of Palestinian and other Arab Muslims (or even Christians) to subject, expel or eliminate the Jews of Palestine, Arab Muslims chose to treat largely non- or anti-Zionist ‘Arab’ Jews, not as fellow Arab nationals, but as fellow Jewish nationals of Palestinian or Israeli Jews. According with their oldest Islamic (and Christian) traditions of Jews as people originally dispossessed of temple, city and land as a punishment for their rejection of Jesus and the prophets. Thus they effectively expelled them, either directly or indirectly, by discriminatory legislation that made ‘Arab’ Jewish life impossible.
It wasn’t a logical reaction, necessarily (it depends how you define ‘logical’), but it was the only way they felt they could take revenge for the perceived wrong against them by the Jewish people.
Thus Arab Muslims were (usually) tolerant, so long as they were imperially dominant. Less so when not. Especially towards Jews, who were supposed to be at the bottom of the pile.
As to Avi Shlaim’s criticism of Martin Gilbert’s work. Well, when Shlaim undertakes to write a history of the Jews of Islam, his criticism will carry weight. Until then, Gilbert needn’t pay him much mind.
Anyway, we have only Shlaim’s word that the book is insufficiently analytical, and he has an agenda of his own in shooting down the work of Martin Gilbert, to further his career, and ingratiate himself with his employers. He is ‘their’ Professional Ex-Israeli. He has to deliver the goods, especially in these straitened times.
In any case, you cannot analyse the past before you describe it, before you have facts, which happened, to analyse a priori. Shlaim’s is a very parasitical kind of criticism. It relies on someone’s else doing the hard graft so that you can snipe from the sidelines. Happily it is unlikely to interfere with the reception of the work on its actual merits.
In fact, you want analysis? Here’s analysis: you merely DESCRIBED the fact of Arab Islamic tolerance (in some regions) from the 16th century (as a response to a STRAW ASSERTION, which I didn’t make). You didn’t ANALYSE under what conditions it came, with what strings attached, and WHY.
“Clearly most Palestinians are descended from Jewish farmers who became christianised”
Oh, yes, ‘clearly’. You did fail third form science and history, didn’t you? (And spelling: can’t even spell my name correctly). What a joke you are. Sadly, a Jew-hating joke. And relying on Sand (not ‘Sands’ illiterate prat), another illiterate prat with no background in this field, is way beyond parody.
“I do claim that Hamas/Hizbollah don’t advocate extermination of Jews.”
Sadly for you, you utterly ridiculous and illiterate clown, they say they do. Loudly and clearly.
“British Muslims are clearly opponents of British racism and fascism”
You don’t actually know what the word ‘fascism’ means, do you, prat?
A very large percentage of British Muslims support terrorist attacks against Jews qua Jews. That’s called racism.
“Modern Israeli archeology is a fraud”
What a monumental wanker, clearly without the slightest familiarity with the field, simply screeching something he read on a neo-Nazi website. And then this ignorant clown, who does nothing but spout Jew-hating slogans, screeches this:
“[Jonathan] doesn’t listen to an argument, he repeats a slogan”.
Brass neck isn’t even in it.
Kicked any shins lately?
Yoni
Are you are really incapable of putting up a posting without insulting people?
Sorry,your attempt to justify yourself by saying that Daniel started it strikes me as a little pathetic.
Yoni listen:
YOU ARE OVER 60 YEARS OLD!
YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER!
I’m beginning to understand why we kicked you out of Israel.
You didn’t ‘kick me out of Israel’, you vile antisemitic shit.
Actually I have an hours degree in Chemistry and Mathematics. no matter Yoni, I’m sure there was some purpose to your jibe but I can’t for the life of me think what it is.
Sholmo Sands, a Professor of History at Tel Aviv is an ‘illiterate prat’. Oh dear. Do words mean anything to you Yoni?
Clearly you know nothing about British Muslims. I’m not aware of any desire to attack Jewish targets. You must be confused with settler attacks on Palestinians and yes, even Christian evangelists.
But I can’t believe Michael. Over 60 years old and learnt so little? It always puzzles me that ardent Zionists can’t continue living in Israel. Surely it’s not true that you were kicked out was it? Do tell more!
tony greenstein said…
“Actually I have an hours degree in Chemistry and Mathematics”
No “hours” degree in English I see.
“Sholmo Sands, a Professor of History at Tel Aviv is an ‘illiterate prat’”
Once again tony, it’s sholmo SAND, you illiterate twit.
BTW tony what do you make of your peace loving Muslim friends who, as in this photo, threaten europe with its own 9/11?
And his field is cinema, not Jewish history. He doesn’t understand the significance of DNA tagging, and swallows nonsense like the Khazar myth whole. And I forgot to say in my other post: Are Yemenite Jews ‘Khazars’ too, then?
If Greenstein has a ‘degree in chemistry’, it must be from the Vilnius Hairdressing and Chemistry Correspondence College.
Goodness, an hours degree? I am impressed. Almost as good as a Mickey Mouse Degree.
Someone ignorant of recent(ish) DNA evidence linking Jews to the ME is an illiterate prat, yes. That makes you and Sand illiterate prats.
Anyone trotting out the idiotic myth of the Jews being ‘Khazars’ is an illiterate prat, yes.
Anyone saying “Clearly [sic] most Palestinians are descended from Jewish farmers who became christianised” is an illiterate prat with no more grasp of history and science than my cat.
I’d like to know, too, whether Israeli archaeology being a ‘fraud’ means that no Jews ever existed. I suppose the finds were planted there by 6′ green lizards who came down in the chariots of the gods.
Kicked any shins lately, illiterate prat?
Tony,
I think you are quite wise ignoring Yoni as he does have notoriously, foul mouth. Michael is trying to help him with that, and his anger management issues, but it’s a protracted and thankless undertaking and still very early into treatment. We’re all hoping for the best.
You’re posting was most interesting. I note that you wrote:
“And I’m an atheist in fact, a Jewish atheist!”
I found this especially fascinating because most of the Jewish atheists I know seem to manifest their Judaism through Zionism. I was wondering how you express your Jewish identity. Are you proud to be a Jew? If so, what exactly are you proud of? Do you see assimilation as a blessing or as a curse? I have many more questions but those will do for now.
Regards,
Daniel
“I think you are quite wise ignoring Yoni as he does have notoriously, foul mouth.”
This, from the moron who compared me to something he’d scraped off his show.
Interesting that this parasite finds it easier to be chummy with a vile hater like Greenstein than with someone who served 4 years more in the IDF than he ever did.
Apologies to all (but not to the moron), sticky keyboard. That should be ‘shoe’.
And yes, Goldman, someone who claims the right to ‘kick out of Israel’ any Jew he doesn’t like is an antisemite.
Yet another antisemite has been uncovered by Yoni.
Greenstein, your case falls apart with several outlandish, and unsubstantiated claims. Indeed, mnany of them are demonstrably false.
Firstly, you try to present Hamas’ antisemitism as being no more dangerous than anything that can be found in either Judaism or Christianity. So the fact that Hamas uses the most disgusting antisemitic language in its charter, claiming Jews rule the world, all the banks and the media, is simply whirtewashed by you. None of these allegations against all Jews are religiously justified – it is racial antisemitism, the kind you yourself say leads to genocide. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, referred to as factual in the charter, is not from the Quran, Greenstein.
You claim that Hamas’ charter merely talks about the Jews being exterminated at the end of days. That is not how it is interpreted by adherents of Hamas. They use such verses to justify the killing of Jews now, today – nothing to do with end of days (as if it would be OK if it were merely about such a time). It is not how YOU interpret it, Greenstein, it is about how the Islamists of Hamas interpret it.
Furthermore, Hamas’ treatment of women, religious minorities, and indeed the brutal crushing of any dissent, again, simply doesn’t register with you at all. Such a whitewashing can only be motivated by the most extreme and callous determination to cover up the crimes of such an administration, in order to propagate ridiculous and shameful propaganda. In short, Greenstein, it simply isn’t honest.
You say you don’t know any supporters of Hamas. Well, they won an election (as we are constantly told). So maybe you are rather selective about who you talk to, and hide away from the extreme antisemitism which is endemic in Palestinian society. There are numerous polls demonstrating this antisemitism, and with a little rudimentary research, you would find it.
Your obsession with this shopkeeper is truly bizarre. You accuse Zionists of having the double standard, when it is in fact you who is displaying the most absurd double standard. It is you who claims to be most upset at a passing remark (and I do not defend such a remark, although I do appreciate that sometimes one can lash out with something when one is repeatedly taunted, and feeling hurt and angry – apparently you have never said anything in the heat of the moment in your entire life which you regret that must be great to be sp perfect Greenstein). Your double standard is that you are terribly vexed by this remark, yet whitewash repeatedly the antisemitism of people you march with, those openly supporting antisemitic terror groups. To you, this shopkeeper poses a greater threat to the future of the Jews than the Islamist genocidal philosophy of Hamas and Hizbollah, funded and supported by the Holocaust denying tyranny in Tehran. That is absurd Greenstein, completely lacking in any logic or perspective.
Furthermore, your insinuation that Zionists are Nazis in another guise is utterly disgusting. Your accusation that those who came from the death camps, going to Israel with renewed hope as Zionists, are akin to Nazis, is deeply offensive – it is in fact beyond grotesque. All your theories about Jews’ genocidal wishes against the Palestinians are bogus – it hasn’t happened, has it Greenstein, and there is no public appetite in Israel for it to happen either, as you well know. Your judging of an entire nation on the example of a handful of individuals is itself racist. Which other country gets judged by such parameters? For you, only Israel. Only in Israel must every single member of society be perfect. If they are not, then the whole country must be rubbished and demonized. So you paint Israel as the most racist and genocidal, whilst the Arab world is all light and a beacon of human rights. It is the moral inversion of the world.
Just examine where the genocide and ethnic cleansing is taking place, Greenstein. Whilst the Arab and non-Jewish population both within Israel and in Judea, Samaria and Gaza continues to grow apace, the Jewish populations of almost every Arab nation has practically disappeared. The Arab League, of which the Palestinian Authority is a part, excuses the genocide of Darfur, whilst a new genocide against the Kurds is taking place, at the hands of Syria, Turkey, and Iran. These aren’t theoretical, they are real.
And only a completely irrational person, consumed with visceral hatred, could shout abuse at a String Quartet because it comes from Israel. I would never dream of screaming at a Palestinian Quartet, and this sorry incident simply exposes the hatred that belies your political theories.
And we all know where such hatred leads.
Tony
I must to admit to feeling somewhat offended, in that you failed to relate to a single one of my points, or perhaps flattered that they were too difficult to answer.
The only recognition I have received of late on the blog has been Yoni calling me a pathetic little wanker or something to that effect.
But I think bad reviews are better than no reviews at all.
In any event it has been a lonely lonely Xmas.
I think I can trump that one with:
“hate-consumed anal-retentive with a severe form of OCD…”
And that was without a single word of Aramaic!
Happy New Goyshe Year!!
Tony Greenstein has a degree in chemistry
Gert Meyers from Bridlington is a (lapsed?) chemist
there must be something in the vapours that turns the brain to mush?
I’ve read pages and pages of Churchill worrying about his countrymenand listening to hours of Brits talking about history and philosophy I found them compared to my countrymen pleasantly sane
until I “met” Tony Greenstein
Daniel I’ll reply later to your point about Jewish atheism as I must make dinner for my kids!
Cripes, imagine having this vile loser for a father.
Silke is trying to make amends by reading Churchill. She shouldn’t bother. He was a racist and anti-Semite. On second thoughts it’s probably apt!
I’m sorry Nick to to have replied to you. It was not deliberate.
Joachim Prinz was never the “leader of the German Zionists” as you erroneously wrote. Not that was probably Kurt Blumenfeld if anyone was but he was an Executive Member for many years and was later Deputy Chairman of the World Jewish Congress, so he wasn’t someone who was just a minor functionary, which was my point.
You say that he ‘was a Zionist who was one of the most outspoken opponents to National Socialism and he even used some Nazi invective and rhetoric to encourage Jews to leave Germany.’ He certainly wanted German Jews to leave Germany for Palestine, though he emigrated to the USA, but as he states in his article for New Palestine of 17.9.37. ‘the majority of the German Jews considered the Zionists to be men of evil who agreed with the Nazis.’ Because of course both agreed Jews did not belong in Germany. This was relating to a speech in 1930.
He also says in the same article that ‘it was morally disturbing to seem to be considered as the favored children of the Nazi Government, particularly when it dissolved the anti-Zionist youth groups, and seemed in other ways to prefer the Zionists. The Nazis asked for a ‘more Zionist behavior.’
If you read his interview with Lenni Brenner [51 Documents, pp. 103-110] Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis’ in response to the memo of the ZVfD that ‘The realialization of Zionism could only be hurt by resentment of Jews abroad against the German development. Boycott propaganda – such as is currently being carried on against Germany in many ways – is in essence un-Zionist…’ (p.109) admits that ‘We were mistaken. It was a romantic notion. We thought now, listen, there’s a German government now, based upon a German nationalism. Well, let’s sit down togetehr and talk to them. But it never happened.’
I don’t think t his is quite compatible with your assessment of him as a hero who opposed the Nazis. He certainly made no such claim. I object to notions of ‘purity of race and nation’ which holds that humanity is divided into these artificial and abstract categories for which millions have died. It has nothing to do with being politically correct.
I know nothing about the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine. You will have to ask Joe.
Adam is as per usual wide of the mark. I’ve never heard anyone, bar Zionists, refer to Hamas’s Charter. It is a fig leaf. Look Hamas is a movement of Political Islam. Not something a socialist supports. I wouldn’t have voted Hamas but for Palestinian independents. But they were the largest faction voted in by Palestinian voters and Fateh and the Israeli & US governments set about removing them from the scene. Israel has arrested many of their parliamentary members, it has enforced a collective siege of Gaza for that reason, it has bombed Gaza for a month to destroy the Hamas government, with the support of Abbas and Mubarak, so yes I support it against attack whilst not supporting its politics.
Why is that so difficult to understand? Hamas uses the Protocols to explain Zionism which is somewhat different from using them to explain the historica anti-Semitic notion of Jewish control of money, trade etc. It is a useless explanation, but then they are not anti-imperialists.
The Jewish populations of the Arab lands migrated to Israel after 1948. After the expulsion of the Palestinians in the name of the Jewish State. A state that claimed to be a state of Jews wherever they lived. Is it any surprise that some took them at their word? And still, in Iraq, Zionist emissaries, as has been very well documented in Israel (Haolem Hazeh July 1966 for one) see Marion Woolfson’s Prophets in Babylon, had to go round planting bombs outside cafes Jews frequented and outside the Masuda Shemtov synagogue to simulate anti-Semitism.
But that was always the aim of Zionism. To empty other countries of their Jews and to petition in some cases (Germany, USA) against their immigration. Jews incidentally do have the right to return to those countries and in some cases have done so.
Daniel asks about my statement that I am ‘“And I’m an atheist in fact, a Jewish atheist!” If you are brought up in the shadow of the Holocaust, the first books I read were by Lord Russell about Auschwitz and the Japanese prisoner of war camps, then you have to be aware of what being Jewish meant. That led to my first political involvement which was not so much anti-Zionist as anti-fascist. I was aware that Zionists were not interested in anti-fascist work, because as an Israeli emissary explained you can only combat it by going on Aliyah!
There is a Jewish tradition of the Bund, the fight for socialism and justice, against fascism, dissidence etc. Spinoza and Heine, Marx and Freud and Trotsky. This is different from the barren Israeli wastelands which are reproducing the worst examples of European nationalist of the 1930’s. When even Israeli papers talk about this being 1932 then you need to start asking some serious questions. http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/12/israelis-fear-danger-of-fascism.html
Maybe some Jewish atheists do express their Jewish identity (not Judaism unless idolatory and worship of the state is their religion) through Zionism. I would suggest nationalism as an identity of this type is the most barren of all.
My goodness Greenstein – what planet do you inhabit – your mind is very muddled and your ideas/knowledge confused. Who has time to try and make sense of what you say. It has exhausted me so much I have to retire for a rest!!
Tony Greenstein: When will you stop regurgitating the Iraq story as if it is incontrovertible fact. see
http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2007/04/seven-myths-about-jews-from-arab.html
” In the Iraqi case no one will ever know for certain who planted bombs in 1950 -51, but three of the five episodes occurred after the vast majority of the Jews had already left or were leaving – and caused no casualties. The Israeli ‘new’ historian Tom Segev has produced evidence blaming the only fatal bombing on Iraqi nationalists. In his book Une si longue presence, Nathan Weinstock makes the point that only the Iraqi police possessed the no. 36 high potential grenades used in the bombings. Besides, the two Zionist ‘culprits’ executed in January 1952, whose confessions were extracted under torture, were never accused of the fatal bombing of 14 January 1951.”
Winston Churchill was a class-conscious Brit – once somebody had decent Polo-Ponies he was a gentleman by Churchill’s reckoning and the rest didn’t interest him. Another standard he judged people by was how they stood up under fire and again he didn’t grade courageousness by colour.
All those people ponitificating about Churchill who haven’t read him and thereby missed one of the best writers of our time. If one Literature Nobel in recent decades has been awarded to the right person it was the one Churchill got.
And all those who are sniping are just green with envy when they realise that one can write a page turner and a tell it all without having to spell it out.
As one might expect from a mendacious Trot who disrupts classical music concerts, Greenstein’s scholarship is significantly flawed. Sand’s book for example was never peer-reviewed and has been roundly criticised:
http://cifwatch.com/2009/11/10/shlomo-the-sandlout/
Sand’s field of expertise is not Jewish history, it is French cinema history
And yet again the mendacious Trot Greenstein attempts his pathetic smear about me and the EDL, in the full knowledge that the lie has been comprehensively skewered:
http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/ahava-counter-demo-14-august-phone-interview-the-guardian
http://www.guardian.co..uk/politics/2010/aug/17/stephen-bates-diary-eric-pickles
Now let Greenstein tell you about his history, including rigging a poll to try to frame me.
http://hurryupharry.org/2010/10/15/tony-greenstein-wants-rabbis-to-support-the-edl/
Greenstein, your appalling assertions are false and repugnant in the extreme.
You again make this accusation of Zionists being Nazis – it is a disgusting slur, accusing Jews who support Jewish self-determination of being Nazis, whilst simultaneoulsy whitewashing the whole history of Jews in Arab lands. Thus centuries of dhimmitude are wiped away at a stroke, whilst the fact that almost no Jews are left in Iraq is casually explained away as being the product of the work of Zionists.
Greenstein, in the 1920’s – that is, in living memory for some, almost 40% of Baghdad was Jewish – 40 %! Now, not one Jew is left in the whole of Iraq. Is it really likely that every Jew in the country left of their own free will? How likely is that? You need a serious reality check. Indeed, you accuse Jews in Arab lands of bringing antisemitism on themselves – a totally repugnant position – that the victim brings it on themselves. Thus the bloody pogroms as seen across the Arab world, and in Jerusalem and Hebron, as elsewhere, is wiped away as an inconvenient truth. Similarly, you accept without hesitation that any Palestinian state must be cleansed of Jews.
You then again whitewash Hamas’ antisemitism – your efforts in this direction would be laughable if they were not so hideously grotesque. Unable to bring yourself to condemn a virulently antisemitic tract, the Hamas founding charter, you simply ignore it. This is the tactic of every obsessive Israel hater – when cornered with evidence, they claim that the evidence isn’t important. So you explain away the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as merely “anti-Zionist” – when you know full well that this antisemitic tract is not a response to Zionism. Hamas’ advocacy of genocide is similarly explained away – you tried initially to claim this was merely based in religion – and when it was pointed out to you that the whole charter, which rejects any notion of peace, (and specifically says that Jihad is the ONLY true path to create an Islamic world) is full of antisemitic libels and bigotry, you then claim it is merely a response to Zionism (based on what?)
It is hardly as though Hamas acts in a completely different way to its charter – Hamas terrorists celebrate the killing of innocent life – especially if it is Jewish life. Hizbollah’s Nasrallah has said that it is good that the Jews gather in Israel, as it will save hizbollah the trouble of going after them worldwide. None of this matters to you, because it causes you such cognitive dissonance that, unable to address it, you ignore it.
Your support for Hamas against “attack” (let’s ignore 8,000 rockets on southern Israel) is absurd. Why should Israel not defend its southern towns? Egypt operates a total blockade of Gaza (unlike Israel, which sends thousands of tonnes of supplies to Gaza, and power, even though Hamas occasionally rockets the power station supplying their own power. That is on top of the thousands of Gazans who receive free medical treatment in Israel). Hamas fires rockets into Israel, but not Egypt, thus exposing the lie that the rockets are a response to the “blockade”.
You have ignored several other points made to you, and you return to your default position. You also ignore your despicable behaviour to some musicians on the basis of their nationality. In short, you are an indoctrinated extremist who advocates antisemitic and racist views.
Furthermore, your contention that Churchill was antisemitic is complete rot.
Christ Greenstein, I’d hate to be inside your head.
I hate being on the same planet as him.
Yes Silke, Churchill was a class conscious Brit. Just as Goring was a class conscious German. And your point? By the way which German far-right party do you support? You are what they used to call a volksdeutsche I assume?
The story about the Iraqi bombs is quite true and the torture in Iraq then, a pro-British/indeed totally controlled British regime, is of course to be condemned so let’s hope you condemn the routine use of torture against Israelis. The story itself is corroborated, factually true beyond doubt and Segev’s post-faco rationalisation doesn’t wash. they were caught with explosives on them.
In Haolem Hazeh of 20.4.66. a report described how ’25 years ago there were whispers about ‘Cruel Zionism’ but only now is the most secret affair in the history of the State of Israel revealed.. On one point all the immigrants who followed the ‘Iraq Afffair’ closely, or were involved in it, including the families of those who were hanged… were agreed that they praised Haolam Hazeh for its decision to expose the secret….’
Kadouri Saleem, said: ‘I was wounded by the bomb. The court ruled that the bomb had been thrown by the Movement [Zionist Underground]. The government of Israel should give me compensation…’
But the clincher was the evidence of Yehuda Tajar, an official of the Israeli Foerign Ministry who becamse an attache at the Israeli Embassy in London. He was a Zionist agent who was sent to Baghdad from Israel in 1950 on what he described as ‘a national mission’ and he added that he was caught out through a Palestinian Arab who served coffee in the office of the military police in Acre, where Tajar had been an officer…. He broke down under questioning and took the police from one synagogue to another, showign them how he had hidden his weapons which had been stockpiled from the Second World War. [HH 20.4.66]
A reporter Baruch Nadel, who was sued for libel by Mordechai ben Porat an ex-Labour MK, wrote that ‘Zionism not having saved the Jews of Europe round itself after the Second World War without a useful objective. To give a moral justificatio to the existence of their country, the Zionists looked for a way to ‘save’ other Jews in spite of themselves. The omly Jews with whom this would be possible were those of the Arab world.’ Jeunne Afrique, 22.2.78. The evidence which came out makes it pretty clear what the role of the Zionist secret agents in Iraq was and not just in Iraq. Bombs were thrown in Jewish places in Morocco among and other countries.
When the Zionists mounted a campaign among Iraqi Jews in Israel against the execution of the Zionist agents, they found that the attitude among most exiles was ‘This is God’s revenge against the movement that brought us to such depths.’ [The Arabs & the Holocaust, Gilbert Achcar, p.197, al Saqi Books, 2010].
As I said the story is best told by Marion Woolfson pp. 182-201 and David Hirst. The Gun and the Olive Branch, 2003, pp. 281-290, Nation Books.
As for my good friend, the lovable Jonathan Hoffman, all I can really say Jonathan is that quoting yourself isn’t guaranteed to prove that something is true! Given your recent apology for ahem not telling the full story about pictures of you and the EDL I’d have thought a period of silence from you wouldn’t go amiss.
By the way now you have decided not to ignore the little matter of Jews Killing Christ a little condemnation rather than sympathy for the anti-Semite wouldn’t go amiss! Or has Roberta Moore really made an impression on your heart?
Tony
Congratulations
for the time being you are my No. 1 Mr. Ridiculous
but since you are so keen on my ancestry –
here is a bit of knowledge for you to evaluate and nonsense about
One of my grandfathers is said to have made the money necessary to feed his wife and his kids by working on construction of the Baghdad Bahn.
Greenstein
Answer the points I have put to you.
On the basis of three words, “because you’re Jewish”, Greenstein is accusing a shop worker of being an anti-Semite. But if a Zionist did this against the likes of him he would accuse them of playing the anti-Semitism card. Greenstein is as big a hypocrite as they come. And Greenstein says nothing of the obvious bullying of this woman.
Adam provides an excellent example of the Zionist method of distortion.
‘You again make this accusation of Zionists being Nazis – it is a disgusting slur’
I have never said that Zionists are Nazis or anything similar. The Zionist movement and its leadership certainly did collaborate in a number of ways and more importantly obstruct others who sought to fight it but that is a different matter as you well know. I can quite easily cite examples such as Ben Gurion’s statement after Krytalnacht in November 38 that:
‘ “If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the people of Israel.” Yoav Gelber in Yad Vashem Studies, vol. XII
There is no dispute about the accuracy of this quote or similar ones from Ben Gurion or Weizmann or Yitzhak Gruenbaum that given the choice between a Jewish State and saving Jews that the former had priority.
Likewise the accusation of ‘simultaneoulsy whitewashing the whole history of Jews in Arab lands.’ I know these are uncomfortable matters for you, that you have to confront years of hasbara and brainwashing but that is no excuse for deliberate misrepresentation.
There are reasons why Jews prospered in Arab countries, despite a formal status of dhimmitude. The same was true in Poland under feudalsim until capitalism began to rear its head. It was the beginnings of the transition to capitalism, which led to expulsion of the Jews in the 13th century in Britain and likewise in other western European countries to Eastern Europe where they sought refuge. Likewise in Spain where the advent of capitalism began to erode the Jewish position.
When anti-semitism began in earnest with the Pale of Settlement and persecution in Eastern Europe Jews began eventually fled back to the West and USA. In other words there are concrete historical and materialist reasons for what occurred.
More than anything else in Arab countries it was the colonial invasions of France etc. that destabilised the Jews. They were treated as a minority to rule through, favoured in Algeria with the Cremieux Decrees. This produced, as with the Indians in East Africa an antagonism. It is no accident that the 1840 ritual blood libel trial and accusations in Damascus were caused by a group of Franciscan monks and the French consul primarily.
Yes Baghdad was once over 1/3 Jewish. Strange isn’t it that this community, the oldest in the world, vanished when Israel appeared on the scene. Can’t imagine why? And Israel appeared in the late colonial era despite that 2,000 year history that Zionists refer to. Again can’t imagine why if it was always in the breast of every living Jew. Maybe events in Palestine had something to do with it, you never know. Possibly massacring and expelling Palestinians in the name of Jews had something to do with it, just as bombing and starving Gazans in the name of Jews has something to do with Hamas’ Charter. Ever though about things from the point of view of a victim? Or are Jews always right, even when they all with the wrong?
Likewise ‘the bloody pogroms .. in Jerusalem and Hebron’ were in 1929. just 9 years after the Mandate was established. Coincidence when Jews had been present for centuries in Jerusalem as one more religious community? Are you really that dense that you can’t join the dots or is it an unwillingnes to do so?
And why make things up like ‘you accept without hesitation that any Palestinian state must be cleansed of Jews.’ I have never ever called for a Palestinian state. I support one democratic, secular state in which both Jews and Arabs live. Why lie? is your case that weak?
Then I am accused of ‘whitewash(ing) Hamas’ antisemitism’. What is the evidence of this anti-semitism? Do they have different areas for Jews to live in? Different laws like Israel? It’s rhetorical at worst. In fact anti-semitism plays no part in the daily struggle to survive in Gaza despite the overwhelming superiority of Israeli firepower. Anti-semitism is a bogey to disguise your support for the war crimes that are committed by Zionism. Nothing more.
But I am coming round to the idea that your are stupid as you are malevolent. I don’t ‘explain away the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as merely “anti-Zionist” ‘. Their origins are clearly anti-Semitic, as Cohn’s Warrant 4 Genocide demonstrates. In fact this is not true, their origins lie in a radical pamphlet against Napoleon III which metamorphosed into a concoction by the Czarist secret police. What I tried to explain, though obviously u don’t understand is HOW they are used. And for that matter how they are perceived by others such as an oppressed people or some of them at any rate.
Notwithstanding your accusations of ‘genocide’ against Hamas (they’ve probably killed less than 50 Israelis in 10 years compared to at least 7,000 Palestinians who Israel has killed. Their ‘rockets’ are useless compared to Israel’s phosophorous bombs and flechettes etc.
No Egypt does not ‘operate(s) a total blockade of Gaza’, the pro-American dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak does. A little different.
I forgot there was my ‘despicable behaviour to some musicians on the basis of their nationality.’ Nope that’s not true either. The Jerusalem Quartet are ‘distinguished IDF musicians’. If they were merely Israelis, had nothing to do with occupation or repression, had no nationalist banner to fly then they would be left to play their music. But they are, in their own words, ambassadors for Israel, and that is why their concerts have been disrupted. Didn’t Soviet Jewish campaigners do exactly that to Soviet musicians? Wouldn’t it have been right to do so to Furtwangler and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra when they toured here?
In short, you are an indoctrinated extremist who advocates antisemitic
“In fact anti-semitism plays no part in the daily struggle to survive in Gaza ”
Aww, those nasty Jews won’t agree to be subjected to rocket attacks? Bad, bad Jews!
No way is Greenstein sane, and Adam’s patient attempts to engage him in rational discussion are doomed to fail. You can’t use logic with a deranged hater who parades outright lies as a matter of course, and stonewalls factual refutations.
Greenstein avoids the issue of rigging polls and previous misdemeanours, instead producing a strong of academically discredited revisionist authors such as Shlomo Sand, Achcar and Hirst.
http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=31728&pageid=23&pagename=Arts
http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2007/04/seven-myths-about-jews-from-arab.html
A mendacious Trotskyite through and through. What a nasty twisted brain. Prepared to intellectually prostitute himself in the interests of his butter twisted anti-Israel cause.
Greenstein’s Ben Gurion quote (“if Iknew it would be possible…”) ignores the context. See Martin Gilbert’s review of Teveth’s bio of BG for this.
“Was this statement – which, surprisingly, Teveth does not publish – that of a cynic writing off the future of half of Germany’s Jewish children for the sake of a political aim, Jewish statehood? Or was it a desperate attempt to explain to his closest colleagues that without Jewish statehood in Palestine (itself impossible without massive and immediate immigration) no Jews anywhere in the world would be safe from a threat to their survival? One would very much like to believe the latter, though it would have been particularly helpful had Mr. Teveth been able to give us guidance on this point.
Mr. Teveth is in no doubt that in regard to rescue, Ben-Gurion adhered to a ”philosophy of what might be called the beneficial disaster.” This is almost exactly what the British playwright Jim Allen accused Ben-Gurion of in his play ”Perdition,” which recently aroused such indignation among British Jews, myself included. Yet Mr. Teveth is emphatic that before the summer of 1944, when Ben-Gurion and his colleagues first appreciated the true scale of the Holocaust, he regarded it as ”a relatively modest catastrophe that his Zionist concept defined as suitable for exploitation.”
It was only in the early summer of 1944 that the Jewish Agency leaders in Jerusalem realized the full extent of the disaster. Ben-Gurion at once intervened directly with the British authorities in Palestine to try to save the Jews of Hungary, then being deported to Auschwitz, by urging the British to follow up the Gestapo offer of ”blood for goods.” Here again, surprisingly, Mr. Teveth does not refer to Ben-Gurion’s personal appeal to the British High Commissioner in Palestine for acceptance of the Nazi offer (on May 26, 1944). Instead, in a sentence dark with the potential for misuse, Mr. Teveth writes: ”Two facts can be definitively stated: Ben-Gurion did not put the rescue effort above Zionist politics, and he did not regard it as a principal task demanding his personal leadership; he never saw fit to explain why, then or later.” It was not rescue, says Teveth, but the rallying of world Jewry and especially Palestinian Jewry to the creation of a Jewish state, to which Ben-Gurion ”devoted his efforts.” Here we have an oversimplification of motive that may not be sustained by the evidence, for Mr. Teveth abandons at this point in his narrative the rigorous scrutiny of Ben-Gurion’s day-to-day thoughts and activities that is so impressive a feature of this book in the period up to 1940.
“As for my good friend, the lovable Jonathan Hoffman, all I can really say Jonathan is that quoting yourself isn’t guaranteed to prove that something is true! ”
There goes the mendacious Trot again. All my articles – including my ‘review’ of Sand’s bilge – include comprehensive links to reputable academic sources.
Hi Tony,
I’m sure your kids’ supper was delicious and glad I didn’t deprive them of it. How old are they? Mine are 24, 22, 17 and 11.
You write:
“There is a Jewish tradition of the Bund, the fight for socialism and justice, against fascism, dissidence etc. Spinoza and Heine, Marx and Freud and Trotsky.”
I was quite surprised to hear such diverse thinkers grouped together and am sure that you don’t agree with all of them about everything. I have a pretty good idea about what you’re against, but was more interested to know what you’re for.
When you say that you are a Jew, do you just see it as an accident of birth or does that fact demand anything of you? Does it make you different to non-Jews and, if so, how? Are you proud to be a Jew or is it just a fact of life, like person saying that he’s left or right-handed? Do you see assimilation as a blessing, a curse or neither?
You seem like a very interesting person and I’d much rather hear about Tony than about Spinoza or even Trotsky.
Please answer my questions, when you have a chance.
Daniel
All characters appearing in the following play are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Tony: The annals of history prove that the Zionist leadership was prepared to send Jews to their deaths in Germany.
Yoni: Maybe up your historical anal shithole
Tony: The Zionists also covertly planted a couple of bombs in Iraq so that Iraqi Jews would get the blame and then like a David Copperfield magic trick, the entire Iraqi Jewish population would disappear and suddenly emerge in the fledgling Jewish State.
Yoni: Fucking fledgling up your fucking fledgling arse.
Daniel: I think it can be said with no small measure of confidence that a broad level of agreement has been reached between Tony and Yoni.
Yoni: Shut up DM you sanctimonious pathetic piece of shit, who had the gall to compare me to something you scrape off your shoe.
Daniel: How do you say in Aramaic “Go and scrape it off with an Israeli avocado you bought in a North London greengrocer?
Tony: OK, I was busy making a wholesome supper for my children, so I lied about Yoachim Prinz being the leader of the German Zionists – but he was a leader of his synagogue congregation, and he was a Zionist and he was German, so that is good enough for me.
Jonathan Hoffman: By the same logic, Richard Millett can be called the leader of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain.
Richard: I won’t edit that – but for legal reasons, I only edit anti-semites being called anti-semites.
Tony: Up Yours Jonathan
Jonathan: Up Yours Tony
Yoni: Up everyone’s
Tony: On page 134 of “Zionist Caused Drought in Ethiopia” by Gert Meyers and on page 46 of “The Zionists Involvement in the Eritrean Civil War” by I Gobbled Goebbles – the Zionists deliberately bought about these disasters so that Ethiopian Jews could come to Israel to do the jobs no one else would do.
Yoni: You imbecilic wanker tosser fucking cunt shit face (expletives ad infinitum)
Silke: Shut up Yoni
Tony: Shut up Yoni
Michael: Shut up Yoni
Adam: Shut up Yoni
Daniel: A new era of entente cordial and mutual understanding has been reached – and I have come home to my barren Judean hills after having wondered the earth for 2,000 years and I am very thirsty and my good friend Khalib is coming for tea today.
Gamil Elias: Khalib is a traitor and we should throw him off a building – but Yoni is a good man.
Tony: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a disgusting anti-semitic work claiming a Jewish conspiracy for world domination. We all know it was the Zionists who were doing the conspiring. I should know – I read it in a book by Ahmed and Salim.
Nick: The first on your BDS campaign list of the 150 Palestinian Organization (“Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine”) does not really exist and was made up. Doesn’t that bother you at all? Or does your end justify the means however mendacious.
Tony: Not really, because I am very clever, and I have an hours degree in Maffs and Kemistry. It took me “hours” to get.
The audience all applaud Tony’s self-deprecating droll joke.
Yoni – Et tu Tony Brute (he plunges his knife into Tony’s chest while swearing a lot– then the sword of Damocles comes down on Yoni’s head – slicing him in two like an Aramaic cucumber).
The curtain closes – the actors take their bows. And the audience throw Israeli tomatoes at Yoni and vomit on Tony.
This is beyond parody. Greenstein accuses me of distorting things as a result of years of hasbara. I am not Jewish, I did not grow up with hasbara (I’m not even sure what that word means). It is in fact him to makes the most outrageous distortions of history.
Let’s take a look. Obviously on a losing wicket with Hamas’ and Hizbollah’s antisemitism, he first tried to downplay its importance, as if this were a mere sideshow. Then he tried to say it was just religiously inspired. When it is pointed out to him that quotes from the Protocols and other antisemitic slurs have nothing to do with religion, he ignores it. He absolutely refuses to acknowledge that this text betrays the true nature of these organizations. Likewise, quotes from antisemitic speeches by the leaders of these terror organizations are ignored.
There is a simple reason for this: acknowledging the truth of this antisemitism would completely undermine his whole treatise on the evils of the Jews of Israel. It would demonstrate the genocidal mentality which Israel is up against. His failure to address these issues shows the hollowness and hypocrisy of his stated concerns over antisemitism.
Likewise, his conclusions are laughable. He pretends that all was light and good for the Jews in Arab lands til the nasty colonial powers showed up. Thus centuries of dhimmitude (we would call it apartheid now, restricting Jews on where they were allowed to live, what jobs they could have, and higher taxes) is expunged from history. And he then ridiculously concludes that the Jews’ leaving Baghdad was all the fault of the nasty Zionists. So again, those committing pogroms, discriminating against Jews, the confiscation of all Jewish property and indeed expulsions of Jews, by Arabs, is all the fault of the Zionists. Those actually perpetrating these acts bear no responsibiliy for them. Simply disgusting revisionism Greenstein.
And the fact that they left after Israel was created could, Greenstein, could just have something to do with the fact that the Jews now had somewhere to run to? The possibility doesn’t even enter your head. Is it really likely that they would ALL leave by choice, if everything was so wonderful? Isn’t it strange that Jews from Arab countries have a rather different reading of the situation than you?
As for your comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (regarding your despicable actions against a String Quartet), this really betrays your lunacy. Do I need to remind you of the crimes of Nazi Germany? And the Soviet gulag system which murdered millions? If you truly believe that the Jewish state is so evil that it warrants inclusion alongside both these genocidal entities, then you are simply someone who has taken leave of their senses, and is motivated by such a visceral hatred that you cannot think rationally.
Re. bombs in Iraq
Mordechai Ben Porat (see To Baghdad and Back) actually won his libel case against Haolam Hazeh: this cleared the Zionist underground of any involvement in the fatal bombing of January 1951, and Tajar gave evidence in support of Ben Porat. As amie says (above) the grenades used were Iraqi police issue and most of the Jews had already registered to leave Iraq by the time this bombing occurred. The Muslim peddlars in front of the synagogue were tipped off and mysteriously disappeared moments before the grenades were thrown.
Iraq was not a British protectorate at the time – it was fully independent. My family are witnesses to the reign of terror and climate of fear – Jews were not allowed to work, travel or study, they were arrested and interrogated at random and people were executed on trumped-up charges. Most of all Jews feared a repeat of the 1941 Farhud when 180 Jews were murdered. What are your excuses for that, Tony Greenstein?
Nick K
I object to being misquoted, I never said “Shut up Yoni”
and I judge chances of my ever saying that exceedingly slim
bataween
Greenstein doesn’t do facts he travels in libel and chickens out when called to substantiate.
Take this for a typical example from him to me:
“You are what they used to call a volksdeutsche I assume?”
it translates into Gert’s more direct Nazigirrrl
and if confronted about it will give him the opportunity to throw around heaps of other brown and brownish stuff.
Yoni-bashing by sucking up to Greenstein is IMHO inexcusably bad manners.
Nick you are Zionist pig!
I am objecting to been misqoted also. I never saying:
” we should throw him off a building”
but,
“we should to throw him of a building.” My english is very bad or maybe am I Yossi Eliyahu very funny in the beginning?
Yoni is a fouled-mouth and good man!
Regards,
Gamil
Thanks. I’d call it somewhat worse than poor manners, myself … 🙂
Silke
Nick made it very clear that All characters appearing in the play are fictitious.
He was obviously refering to a different Silke.
Mr. Goldman
thanks for adding another insult – you must consider me to be even more stupid than I consider myself to be
Well, these feral idiots hunt in packs, like hyenas. And like all racists, they attack anyone who exhibits less than total hatred for the object of their revulsion.
You think of yourself as stupid? Why on earth would you? You must be thick if you really think that 🙂
Yoni
a mid-19th century retelling of Homer was the first book that really got me, either that or I, Claudius – both were considered to be suitable for kids as soon as they could read at the time (lucky me).
Both books told me about hubris and the wrath of the gods. As I found the Olympians very convincing and much more comprehensible than what I was told in religion lesson in school*) I picked up the habit of trying to not make them jealous. 😉
*) why should I wallow in delight about a guy having nails driven through his hands and feet?
Re Yehuda Tajar, ben Porat and the Baghdad bombs. Porat may have won the libel action. So did Kastner. But most people know a political decision when they see one and Iraqi Jews, as Achcar and others have shown. Jews forced to come to Israel knew better just as Hungarian Jews knew better than Supreme Court judges out to save a falling Zionist establishment.
My good friend Hoffman puts his big feet in it again. He summons Martin Gilbert, who as Avi Shlaim says is not an analytical but a descriptive historian, to criticise Ben Gurion’s biographer, Shabtai Teveth. What an absurd hack you are Jonathan. Teveth bends over backwards to exonerate Ben Gurion of everything. Ben Gurion didn’t realise after 1944 what the holocaust mean, he actually said Jews were doomed to physical extinction BEFORE the war. The Jewish Agency, despite holding on to the information about the holocaust for 3 months with Stephen Wise, until November 1942, knew exactly what was going on. The idea that it was just a continuation of historical pogroms is absurd and shows that your only role Jonathan is to rebut any criticism of Israel, Zionism and its founders. Even the most distinguished and rigorous of academic scholars are subject to your propaganda.
Virtually all historians who know something about Zionism and the holocaust come to the same conclusions as Teveth does, extremely reluctantly in his case. Segev, Noah Lucas, Walter Lacquer, Teveth. Gilbert is just an establishment historian who exonerated Churchill of the most outrageous racism and anti-Semitism. Just like you in fact! I have a post on Avi Shlaim’s review of a Gilbert book in the past few days so you can read that and learn!
Adam’s bluster isn’t worth replying to.
Very good play Nick. Yoni particularly shone in though I could have had more than a bit part!
Daniel I will again reply to u later as I must do some work.
Oh and one final word to Adam and Jonathan. When you excuse ‘Christ-killer’ comments then you demonstrate that you have no concerns about anti-Semitism, but are only concerned with labelling political opponents as anti-Semitic. Adam has no reason to care as he’s not Jewish. You are Jewish Mr Hoffman yet you excuse any amount of far-right anti-Semitism from the EDL, Silke and now from the unnamed shop keeper. Of course Hamas is a good excuse but we all know the real reason. Because as Herzl noted ‘the anti-Semites will be our most dependable friends… our allies.” pp. 83/4 Diaries.
Here we have Greenstein’s vulnerability on display yet again. He tries: “Adam’s bluster isn’t worth replying to.”
Notice how, when cornered on the issue of Hamas’ and Hizbollah’s antisemitism, Greenstein becomes literally speechless. He doesn’t know how to get out of it. So he labels it “bluster”.
Greenstein, the evidence is irrefutable. Both organizations’ founding documents are disgusting antisemitic tracts. Leaders from both terror organizations have made the most grotesque racist and antisemitic remarks. These are a matter of public record, unlike your “interpretations” of Israel’s history. Yet you refuse to condemn them. Why Greenstein? Yet you are terribly affronted by an Ahava shopkeeper. Do you relize how ridiculous you look?
As for bombs in Iraq – so what? What’s your big point here? That if the Jews had indeed been responsible (and it is not clear that they were), then they had it coming? The Arabs could not help but unleash the wave of terror as described by bataween, whose family have first hand experience?
Interesting, isn’t it, that palestinians detonating bombs on buses, on schools, in cafes and restaurants in Israel are not met with waves of terror against the Arab population. If such a phenomenon occurred, you would be the first to start screaming about it. Yet in the case of a handful of such occurrences (of questionable origin, unlike the attacks in Israel), you have no problem accepting that the Jews had such a wave of violence coming.
Notice that he also avoids dealing with his repulsive comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
Greenstein, deal with the issues put to you – if you can. All else is diversionary bluster on your part.
Greenstein, your comment that I don’t care about Jews is a lie. I care deeply. That is why I care about Israel, her people, and the future of the Jewish people. And your accusation that I “excuse” antisemitic comments is utterly groundless. On what do you base this allegation?
Withdraw it immediately.
If you think I’m vulnerable fine. We all are. But not on account of anything you’ve written Adam. Hamas and Hezbollah represent the damned of the earth, people subject to ceaseless attack by the latest military hardware of Israel, in the name of the ‘Jewish State’. Unsurprisingly they blame the Jews!!
Even a child of 6, let alone a moron of your age could understand that simple point.
Just as firing rockets into Israel is a response to the attacks on Gaza and occupation and siege over 40+ years. Is that so difficult to understand? Given Israel has lost 20 people to those rockets and Gaza has suffered over 7,000 casualties, its a ratio of about 1:350, more than the Nazis exacted against Jews in reprisals against Greece. Congratulations.
‘As for bombs in Iraq – so what? What’s your big point here?’ Isn’t it obvious? Zionists setting off bombs to cause Jews to leave the country is rather at odds with the picture of them as refugees and says a lot about Zionism’s true aims, which were not about being a refuge from persecution. Simple? Obviously not to you.
Palestinians detonated bombs on buses etc. in response to continual attacks on Palestinian civilians. The difference is that the suicide bomber dies, the airplane pilot doesn’t. Nonetheless I condemn such attacks, unlike you. There haven’t been such attacks in recent years, thanks to a vigorous campaign among Palestinians to put an end to them but Israeli attacks have continued regardless.
My comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel are on my blog, not least my latest post of an excellent article by Lenni Brenner!!
Happy now I’ve wasted a couple of minutes replying to u?
Greenstein, careful, you mask is beginning to slip. Now you’re bandying words like “moron” around, I know I’ve got you on the ropes. And there you were attacking Jonathan.
How unsurprising you reduce the conflict to a body count. Using such “logic”, the Nazis were the victims of the Allies. After all, 10 Grman civilians were killed for every single British civilian, in indiscriminate and deliberate bombing raids on German civilians. And the Jews were supporting the Allied war effort. Hardly surprising then, is it, using your outstanding logic, that the Germans had a problem with Jews.
The problem with such equations is that they ignore cause and effect.
By “occupation” of Gaza, I assume you mean the Egyptian occupation between 1948-67? No? And as for the rockets, which you now justify (again showing your true colours), you claim this is due to the blockade and non-existant “occupation”. Then why are rockets fired exclusively at Israel Greenstein, and not Egypt? As you have previously ignored, Israel operates a PARTIAL blockade, whilst Egypt operates a TOTAL blockade. Not one missile has landed in Egypt Greenstein.
Now just who is making excuses for antisemitism? Your refusal to condemn Hamas’ and Hizbollah’s antisemitism (indeed, your sickening defence of it), whilst simultaneously accusing me of defending antisemitism (and I note you have retreated on that front as well), demonstrates a breathtaking hypocrisy. I suppose the antisemitism of the Palestinian leadership dating back to the 1930’s is all the fault of the Zionists as well.
Your case is absurd – and you know it.
“My good friend Hoffman puts his big feet in it again … what an absurd hack you are Jonathan”
In his normal Trot way, Greenstein resorts to personal vilification when he loses an intellectual argument and ignores irrefutable evidence which proves him wrong. The more he vilifies me, the more intellectually bankrupt he proves himself. What a twisted, nasty piece of work.
The problem with Greenstein is he doesn’t do cause and effect (he claims to be some sort of science graduate, innit?).
Rockets from Gaza at Israel? Why, it’s the fault of the Jews for occupying Gaza. Except they’d left some while back now, but never mind: on Planet Greenstein, the arrow of time points backwards, forwards and sideways, providing always that the result is that everything is the fault of the Jews.
There is a clinical name for this condition: paranoid schizophrenia. You see it a lot among Jew-haters.
Tony Greenstein has no intellectual ability to put forward any constructive defense of his self-hating anti-semitic rhetoric. All his points are comprehensively destroyed by amber and Jonathan Hoffman. That is why he has his own blog on which he can fill the pages with the most vile mendacious anti-semitism that his little 2 -digit IQ can muster. As for quoting Avi Shlaim, a self-hating useful idiot who has no credibility and has made a joke of the word “professor”.
You would have thought after more that 30 years of playing student politics, Tony Greenstein would have grown up by now and got a proper job, evidently not.
It would take a 10-digit IQ to offer a constructive defence of his self-hating anti-semitic rhetoric 🙂
Nah, I don’t think it can be done.
I guess it must be nice to live in a self-contained bubble. I think most people will understand the difference between actual anti-semitism i.e. christ-killer stuff and working with the EDL and support for Palestinians and opposition to Zionism (‘self-hating’ etc.) itself a Nazi concept that if one opposes one’s nation one hates oneself.
It’s no accident that most people here make excuses for what the Ahava worker said.
“I guess it must be nice to live in a self-contained bubble”
Well, you should know, you are the expert. I have rarely come across anyone as persistent as you in denying reality, excusing the inexcusable, declaring black to be white and vice versa. You could have been the template for the Ministry of Truth. Small wonder that you are so widely reviled, even across deep ideological divides.
Daniel
My children are 8, 13, 19 and 21!
I forgot to reply. No I don’t agree with all the different thinkers and writers. But they were all part of a diverse and rich diaspora. Usually hated and excommunicated by the rabbis and nationalists of course for whom Judaism meant live behind a ghetto wall or the synagogue. They were free thinkers and even with the case of Einstein not sympathetic to Zionism if they lived at the time in question.
Why did the diaspora produce people of such rich and diverse intellectual talents, as opposed to the barren nationalism of the AB Yehoshua’s of Israel? Because the Jews, especially in the transitional phase between feudalism and capitalism, carried their wordly goods and inheritance in their head. The wandering Jew who gravitated towards the intellectual professions. Anti-Semitism played a part in so far as Jews didn’t by and large work on the land and where employed it was usually very small, mostly Jewish employers.
The Bund was the major Jewish socialist grouping in Eastern Europe and led the fight against anti-Semitism and fascism, unlike Zionism which accommodated to it throughout, just as people on this blog make their excuses.
Being Jewish is an accident of birth. Having been born Jewish I have rejected the majority identification with Zionism as increasing numbers of Jews do today. If being Jewish is about having a state, nationalism, then it has been reduced to the mundane. Worse, given that Israel has always depended on the West, as a settler colonial state, it has imbibed the worst forms of racism, hence the virulence of those who talk of ‘self-hatred’ and tell you that it’s a pity you didn’t die in Auschwitz (a common insult that I and many anti-Zionists have received).
Am I proud to be Jewish? My best reply is that given by Hanna Arent to Gershom Scholem in 1963, after the publication of her book Eichmann in Jerusalem. Scholem wrote to Arendt that, “In the Jewish tradition there is a concept Ahabath Israel, love of the Jewish people . . . In you, dear Hannah, as in so many intellectuals who came from the German left, I find little trace of this . . .”
Arendt gave the following reply to this chauvinist nonsense: “I am not one of the ‘intellectuals who come from the German Left’ . . . It is a fact of which I am in no way particularly proud and which I am somewhat reluctant to emphasize – especially since the McCarthy era in this country. I came late to an understanding of Marx’s importance . . . Let me begin . . . with what you call ‘love of the Jewish people’ . . . (Incidentally, I would be very grateful if you could tell me since when this concept has played a role in Judaism) . . . You are quite right – I am not moved by any ‘love’ of this sort, and for two reasons. I have never in my life ‘loved’ any people or collective . . . I indeed love ‘only’ my friends and the only kind of love I know of and believe in is the love of persons. Secondly, this ‘love of the Jews’ would appear to me, since I am myself Jewish, as something rather suspect . . . I do not ‘love’ the Jews, nor do I ‘believe’ in them; I merely belong to them as a matter of course, beyond dispute or argument . . . But I can admit to you something beyond that, namely, that wrong done by my own people naturally grieves me more than wrong done by other peoples.”
If you follow that then you won’t go far wrong. That is why we I and others take the question of being anti-Zionist seriously, because of the wrongs done in our names. That is why we are subject to the sneers and brickbats of those on this blog who are incapable of recognising racism and anti-Semitism for what it is, whilst protesting all the same about the terrible fact that the Palestinians aren’t willing to be driven out of their land without protest.
When the name of apparatchiks like Jonathan Hoffman, and his clique of sycophants and nationalist and fascist supportes have disappeared without trace, people like Hanna Arendt will continue to be remembered
That is why I’m Jewish. Because I and others are determined that being Jewish should not be seen as synonymous with being a chauvinist and bigot.
And you will disappear without a trace in the dustbin of history, as a barren purveyor of nothing but hate and lies.
Hi Tony,
Wow! We must have posted at about the same time. You’re kids are about three years younger than mine so I’m guessing that you got married in about 1987.
I was briefly a Communist growing up in London in the 60s. Strangely, I discovered the Daily Star (is that what it was called?) at the same time as I became interested in betting on horses. The paper’s racing expert let me down time after time with his predictions, until I determined that the Left rarely seem to get their prophesies right.
I’ve read some Hanna Arent and studied Gershon Scholem, but actually I was hoping for Tony Greenstein this time. Again I know what you’re against. Against Zionism, Fascism, nationalism, I’m guessing organized religion – I’m sure you could go on, but I was wondering what you’re for? I understand that you don’t want people to think that you’re a Jonathan Hoffman but that’s not much of an identity.
When your 8-year-old ask you if it’s true that he’s Jewish and how that makes him/her different to his friends, can you answer his question without using the word not? Or do you just answer that it was an accident of birth?
A final question that has always intrigued me about Jewish atheists; it’s kind of personal, but, did you circumcise your sons? Did you choose to enter them into the covenant of Abraham? If not, I fully understand and respect your decision. If you did, why?
Although I dare say that Tony and I disagree about most matters, I fully agree that the attempts to explain the Polish non-Jewess’ anti-Semitism to are bordering on the bizarre.
I believe that intellectual honesty should guide us to admit that if one of the “bad guys” had said such a thing we wouldn’t be excusing him/her because of his ethnic origins or linguistic limitations, but we’d be screaming, “Jew hater!” from the roof tops.
It’s okay guys we can concede this point, we really can. The fact that whoever employed this woman didn’t determine earlier on what she is, does not change anything or weaken Zionism, Israel or Judea and Samaria.
On the other hand, using untenable arguments makes us sound like some old Stalinist after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact trying to prove that black is white.
Tony, don’t forget my questions. I’m dying to hear your answers.
“we can concede this point”
Sucking up to TG again?
We don’t know the full facts. But somehow it doesn’t surprise me that they mean so little to you.
we can concede this point
a)
just to make sure, I am not part of your “we” and I trust myself that presented with such flimsy evidence and nothing else to support it I’d be open to arguments from the “other” side as well.
b)
by your reasoning I may qualify as anti-semite now or in the near future since I consider it entirely possible that I might still harbour bits and pieces from what I learned as a child that I have not yet undug.
a) Well, Silke, it’s the royal ‘we’ (quite likely used unconsciously, which I suppose makes it worse).
b) Sure, it’s like original sin.
“We” is whoever “we” wants to be. I was suggesting not telling anyone what to think or do. I respect the fact that we disagree regarding this matter Silke and see no reason for that to become something personal.
I never have called you an anti-Semite because I don’t believe you are one. You might say that I only have “flimsy evidence” to prove that you aren’t one, but what I have is good enough for me. I believe that you are a wonderful human being and a true friend of Israel. However, a person who uses expressions like anti-Christ is to my mind an anti-Semite.
Incidentally, I don’t rush to call people anti-Semites and am quite open to the possibility that someone may not like me for wholly different reasons. Yoni doesn’t like me or Nick or Goldman, but not because we’re Jews. He does not like us because we’re his antithesis. He ran away from Israel, but we came home. We aren’t heroes or sages, but we aren’t cowards or traitors either.
The fact that people could be born in the UK and give up all that we did to leave for a poorer, more dangerous country makes him feel guilty about his having run away, so he covers up this guilt up by spewing out vulgarities in all directions with his foul mouth, and playing the macho “I was in IDF” which went out of fashion here about 30 years ago.
However, this doesn’t make him into an anti-Semite either. He just doesn’t like us and that’s fair enough. I don’t expect the whole world to love me and I’m in good company.
Hope that clears everything up.
Have a great week!
“He ran away from Israel, but we came home. We aren’t heroes or sages, but we aren’t cowards or traitors either.”
What a filthy, lying, hateful excuse for a human being you are. I didn’t ‘run away’, you utter filth. I am not either a coward or a traitor, you utter filth.
I could describe, for Silke’s benefit (because she merits it, should she be interested, but filth like you do not), what my circumstances are. I have considered doing so. I don’t delude myself that you would then feel even an ounce of shame for your filthy lies and accusations, for you are without shame as all filth like you are. I would do it as part of my discourse with her. But on balance I am not inclined to do so, for the sole reason that you might then read it. I do not wish to explain myself to utter filth like you.
Greenstein writes a long and narcissistic homage to himself.
Greenstein, I couldn’t care less about your personal circumstances. Whatever drove you to your hateful and hypocritical views is of no interest to anyone except yourself (and boy, do you love yourself).
Now reply to the points put to you, which you have so far avoided.
I have not defended the words of the shopkeeper – stop lying about it. You, on the other hand, have studiously avoided dealing with the genocidal antisemitism of Hamas and Hizbollah, both virulently antisemitic, and both of which you sickeningly defend. It is YOu who defends genocidal antisemitism, because it fits the hateful political narrative to which you adhere.
Now withdraw your baseless remark that I defend antisemitism.
Greenstein’s comment is very revealing:
“That is why I’m Jewish. Because I and others are determined that being Jewish should not be seen as synonymous with being a chauvinist and bigot.”
It demonstrates that this whole charade is about himself – not about the conflict. He fears for how others see him, so his motivation in hating the Jewish state and siding with genocidal Islamists is simply a quest to make himself acceptable in the eyes of others.
“…not be seen to be…”
Says it all.
With respect, those were comments that he made in direct response to my questioning him about the nature of his Jewish identity. Had he not spoken about himself I would have accused Tony of avoiding my question, so because he did, it seems wholly unfair to describe him as “narcissistic”.
I’m a religious “West Bank” settler, expansionist, messianic, fanatic, whatever you want – but I believe that a man should be allowed to express his opinions without being subjected to that kind of abuse.
“I believe that a man should be allowed to express his opinions without being subjected to that kind of abuse”
Beyond parody.
Such utter lack of any hint of self-awareness.
Should anyone but try to express his opinion about the racist undertones of ‘Light unto the nations’, he is subjected to plenty of abuse from you, filthy hypocrite.
But then, that’s the thing with filthy messianic dosim: they believe that they are better than normal people, they have a direct line to god, their morality is on a higher plane than normal people, normal people should be grateful that the filthy messianic dos deigns to impart his special wisdom to them. Never mind even the non-stop abuse you fling at me because of my opinions: the conceited condescension you exhibit towards Silke is sickening enough in itself.
Excellent points, Adam. You made me realise fully for the first time how narcissistic the whole ‘As-a-Jew’ enterprise really is. I knew this about lunatic left antisemites, of course, mostly sad losers who need to define themselves through something, anything, and Jew hatred is a convenient identity for them (as it was in late 1920s and 1930s Germany) because it pretty much guarantees adulation from hordes of other such losers; and embracing loony left positions adds the adulation of additional hordes of thick eternal adolescents who regard Guevara and Castro as ‘progressive’. But the ‘As-a-Jew’ types … that has never been so consciously clear to me before. Maybe it should have been – I mean, just look at Sayle and Fry – but it wasn’t, and now it is.
BTW: has this site seemed very slow to others, too, over the last few days?
Exactly Yoni.
Such people are really very insecure, they fear above all else being alone or in a minority. They crave acceptance. This, combined with narcissism, leads to the contorted acrobatics of “logic” that one sees in people like Greenstein.
It has nothing to do with the rights and wrongs of the conflict, but rather how they are perceived by others in being part of it.
It also isn’t a coincidence that several of the Jews who are part of the Palestinian lobby are people who don’t identify with being Jewish until it comes to attacking Israel. The rest of the time, their Jewishness means virtually nothing to them (indeed, many are hostile to Judaism). They do not regard themselves as part of the community, and do nothing active in it. This is because they are uncomfortable with being Jewish, and strive to separate themselves from other Jews. And consequently, the only time their Jewishness comes to the fore is when they are attacking Israel, to say “look, I’m not like those other Jews – I’m acceptable! Please love me!”
It’s really very sad.
Yoni 5:25 pm
I am not in the habit to ask for explanations, as much as I love to hear life stories as much I dislike them to be told because of a feeling that they might be owed to me or anybody else ever so slightly.
Everybody should be as free as humanly possible what he/she wants to share. i.e. if you feel in need of a sympathetic, concerned, amused (depending on the story) reader I am there. If you feel even only very very remotely that I am owed an explanation for what all these accusations are about, forget it.
It would feel like an insult to me. It is none of my business and that’s how I want it.
One of the standards I try to live up to is to be interested (neugierig) but never nosy (indiskret)
Silke,
It never even occurred to me to suggest that you are ‘owed’ an explanation. That wasn’t it at all. I meant that you may be neugierig, as part of the ordinary chatty discourse between us, to know what it was all about, and how come I have all these baseless insults hurled at me. It goes without saying that I did not mean to insult you.
Sorry Yoni
amongst us females it is quite common that there comes a point where the pressure has mounted up “to tell” – I am gratified to learn that apparently males have a healthier attitude towards it.
“insult” was too strong a word – but how about this just because it is beautiful – especially towards the end when they show glimpses of “ordinaries” joining in and no I am not trying to convey a message other than the wish to share something beautiful
Enjoy!!!
Daniel Marks, it was Greenstein who used the term “moron”, yet I don’t see you criticizing him for it.
Well, he himself uses expressions like ‘scraping you off my shoe’, so he is a hypocrite in more ways than one.
Adam,
First of all you’ve shown on numerous occasions that you are anything but a moron. Your writing shows both a great depth of knowedge and a genuine care for the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
My point was simply that since I had asked Tony extremely personal and intimate questions, it was unfair to call him a narcisist for answering them. I suspect that you understand my point.
I was not criticising you for calling Tony a moron, nor shall I criticise him for calling you that. I will, however, say that you are both completely wrong as neither of you are morons. I’m always saddened to hear two highly intelligent minds wasting their time thinking of nasty things to say, in the vain hope of hurting the other person.
A final obvious thought. There is rarely much connection between being clever and being “right” in political matters. Therefore, whether someone is a “moron” or a “genius” isn’t really the point. Just think how many geniuses have caused untold suffering and how many simple people have done good. Talk to each other, but not about each other.
“Small people talk about other people. Average people talk about material things. Great people talk about ideas”
Daniel
I don’t want to be given preferential treatment when it comes to whether I am worthy of the benefit of the doubt or not.
Daniel,
I agree that being a Jonathan Hoffman isn’t much of an identity!
But identity is what you do as much as what you identify with. There is and never has been one Jewish identity. The identity of the Bund or Jewish Communists was never that of the Rabbis or Zionists, indeed it was in direct opposition to them. My identity, in so far as I’m concerned with it, is a mixture of different influences – Jewish certainly, being brought up in mainly non-Jewish surroundings, being a political activist, having children – etc. Identity by definition is metaphysical. You can’t touch it and how others identify you will also be different.
But for me it is a cultural/political thing. Opposition to anti-Semitism and opposition to both Zionism and religious obscurantism – my dad was a rabbi. An identification with the Jewish tradition of dissidence, radicalism and rationalism. A tradition of intellectual thought and development – the Hanna Arendts and Freuds, Bob Dylan and even, despite his wealth and politics, George Sorros. There are too many to mention but there were few nationalists because nationalism is a herd thing, it doesn’t create. Being Jewish is also being different.
I will leave it to my 8 year old to ask me about being Jewish! After all his mother is a non-practising Catholic. My daughter has decided that she’s half-Jewish without any prompting. My middle son is a rationalist and is unlikely to identify himself with any particular religious grouping. My younger son is too young for these kind of things.
Did I circumcise my children? I circumcised my eldest who is 21 and is autistic, so he doesn’t concern himself with such questions. The other 2 are not circumcised as I came round to the view it is a form of genital mutilation and if they want to undergo it then they have to do it themselves of their own free will.
What do I stand for? Socialism. I’m a Marxist. Differences between people matter less than what should bring them together. We live in one world and if humanity doesn’t begin to control it in its interests rather than the ruling capitalist classes and multi-national capital in its interest then we are doomed to perpetual war and eventual destruction. Israel’s role is as the forward base of the USA and all this talk of god and biblical rights is a form of justification for base, material interests. Anyone who takes the time to read will quickly learn that Zionism was the creation of non-Jews, imperialists and their supporters, especially Evangelical Christians, in the 19th century. It was not Jews who were first in favour of this very modern movement, which looks backwards to legitimise itself but is a creation of the modern era.
Israel has always sought to have enemies to justify its role in the region. Hamas and Hizbullah are but the latest manifestations. It used to be Nasser, then the PLO, then Saddam and now Hamas and Hizbullah. It needs an enemy, not least to hold itself together and to be useful to the USA. And that is my answer to Adam. He may not like my answer and may pretend that Hamas represents the biggest threat since Hitler and Eichmann but most people will not be fooled.
No doubt I missed something but I don’t recall him criticising still less condemning the woman in question. He asks for an apology for suggesting that he defended the remarks of the Ahava woman. Clearly his memory is failing him. He wrote:
“The hateful boycotters are utterly ridiculous. First, they post a clip which has clearly been carefully edited. Are we supposed to believe that the exchange started at that point? Clearly, it did not. So how are we supposed to come to any impartial and thoughtful conclusion? It is easy to paint any piucture you like if you remove all context – as is the case here.”
That sounds pretty much of a defence to me. Firstly the clip hasn’t been edited and Adam provides not a sliver of proof to back that up, bearing in mind that Jonathan Hoffman was forced into a groveling apology for suggesting that about the EDL photo I posted up in August. Remarks about Christ Killers depend on ‘context’. I can’t imagine what context excuses making such remarks to someone who is Jewish? Does advocating a boycott of an Israeli shop, for selling goods from the West Bank, provide that context? In other words anti-Zionist campaigning should be countered on an anti-Semitic basis? If so, say it out aloud because there are clearly Zionists who believe this to be so. Or maybe the context was that she was just angry with Bruce. Fine, she could have said ‘fuck off’ or something similar or even, dare I say it, witty. I mean I could think up one or two without trying. But she didn’t. Instead she reached into the depths of anti-Semitic calumnies where Jews are christ-killers, part of an international conspiracy, capitalists and communists at the same time etc. That is the point you and others don’t seem to comprehend.
What this debate has demonstrated is that Zionists today, like yesteryear, are not at all interested in combating anti-Semitism, which isn’t surprising because in western Europe there is relatively little of it. Instead it is interested in what it terms ‘new anti-Semitism’ which is a way of redefining anti-Zionism. Most people are now wise to this trick so it is something which reaps few dividends. If anything it makes people aware that Zionists are unprincipled and willing to use any and every device in order to justify what they do to the Palestinians.
Being a Marxist, when the utter evil of that world-view has been demonstrated conclusively over the past century, may not make you a Trot, but it does make you a moron – or evil.
Adam complains I used the term ‘moron’. Indeed and I was wrong to have been provoked by such thought provoking and stimulating people.
However I can’t for the life of me work out why Jonathan Hoffman’s use of the term ‘Trot Moron’ didn’t elicit a response, or the Empress Trudy’s, or Yoni’s repeated use of the phrase and Silke’s use of it via musing on the meaning of ‘trot’.
Such a strange blindness. Normally applied to Israel’s attacks on civilians, racist confiscations of land etc. but it would seem even in a blog discussion the practice must be perfected.
“Yoni’s repeated use of the phrase”
Sure, I said it at least 50 times. Count them.
Beyond parody.
Don’t know about Trot, but you certainly aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Daniel
maybe you care to get a bit more acquainted with your beloved Tony Greenstein.
You may think yourself extremely smart in your dealings with Greenstein. I consider you to be extremely vain in the path you are pursuing.
That you don’t care to insult Adam by naming him in one breath with Greenstein you have IMHO the realm of effective satire.
It is Acceptable to Disrupt a Classical Music Concert Because of the Musicians’ Complicity with Israeli Military Repression?
and
Was it Acceptable to Protest and Disrupt Concerts by Wilhelm Furtwangler and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Silke,
That Daniel is mega-vain and conceited, we know already. What I didn’t know until now is that his lapdogs also adore him as being on a higher plane than mere human beings, a sort of minor deity:
“Daniel works in strange, sometimes incompressible [sic], ways.”
(I am sure you recognise the allusion).
With lapdogs like that, small wonder, perhaps, that a person starts believing he is a demi-god.
Here are a few pointers to just how vile Greenstein really is:
http://arvsaz.blogspot.com/
http://arvsaz.blogspot.com/2008/10/tony-greenstein-man-of-violence.html
Hi Silke,
I would agree with you to a certain extent about Daniel’s unorthodox tactics in his dangerous liaison with Tony, but would urge you to be patient in your judgment.
Daniel works in strange, sometimes incompressible, ways. Since I can recall, he was always a maverick. When we were all playing the Yugoslav attack against the Sicilian Dragon, Daniel was exploring with the Levinfish. To this very day, I find that outlandish approach quite extraordinary.
Tony is a sad and reprehensible character, and of that there can be no doubt.
But perhaps Daniel is grooming Tony for battle, pinning the tail on the donkey, or flushing him out for the hunt.
I am intrigued to find out where he is heading with his convivial line of questioning.
Batman once ingratiated himself and the Boy Wonder with the lowest of Gotham’s fiend.
“Has our caped crusader vilified himself with the villains?”
Daniel may not be a caped crusader, but we all knew that next week, same Bat Time same Bat Channel, Batman would bring the bad guys to justice and Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara would sleep well at night.
Dear Silke,
To the best of my recollection I have never referred to Tony as my beloved or anything similar. However, though he doesn’t know it, he was created in the image of almighty G-d and for that reason and because he has shown me no disrespect, I see no reason not to respect him. Naturally, that does not mean that I agree with any of his views.
You ask me if I think that I’m smart or vain. I’m not sure that the two are mutually exclusive, but if you’d put a metaphorical pistol to my head, I’d have to say a bit of both. Anyway, that’s enough about boring old me. Let’s get back to the questions at hand.
I had no intention of insulting Adam by “naming him in one breath” with anybody. My point was not to suggest any physical or ideological resemblance. Adam asked me why I hadn’t condemned Tony for calling him a moron and I said that neither of them IMHO are morons. Naturally, if Adam, Tony or you were offended by this, I offer sincere apologies.
The point is Silke, as you well know, that it’s a little childish to always try to prove that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is not only wrong, but also stupid. If he’s wrong, what does it matter if he’s brilliant or a “moron”? If I’m right, why is my IQ important? It’s an argument that we often use when our case is a little weak, “I may not be able to support my argument with facts or logic, but I’m more clever than you, so I must be right!” If you wish to revise your opinion about whether I’m smart or not, do so, Silke, but not just because you don’t agree with my opinion.
You ask me if it is Acceptable to Disrupt a Classical Music Concert Because of the Musicians’ Complicity with Israeli Military Repression. Let me begin by saying that in my youth, I disrupted the Bolshoi Ballet because of the Soviet Union’s refusal to allow Jew to leave and immigrate to Israel. I also disrupted Aeroflot, In-tourist, a Soviet trade fair and plenty more. I considered that acceptable because I was fighting for a cause I believed in, I was arrested twice on put on trial once. Within certain hard to define parameters I do think that similar actions represent a part of many non-parliamentary, political struggles today.
In the case you mention I obviously think that the cause that the disrupters were fighting for is wrong and evil, therefore I would not have taken part in it, and would have done what I could have, if I could have to have prevented them. I might even have punched Tony on his nose which I’m sure he would respect as a nice bit of reactionary Zionist aggression.
Finally, someone accused me recently of patronizing you, probably because of my refusal to be drawn into a slanging match about our Yoni. I have no intention insulting you personally because; I like you very much and find discussions much more stimulating than name-calling. I hope you don’t find that condescending.
Have a great day
“though he doesn’t know it, he was created in the image of almighty G-d”
And what TG himself believes is, of course, of no relevance or importance: DM hath spoken.
Sheesh, dosim sure are conceited.
Nick
But perhaps Daniel is grooming Tony for battle, pinning the tail on the donkey, or flushing him out for the hunt.
I assume as much but that is no excuse for putting Adam in the same sentence with Tony the way he has done. The best I can say about that is that it shows a lack of imagination.
Try ‘dishonesty’.
Hey Silke,
You and Nick both put me and a donkey in the same sentence, but you don’t see me complaining.
Apparently, the donkey is furious.
the way he has done
“Small people talk about other people. Average people talk about material things. Great people talk about ideas”
I am a proud and unapologetic member of both the small and the average people who as an aside are those who btw more often than not have to pay the bill after Great People’s ideas turned out to have this or that flaw in the on-earth-department.
if you should have heckled the artists during performance I would object to that. The place for heckling is outside, trying to keep people from entering …
Inside heckling of artists should be restricted to heckling the performance if there is something worth heckling in it like during the applause for an aria for example but not during the aria.
Where and how to draw the line of what qualifies as art and what as political propaganda akin to a party rally may at times be a difficult question to answer but certainly not in the case of the Jerusalem Quartet. As to the Bolshoi Ballet one would have to see the program to decide whether there were parts that would justify during performance heckling.
Hi Tony,
Thank you for your frank and thoughtful answers. That’s about it. I pretty much know now what I wanted.
It’s curious we were two Jewish kids, born about the same time into the same environment, well, my father wasn’t a rabbi. We now live in wholly different worlds, you discussing dialectic materialism in Brighton and me part of a West Bank settlement in Israel. It was clear to me that we have no beginning point for discussion or debate regarding Zionism, even our terminology is different. I thought that maybe as Jews we could find some common ground, some initial assumption that we could agree about, however, I now concede that it was a vain hope.
If I understood your position from a debate I saw on the net you oppose the “Two State Solution” and prefer to wait for a popular uprising of the Middle-Eastern masses, dictatorship of the proletariat etc. Frankly, the idea doesn’t sound so bad to me. It reminds me of the unemployed Jew who was given a horn (shofar) and told to sit in a tree and blow it when he saw the messiah coming. After the first day, a friend asked him how his new work was and he replied, “Well, it’s not much of a salary, but it’s a job for life!”
I might say, sell the idea to the Arab masses, finish of the revolutions there, and I’ll see what I can do in Israel. I know that you guys think that the reason why the Arab masses have not risen up yet all over the Mid-East is because of Zionism, but, c’mon we’re not that good.
Truthfully, my sadness or regret is nothing to do with politics, your critiques of Zionism or plans to bring about a workers’ paradise, but in your decision to marry a non-Jew and have non-practicing-Catholic children. It is for those reasons and only those that there is little left to say. This is a one generation argument. We may have similar pasts, but our futures, our children will have nothing in common whatsoever. Say it isn’t sad, Tony.
You say your father was a rabbi, but I’ve got a feeling that you haven’t been blessed recently.
May G-d bless you and guard you – May G-d make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you – May G-d lift up his face onto you and give you peace.
Shalom
How revoltingly condescending, and how very typical.
Don’t worry our Yoni. I have a blessing for you too.
Please don’t make me puke, I am trying to have my coffee and cake here.
Yoni
what does dosim mean?
Google translate doesn’t know it.
Dos is a modern Israeli Yiddish-like distortion of the word dati, which means religious. It enjoyed popular use, particularly in the 1980s, as an insulting reference to Ultra-Orthodox Jews or Haredi. “Dosim” is its plural form.
Today it is rarely used, but when it is it is considered to be neutral, rather than offensive. I occasionally hear haredim using the term jokingly to describe themselves.
The way I mean it, it’s Jewish religious maniacs with swollen heads who think they are better, more moral, on a more exalted spiritual plane than mere normal humans beings. They have, after all, a direct line to god, innit.
PS. It’s obvious that DM’s familiarity with popular Israeli culture hits a brick wall when he tries to go further back than the 1980s (it’s more generally dodgy, of course, as when he thinks that normal colloquialisms like “Nesheq yesh?” are ‘wrong’. I suspect that he looks down on all those not quite as ‘erudite’ – as he imagines himself to be – as him, as being not quite civilised). The term ‘dos’ was in very widespread use way before the 80s, and you heard it all over the place at least as far back as the 60s and 70s, probably even in the late 50s.
Daniel
there are people whom, if one debates them honestly i.e. treats them like they were gentlemen, thus downgrading their evil aspirations to difference of opinion, one gives them undeserved status
but of course there is always the hubristic lure that one may be able to outsmart them as if that would make one hoot of a difference
says citizen of decadent continental Europe me
Not gentlemen Silke, human beings. As usual, thanks for the advice, but at my age it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I wasn’t trying to outsmart Tony, nor did I.
Regarding disrupting various performances, I’d refer you to the very excellent “Glorious Basterds”. Tell me you wouldn’t have thrown the cigarette however good or bad the movie.
That’s it. Now I must work! have a great day. I’m off to hear Sir Martin Gilbert tonight!
I’m off to hear Sir Martin Gilbert tonight!
lucky you!!!
I haven’t watched a contemporary movie in ages – too much needlessly accelerated cutting back and forth for me, too much explicit violence and sex, I prefer stuff that leaves room for imagination to bloom.
human beings IMHO are all created equal but while growing up they take decisions, a lot of them based on facts/observations/experiences that come their way, some based on those decide to become gentlemen/ladies by virtue of behaving like them others decide to behave differently and thus qualify for different descriptions.
Very well put, Silke. Some people are simply not honest and you shouldn’t treat them as though they were. One example is quoting Ilan Pappe, who is a notorious falsifier.
And definitely yes to the point about hubris.
The following posting relates not to Yoni’s recent efforts in which he seems to have made a conscientious effort to avoid the use of expletives (and in which “filthy” seems to have become his preferred adjective of choice). It relates to all his previous abuses for which he is forgiven but not forgotten.
My wife noted that since I have been following Richard’s fine blog, I have been watching far less porn.
But yesterday she looked over some of Yoni’s postings.
Now she says she prefers I go back to the porn.
“filthy” may be the adjective, but “filth” is without doubt the preferred noun. A fine example of their combined usage might be:
“What a filthy, lying, hateful excuse for a human being you are. I didn’t ‘run away’, you utter filth. I am not either a coward or a traitor, you utter filth.”
The author of this near-Shakespearean construction might want to consider utilizing the adverb “filthily”, perhaps:
“I’m didn’t filthily run away you filthy excuse for a filth.” – Or something of the like.
It’s indeed reassuring to know that the translation of possibly life-saving documents is in such able linguistic hands.
Regards to your good lady wife.
But factually correct, which is far more important than mellifluous phrasing when translating potentially life-saving documents. As usual, you simply reveal your ignorance every time you say anything.
Not that you even have a clue what sort of documents I do translate. Do you ever know what you are talking about? I have seen little evidence so far that you do.
Unlike you to slip up with your spelling, Nick – that’s usually more my department.
The correct spelling is, of course, “pawn” not “porn” as in:
“Pawns are the life and soul of chess.” – Philidor
Your wife is as rabid and thick as you are, then.
Daniel Marks: Your comments are an oasis of sense and wit, especially the one at 10.15 am. I love the image of Greenstein sitting in a tree with his shofar, waiting to herald the revolution. (And I loved Nick K’s parody).
Greenstein reminds me of the Israel protestbot in this cartoon: ignores the refutations to return to parroting the mantras.
After bataween has carefully set out the chronology- that most of the Jews had fled Iraq by the time of the disputed bombs, with the reign of terror and persecution by the Iraqis causally preceding the bombs, he goes right back to asserting that the bombs caused the Jews to flee.
As for Greenstein’s nostalgic wish to perpetuate the eternal intellectual wandering Jew who has become suffocated by the mundanity of the nation state of Israel, I think those who were subject to millenia of pogroms, genocide and dhimmitude are better placed to decide if the prospect of their survival in a country where they are free to practice their (albeit in his eyes diminished) intellectual pursuits is a price worth paying. Funny though how being Israeli citizens hasn’t hindered several from becoming Nobel laureates.
I think they might prefer that to the uncertain prospect of the day when Tony up a tree heralds the arrival of the Marxist utopia on his shofar.
DM’s “wit” is quite a bit like the Empress of Blandings, and you know what the mind of her main fan was like.
Always beware of the Green-Eyed Monster, our Yoni.
As usual, Mr Conceited, you flatter yourself hugely. I wouldn’t be like you for all the bush tea in Botswana.
Yoni
I love them both though I admit I still have a lot of reading to do on the Empress-author while I follow the bush-tea one religiously.
btw This looks like a record of some kind for number of comments. I don’t know how many “real” comments it comes to if one excludes the incomprehensible,[no please don’t try and explain] interminable and deeply tedious (to outsiders) flamewar between some of the contributors here, which seriously clogs up following the really worthwhile discussions. But chacun a son gout and all that..
Wikileaks has just intercepted and released the following communiqué sent from Israel Agriculture Minister Shalom Simchon to Yoni.
I have taken the trouble of translating it from its original Hebrew and apologize in advance for any inaccuracies.
“Dear Mr. Yoni,
These are hard times for the State of Israel.
With the BDS campaign gaining in impetus in the UK, coupled with the unremitting drought that has taken its heavy toll on Israeli agriculture, we found our exports hitting new lows and our trade deficit growing. The future looked grim.
However, I was alerted to your December 12 declaration on Mr. Millett’s blog:
“As soon as the antisemitic pricks started boycotting Israeli goods, the percentage of Israeli fruit & veg in my shopping went up from ca. 15% to ca. 75%”
Leaving aside your reference to pricks, Israeli agriculture has since experienced a reversal of fortunes and never had it any better.
Wild horses would not stop you from braving England’s inclement weather to nip down to your greengrocer and buy your blue and white cucumbers. Our dipping mango sales were turned around in one quick swipe of your credit card.
The necks of our Arava Peppers were resting firmly on the guillotine until you commuted their sentence.
Today the State of Israel salutes Yoni.
As all schools and public places in Israel are pulling down the picture of our 8th disgraced President who has just been convicted of multiple rape charges, there is an empty space in the line of the pictures of Israel Presidents, that needs to be filled.
Yoni, by your selfless deeds you have shown yourself to be a man fit to fill that void. Having your picture placed between Ezer Weizman and Shimon Peres could not be a greater compliment to these esteemed Presidents.
You could be pictured biting into a Hermon apple, kissing a baby with the Israeli flag in the background and wearing a T shirt with your favorite swear words in Aramaic.
Shalom Simchon
Agriculture Minister.
That’s quite funny – thanks for the chuckle.
on a more serious note I think an effective campaign for buying Israeli goods vegetables or cosmetics or whatever else would be great Hasbara
Buycott is great but even greater would be lobbying companies to put more Israeli stuff on their shelfs or something that made Israeli wine the it-thing to drink (I wouldn’t mind if they’d mix it up with a bit from other regions in order to be able to enhance quantity, a label blended by the expertise of … or some such thing with a certain percentage of the real thing in it or some campaign that makes Israel’s olive oil the height of culinary revelation i.e. anything that makes bellies feel bias in favour of Israel, fashion might not be a bad thing either. All that high-tech is admirable but I believe that gut reactions are more reliable and they are triggered best by food and beauty)
I know how you feel Amie. There’s a gemara that explains that a man can’t walk through a leather factory without acquiring part of its stink or a perfumery without attaining part some of its sweet smell.
Likewise, there are times when one man can cause a lot of mischief and damage and generally bring out the worst in many of us. Everyone is trying to be patient and understanding, but even we are only human beings. ” If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? ”
Nick has been an absolute saint in trying to make light of the matter keeping us smiling, and Michael Goldman has selflessly volunteered of his time and immense experience.
Actually there has been no small amount of progress, if you don’t believe me just look back at the how things looked a week ago. Last week I was a “consummate little shit” and this week I’m just filth.
I’ve been attacked in recent days for the most absurd things including having the gall to treat Tony as a human being and daring to say that he was created in the image of Almighty G-d, but so what? If I am to be condemned for treating another person with respect, I’ll wear that censure with pride.
However, there are also many wonderful people on this blog, not least its wise and eloquent author, and I have no doubt that its benefits far outweigh our collective shortcomings. Sure, there is a lot of tedious flame-war, as you put it, but there is also much more. Stay with us Amie, you ain’t seen nothing yet!
posted at 8:09 pm – what happened to that lecture of Martin Gilbert – has it already happened and left no trace or is it going to be a midnight get together?
Things could have been much better still had you given up pursuing your vendetta. I wouldn’t, then, have needed to call you anything.
Of course, you will never be capable of seeing that.
There is no vendetta, blood feud or even Zionist conspiracy. We are all trying to help you, but as Michael explained, you have to want to help yourself too. You should learn to respect people, even if you don’t agree with them, and most importantly to control your foul mouth. I’m tired of explaining you this and your wasting page after page on your personal problems.
Please do not address me any more regarding personal problems, Michael has much more patience and Nick understands a lot more about mental health and its challenges than I do. They are both much more clever than me.
People are rightly complaining that this blog is taken up with tedious flame exchanges and I remind you that the topic of this page is whether a female staff member of Ahava was bullied, not our Yoni’s woes.
“We are all trying to help you”
Is there no end to this man’s arrogance and pomposity?
“You should learn to respect people, even if you don’t agree with them, and most importantly to control your foul mouth.”
You mean, the way you respected me when I dared question the phrase ‘Light unto the nations’? As I recall, your reaction to that was to call me ignorant, and to continue calling me ignorant, and then worse and worse. And then to refer to me as something you had trod in.
You are all hot air and lies and hypcorisy. What a sad excuse for a human being.
“but even we are only human beings”
What a condescending prick.
Hi Silke,
Had to much work to do in the end and it looked like it would be standing room only.
Wife has left me and I’m writing a test on how benevolent gender and economic stereotypes help reinforce the status quo, any ideas?
Wife has left me and I’m writing a test on how benevolent gender and economic stereotypes help reinforce the status quo, any ideas?
if I’d be able to understand the question I might have since benevolent gender sounds intriguing.
I’m writing the questions now.
as to whether it was Jews who killed Jesus or not:
at school I have been told that there wereBADJews who egged Pontius Pilatus on – I never found that story either particularly convincing nor important so I have never dug into the issue.
Later on I realised that the accusation is deeply offensive to Jews and that its consequences have inflicted great harm on them. That’s why I’d never use it myself or would try to restrain anybody who’d use it. But to this day I can’t really get interested in diving into whether it’s true or not. To me it’s completely irrelevant and whoever comes up with the accusation of deicide and can be credited with being an educated person is an idiot or a nutter in my book. Everybody who can’t claim to be a member of the “enlightened” classes is owed the benefit of the doubt and a lot of patient and considerate and not-condescending explanations.
“Everybody who can’t claim to be a member of the “enlightened” classes..” – Who exactly are you refering to?
those who have or have not the vocabulary to follow the evening news on TV i.e. in Germany the Tagesschau
Daniel 10.04
I am having trouble to decide whether you remind me of a Christian do-gooder or a psycho trying to mediate conflict – both make me unhappy, I’ve learned to expect better of you than cheap saccharine psycho-stuff
We have different ideas about discussion. You believe that just treating a person in a civil way is somehow affording legitimacy to his viewpoint. For that reason you get all mushy when you hear someone using S and F words against anti-Zionist, anti-Semites etc.
I don’t agree. I try to respect everyone as long as they show me similar respect. Nobody has called anyone else a shit in 24 hours and the world is still here and the sun still sets in the morning.
I don’t automatically defend my friends or Polish saleswomen just because they’re “on my side”, if I think they’re wrong I say so. Likewise a person could be a Communist or a member of the EDL but if I agree with what he says I’ll say so.
In my opinion We are not going to agree over this matter either, so let’s at least not get personal. Don’t tell me what you’ve learned to expect from me and I won’t tell you what I expect from you. Don’t label my arguments “cheap saccharine psycho-stuff” – I have no idea what that even means.
If you have a critique of what I’ve said explain it, without meaningless labels. If you think I’m a “Christian do-gooder or a psycho” say so and explain why.
Like I said, we can disagree, but still respect each other.
Wife is back and I’m going to bed.
“I try to respect everyone as long as they show me similar respect. ”
What a hypocrite. Your immediate reaction to my comment about Light Unto The Nations was that I am ‘ignorant’ and don’t even know where it comes from.
Greenstein, I scanned your “replies”. Frankly, as a member of a creed which murdered more people in the last century than any other belief, movement or religion has during the past several thousand years, I find it hard to take your ravings seriously. Indeed, it explains your hatred of eveything in the West, and your approval and condoning of the blatant antisemitism of Hamas and Hizbollah. I never said these movements offer the nearest threat to Eichmann – that is you twisting words. they are however, a threat. they do manage to kill people Greenstein, innocent people, solely on the basis of their being Jewish. Meanwhile, I am unaware of anyone being murdered by Ahavashopkeepers, the people who get your knickers in a twist more than anyone else. So I think the reality check is on you.
I have asked for you to withdraw your remark that I defend antisemitism. You have not. Indeed, you say this is a defence of antisemitism:
“The hateful boycotters are utterly ridiculous. First, they post a clip which has clearly been carefully edited. Are we supposed to believe that the exchange started at that point? Clearly, it did not. So how are we supposed to come to any impartial and thoughtful conclusion? It is easy to paint any piucture you like if you remove all context – as is the case here.”
That sounds pretty much of a defence to me. ”
If that constitutes a defence of antisemitism in your mind, then I can only hope that you are never called to jury service. The clip does NOT show the entire exchange, as that Bruce creature is seen prompting the woman by saying “why did I kill Jesus” or words to that effect. Clearly, words were had before the clip begins. In other words, the context of the entire exchange is incomplete. That is a demonstrable fact Greenstein.
Now withdraw your remark.
I note you STILL are mealy mouthed about the genocidal antisemitism of Hamas and Hizbollah, and your comparison between Nazi Germany and Israel is simply disgusting and shameful. It is YOU who offers a defence of antisemitism, due to your irrational and extreme views.
Daniel Marks, I pointed out that Greenstein threw around “moron” because you attacked Jonathan, and let Greenstein off the hook over the same issue. Indeed, your sucking up to this individual, who condones the terrorism of Hamas and Hizbollah and their Iranian Holocaust denying masters, is disturbing.
Daniel
I have not returned to this site until now simply because of work.
I appreciate your comments despite our massive political disagreements. In certain situations, as you say, we would be in physical confrontation but that doesn’t prevent a civilised discussion even when, as is clearly the case that there will be no agreement between a Jewish anti-Zionist and a religious Zionist living on a settlement.
My one major disagrement is re your comments that this is a one generation argument. ‘We may have similar pasts, but our futures, our children will have nothing in common whatsoever. Say it isn’t sad, Tony.’
No this in many ways is the crux of the problem. I actually don’t feel sad. If my children were to voluntarily and of their own accord to identify as Jewish, possibly as members of a Jewish peace group, I would be more than happy but that is their decision. But what matters is what kind of people they become and I would hope it would be to follow Hillel (& Jesus’ nostrum) that you should not do to others that which is hateful to yourself. To give birth to a Jewish racist would be of much greater concern than to have a child who gets stuck in on a grant demonstration!
Amie writes that ‘those who were subject to millenia of pogroms, genocide and dhimmitude are better placed to decide if the prospect of their survival in a country where they are free to practice their (albeit in his eyes diminished) intellectual pursuits is a price worth paying.’ But with respect, whenever given a free choice, Jews have always chosen to live anywhere but Israel. This is the lament of A B Yehoshua. Nothing stopped these Jews emigrating to Palestine for two thousand years. You can pick out certain episodes of oppression and then apply it uniformly to the whole of time but there were long periods when Jews were not oppressed but were seen as oppressors. The dhimmitude in the Arab countries was always more theoretical than real and in fact Jews achieved, as in Iraq, real positions of wealth and responsibility. Even the Babylonian Talmud is more authoritative than the Jerusalem version. There is a difference between Nobel Laureattes (Obama?) and great writers and thinkers.
Negation of the diaspora was always a Zionist affliction.
Adam asks for an apology having just described me as supporting a creed responsible for the murder of millions of people. I can see no reason for an apology in any case. The conversation on film was not edited. It began rather late as the recorder hadn’t been switched on. What was captured was conclusive. The woman didn’t deny what she had said. For you to excuse this is to defend her anti-semitism. I’m not aware of supporting a murderous creed incidentally. I think you are referring to Stalinism and as you know JH always refers to me as ‘‘trot(skyite) moron’ so you’re wrong on this too.
Hamas and Hizbollah, for the umpteenth time fight on behalf of their people in Gaza primarly and Lebanon. Israel has been and is at war with both. It is an uneven war. Thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians have been killed by those who term themselves as fighting on behalf of the Jewish state. Being Islamist they reach for anti-semitic as opposed to rationalist, secular or socialist answers to why these things are happening. They are wrong to do so, it is a function of their political backwardness, but they are not genocidal maniacs. The fact that people like Amira Hass but other Jews too have lived among both groups (& it was Israel’s ally the Christian Phalange which attacked the Jewish community in Beirut and the PFLP which defended them) is to me more significant.
Anyway this must be my last post because I am seriously behind workwise!
Best
Tony
Adam,
I take exception to your use of the phrase “sucking up”. I have no ulterior motives in treating a fellow human being in a civilized way. To the best of my recollection, I have treated you equally politely and never heard you complaining about “sucking up” then.
I can exchange vulgarities with the best of them, I was also 9 once and wipes my nose on my sleeve, but other than making armchair-Zionists (I’m not referring to you) feel a bit macho for a half an hour, until the other guy comes back with his obscenity, it serves no purpose.
If your view is different to mine on substantive issue, tell me about it. We may have an interesting discussion, but being another backseat driver telling me I’m not being rude enough is to my opinion unbecoming of your undeniable intellect.
For the last time, you are NOT a moron. Get over it!
In the mid to late 1970’s, I used to stand shoulder to shoulder with Marxist sorts like Greenstein.
In those days it was almost cool to be a Marxist. In their tweed jackets, woolen scarves and Jean Paul Sartre paperbacks nestled in their armpits, they were perceived to be intellectually superior and a sex magnet for liberated post-hippy women.
Greenstein’s current forlorn appearance does little to support that sex magnet metaphor of those bygone years – but looks can be deceiving.
We were comrades in the Anti-Nazi League. We would shout down the National Front skinheads with clever one-liners to counter their crass and vile chants. We would Rock against Racism and pray that the free-sex ethos of the 60s had not completely lived out its course.
We would call for the legalization of cannabis and try to prove empirically that in the long-term, continued use did not impair short-term memory.
We would call for the legalization of cannabis and try to prove empirically that in the long-term, continued use did not impair short-term memory.
But in the fullness of time we all moved on.
As each and every communist regime collapsed and abandoned overnight the ideology which had been its guiding force for decades, even the most die-hard commies were decrying the failure of their system.
Tony Greenstein appears to have been trapped in a time-warp. Without a model country upon which to base his fantasies, he now calls upon Israel to be his laboratory testing ground.
He lives in cloud cuckoo land and although he is even ridiculed and disrespected by his colleagues, I personally regard him as a very dangerous individual.
He hangs out in pubs with a handful of similar anachronistic misfits – and sits on committees that pass resolutions about who is eligible to sit on committees that pass resolutions.
He is guilty of willful misrepresentation (e.g. in his depiction of Joachim Prinz) and disingenuous in his exchange with Adam regarding Bruce’s shambolic video clip.
We will never convert or convince him, yet we each contest him in our own respective ways which truthfully are all as ineffective as the other. Richard, Adam, Silke, Jonathan and David Guy with powerful factual arguments, Daniel with a friendly voice of reason, Yoni with some heartfelt insult, and myself with parody, and satire.
I would yield the last word to the erudite Oliver Kamm who describes Tony Greenstein as “a fantastic ignoramus.”
This from Greenstein encapsulates, to my mind, the damage that the cannabis must have done to his brain cells:
“The conversation on film was not edited. It began rather late as the recorder hadn’t been switched on. What was captured was conclusive.”
It reminds me of a 9-year old whining: “But Sir, my dog ate my homework. Yes, I know I don’t have a dog, but you don’t know that.”
Yoni,
I for one am proud of you!
I am also a little proud of the small part I have played in your reformation.
Keep up the good work!
You know where you can stick your patronising, pompous condescension.
The ever modest Goldman….One week!!
What is your secret?
Love and understanding.
Works every time.
once in a while I ask myself this:
if I had been a member of the “lower” classes who had gut-felt misgivings about the slander directed at Jews but no idea how to make up my own mind, what would the fact have done to me that the world came to attend the Olympics in 1936?
might it not have been the last push to make me trust that the high-ups know better and since I wanted to be a patriot what my gut tells me must be wrong. After all I once met this man and I didn’t like him and he was a Jew …
Especially when I witness somebody with Daniel’s credentials roll out the Red Carpet of Satisfaktionsfähigkeit*) for somebody like Tony it makes me feel very confused, not in my worldview, thank heaven I have been allowed to make up my own mind, but in whether it is OK for me to hang in.
For me Tony is unacceptable company, company I refuse to keep and for good reasons. Being German possibly even of Volksdeutschen-descent as Tony so elegantly hinted (it translates for the uninitiated into Nazigirrrl) I’ve had my fair share of encounters with Tony-sound-alikes.
All that treating them politely will result in, is their getting wiggle room to indulge in their sadism without having to pay a professional for it. Whether hurling insults is the best way I don’t know, but it is one way of trying to find a wedge to oust them. “Sucking up” may be another track worth trying but if so I’d prefer it to be done in a way that avoids hurting ones own side. Somehow I think doing no harm to the cohesion of one’s own side should be a prime demand. As ridiculous as the Tonys of this world may be, their salivating for inflicting pain makes them no mean opponent.
What Daniel has been trying here seems to me a variation on pacifism and about that mind-set Yaacov Lozowick says on page 28 of “Right to Exist” Pacifists allow themselves to stand aloof from unjust wars, effectively supporting the aggressor.
I know that Daniel would never stay aloof in a “physical” war which is why his taking that position in a skirmish of the PR-war baffles me no end.
*) as Google translate doesn’t know the word, somebody is satisfaktionsfähig, if an insult can be “healed” in a duel
more on duels here:
How to win a duel
8. Apr 08, 13:30 Uhr
Pistols at the ready: the Past Masters team investigate the history of duelling and they don’t plan on finishing second.
[audio src="http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/podcasts/audio/howtoduel.mp3" /]
‘Being Islamist they reach for anti-semitic as opposed to rationalist, secular or socialist answers to why these things are happening. They are wrong to do so, it is a function of their political backwardness, but they are not genocidal maniacs.’
Hi Tony,
I answered your posts above, if you are interested.
On Nov 14 2010, Mahmoud Al Zahar said the following below. You can argue he is not representative, but I doubt most Israeli Jews would take you seriously, with very good reasons. Similar things can be found throughout Hamas’ Arabic discourse. However you interpret it, Israeli Jews would be entitled to take it as language expulsionist or eliminationist. As would other Jews. You can argue it is merely a warning what might happen should certain criteria remain unfulfilled. But the distinction between that and a threat is so fine as make such arguing specious. And there is no way Israeli Jews would ever willingly risk putting themselves under the majority rule of such people. Especially those of Mizrahi descent.
In short, it is all very well for you to say in your half-Roman Catholic Christian leafy suburban home (if that is where you live, which I admit you may not) to say that it represents no serious threat to Israeli Jews, short, medium or long term. Israeli Jews would tell you to get lost, you apologist for a serious existential threat to the second or largest Jewish community in the world.
In any case, Al Zahar’s exposition of Jewish history is not so very different from the traditional Islamic narrative of Jews as a people exiled or dispossessed for their rejection of Jesus and the prophets, which is not a modern Zionist invention, but more or less what most Palestinian Christians and Muslims have believed for most of Palestinian Christian and Islamic history. Indeed, if you read the earliest Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian nationalist literature, that the Jews are a people dispossessed for their sins is an given.
“On this occasion, dear brothers and sisters, we cannot but recall the crimes of these criminal [Jews] throughout history. Today, we present the world with a bunch of questions, and we challenge it to answer them honestly, for today, interests overshadow moral values, elections overshadow principles, and Zionism has overshadowed the truth.
We ask the people of the world today: Why did France, in 1253, expel and uproot the Jewish entity, which was represented by the ghetto? Why did they expel them? Because they sucked the blood of the French, because they shed the blood of the French, slaughtered them, stole their money, and conspired against them. At the end of the day, the French had no choice but to expel them in 1253.
The [Jews] fled north, to Britain, and lived there for only 27 years, until the English realized the criminality of these people, who murdered them, sucked their blood, and stole their money. So they slaughtered hem, and expelled them in 1280.
We ask the French and the British: Why did you expel them? We ask Germany of pre-Hitler times: Why were the [Jews] expelled in 1384? We ask the [Jews] why France expelled them a second time, in 1360, why Hungry expelled them in 1360, and why Belgium expelled them in 1370.
This was not something new – it started even before 1253, on the day that Pharaoh the tyrant expelled them because they had shed the blood of the Egyptians, and had conspired with their enemies against them. So [Pharaoh] expelled them, after they lost their religion, after the time of Joseph.
Was this series [of explosions] anything new? No. After the Czechs expelled them in 1380. Austria expelled them in 1420, Holland in 1444, and Spain in 1492. Russia expelled them after they conspired to assassinate the Czar in 1882, and Germany expelled them once again in 1945.
The series of expulsions continues to this day. Blood continues to be shed, martyrs continue to fall, our sons continue to hoist the banner high, and Allah willing, their expulsion from Palestine in its entirety is certain to come. We are no weaker or less honorable than the peoples that expelled and annihilated the Jews. The day we expel them is drawing near. ”
http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2676.htm
Also, as an addendum and/or corrective to my remarks about the Rosenstrasse protest above, some think it is erroneous to describe it as a protest e.g. Richard J. Evans, ‘ THE THIRD REICH AT WAR, Penguin Press, NY, 2009 pp. 271f. Here is the Google book, which has no pages, so you will have to word seard ‘rosenstrasse’:
http://books.google.com/books?id=WjoiVWGQ9HYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=richard+evans+reich&hl=en&ei=EC4eTa74Mcz1nAeiibCUDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenstrasse_protest
To make it easier for you, Tony, I’ll re-post my replies here:
‘Clearly’ isn’t an argument. It’s an assertion. And I suspect the only ‘academic’ work you can adduce is Sand’s. Sand’s being Professor of Modern European History, specifically Modern French History, even more specifically Modern French Cinema.
Here is the review of Sand by Martin Goodman, Professor of Jewish Studies, Oxford, with, unlike Sand, both a specialization and decades old reputation in the field:
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXaK5w3WAyCmYWg2c3hqbmRxOXFxXzQzNHhwdHA1NWhm&hl=en
More specifically, your thesis is contradicted in several ways:
the ancient sources do not posit a large scale Judean/Palestinian Jewish conversion to Christianity, rather the reverse.
In the 4th century, Epiphanius gives only one account, of a Jewish convert who tries to build a church in his old village, under imperial Christian patronage, and pretty much utter fails to convert his former compatriots (Stemberger, p. 79):
http://books.google.com/books?id=tu7esOXinfkC&pg=PA79&dq=palestine+jew+convert+christian&hl=en&ei=-yoaTaK8HcqgnAej-KmVDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=palestine%20jew%20convert%20christian&f=false
(Schafer/Hezser, p. 3)
http://books.google.com/books?id=_mkWzIlrwDoC&pg=PA3&dq=palestine+jew+conversion+christian&hl=en&ei=bi4aTe7hIY7YngfCjP2dDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=17&ved=0CHwQ6AEwEA#v=onepage&q&f=false
(Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS)
I include the Palestinian Christian sources, by which I mean Christian authors who define (rather than merely translate) their place of origin or habitation as ‘Palestine’ e.g. Justin Martyr (who is probably the first self-defined ‘Palestinian’ in history) or Jerome.
In the late 4th-early 5th century, Jerome writes, from a Christian Bethlehem, that town and villages deserted or bereft of Jews are being re-inhabited by gentile Christians. All ancient sources, Jewish, Christian or pagan witness to great destruction and loss of life following the suppression the Bar Kokhba revolt. The most detailed, that of Cassius Dio, is by a pagan, who has no particular axe to grind, Jewish or Christian.
From the 2nd century, Jewish communities are located primarily either in southern Judea or the north, in the Galil and Golan. And it is in the forme Judean heartlands that churches, culturally Greek, begin the spring up, albeit very slowly.
And, so far as I can see, the academic consensus is that the greatest source of Palestinian Christians were pagan converts, probably highly Hellenized, since Palestinian Christian inscriptions are almost entirely Greek, while pretty much every Palestinian Aramaic inscription is Jewish.
There are some rabbinic texts which are understood by some to refer to matters arising when a family member converts. But not many (Stemberger, p. 80):
http://books.google.com/books?id=tu7esOXinfkC&pg=PA79&dq=palestine+jew+convert+christian&hl=en&ei=-yoaTaK8HcqgnAej-KmVDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=palestine%20jew%20convert%20christian&f=false
Undoubtedly it happened, but usually on an individual basis, whereby a Jewish convert would join a pre-existing (gentile) Jewish community.
Who were these gentile Christian communities ethnically? Hard to say, but probably from the surrounding region i.e. ‘Syrians’. Christian Aramaic, which does not appear until the 4th-5th centuries, seems to be derived from a western pagan form, not that which is found in the Talmud or Mishna.
This would account for similarities between Ashkenazi and other Jewish with Palestinian Arab Y haplotypes. In any case, genetic evidence suggests that Palestinian Arab Y haplotypes are closest to Negev Bedouin, a group with both genetic and traditional ties with the Arabian peninsula.
Is this so surprising?
The penetration of Christianity into Palestine, especially the rural sector, was extremely slow, even in the 5th century (Safrai, p. 67):
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
In the 4th century, Eusebius’ Onomasticon testifies to only 3 Christian villages in Palestine. Most patristic accounts of conversion in Judea/Palestine concern pagans e.g. Saracens in the Judean desert (Safrai, p. 68; 76-77):
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
This comports with the general thesis that Palestinian Christians largely comprised converted pagan ‘Syrians’, and with the genetic evidence, as I suggested.
The conversion of Jews is unusual, and thus a matter of interest, for the church fathers. Before the 4th century, the list of Palestinian bishops is short. After the council of Nicea in 325 imperial patronage builds new (Hellenistic) poleis in Palestine, and it is here the number of bishops begins to grow with the congregations of converts drawn from them. (Safrai, p. 69):
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
But even this does not testify to the number of Christians, since the process was in no small part a top down affair, the reverse of the ‘liberation movement’, whereby Jesus ‘liberates’ the ‘Palestinians’ from Judaism, which you suggest. Yours is a very modern construct, which has more to do with how some Christians today find their history awkward or embarrassing, and how they seek to revise it to comport with more currently acceptable modes of morality and justice.
In fact, churches only begin to appear in the rural sector (those whom you call ‘the poor’, perhaps?) in the late 5th-early 6th century (Safrai, p. 70):
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Relatively greater ‘progress’ is made among the Samaritans, mainly because their religion is never granted as a a ‘religio licita’, and the suppressions of the revolts result in wide spread destruction, deportation and imperial seizure of buildings and property, some of which are forcibly converted into churches (Safrai, p. 72-73; 75-76):
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=GQ-1OsGWvw8C&pg=PA67&dq=palestine+slow+penetrated+christianity&hl=en&ei=Qy8aTaSkKJOcnweancHcDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
The fact is that the spread of Christianity into Palestine is heavily indebted to imperial Roman destruction, deportation, ethnic cleansing and top down patronage. It is hard to disentangle it from a colonial process, which fact some modern forms of Palestinian Christian liberation theology, such as yours (or even Desmond Tutu’s?), try to disguise, ignore or revise. The first self-defined ‘Palestinian’ Christian (or not) in history. He was a citizen of the Greco-Roman polis-colonia of Flavia Neapolis, and he even writes to the emperor Antoninus Pius, in his 1st Apology, that it is his duty to continue to guard Jerusalem and the land, to keep Jews out or dispossessed, as biblical mandate demands, as punishment for their cosmic crime of Christicide.
As to the Polish lady. I said she is probably not racially anti-semitic as she is prepared to work for Israeli Jews and, if her behaviour or attitude to Jews was racist or objectionable, she would almost certainly be fired. Prima facie, she does not seem to put her employers in the category of ‘Christ killer’, or treats them as such. That does not excuse what she said, but, if she is prepared to be contrite, I do not think it should be a sacking offence.
I do not understand your assertion “Many anti-semites have worked for Jews I’m afraid. That’s what often gave them their credentials”, it does not seem to make to me any sense.
I am afraid I think your attempt to rig the JC poll was precisely an attempt to smear a sample of, and by extension, Anglo-Jews as Islamophobic EDL supporters. That was most arrogant, and assumed, I think, an Anglo-Jewish EDL supporting ‘essence’, unless reformed by such as you. It was an attempt to incite Muslim hatred of British Jews, which was both wicked and, in fact, anti-semitic.
With regard to your ‘explanation’, it explains nothing. ‘Z’ had already distinguished between Christian anti-Judaism and post-Christian anti-semitism, as you acknowledge. He had also maintained a connection/continuity between the two, not that the former was as bad as the latter, to which you took, at the time, vigorous exception.
‘Z’s point was that the anti-semite par excellence does not see the Jew as objectionably alien merely in custom, religion or ethno-nationality, all of which may be assimilated into irrelevance by e.g. conversion, inter-marriage etc.
The anti-semite par excellence sees the Jew as alien from this world altogether, indeed alien from the human race. ‘Z’s point was that what Anti-semites and Zionists have in common is the ‘understanding’ common between victim and victimizer, that the victim would rather be somewhere else.
Your identification with Jewish nationalists like the Bund contrasts with your total absence of Jewishness in any respect other than as adduced in your hostility to Israel. Most Jews chose to flee the Nazi menace and anti-semitism, including most surviving Bundists and their descendants. And history has hardly proven the Bundist thesis correct. The Jews of the USSR, who faced decades of state sponsored ‘anti-Zionism’ did not choose the Bundist path, any more than did the Jews of the Arab world. You can play games of Bundist identity, while wearing your various other hats, because your parents or grandparents did not stand and ‘fight’ anti-semitism, but chose to flee it altogether.
You leapt into apologetics for Christian anti-Judaism and anti-semitism, almost waxing lyrical about the fact that so many Jewish converts were saved.
But that came at price: the silence of Catholic church and Pope about the holocaust for the majority of Jews. What is odd is that, when Katzner allegedly keeps silent about the impending fate of the majority of Hungarian Jews, to save a mere 1200 of his own friends and family, you call him the vilest of traitors; the Catholic church you seem to put almost in the category of hero-saint. The Pope and Church had almost incomparably more power and influence than Katzner. Nor were they in imminent danger of extinction. But Katzner you consign, as it were, to the fires of the hell.
The difference is almost that between darkness and light, demon and angel.
That is why I said you attitude was odd. A bit…Christian, even.
And that Rosenstrasse protest, to save Jewish converts. It was brave and fine enough as it went, I suppose. But they didn’t do it for ordinary Jews. And it doesn’t seem to have been all that brave: how many were arrested or killed for it? And the chances are they knew they had a good chance of getting away with it. They knew the Nazis didn’t want to risk making an enemy of the Catholic church and Pope.
I’m not sure it was all that brave. And it was for their own, their immediate friends and family. Hardly a selfless act. They weren’t even going to be deported anyway, it turns out.
“The threatening possibility of even wider social unrest prevented the Nazis from being able to harm the non-Jewish protesters…According to Dr. Nagler and Nathan Stoltzfus, the predicament was too much for Hitler, who reportedly passed off responsibility by saying “I wash my hands of this.” Joseph Goebbels caved in to the pressure, decided that harming the protesters would trigger mass social unrest, and released the Jewish spouses. Most of them also survived the rest of the war.”
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5966792/rosenstrasse_how_nonviolence_prevailed.html
Don’t get me wrong: these people were entitled to look out for their own. And they did take a gamble that they might be harmed i.e. they displayed courage. But let’s not pretend that an act of Christian tribalism was some kind of universal protest against the Nazi regime and its Jewish policy in general, because it wasn’t.
What does it say about you for lauding it so much, especially over such as Katzner?
Not much.
As to the Spanish Inquisition etc, I am glad you agree me. I am not sure of the relevance of Spanish imperialism, except that it was the Reconquista that placed so many formally Andalusian Jews within its remit, many to most of whom had been fleeing the now persecutory Islamic regime of the Almoravids. And did I say anything about Islamic/Arab anti-semitism? I said nothing. Of course Jews fled to Islamic North Africa and elsewhere, and found refuge.
However, in the 20th century, when a Jewish state was born against the attempt of Palestinian and other Arab Muslims (or even Christians) to subject, expel or eliminate the Jews of Palestine, Arab Muslims chose to treat largely non- or anti-Zionist ‘Arab’ Jews, not as fellow Arab nationals, but as fellow Jewish nationals of Palestinian or Israeli Jews. According with their oldest Islamic (and Christian) traditions of Jews as people originally dispossessed of temple, city and land as a punishment for their rejection of Jesus and the prophets. Thus they effectively expelled them, either directly or indirectly, by discriminatory legislation that made ‘Arab’ Jewish life impossible.
It wasn’t a logical reaction, necessarily (it depends how you define ‘logical’), but it was the only way they felt they could take revenge for the perceived wrong against them by the Jewish people.
Thus Arab Muslims were (usually) tolerant, so long as they were imperially dominant. Less so when not. Especially towards Jews, who were supposed to be at the bottom of the pile.
As to Avi Shlaim’s criticism of Martin Gilbert’s work. Well, when Shlaim undertakes to write a history of the Jews of Islam, his criticism will carry weight. Until then, Gilbert needn’t pay him much mind.
Anyway, we have only Shlaim’s word that the book is insufficiently analytical, and he has an agenda of his own in shooting down the work of Martin Gilbert, to further his career, and ingratiate himself with his employers. He is ‘their’ Professional Ex-Israeli. He has to deliver the goods, especially in these straitened times.
In any case, you cannot analyse the past before you describe it, before you have facts, which happened, to analyse a priori. Shlaim’s is a very parasitical kind of criticism. It relies on someone’s else doing the hard graft so that you can snipe from the sidelines. Happily it is unlikely to interfere with the reception of the work on its actual merits.
In fact, you want analysis? Here’s analysis: you merely DESCRIBED the fact of Arab Islamic tolerance (in some regions) from the 16th century (as a response to a STRAW ASSERTION, which I didn’t make). You didn’t ANALYSE under what conditions it came, with what strings attached, and WHY.
” The dhimmitude in the Arab countries was always more theoretical than real. “Tony Greenstein, Jews from the Arab countries regard this kind of arrogant negation of their painful history and experience as second only to Holocaust denial. If you make this statement out of wilful ignorance rather than denial this only very slightly mitigates the enormity, as there is now a wealth of material, both historic contemporaneous documents by non Jewish sources, as well as Jewish history both written and oral as well as current testimony. You could make a start by reading bataween’s invaluable resource. There is enough reading there to keep you busy till this time next year, at which time, come back and see if you have the nerve to repeat your airy assertion.
jewishrefugees.blogspot.com
In the cold light of day, I think Silke is right, at least when it comes to Greenstein. Even I was seduced by the dialogue between him and Daniel Marks into enjoying it as an intellectual investigation of differing political theories which could be accommodated within a civilised discourse. This made me lose sight of, as corchover reminds us, his attempt to rig the JC poll which constituted
“an attempt to incite Muslim hatred of British Jews, which was both wicked and, in fact, anti-semitic.”
Every time Greenstein attempts to participate in threads on the guise of a respectable interlocutor for the ideologies he espouses, he should be confronted and held to account for the low, rank dishonesty and dangerous malice inherent in what he did there, and he should not be afforded any courtesies.
I have also just noticed Greenstein bald, uncritical citation ofr Israel Shahak’s use of the Talmud in denigrating Judaism representing Shahak as the unqualified authority instead of being highly contentious. And of course it is ironic in the light of Greenstein’s faux horror of antisemitism, that Shahak’s more knowledgable critics regard him as a major propellant of antisemitism
For Paul Bogdanor, Shahak “regaled his audience with a stream of outrageous libels, ludicrous fabrications, and transparent hoaxes. As each successive allegation was exposed and discredited, he would simply proceed to a new invention.”
For Werner Cohn Shahak was:
Without question, the world’s most conspicuous Jewish antisemite… Like the Nazis before him, Shahak specialized in defaming the Talmud. In fact, he has made it his life’s work to popularize the anti-Talmud ruminations of the 18th century German antisemite, Johann Eisenmenger.[43]
Emanuele Ottolenghi argues that Jews like Shahak act as enablers for antisemites, stating that their rhetoric plays a “crucial role… in excusing, condoning, and — in effect — abetting anti-Semitism.”
Greenstein is just such an enabler.
Silke,
Soon after my 40th birthday I became independent. For the first time people would invite me to various functions and I learned to say, “No” without making any excuses. Part of my mid-life crises was realizing that I had left time left in this world than I had thought, and now I talk to who I want to and ignore who I choose.
To the best of my recollection I have treated everyone on this blog with respect and avoided offending people as much as I could. I have made one recent exception to the rule, because in my opinion that commentator’s revolting behavior warranted everything I have said and a lot more. What can I say? There are some people who are capable of intelligent conversation and others who are not. Paradoxically, the kicks in the ass that he’s received seem to have done only good – just look at the way that since I published a long list of his obscenities, he’s stopped swearing. Nick wrote about his obsession with the word “filth” and he dropped that too. Give it a week or two and maybe he’ll stop being impertinent altogether. Some things can’t be rushed.
My discussions with Tony are a totally unrelated matter, not as you imply. I have explained ad nausea that exchanging insults with another person is a waste of time and only proves who knows more insults. I’m nearing 50 now and I must have passed the half-way stage, so I’ll decide who I talk to and how.
Tony Greenstein will hate to hear me say it, but is absolutely no threat to either the State of Israel or the rebirth of a Jewish nation. He may attend an Ahava demo or even disrupt a concert or two, pass some resolutions, but from where I’m sitting, though he wishes he wasn’t, he and his lot are quite harmless.
As a child my father took me and my Siblings to see a dinosaur. My sister was quite scared – after all it was big and had sharp teeth. I rationalized that the monster had been dead for years, so was unlikely to hurt me.
As Nick so beautifully exchanged we were the generation that flirted with every ideology and world view. We read about dialectic and historical materialism for A level and studied Soviet history. We demonstrated against the USSR and did a lot more than disrupting a concert. Many years later a former prisoner of Zion told me that during an interrogation his KGB officer threw a photo of Jewish kids in London being arrested demonstrating for him and shouted, “This is how you make us look, like repressors!” he told me that it was at that moment he knew that WE would win.
For me meeting Tony is like meeting that dinosaur who came alive for a moment. Who could believe that there are still a few fossils left!
No less importantly, Tony is a Jew, and though someone will no doubt misunderstand this, I am commanded to love and respect him. I am not a pacifist and I believe in Jews being strong and self confident, but he has done me no harm and for that reason I will continue to engage him in discussion if I so wish.
Have a great week
Daniel
“No less importantly, Tony is a Jew, and though someone will no doubt misunderstand this, I am commanded to love and respect him. ”
Racist nonsense.
“Give it a week or two and maybe he’ll stop being impertinent altogether.”
Only a total arsehole suffering from clinical megalomania uses the word ‘impertinent’ to refer to another poster. Your delusions to the contrary, you are not the lord of the manor and I am not one of your serfs.
You are the one who started the rude behaviour and the references to dreck, you utterly vile little man.
Greenstein, as a Marxist, a creed which murdered more people in the last century than any other since the dawn of man, you should be ashamed. As an apologist for Hamas’ and Hizbollah’s antisemitism, you should be ashamed. I made no excuse for any comment from anyone – but that footage is incomplete, and you know it. So for libelling others to detract attention away from your own excuses for antisemitism, you should be ashamed.
As for your gross narcissism, well, that’s just funny.
TG doesn’t do ashamed. He lacks that basic human capacity.
Daniel Marks, if someone proudly declared themselves a Nazi on this blog, would you engage with them in a polite and respectful conversation, interested about every silly little aspect of their ridiculous lives?
Greenstein is a Marxist -a creed which murdered even more than the Nazis (several times over in fact).
So why the respect? He does not deserve it. He has no respect for humanity.
Adam,
I’m assuming that was not a rhetorical question, so I’ll try and answer it as best I can.
More years ago than I care to imagine I was debating the Arab-Israeli conflict with a not unattractive Irish student of my age. Somewhere into the discussion she casually mentioned that she thought Hitler had not killed enough (Jews). I am not in the habit of hitting women, so I stopped the discussion at that point. I would not talk to or debate, or get into a slanging match of any type with any Nazi, or for that matter with a Polish woman who calls me an anti-Christ or a Christ-killer.
No, I do not equate Communists with Nazis. I acknowledge that Communism was responsible for the killing of many more people than Nazism, especially if we include Maoism etc, but I make a distinction for two reasons.
Firstly, the Nazis murdered one third of my people in cold blood. I care for everyone who was created in the image of Almighty G-d, but I’d be lying if I said that I mourn an innocent Chinaman killed in the 60s as I do my great grand-father.
Secondly, while I am no Communist and believe there to be a basis of evil within the ideology, I do not believe that the killing of innocent people is a basic demand of the ideology. In other words, while a Nazi who is killing a Jew is realizing his ideology, a Communist who is killing a Chinese peasant is distorting or perverting his. While any Nazi is by definition evil, this is not necessarily the case with Communists.
I’m sure that you know that many of the founders of the State of Israel saw themselves as Communists and while I do not share their world view, nor do I deny their crucial contribution to her establishment. There are and have always been Israeli Communists, including in the Knesset, thankfully, less and less. Yes, I do talk to Communists.
My problem with Tony Greenstein is not ideological but practical. If he were to be as red as red as can be, but come to Israel and live the life of a Zionist Jewish Communist I would have no problem at all. Instead he has chosen to be an anti-Zionist.
If I talk to people it is in the hope of exchanging opinions and persuading and being persuaded. In my opinion the most efficient way to do so is in a polite and orderly way.
I’ll leave you with a thought. You’re an intelligent person and now you’ve read what I’ve written you’re giving it consideration. Now imagine I had replied:
“Oh come on you ignorant tosser. Are you so thick that you think Hitler and Tony are equally evil? And what do you know about respect? The only thing you respect is your inflatable Margret Thatcher doll and a jar of Vaseline!”
You see, I can do it too. But Adam, if I had replied in such a way, would you have still be reading the second paragraph?
“I’m sure that you know that many of the founders of the State of Israel saw themselves as Communists”
As in Trotskyites or Stalinists, like TG? Ignorant nonsense. Some of them – Mapam – considered themselves true Marxists, but they were a minority. They were not Communists in the Gulag sense.
Stalin sent my uncle to the Gulag for no other reason than that he was Jewish, just as Eichman sent another relative to Belsen.
Adam:
TG and DM are Tweedledum & Tweedledee. Both mega-narcissists, both mega-hypocrites, both quite devoid of any shame, both equally vile.
Our Yoni,
Adam asked me if whether I consider Communism, (not Stalinism or any other ism) to be as evil as Nazism and I answered that I do not.
The point of mine that you quote was made to illustrate the fact that there are and always have been Israeli Communists. I neither claimed that they were Stalinists, nor did I claim that they were the majority. You basically put words in my mouth, ie that there were Israeli Stalinists and that they were the majority and then sought to refute them in your usual way. No facts, no sources, just a foul mouth.
As a footnote and though this is nothing to do with my discussion with Adam, there were, of course, supporters of Stalin in Israel at least until the early 1950s and they were among those who had established the State of Israel.
“In the 1951 elections Maki won 4% of the vote and five seats, with Emil Habibi and Esther Vilenska entering the Knesset. During the session, the Prague Trials of 1952 caused the pro-Soviet Labour Zionist party Mapam to break with the Soviet Union. Unhappy at the decision, Mapam members Avraham Berman and Moshe Sneh left Mapam and set up the Left Faction before joining Maki.” – Wikipedia
“4%”
I don’t know what you call it. I call it a small minority.
The full horrors of the Gulag were only becoming gradually known at the time. Many people refused to believe them. And of course, some people are simply shits. Yes, even among Israel’s founders.
They certainly weren’t known generally in the late 1940s. TG doesn’t have that excuse, nor you in your dealings with him.
Anyway, this is all nonsense and one big lie. You certainly didn’t show me any respect right from the start by virtue of me being a Jew. You are a hypocrite.
“You basically put words in my mouth, ie that there were Israeli Stalinists and that they were the majority”
That is a straight lie.
Agree with you on the distinction between Marxism and Nazism. The argument Adam uses unfortunately resembles one used by Nazis.
There is a careless conflation here between Marxism and TG’s Troskyism, which is not the Marxism of Mapam but the genocidal ideology of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.
To compare Adam’s argument with ‘one used by Nazis’ is as stupid as it is mendacious and evil.
Adam, don’t try arguing rationally with those three: they are not honest interlocutors.
Thank you for your support, but we needn’t get carried away.
Adam is no Nazi, nor do he or his arguments resemble them. We can disagree without dehumanizing.
I didn’t say Adam was a Nazis. But the Nazis did use the argument in the 1930s that Communism had allegedly killed more than they to demonstrate it was the worse. State Marxism in its various guises (and Greenstein is a Trotskiist, he says) has committed many evils. But it is in a very different category to Nazism, I think.
Daniel
if you should ever want to address me again make sure to not misuse me again as a foil for bashing up somebody else.
I gather the mysterious “someone else” is neither Gert nor Tony.
Daniel
OK, so less “mysterious”.
I’ve had it, you’ve hurt me, I hope it gives you satisfaction
The trick, Silke, is not to allow a little shit like DM to hurt you: never assume that he’s worth a microgram of your empathy in the first place.
Yoni
I disagree, all people I like have the power to hurt me, that is what daring to stop being indifferent is all about, isn’t it?
Yes, but he is not worth being like by you. He is a cynical manipulator.
Daniel Marks, as I said, I agree with your sentiments in general about holding out the hope, however remote, of modifying through dialogue, some degrees of contrary positions. Mostly you are wasting your time, but its up to you if you want to try. Did you read this moving interview with Sally Vickers, the daughter of committed communists who broke away from the British Communist party and the entire extended family of their fellow members after Hungary 56. She writes:
“My father had already become increasingly disaffected with communism and suspicious of Stalin’s antisemitism. He spent part of his long spell as a POW in a German punishment camp alongside the Jewish Brigade from Palestine, and he used to say that while he had tried to convert them to Marxism they had converted him to Zionism.”
However: Greenstein is not a “mere” Marxist, he has gone further and I would like to know your thoughts on this. That is, he was prepared to try and rig the results of the JC poll to make it reflect that Jews hate Muslims. This is malicious dangerous attempt to stoke up anti Jewish hatred by Muslims. Because of this, I believe it is appropriate to delegitimise his status as a respectable interlocutor for the views he wishes to propagate, be they Marxist or anything else.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/12/salley-vickers-once-upon-a-life
conchover, would you please elucidate? I don’t know what you mean by my argument “resembling” one used by Nazis. I am making the point that Marxists of various guises, amongst whom Greenstein proudly declares his allegiance, have murdered more people than any other creed. That in no way lessons the horrors of the Nazis. The Holocaust is unique – the unique industrial, planned genocide of a People. The Holocaust indeed remains the worst single atrocity the world has ever seen – and it is improtant that it is rightly and accurately regarded as such. That does not alter the fact that the Communists, in various situations have, in totality, murdered even more people.
I appreciate your courtesy Daniel Marks, and engaging with me, but I don’t agree that Communism does not contain such sentiments – the means justifying the ends and so forth. It is not by accident that every Communist state has been totalitarian in nature, and been involved in mass killings – something Greenstein clearly has no problem with. I don’t see what your approach gained in dealing with the likes of Greenstein. Indeed, I think it played into his horrible hands, alowing him to pontificate, spout and revel in an ode to himself – his favourite subject next to vilifying fellow Jews.
Such irrational and obsessive haters need to be tackled head on, and their hypocrisy and hatred needs to be exposed.
Adam,
It goes even further: in Communism as in Nazism, the individual has no value. He is merely a cog in the machinery of the state, which is the supreme value. The two systems are inhuman and dehumanising in practically the same way, which is why both had concentration camps (and members of my family were sent to both).
DM, as usual, is simply ignorant but will never admit it.
Yoni,
I wake up this morning only to find that you seem to be slowly returning to your old ways.
Please stay strong!
We are all with you!
Yoni
Please explain why you see loving you fellow Jew as:
“Racist nonsense”
Goldman,
It’s pointless trying to rationalize. Just acknowledge the guy’s a genius. He is the first to discover that if you love Jews, you are a racist. Here were us thinking that people who hate Jews are racists, but it now transpires that we were utterly wrong. On the contrary, loving Jews makes you a racist.
Anyway our Yoni seems to hate pretty much everyone, so he is certainly no racist according to the brand new theory.
Call me a racist, but I love you Goldman .
our few German pro-Israel-pundits have elevated Philosemite pretty close in derogatoryness to Antisemite.
If for example you should be unlucky enough to enjoy Klezmer music you have made yourself suspect
Hi Amie,
Yes, I was a little shocked too. Half a dozen exchanges with a life-long, Marxist activist, while being heckled by a moronic yored (person who ran away from Israel), and I haven’t turned him into a fanatical Right-wing, religious, West Bank settler!? – Must be losing my touch.
No, seriously, I made it clear from the beginning that I had no wish to engage Tony in a political debate regarding Israel. We both live on different planets and even our terminology is wholly different. To persuade someone, one needs an initial starting point of agreement, a common goal or value. From there you can try and prove to the other guy that your approach is a better way of achieving that goal or realizing that value than his. Tony and I have no common goal or value.
Actually, if you reread my brief conversation with him, my primary interest was regarding his children. I have met many children of such people very far away from Israel and Judaism, who have rediscovered themselves and become wonderful Jews and Israeli citizens. Once I realized that Tony’s children are not Jewish, I realized that sadly there is nothing left to salvage. That is what I meant when I said it is a “one generation argument”.
Regarding the JC poll that you mention, please send me more information or a link, as I do not know what exactly you are talking about and thus cannot comment intelligently.
Maybe Tony was planted by the Mossad, to stir up trouble between Jews and Muslims in London, so that all the Anglo-Jews would make aliya. Now that’s a plan I could embrace! (Yup, that was the unintelligent comment.)
Have a great week,
The fact that you can’t follow my argument makes you a moron, you moron, not me.
Loving any particular Jew, however vile and Jew-hating he is, simply because he is Jew, i.e. based purely on his ethnicity, makes you a racist. Sorry you are too thick to follow this.
I didn’t ‘run away from Israel’, you fucking little shit.
Even if I had, which I didn’t, it would be none of your fucking business, you fucking little shit.
Out of deference to a friend that I adore, I shall not respond to this latest literary tour de force, meeting our resident yored in his gutter, other than to ask the obvious question as to whether in the delightful concluding phrase, “you fucking little shit..” the second word is an adjective or verb.
While in the former case there ought to be an auxiliary verb added, and an indefinite article separating the verb and the adjective, in the latter the indefinite article should precede the adjective “fucking” and a comma added after it.
In other words the expression could read either:
“you are fucking a little shit..”
“you are a fucking, little shit..”
In both eventualities the wee creation would be factually erroneous, but at least grammatically quite sound.
Yoni’s beautifully crafted last posting was as incisive as it was abusive.
If Darwin were alive today to read that grotesquely worded text, he would have trashed his Theory of Evolution and come up with a more regressive model.
And let me take this opportunity to pre-empt Yoni’s next posting which I am sure he is bashing out while we speak: Would “Pathetic Little Wanker” be a good each way bet?
Yoni – do yourself a favor and have a banana!
So now I am subhuman?
Just what I expected from a racist dos maniac.
Goebbels would have been proud of you.
But the Nazis did use the argument in the 1930s that Communism had allegedly killed more than they
according to “Bloodlands “, in the thirties there was more than a bit of truth to that view which didn’t keep them to enter an alliance
It was even truer by 1950 (many more murdered in Siberia and China by then), never mind 1980 (China, Cambodia, NK).
huge numbers of very smart people wanted to believe and believed it for long times that finally a system had been invented that would cure all the woes of mankind
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2010/07/100624_doc_useful_idiots_lenin.shtml
to add a bit of irony: it was one of Sartre’s plays which immunised me to the lures of it at a very early age, while Sartre himself believed for a really really long time himself
which begs the question: was he more honest as an artist than as a human being or was it propaganda working against itself?
“while Sartre himself believed for a really really long time himself”
While continuing to live a very cushy middle class life at the expense of gullible idiots.
Daniel Marks: Essential reading re Greenstein: The JC also covered it, and withdrew the poll.
http://hurryupharry.org/2010/10/15/tony-greenstein-wants-rabbis-to-support-the-edl/
http://hurryupharry.org/2010/10/19/tony-greenstein-keeps-digging/
Okay, over to you Tony.
Do you believe that rabbis should cooperate with the EDL, and if so, why?
Adam,
Two decades ago as chess correspondent for the Jerusalem Report I had reason to meet Nathan Sharansky quite frequently. Once we discussed the Jewish struggle to open the gates of the Soviet Union and he told me that he believed that the activist demonstrations of the 70s were a major reason in the eventual collapse of that evil empire. Yosef Mendlevitch and other lesser known ex-refuseniks, have made similar statements.
Since I believe that my friends and my generation had some small part in this struggle I have no reason to make light of the evil of the former Soviet Union.
However, that having being said, as a Jew it pales in comparison to the indescribable holocaust committed against my people by Hitler, the Nazis and their collaborators. I know that you are a friend of the Jewish people, so you should know this to be a universal truth. In the eyes of every Jew there were pogroms and expulsions, crusades, blood libels, inquisitions but nothing comes close to the evil of Nazi Germany in our eyes.
If you’ve been to Israel, you’ll know what I mean. Old Soviet soldiers wear their Second World War medals with pride here and attitude to the Soviet Union is ambivalent. On the one hand many Jews were killed under Stalin on the other hand he defeated Hitler. On the one hand the Soviet Union voted for the creation of a Jewish State in the UN, on the other hand the regime then became anti-Israel and helped the Arabs.
However, there is nothing ambivalent about our attitude to Nazism here in Israel. Yoni says to Nick, “Goebbels would have been proud of you”. In Israel such a statement is quite taboo and no Jew would ever say it about anyone except a Nazi.
Regarding your asking what I achieved by my short conversation with Tony, I refer to the answer I gave Amie.
Take care,
‘If you’ve been to Israel, you’ll know what I mean. Old Soviet soldiers wear their Second World War medals with pride here and attitude to the Soviet Union is ambivalent.’
Exactly e.g. Red Army Park. Soviet Marxism was statist and totalitarian. But in a very different category to the national socialist variety, especially for the Jews concerned. The USSR was discriminatory, even to the extent of effective expulsion, especially in Poland. But it was not eliminationist.
“However, there is nothing ambivalent about our attitude to Nazism here in Israel”
So? It just shows that stupidity vis-a-vis the USSR hasn’t died out.
“Yoni says to Nick, “Goebbels would have been proud of you”. In Israel such a statement is quite taboo and no Jew would ever say it about anyone except a Nazi”
Nobody says to another Jew , as Nick said to me , “You are subhuman”, except a Nazi. Goebbels would have been proud of him.
The fact that you demand respect for TG ‘as a Jew’ but are keen to excuse a Nazi statement about me, is entirely typical of your hypocrisy.
The two of you are scum.
I would just like to say that it greatly pains me that all of you are having a pop at each other. We have bigger problems – people like Greenstein who would like to see the Jewish state annihilated, and care nothing for Judaism or Jewish people – indeed, set out to do them harm.
Don’t waste your energies attacking each other! We don’t have that luxury.
thanks Adam
I tried that tack once or twice when it began …
Adam,
I know that you are sincere, but perhaps things should be put in perspective. This is not a battleground where your forces are fighting each other instead of attacking their foe. This is not the United Nations where a diplomatic blunder may harm our interests. This is a blog where people come to discuss issues, form and state their views and yes, to argue.
We don’t have to pretend that we all agree lest the enemy think that we are divided and if an anti-Zionist says something that we agree with, we can acknowledge that too. Nothing will happen. Israel will be no weaker or stronger if I call Tony Greenstein a jerk or a gentleman. And if our Yoni uses all the naughty words he knows about me tonight, my West Bank settlement will be just as beautiful and vibrant in the morning.
I too, would rather it that I could address everyone, as respectfully as I address you and visa versa, but what can you do. Different strokes for different folks.
I am quite happy to continue intelligent dialogues with those people who are up to it and if some heckler calls me a “fucking shit” to either ignore it or laugh it off, as I have.
I do, however, take exception to blatant lies, and to hear a fellow human attacked, being told that Goebbels would have been proud of him has no place in civilized discourse. Far worse Nick was accredited with having said:
“You are subhuman”
This is a statement Nick never made, nor could have made. I challenge every decent human being to search for that disgusting utterance and to discover that it is a complete fabrication, and the product of the sickest of minds that I have encountered of late, and then determine that Kopaloff is owed an terrible apology.
Adam, you may think that everybody who mouths off at ant-Zionists must be on our side, but sitting where I am there are some detestable “supporters” of Israel too, and without knowing whether their intentions are good or bad, they can do a great deal of harm.
Yoni has left Israel. I have no interest in knowing why, after getting to know him, I frankly say good riddance. He is a Jew and as such I am commanded to love him too, but please G-d, let it be from a distance.
Regards,
“I do, however, take exception to blatant lies”
Interesting, since you are by some margin the biggest liar on this blog, and then some.
Incidentally, I take exception to being called a ‘traitor’ by a racist dos shit like you.
“If Darwin were alive today to read that grotesquely worded text, he would have trashed his Theory of Evolution and come up with a more regressive model.”
Which part of the word ‘regressive’ can’t you understand, racist dos shit?
have a banana in the context translates for me into “you are a chimpanzee”
I chose Chimpanzee because they are the only kind about which I know for sure that they eat bananas in the wild
Now lets get the reasoning that chimpanzees are not subhuman …
for a start, as best I know humans and chimanzees are both called primates.
Though hardly an expert in monkeyology, the very excellent the very excellent Answers.com has the following to say about the matter in hand:
“Do monkeys eat bananas? No, many of the average primates enjoy chewing tree bark and eating fruit (such as grapefruit, oranges NOT bananas).”
Now our Yoni has gone down on record, not once, as boasting his recently augmented consumption of Israeli fruit and veg (as high as 75%) and to the best of our knowledge that together with foul comments on this excellent blog are his main contribution to the realization of his Zionist dream, nowadays. It is certainly no secret that oranges and grapefruits are among Israel’s oldest and most famous exports.
Indeed, a strong case could be made for arguing that Kopaloff in his suggestion that our Yoni abandon the aforementioned fruits in favor of bananas was characterizing him as less rather than more monkey-like.
Either way, all this speculation is thankfully a million miles away from Joseph Goebbels, so I recommend Kopaloff accepting the apology, as much as it was an apology, and that we all move on to pastures greener – or more yellow for Nick, our Yoni and all banana aficionados .
There was no apology, certainly not on my part, for being called ‘subhuman’, you braindead racist dos maniac.
I haven’t seen one from the person who posted that insult, which is the only one relevant here.
Which part of ‘regressive’ are you struggling with, braindead racist dos maniac?
1. I had promised myself not to come back to this blog. Time and all that. However, since Daniel insisted on sending me a reference via my blog I have caught up with the latest postings. So just a few quick comments:
The late Israel Shahak may be described as many things but he wasn’t wrong about the anti-Gentile views in the Talmud. Anyone who is honest knows that orthodox Judaism is anti-Christian and parts of the Talmud were therefore excised and put in a separate ‘dispensations’ so as not to bring down the wrath of their neighbours on them in Europe. Today in Israel there is less excuse, hence the fanatical racism of those like Rabbi Yaacov Shapira and his Torat HaMelech, which advocates a Nazi style killing of Palestinian, yeah even babies and infants.
I have documented just a few of the stories for last year but there are many others:
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/12/300-israeli-rabbis-support-refusal-to.html
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/12/israels-racist-rabbis-forbid-sale-of.html http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/09/killing-non-jews-is-kosher-and-symbol.html http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/01/rise-of-religious-far-right-in-israel.html
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-christian-hatred-in-israel.html
2. Despite his foul mouth and inability to express himself succinctly and lucidly, Daniel, Yoni is right. To love someone because they are Jewish is racist. I love my children, my friends and those close to me. I don’t love someone because of an accident of birth. This was the debate I referred to between Hanna Arendt and Gershom Scholem.
3. I have never said that I am a Trotskyist. I wouldn’t know how to define one given the multiplicity of groups calling themselves such who I mainly disagree with. I have said that my politics are in the Trotskyite tradition and that I am a Marxist. Whereas you are all searchers of a nationalist panacea and have converted Judaism from a religion into a form of state worship, I just happen to believe that nationalism is a curse one must endure on the journey to a better society. The Nazis were national socialists. A contradiction in terms. Labour Zionism was accurately described by Zeev Sternhall as nationalist socialism. Not a great deal of difference in the basic outlook. And although a Zionist he is a specialist on fascism.
The reason I am in the Trotskyist tradition is because of something called Stalinism which did all the horrific things attributed to it but despite itself presided over a state where the market was largely absent. I know this is technical but Soviet society wasn’t geared towards the market or commodity production or private profit. That is why, despite itself, the Soviet Union saved more Jews from Hitler than any other country and some would argue the rest of the world combined. Estimates are from Begin’s in The Revolt, ¾ million I believe, to Gerald Reitlinger who estimated up to 1.5 million and there is a citation in Nathan Weinstock’s Zionism: A False Messiah that, including the Baltic Republics, it was 1.9 million. Compare this to the friends of Israel such as the USA which took about 70,000 refugees.
4. I wouldn’t expect any socialists on a blog like this. The idea of a rationally planned society where production is for human need and not private greed, where resources are not expended in weapons of war whilst people like those on this blog dream up excuses for continuing along that path. Global warming alone should be a stark warning as to the dangers of capitalism. The idea that there is any comparison between this and Nazism says more about the person making the comparison than the subject. Those making crass comparisons between the numbers that Hitler and Stalin killed are in essence seeking to minimise the Nazis’ guilt. I doubt very much that it is possible to know how many Stalin was responsible for murdering – 5 or 6 million maybe. That is not to excuse Stalin but those who make these comparisons end up in bed with Ernest Nolte who effectively justifies the Nazi regime by arguing it was a response to the Stalin murders. By and large, Stalinism did not distinguish between the ethnic/racial origin of those it murdered. To the Nazis, the racial origin was the most important thing. Stalinism targeted political opponents and of course class enemies like the Kulaks. But as Albert Luthuli said, you can change your views but not your colour or ‘race’.
5. Unlike our Nazi girl, (her description) – the Volksdeutsche were simply the ethnic Germans dotted around Europe, they weren’t inherently Nazi though in practice they became the most reliable elements – I and fellow Marxists, socialists and others have always sought to prevent the growth of fascist and neo-Nazi groups in Britain. That is why the neo-Nazi Red Watch features me on their hit lists, not Jonathan Hoffman or his couriers. So why did I urge people to vote ‘yes’ in a Jewish Chronicle poll about whether rabbis should associate or work with the EDL? One reason was because all too many of them hold the same opinions, as the links I’ve posted above demonstrate. Another is that clearly there is such a lot of joint work at the moment, demonstrating together etc. that it would be churlish to spoil the party. Urging people to vote doesn’t, in my book, count as ‘rigging’ unless I was asking people to vote repeatedly.
6. The real question is why the Jewish Chronicle thought it was a good idea to hold such a poll in the first place. Maybe it was the activities of their favourite blogger, J Hoffman! In which case my tongue in cheek response was apposite. However I doubt that humour has place among rabid Zionists.
Now this is my last post on this particular subject. You have defended the Ahava woman so you cannot complain about anti-semitism anymore.
Tony Greenstein
PS: And Yoni, please take some anger management course.
1)
it is Nazigirrrl and not Nazigirl
2)
it is the nickname Bridlington Gert invented for me
http://developing-your-web-presence.blogspot.com/
3)
I think you should visit him, it could become the beginning of a wonderful …
4)
I think Yoni’s anger is perfectly in synch with the offense
Well, TG is far too thick to see that …
Go fuck yourself, Greestein. You are the vilest person by far I have ever come across on any blog, bar none. You are stupid, ignorant, and simply dripping with hatred for Jews, and for pretty much anything that is decent in the world, and you support some of the vilest things in the world. I can’t describe you accurately, because Richard will have to edit my post radically. Your emotional and intellectual development is that of a somewhat precocious but quite unusually nasty 14-year old. I don’t take advice from scum like you.
I have no ‘anger management’ problems: I hate liars, hypocrites, racists and the fans of genocidal dictators and other mass-murderers, and express my feelings about them without the public school-like psychological hangups that cripple so many people in the UK.
‘Stalinism targeted political opponents and of course class enemies like the Kulaks.’
Many to most Kulaks were not given the chance to repent of their alleged ways i.e. change their views, either.
Sorry for thinking you called yourself a Troskiist. It must have been because you said you were in the Trotskiist tradition.
Mr Half Roman Catholic Christian Bundist, who lives, thanks to his ‘cowardly’ forebears who didn’t ‘fight’ anti-semitism, in a situation almost wholly unlike any of the actual historical Bund (who made, by and large, very different choices).
And you tried to rig that poll to incite Muslim hatred of British Jews. That’s flat. Why the JC ran the poll is irrelevant. It is unlikely to have been down to JH. Most likely agitators like you trying to equate ZF with EDL. The JC had no idea you would try to equate a sample of British Jews with EDL. They are unlikely to have known you were that batty.
I blame your noble but failed attempt to fight anti-semitism in PSC. It’s sent you a little round the bend.
I haven’t defended that woman. And if you try to rig a poll to misrepresent a sample of British Jews as EDL supporters, and are unrepentant, you cannot claim if people call it anti-semitic agitation (or batty or both).
‘Anyone who is honest knows that orthodox Judaism is anti-Christian and parts of the Talmud were therefore excised and put in a separate ‘dispensations’ so as not to bring down the wrath of their neighbours on them in Europe. ‘
Was this your response to my lengthy critique of your sundry assertions about Palestinian Christianity and apology for the redeeming qualities of Christian anti-Judaism and anti-semitism, posted twice above?
If you are about to post a lengthier reply, please forgive the question.
Anyone notice how odd it is that TG criticizes that woman for her Christian anti-semitism, yet is so keen to demonstrate how fundamentally anti-Christian orthodox Judaism is (on the basis of deleted entries in the Talmud), how Pale Jews were often responsible for the pogroms for which they blamed gentile Christians, how Christian anti-Judaism and anti-semitism yet allowed so great a saving of European Jews, how wonderful Rosenstrasse and Catholic Christian saving of Christian Jews despite silence about the rest was, but how evil Katzner and the Zionists were, how Palestinian Christians represent true, genetic (and spiritual?) ancient Israel (an odd national-/racial-ization of traditional Christian spiritual supercessionism), since Judean Jews really became Palestinian Christians etc?
Mr. Greenstein wears many hats. He’s quite the juggler, in his way.
Out of interest: when people keep talking about ‘Katzner’, do they by any chance mean Kasztner?
If by ‘people’ you mean me, yes, thanks for correcting me.
One is free to translate, infer, interpret, what someone else has said, but then it becomes a lie when one puts that inference or interpretation inside inverted commas and write:
‘Nick said to me, “You are subhuman”. ‘
That is a bald-faced lie.
After having lied and fabricated, the next logical stage is to surmise that since Nick said “You are subhuman”, which he never did, he must be a follower of Neo-Darwinism.
Next one deduces that since Nick is a follower of the school of Neo-Darwinsim, proven conclusively by a quote that was invented, then surely Joseph Goebbels Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, and chief architect of the Kristallnacht attack on the German Jews, which historians consider to be the beginning of the Final Solution, leading towards the genocide of the six million Jews, would be “proud” of him. After all, Goebbels also believed in Neo-Darwinism
Neither is this a petty playground squabble nor irrelevant to the subject of this excellent posting. The legitimacy of implying that another human being, let a fellow Jew and descendant of holocaust survivors has Nazi leanings, and that Goebbels would be proud of him, is exactly the critique that I have heard regarding Tony Greenstein. He claims that Zionists cooperated with the Nazis, the yored (person that ran away from Israel) claims that Goebbels would have been proud of Nick.
Both have within them a grain of holocaust denial too. After all, if what the Zionists did was as bad as the Nazis, Hitler couldn’t have been so bad. If a fabricated quote of an Israeli citizen would ingratiate him with Goebbels, Joseph Goebbels couldn’t have been such a monster after all.
Finally, this is not part of a “flame war” but what I consider to be a calm and reasoned appeal for more rational debate and tolerance, and less of the opposite.
Which part of ‘regressive’ can’t your tiny mind understand, you disgusting serial liar and racist dos maniac?
Hi Tony,
For obvious reasons I will not respond to your support of Yoni in his calling me a Racist. I am an orthodox Jew, I believe in a living G-d in the heavens who I do not believe to be a racist, and he has commanded me to love my fellow Jews. I don’t need a G-d to tell me to love my wife or kids, or people who have done me good. That happens spontaneously. it’s to love the Tonys and Yonis of this world that the law was given. Anyway I doubt we shall agree on this point.
I was more interested in your point six. You write :
“The real question is why the Jewish Chronicle thought it was a good idea to hold such a poll in the first place.”
That is as may be, but that was not the question I asked. From an intellectually honest Communist I expect more than the corny, old politician’s trick of reconstructing an uncomfortable question and then answering what you prefer rather than what you were asked.
You also write:
“Now this is my last post on this particular subject. You have defended the Ahava woman so you cannot complain about anti-semitism anymore.”
However, this is to my mind unfair. Scroll back over this page and you will see that the person who asked you the question has never defended the Ahava woman.
In the beginning I said that if she had said what she is accredited with having said, it was a mistake to hire her. Later, when it was conceded that she had used the term anti-Christ I roundly condemned her in terms as scathing as any commentator, yourself included. If you wish, I can provide links.
I was roundly criticized and attacked personally, for assailing someone supposedly on my own side. Similarly, I have been attacked for treating you as a human being.
Therefore, I come with clean hands. I would like to receive a serious response to the question that I asked. I shall add:
Do you believe that rabbis should cooperate with the EDL?
Did you attempt to cause friction between the Jewish and Muslim communities of the UK by voting in a Jewish Chronicle poll in contrary to your true beliefs? If so, why?
Regards,
“I was roundly criticized and attacked personally”
Aww, poor diddums.
And calling another poster ‘traitor’ is not a personal attack, you utter scum?
I can’t find it again but I distinctly remember having seen somewhere a long list of in my book facilely applied Nazi-comparisons in Israeli media.
I remember it because it shocked me to learn how facile the stuff was thrown around there. Also I come across it quite often from US-top-star-journalists who say they are Jews.
Silke, you really really don’t want to believe a single word posted by that disgusting serial liar. After all, he keeps calling me a ‘traitor’ who ‘ran away from Israel’. He simply drips non-stop lies.
(It’s also none of his business, of course: it was another poster who called me subhuman, but DM’s head is so swollen that he thinks he is the king of et universe and in charge of everything.)
He is a classic bully, he can dish it out but can’t take it. Excepting only TG, he is the most disgusting person I have ever encountered on any blog.
Greenstein fails entirely to address his dhimmi denial dismissal of Jewish suffering under Muslim regimes in the face of testimony. He fails to address with any honesty the questions put by Daniel Marks about the rigging of the poll.
I listened to a BBC documentary based on the documents revealed from the Soviet archives about the heartbreaking experience of children of Kulaks. These, blameless children whose only crime was to be born of Kulak parents were discriminated against, abused and persecuted just as irrationally as if they were tainted by a racial heritage.
As a graduate of anthropology, I was intrigued by Yoni’s monkey-like response at my suggestion that he should eat his banana.
Never was a self-fulfilling prophecy ever truer.
For a man who takes pride in an increased consumption of Israeli-grown fruit and veg, I thought he would be delighted with the idea. Perhaps it was an oversight on my part, in that I failed to stipulate that I was referring to an Israeli banana.
As it transpires, his simian similes of banging on his chest and the crude sounding of his drums of war, only serve to support the hypothesis postulated.
However, in the interest of reducing the heightened tensions on this blog, I feel there is no need to dig up further evidence to buttress the contention that Mr. Darwin would have preferred to adopt a more regressive and devolutionary model.
In actual fact, the very opposite could be argued, that the exception could be the one that proves the Evolutionary rule and that the subject’s arrested development is the control group that supports the overall theory.
In any event we shall continue to monitor the subject’s postings and report on them periodically for the public good.
“I was intrigued by Yoni’s monkey-like response”
So you are still calling me ‘subhuman’, you disgusting Goebbels disciple, despite DM’s lies. What a surprise. The two of you are equally vile scum.
Ape= a large uncouth person
— ape·like adjective
Examples of APE
Her boyfriend’s some big ape she met at a party.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apelike
Keep digging, idiot.
I’ve got say that I’m withYoni on this one.
I find your comments both derogatory and crude and if the apes ever hear what you’ve been saying about them they’ll be really angry!
Everyone’s a comedian in his lunchtime.
Congratulations on joining the Goebbels club, dickhead.
Proverbs 17:28
As for Daniel’s grammatical clarifications – I have little doubt that Yoni will soon make his indebtedness perfectly clear.
Until the blog’s pristine pages are smeared with the next barrage of profanities, it should be noted that on occasion Daniel’s regular Shacharit appearances has been met with shouts of “Early Bird.”
In his youth, Michael would effortlessly glide the 100 meter dash and earned the title of “gazelle.”
I have repeatedly been called “busy as a beaver” but a painful foot has recently made me sluggish in my movements.
In school we were all called “Cur” which means some kind of unmanageable dog. We countered by endearingly calling our favorite Jewish Studies teacher “The Worm.”
The elusive camel lover Gamil Elias was accused of being a mole – and his reaction was far more measured than Yoni’s (but then again Gamil probably does not know what a mole is).
The good lord went to a lot of trouble creating all the animals of the animal kingdom and Ellis must have been called every single one of them. Weasel, snake and shark are just three that readily come to mind.
Based on her Marlene Dietrich legs, a graceful lady of this blog is reputed to be a fox, while Adam and Richard, Conchover and David Guy and the same graceful lady – all have the wisdom of the owl.
Yoni has become quite a lobus of late – and I think he has done very well with monkey.
Now shut up and finish your banana.
It’ll be a freezing day in hell when I start taking orders from you, megalomaniac dos tosser.
‘These, blameless children whose only crime was to be born of Kulak parents were discriminated against, abused and persecuted just as irrationally as if they were tainted by a racial heritage.’
Nial Ferguson makes that point very well in his The War of the World.
Yes, but he reduces ALL conflicts to racial ones, which means that his vanity in shocking the burghers with his ‘daring’ new paradigm takes precedence over academic rigour.
I don’t know that documentary but I’d say “beware of Niall Ferguson” –
I read his Ascent of Money (a sloppily cobbled together tome) and didn’t care at all for the style in which he put Shylock more than once in the center of it.
‘Whereas you are all searchers of a nationalist panacea and have converted Judaism from a religion into a form of state worship ‘
In which case you have converted Judaism into meaninglessness. “Judaism in dissolution”, as Marx might say.
I don’t think that’ll bother him too much. The problem, rather, is that he is talking nonsense. Israel is the only nation-state with which he has a problem, and it’s a psychological problem, not an ideological one. In other words, he is an infantile hypocrite.
Good Morinig Yoni
Nick told you to eat your banana at which point you replied:
“It’ll be a freezing day in hell when I start taking orders from you, megalomaniac dos tosser.”
Did you really think that his intention was that you should eat a banana?
Have you considered a brain transplant?
Knowing Nick as I do, and I do, his funny-bone must have been well tickled to hear himself described as a “megalomaniac dos tosser.”
Thought Kopaloff knows how devoted to him we all are, calling him ultra-Orthodox might be the equivalent of calling our banana scoffing, yored friend a gentleman. Unfortunately, Nick is anything but a “dos” (antiquated Hebrew-Yiddish slang for ultra-Orthodox Jew).
However, I shall once again take advantage of Yoni’s elemental, English expertise and profoundly, problematic punctuation, which have let him down and have caused him to confuse nouns with adjectives, and forget his commas.
Let us assume that when he says “megalomaniac” he means “megalomaniacal” (what else could it be?) it now becomes clear that a megalomaniacal dos tosser is either someone who tosses megalomaniacal dosim (plural of dos), or someone who tosses ordinary dosim in a megalomaniacal way or fashion.
Though the picture of Nick nonchalantly tossing ultra-Orthodox Jews (megalomaniacal or otherwise) around the place is difficult to conjure up, the alternative, namely him being one of them, is sadly, well nigh impossible.
Dos does not mean ‘ultra-orthodox’, asshole. It can be – and is – applied to Bnei Akiva and all shades inbetween.
Your ignorance of colloquial Hebrew is hilarious.
“However, I shall once again take advantage of Yoni’s elemental, English expertise and profoundly, problematic punctuation, …”
Your grasp of English commas as is as defective as your familiarity with colloquial Hebrew.
“..as is as…” – Do you really make a living with that type of English?
I’m beginning to suspect Gamil was right about the “happy taxi driver”.
A simple typo, since this website is so slow I can’t see what I am typing. Got it, microbrain? If not, ask your remedial teacher to explain it to you.
You have written far, far, far worse in your ‘construct’ sentence. And you don’t know how to use commas.
Now fuck off, lowlife.
I scrolled to the end of the screen before reading the postings and all I could see from the postings was the line “Now fuck off lowlife”
I wasn’t difficult to guess who the author of the brilliant posting was.
More intelligent and applicable than anything you post here, scum. And get some punctuation advice from your Fascist mate. Oops, forgot: he can’t punctuate, either.
Brilliant! Brilliant!
The man’s a genius!!