Home » Anti-Semitism is just a symptom of a much greater and more pervasive rot

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Anti-Semitism is just a symptom of a much greater and more pervasive rot — 63 Comments

  1. I appreciate Wolpe’s three-point explanation of anti-Semitism.

    I’ve long wondered if there weren’t some secret First Cause I couldn’t find. But I’ll bet it’s as simple as tribal resentments Writ Large

    I’ll take his point about Jews as a conscience for humanity, and therefore resented, with a bit of salt. Could be.

  2. I hate George Soros but I’m also pro-Israel. As are most of those I’ve encountered who hate Soros.

    Also, he doesn’t just bankroll the left, he invests in efforts designed to undermine Western society, for example by encouraging a surge of immigration from Muslim countries into the West. Which resulted in things like the chant of “gas the Jews” heard in Australia after Oct. 7.

  3. Moreover, Jewish culture — portable, book-focused, and one that venerates scholarship and learning — primes us for economies where information and mental agility lead to success. When you don’t like someone, seeing them succeed magnifies the antipathy.

    One could rewrite that last sentence a little more bluntly. “When you, who are not very successful, sees someone else succeed, it magnifies the antipathy.” Envy. One of the seven deadlies.

    I tend to see the larger social issues of success, other’s lack of it, and envy in the oversimplified terms of the ant and the grasshopper fable.

    From Wikipedia:
    The Ant and the Grasshopper, alternatively titled The Grasshopper and the Ant (or Ants), is one of Aesop’s Fables, numbered 373 in the Perry Index.[1] The fable describes how a hungry grasshopper begs for food from an ant when winter comes and is refused. The situation sums up moral lessons about the virtues of hard work and planning for the future.

    The lesson of the fable is antithetical to the modern socialist mindset. In that mindset, one’s choices cannot have a bearing on future needs and basic comforts because one’s mere existence as a human being means that all of those needs must be satisfied.

    Jews just tend to be seen as even bigger winners in this mindset. That they may have worked and prepared for their current circumstances is not open for consideration.
    ________

    I had a conversation a long time ago with a friend who is half Jewish about huxley’s question (first cause). His suggestion was that in the distant past, Jews were involved in money lending in times and reqions where there were religious prohibitions, for most, against lending. I don’t know enough history to be certain, and I’m not sure about his level of knowledge either.

  4. The antisemitism has been in full view on college campuses for years in the guise of the BDS movement. After all the Israelis are uniquely bad compared to the peace loving Palestinians who send suicide bombers into public places and murder innocents.

  5. Don, you *should* hate George Soros if you are pro-Israel. Not only has he never to my knowledge embraced his Jewish heritage but he is a major funder of anti-Zionist/BDS groups.

    One of the markers of the cynicism and dishonesty of the left is their calling critics of Soros “antisemitic” when they themselves are hostile to Israel and now whitewashing or even supporting the depraved Jew-haters of Hamas.

  6. TommyJay:

    Not only were Jews allowed to be moneylenders in Christian societies, and not only were Christians not allowed, but Jews were banned from most other professions. They usually could not own land or join guilds, for example; that was forbidden. And of course money-lenders were often hated.

    It is also a little-known fact that Jews in Germany were allowed to be horse-traders, and dominated that business for centuries (about 90% of German horse-traders were Jews, I believe), and were often disliked for that.

    Here is Thomas Sowell talking about Jews as middlemen, and engendering hatred for that (along with other middlemen ethnicities in other countries, such as Chinese). The difference (which Sowell doesn’t point out in this clip – and I don’t know whether he touches on it in his book) is that unlike the Chinese and those other ethnicities, the Jews lacked a home country to which to return if times got rough. Here’s the clip:

  7. The Wandering Jew was a minor figure in Chaucer, for a reason. The Jew was often taken advantage of, displaced at royal will or whimsey (no point in owning land). Queen Isabella ran out of money financing the Spanish navy and Columbus, so she borrowed massively from Spanish Jews. And then reneged and kicked them out of Spain, penniless. The Jews’ only alternatve was conversion to Christianity; then they could remain in Spain.
    Medieval Jews took to sewing precious gems into the clothes of their garments as hidden, highly portable assets. They necessarily stuck to themselves as a tiny monotheistic minority who did not recognize Jesus Christ as Messiah and were thus not of the Roman Catholic faith, a biggie in those days when everyone else was Catholic.

  8. ” unlike the Chinese and those other ethnicities, the Jews lacked a home country to which to return if times got rough.” neo

    And that’s why at base, Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism. Every historically persecuted minority need to have a place of refuge, to which they can flee during times of persecution. It’s supportive of genocide to suggest otherwise. In a pogrom, being in the wrong place, at the wrong time… is a death sentence.

  9. Wow, such a great post I’m not sure where to begin. I very much like TommyJay’s amendment, When you, who are not very successful… and neo’s link to Sowell in response is perfect. And thank you for reminding me how much I loved Ronald Reagan.

    I’m sure others here are aware of the idea of Jews, antisemitism, and the canary in the coal mine. When antisemitism rears its head it nearly always is tied to a deeper sickness in society. For what it’s worth, I’ve always thought there is much to be said for that theory, and thus we shouldn’t be all that surprised by the current antisemitism. Our society is clearly very sick.

  10. Neo, I read it.

    FOAF,

    I agree. Illegal immigration from Muslim countries, which Soros supports, is dangerous to Jews in those countries as well as to the state of Israel.

    We now see the Democrats torn by the Hamas war because much of their base is pro Hamas (led by Muslims) but they still have remaining establishment “support” for Israel, which is braced by the fact many wealthy Jews are Democrat doners who understand Israel needs to defend itself.

    I say “support” because the administration is supporting Israel in limited fashion, attempting to restrain them and meddle in their politics while providing needed munitions. Caroline Glick has had some interesting videos covering this.

    Personally I think the Israeli deep state (and ours as well) allowed the attack to happen to hurt Bibi, but they miscalculated not realizing how bad it would be. And now, per Glick, the Israeli left is collapsing. After watching the string of conspiracies here (mostly to get Trump), it’s easy to think the worst.

  11. Don:

    Israel did not “allow” this to happen anymore than Bush “allowed” 9/11 to happen. Of course, 9/11-Truthers think differently. I have read this “Bibi’s enemies in Israel allowed this to happen” conspiracy theory online, on both right AND left, and I think it shows a deep misunderstanding of Israel.

  12. I second Mike’s Wow. Great video clip of Sowell, plus the addendum. “One word of advice, ‘FAIL’.” It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

    Sowell’s part about “middlemen” (which I didn’t really know) and contrasting that with laborers is fascinating too. Here are a few disparate, but not random thoughts.

    I studied investing a bit, on my own. In both money lending and stock investing, a quantitative understanding depends on understanding the “time value of money” typically over longer time periods. F. Bastiat & other more modern authors have tackled that, and it is a little complicated. As Bastiat pointed out, zero interest rates (demanded by the anarchists of his day) are not reasonable.

    Bastiat’s most famous essays, today anyway, are:
    That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen
    Frédéric Bastiat

    The first section on “broken windows” is the one that’s often cited and is good. But section 6 on “Intermediates” or middlemen really caught my interest too. Firstly, it a historical document now, and why the hostility back then?? Maybe this neo post answers that question.

    Secondly, Karl Marx and the anarchists that Bastiat was debating put such a focus on the value of laborers, some of which is undeniable. But is that really sacrosanct above all else? Middlemen provide real value too. It just isn’t as obvious. The unseen!

  13. Further, Jews were kicked out of Israel by one colonial power — Rome — and returned by overthrowing the rule of another — Britain.

    Relations between Britain and Zionist leaders were more complicated and intertwined than that.

  14. I always point out to people that don’t like jews that Jews do everything that promotes success. When I was younger I thought “be more like Jews. Their successful darn near wherever they go.” Stupid me. Using logic….

  15. Tommy and Neo, have you not heard of
    Ivanhoe, the Novel by Sir Walter Scott? And the movie made in 1953. Yes, Christians could not be moneylenders, so the Jews became the moneylenders. The Jewish community was instrumental in raising the ransom for Richard, the Lion Hearted.

  16. The essay by Rabbi David Wolpe was excellent.
    In the sidebar of the Harvard Crimson was a link to an op-ed by a different Jewish leader at Harvard.

    Let’s just say, with friends like Steinberg, who needs enemies?
    https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/12/29/steinberg-weaponizing-antisemitism/
    “Harvard Hillel is the University’s Jewish Center. Bernie Steinberg was executive director from 1993 to 2010.”

    During my long career as a Jewish educator and leader — including thirteen years living in Jerusalem — I have seen and lived through my community’s struggles. Now, as an elder leader, with the benefit of hindsight, I feel compelled to speak to what I see as a disturbing trend gripping our campus, and many others: The cynical weaponization of antisemitism by powerful forces who seek to intimidate and ultimately silence legitimate criticism of Israel and of American policy on Israel.

    In most cases, it takes the form of bullying pro-Palestine organizers. In others, these campaigns persecute anyone who simply doesn’t show due deference to the bullies.

    The recent effort to smear our new University President, Claudine Gay, is a case in point. I applaud the decision by the Harvard Corporation to stand by Dr. Gay amid the ludicrous charges that she somehow supports genocide against Jews, and I hope Harvard will continue to take a clear and strong stance against any further efforts by these powerful parties to meddle in university affairs, especially over personnel decisions.

    The toppling of the president of the University of Pennsylvania is a sobering example of what can happen when we empower these unscrupulous forces to dictate our path as university leaders. The stakes are as high as they’ve ever been. Our vigilance must be up to the task.

    As a leader in the Jewish community, I am particularly alarmed by today’s McCarthyist tactic of manufacturing an antisemitism scare, which, in effect, turns the very real issue of Jewish safety into a pawn in a cynical political game to cover for Israel’s deeply unpopular policies with regard to Palestine. (A recent poll found that 66 percent of all U.S. voters and 80 percent of Democratic voters desire an end to Israel’s current war, for instance.)

    What makes this trend particularly disturbing is the power differential: Billionaire donors and the politically-connected, non-Jews and Jews alike on one side, targeting disproportionately people of vulnerable populations on the other, including students, untenured faculty, persons of color, Muslims, and, especially, Palestinian activists.

    Let me speak directly to Jewish students at Harvard. [AE: he means the pro-Palestinians Jews; see link below]

    I know that it’s alienating and hurtful to so many of you when campus Jewish organizations, like Hillel and Chabad, take positions that exclude your voices. To those students, I say: The Jewish tradition is much deeper than any organization. No one has a monopoly on Judaism.

    Continue to learn Torah, Jewish history, and our ethical traditions. Continue to draw from these sources — your sources — to find yourself, to build community, to build your own power, and even to build your own Jewish organizations.

    Be boldly critical of Israel — not despite being Jewish, but because you are. There is no tradition more central to Judaism than prophetic truth-telling, no Jewish imperative more urgent than bravely criticizing corrupt leadership, starting with our own.

    As someone who spent over forty years running programs in which Jews, often young people, were under my care, the safety of Jews has always been my highest priority — and, frankly, the thing that keeps me up at night. I have myself been the victim of antisemitism, including, on more than one occasion, serious violent attack.

    I know what antisemitism looks like and I do not take the issue of violence against Jews lightly. I have monitored, with vigilance, the kinds of speech that Israel-aligned parties are calling “antisemitic,” and it simply does not pass the sniff test.

    Let me speak plainly: It is not antisemitic to demand justice for all Palestinians living in their ancestral lands.

    And so forth.
    I would think he was simply out of touch since 2010 about the Marxist take-over of Harvard and others, but he claims to be “vigilant” and up-to-date.
    So he’s gaslighting the people who are his “highest priority.”

    The sad part was the number of commenters who agreed with him, in the tiresome ahistorical stereotypes we are now much too familiar with, although there was some pushback from a few readers, including this one.

    Ira Stoll

    This piece is so dishonest that as a former president of the Crimson I’m embarrassed to be associated in any way with the newspaper that published it. For example: “Israel’s deeply unpopular policies with regard to Palestine. (A recent poll
    found that 66 percent of all U.S. voters and 80 percent of Democratic
    voters desire an end to Israel’s current war, for instance.)” A poll that shows people “desire an end to Israel’s current war” does not prove that Israel’s policies are unpopular. I also desire an end to the war by Hamas immediately surrendering, releasing the hostages, and stopping shooting rockets at Israel (a desire shared by many Jews and Israelis) but unless and until that happens Israel needs to defend itself and I support that. Accusing the Jews of “manufacturing an antisemitism scare” after a terrorist group rapes, kills, and beheads Jews, burns them to death, and then Harvard campus student organizations blame the Jews and the Harvard president (and the Crimson) can’t see clear to condemn the campus organizations? When Harvard students on social media are cheering on the terrorist attack? Sadly no “manufacturing” is required. When was Bernie Steinberg last on the Harvard campus? Who is he to deny the experience of Jewish faculty, staff, alumni and students who feel the antisemitism and are concerned about it? On an overwhelmingly liberal campus in Cambridge (as at Columbia, NYU, and Penn), it’s not the “alt right” that is the main problem. To say that Hillel and Chabad don’t speak for Harvard’s Jews is like saying the teachers union doesn’t speak for teachers or the Vatican doesn’t speak for Catholics or the NAACP doesn’t speak for Blacks. Sure there are ranges of opinions and outliers but these are mainstream Jewish organizations that represent the community’s broad consensus unlike the views expressed here by Steinberg. When I knew him he was a teacher of Maimonides, the Jewish scholar who always favored the mean rather than the extreme. The views expressed here are so extreme that they don’t represent any but a far-out tiny fringe of Jews. When Alan Dershowitz and Ira Stoll can’t get pieces into the Crimson but this nonsense gets published it is a sad day for Harvard, for student journalism and for the Jewish community at Harvard. No one is trying to “silence” anyone but the range of acceptable speech on campus when it comes to other bigotries is so narrow and the berth given to demonizing Israel and Jews is so wide that it becomes a double standard. The bias is clear. Instead of encouraging criticism of Israel following a terrible terrorist attack, how about encouraging criticism of the Hamas terrorist group and solidarity with Israel while it makes incredible and continuing sacrifices to restore security for its citizens of all religions and ethnic backgrounds. Make no mistake, if Hamas and Iran conquer Israel they will be coming for America next and, just as when they attacked Israel, they aren’t going to make a lot of distinctions about the politics or nationality of the people they rape, kidnap, murder, behead, and burn alive.

    [reply]
    This comment puts it into perspective that they are publishing these extreme outliers and not mainstream Jewish opinion which includes Alan Dershowitz and this former Crimson Prez. It really is a manifestation of these students living in their own fantasy world over there, just like when they all protested and cried about the demise of Affirmative Action and just like when some of them wondered if the Gay scandals are “overblown”. These Crimson editors think if they show a minority, fringe viewpoint, they can suddenly make it the majority viewpoint by the stroke of a pen. Quoting from Regina in the movie Mean Girls after Gretchen says some fashion item is “so fetch”, “Gretchen, Stop trying to make fetch happen!”

    I disagree that Steinberg is presenting a minority, fringe viewpoint in re Harvard, although it is still that in America as a whole (I think). Worldwide, it doesn’t seem to be fringe at all.

    References from above:
    https://hillel.harvard.edu/october-7

    https://www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/the-rabbis-lesson-for-claudine-gay/

  17. There’s a phenomenon known as “pariah capitalists.” When a minority achieves success the underachievers believe there has to be a conspiracy. It may seem strange to call the Chinese a minority, but they are in places like Indonesia and the Philippines. And they’re hated for their success. Ethnic Malaysians wouldn’t know a Jew from the terminus of their alimentary canal but they are more than capable of hating ethnic Chinese. For the same reason, if you want to dignify it with the word.

  18. There is no more powerful force on earth than a hatred that makes someone feel good in their hatred. No believing Christian or Jew can succumb to this temptation. Notice who I’m leaving out.

  19. Notice I said “on earth.” I didn’t mean to suggest the earthly forces are the most powerful.

  20. Barry, we were pretty successful in WWII without imitating Shinto. Or the paganism of the Nazis. I’m more than comfortable knowing my faith has prepared me for anything.

  21. My parish priest was an army chaplain in the Korean war. He took 11 NORKs prisoner at the point of his . 45. Admittedly the NORKs were desperate to surrender to the first American they came across. Still, do any of you readers have, “captured 11 North Korean at pistol point” on your resume?

  22. I married a Japanese woman. Her grandfather, an Okinawan, had been forced into the Japanese military. The first thing he did when we released him was apply for a job with the occupation authorities.

    The family loved Americans. They despised the Japanese. Yes they were Japanese citizens but they were Okinawan at heart. The world is complicated.

  23. Steve57:
    There is no more powerful force on earth than a hatred that makes someone feel good in their hatred. No believing Christian or Jew can succumb to this temptation. Notice who I’m leaving out.
    —–
    Uhhh we had self-righteous Christian anti-Semitism for centuries. The tune changed recently – after a moral sinkhole opened up in Germany, cradle of Protestantism.

    I’m glad we’re best buds now and everything, but…. Just sayin.

    Huxley kicked us off with:
    I’ll take his point about Jews as a conscience for humanity, and therefore resented, with a bit of salt. Could be.
    —–
    The more I see of life the more convinced I am that this is the real truth.

    This is the “bigger issue” that antisemitism is a symptom of…

    The hatred is present even when Jews are deliberately impoverished and immiserated.

    Of course modern freethinkers don’t like explanations along theological lines… Yet we are seeing antisemitism (and anti christian bias) in the ultra-secular echelons of society.

    Paradoxically the sincerely observant Jew often receives a respect, albeit grudging, that the assimilated do not… As if there is a Jungian intuition among the gentiles that those Jews have betrayed their role in the world…

  24. Ben David: “The more I see of life the more convinced I am that this is the real truth.” I think so, too, speaking as a believing gentile Christian. Evil hates truth, and in particular, evil hates God. Jews have had a covenant given by God from the time of Abraham. Through this covenant they gave the world ethical monotheism. Jew-hating in a society is a sign of an evil sickness living in that community. I have been worried about the US for a while; this outbreak of virulent Jew-hating here makes me really afraid for our future.

    I think Sowell’s thesis about middlemen also has some validity as a secondary cause.

  25. The Jew-hating which is canonical in Islam is an obvious marker of the sickness in Islamic societies.

  26. I’ll take his point about Jews as a conscience for humanity. . . .

    And believing Christians? What are we, chopped liver???

  27. The Chinese are know as the Jews of Southeast Asia. I believe it was in Sukarno’s rule in Indonesia when thousands were killed by mobs.
    We had an exchange student from Malaysia. She was ethnic Chinese and Christian. Good kid. Went home, couldn’t get into college. Some kind of DEI, I suppose.
    Came back the US, got a BS in Chem Eng from U Mich and MS in same from U Wisconsin.

    I would submit they are good examples of Sowell’s Minority Middleman Still, I get the feeling that’s too mechanical.

    Prager and Telushkin, in “Why The Jews?” lean toward the conscience/alarm clock theme.

    And you do better at work if you show up sober at the proper time instead of late, hung over, hoping that woman last night at the casino didn’t have her cell phone on “record” and trying to recall how much you lost.

    But the latter person can’t very well blame himself, now, can he?

  28. Neo,

    I think the Israeli deep state is very similar to the US deep state. I think that because of the near-insurrection they caused to take down Bibi, and because of their willingness to closely align with Biden/Obama, the two state solution, and demonizing “settlers” (like “MAGA”).

    Obama showed how much he cared about human lives when he ran guns to cartels. He showed how he would punch down using dirty politics in the IRS scandal. That was followed by years of lies about Russian collusion, the laptop, etc., and demonizing ordinary people.

    I see no reason to think the Israeli deep state will act with more concern towards its citizens than the US deep state. And I find it doubtful to think they did not have some intel that pointed towards a coming Hamas attack.

    And it isn’t any more of a “conspiracy theory” than the idea the US government would use fake Russia collusion claims, or lie about a laptop. Or any number of other things I could mention.

  29. Ben David, please note I said believing Christians. I’m not engaging in the “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy. There is nothing in the New Testament that teaches Christians should hate Jews but there’s lots in Islam’s core canonical texts teaching Muslims to hate non-Muslims. Indeed, Paul in his epistles warned Christians against that. Read Romans 9. Paul, a Jew himself as were all the Apostles, preached that God still loved the Jews and was in anguish that many Jews rejected his message.

    I am obviously a Christian. But I’m also a former Naval intelligence officer. I don’t understand why some people obtusely, stupidity, insist all religions teach the golden rule. If we had fought the Pacific campaign of WWII this way, stupidity refusing that Shinto and consequent emperor worship had anything to do with our enemy’s motivation, we would have lost.

    I am convinced American leftists will to their dying day hate America and only America. Right up until the moment devout Muslims throw them off the roof of a building for being gay.

  30. Don:

    Those are not good analogies.

    What you are suggesting is the equivalent of what the 9/11-truthers in this country say. I think they are very mistaken on that, and I think you are very mistaken on Israel. Nor is Israel exactly like the US in terms of its deep state.

    But neither of us can prove we are correct.

  31. I think much of the establishment in israel, is so keyed to the oslo delusion, they don’t let anything get in the way of it, as spin strangeness blog noted, it was lieberman, that brought the proposal some 5 years ago, but we see how the precautionary principle is subverted, one can’t act unless one has dead certainty,

  32. What I’m saying is nothing like the 9/11 truthers. They claim the planes didn’t take the towers down. They claim al quida didn’t conduct the attack, that the US or Israel did. Their claims are at odds with the events we saw.

    By contrast, I’m simply saying elements within Israeli intelligence sat on info to allow an attack to happen to take out their political opponent. That’s not much difference then sitting on intel that our government is running guns to cartels, and requires a *significantly* less extensive conspiracy then our government engaged in with the Russia collusion coup attempt on Trump.

    It’s entirely consistent with our own deep state behavior. And the insurrection/coup attempt on Bibi shows parallel behavior in the Israeli deep state.

    Of course I don’t know this happened. But I think it is likely.

  33. As a former Naval intelligence officer let me explain. Sometimes you “sit on” intelligence to protect sources and methods. When you don’t have a plausible cover story you sometimes have to let your own cities be bombed. As the British did in WWII.

  34. Steve57,

    Sure. But in this case we know many in the Israeli deep state were trying to remove Bibi, with support from the US deep state.

    So protecting sources and methods isn’t the only potential motive.

  35. miguel cervantes on January 3, 2024 at 4:36 pm said:
    I think much of the establishment in israel, is so keyed to the oslo delusion, they don’t let anything get in the way of it, as spin strangeness blog noted, it was lieberman, that brought the proposal some 5 years ago, but we see how the precautionary principle is subverted, one can’t act unless one has dead certainty,

    Yeah, but that same establishment is the one that tried to take down Bibi. And very similar (and linked to) the establishment that tried to take down Trump.

    What would limit them in their effort to take down Bibi (or Trump)? Sticking their own necks out too far, I think. So far they have almost 100% gotten away with everything. Several people have lost jobs and several had minor slaps on the wrist.

  36. short autobio to show my difficulty in understanding;
    When I was in the third grade, iirc, we moved to northwest Detroit. Apartment complex. Lots of young families. Some Jews but I didn’t know for sure what that meant except my father seemed to have a different tone when talking of them. His division had liberated Mittelbau-Dora. And, before VE Day had been completely grokked, many infantry units were following obscure country roads and forest tracks looking for the leftovers of the last death marches.
    “When we found one, we were to put him in a mattress cover and make a note on a map for the Graves Registration guys. Used up every mattress cover in the Third Army.”
    Mr. Hershberger did a very Jewish thing. Offered to take little barbarian Aubrey along with his own son to the Detroit symphony. We thought the little guy on the stand waving his arms was hilarious. Didn’t get the rest of the thing.
    Our elementary school, James Vernor, for those who might know the territory, would shut down on Jewish holidays due to guaranteed lousy attendance.
    Moved to the burbs. The local high school at that time took grades 7-12. When our bus got to the school, with its quite numerous cars in the lots, one of the guys on the bus yelled, “Watch out boys, they got us outnumbered.”
    When in college and the Army, I found out how fast a random aggregation of young guys turns into an “Us”, possibly a noun of aggregation. Or perhaps that’s the “boys”. Especially if there’s a “them”.
    And on our blocks, our fathers had covered all the time zones.
    If someone had come onto our block, or any other, looking for trouble in general or Jews in particular, the song wouldn’t be “Try That In A Small Town”, but “Try That On Any Random Block In A Post-War Subdivision”
    Discovered Jewish classmates and teachers in high school. No big deal.

    Same for college.

    Once I got my commission, I memorized the Twenty-Third Psalm and the Sh’ma. The latter phonetically, and I knew the Act of Contrition and “Ego Te Absolvo, Son” Just in case.

    I got to know some Jews in business. What I found out was mostly in-group jokes from the borscht belt cupboard, I figure.

    Everybody knew somebody like Archy Bunker, who talked that way among his own kind but in dealing with other groups was personable, straightforward and kind as the situation warranted.

    All of which is to say I cannot, despite the most detailed explanations, get where the huge numbers come from who started cheering on October 8. Not those with the Poor-Gazan excuse.

    I knew there was anti-Semitism. Everybody’d read Exodus. Those were a Thing…over there.

    Never did I encounter a single person who approved of the Holocaust, who thought the Jews deserved it. Might have if I’d talked to a KKK member but they were pretty thin on the ground where I was

    As I say, given my experiences, I cannot understand either their attitudes nor the numbers of those people who started cheering Hamas and lambasting the Jews as early as October 8

    Yeah, there’s the oppressor/oppressed thing. But we didn’t take our profs seriously outside the subject matter. Even then, maybe not. Why did such a huge proportion believe that nonsense?

    The soil had to be already fertile.

  37. Richard Aubrey:

    I think once it reached critical mass in colleges it became what just about everybody thought in order to be seen as a virtuous person: Palestinians good, Jews bad. It’s based on lies, but today’s youth are easy to fool, apparently.

    There are also a lot of Arab foreign students and/or immigrants in US colleges these days. And don’t forget TikTok, where anti-Semitism is trendy.

  38. Don:

    What limits the Israeli enemies of Bibi?

    Lawfare: yes. Warfare by terrorists against innocent Israeli civilians: no. It’s actually pretty easy to understand.

  39. A 60 year old lie is still a lie. There will be no peace until we exterminate the fictional people who call themselves Palestinian

  40. Neo,

    What limits them to lawfare? One passes to the other. The law = politics, war is politics by other means. When legal means run out, then the next step is force.

    And it would be very easy for Israel’s intel agencies to sit back and allow an attack to happen. It simply requires no positive action to stop it (as opposed to the elaborate actions required to make the 9/11 truthers claims true).

    How can you know that none of the deep state in Israel wouldn’t sit back and allow it if it could get rid of the hated Bibi?

    In the US in 2020, as a direct result of Soros prosecutors, we had a 30% increase in homicide. Lawfare, resulting in an increase in deaths of ~5,000 people (mostly black!) that was predictable (the 2014 BLM riots had a similar effect). Perhaps the Israeli deep state cares more for Israelis than the US deep state care for Americans, but I suspect the difference is marginal.

    Personally, I’m very suspicious about what happened to Scalia after watching what the US deep state has done. They have no respect for rule of law or the rights of Americans. Likewise they are fine increasing US homicide rates, locking up innocent people (Flynn, J6, etc), running guns to cartels and lying about it.

    Your argument seems to basically be that Israeli intel wouldn’t take action that would result in dead Israelis. I see no reason to assume that’s true.

  41. they had a piece of the puzzle, like General Hayden who failed to decrypt a transmission from the father in law of one of the hijackers to one of the cells,
    why was this important because they had marked that line themselves,

    now of course, the 28 pages that were left out of the 9-11 commission, would have filled in the gaps, that allowed this socalled truther movement to flourish,

  42. Personally, I’m very suspicious about what happened to Scalia after watching what the US deep state has done.
    ==
    Scalia was (1) overweight, (2) diabetic, and (3) eighty years old.

  43. There will be no peace until we exterminate the fictional people who call themselves Palestinian
    ==
    You need to get a grip.
    ==
    The brigands can make trouble because they’re subsidized by outside parties. Just cut off the money flow.

  44. Scalia was (1) overweight, (2) diabetic, and (3) eighty years old.

    Which is why I wasn’t suspicious so much initially, but after seeing how the deep state pursues power, that changed.

  45. Don:

    The limits are not external, they are internal: psychological, sociological.

    I don’t think you understand Israel.

  46. one would think, but there is so much animus call it oikophobia against the Haredi, which turns out to be very dangerous for all concerned,

    those with knowledge know who the Gazans are, it does raise a point why reside so close to them, but this magical delusion, that seems not be broken by repeated instances of breaches of the peace, what they call a hudna,

  47. Neo

    Regarding your last as to the nearly instantaneous surfacing of Jew-hate; It appears you think the young folks are empty vessels, gullible. Anybody with any semblance of authority can fill them with whatever he likes and they’re not going to dispute it.
    That might be true, but back up a step. How did they get that way?

    Maybe it would have been different on campus sixty years ago if most of the poli sci undergrad sections had been taught by alumni of City University of Hanoi.

    The anti-war movement was anti-war for a number of reasons, many mistaken either then or shown to be later. But there were few actively working for Hanoi’s victory, until the dem congress in 75 cut Saigon off at the knees.

    Is it possible the current generation of young folks are, indeed, more gullible?
    Are they needing an edgy crusade to fill a personal void?

    Are they different somehow?

  48. there is certainly some of this, one hopes its a passing fad, that the likes of rudd ayers and doehrn to cite three were a narrow factions,

  49. its an ancient hatred of the assyrians the babylonians the egyptians, the persians

  50. You can’t confront Jew hatred as long as you’re unwilling to name names. Islam is specifically and designed to hate Jews. Christianity, too. But Islam reservels a special vitriol for Jews. I could site chapter and verse but they’ll fall on deaf ears. They really do hate you because their Allah commands. You “good people” who maintain your status in your fine dining establishments not changing a damn thing they really do hate you are the problem

  51. All good people believe in good things. Good people know these things are good because all the other people they know who are of course believe all the same good things. Like gun control. therefore anything bad that happens can’t possibly be the result of what all good people believe based on their consultations with all the other good people means, good people plans must be intensified Like the Fu#*inng Soviet state.

    Good nice people don’t want to be called names by their good nice neighbors. So let’s pretend to believe in the obvious fiction that there’s a ….

    Seriously people, why are we going along with creating problems that wouldn’t exist if we weren’t dumbfu*”cklly numbskulled to blindly follow our conditioning?

  52. I realize it’s hard to say Islam is the problem. But it’s time to Sailor up. I say Sailor up as opposed to man up or cowboy up, word I get is there really aren’t two billion Muslims. There are lots of Muslims simply going through the motions because apostasy im islam carries a death sentence.

    Let’s stop being cowards.

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