Tip: The Thinking Blogger Award

I approach “Internet memes” carefully, because some viral schemes aren’t that pleasant (getting your mailbox filled with feature-length presentations is what I’m talking about). The Thinking Blogger meme, however, is akin to the Jewish blog carnival Haveil Havalim in that it aims to promote exposure of blogs. I’ve been nominated by Ronbo of The Freedom Fighter’s Journal (and perhaps more people I can’t find—please bear with me, I’m a novice at those things). It works like this:

1. If you get the award, post a link to 5 blogs that made you think.
2. Link to the post that started it all, so people can find out the origin of the meme.
3. Optional: proudly display the “Thinking Blogger Award” button with a link to the post that you wrote.

First, I’m flattered, though I personally think a Thinking Blogger title should go to all the bloggers of the non-Lefty, non-Muslim blogosphere. <g>

And now for the 5 blogs that made me think:

1. Gates of Vienna – duh, like you didn’t see that one coming… one of two blogs without which this one would not be. (The other one is LGF.)
2. Gerard Van der Leun’s American Digest – an ex-Sixties-Hippie delivering so much intriguing comment about the pro-terror anti-war movement and what makes it tick.
3. A Western Heart – an Australian blog chronicling, and commenting on, the PC erosion of the West’s defenses against Islam.
4. Cox & Forkum – provoking thought with words is one thing; here are the masters of doing it with pictures. Remember: the Muslims fear our cartoons far more than they fear our F-16’s!
5. Mere Rhetoric – the global conflict from an Israeli perspective. Where Israel goes, so does the rest of the world a little later, and that’s good food for thought.

Thanks y’all. Time’s coming for me to close shop… to rest as He did.

From Exodus Past to Salvation Future

This is my post for this Passover.

The Tanach consists of three main parts: the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings; a division according to the degrees of divine inspiration. The Writings were written of the writers’ own accord, inspired from above. The Prophets were given their message by G-d, but each phrased that message as he wished. The Torah is the verbal dictation of G-d to Moses, that is, His words truly, written down by Moses in the highest degree of prophecy, a state of being totally subordinate in his will to G-d; here is the answer to those who ask how Moses could have written the words, “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3)—he was without awareness of his own self when he wrote them.

One would think such a view would lead to a hardline doctrine of inerrancy, as is the case with many believers in a verbally-dictated scripture (the Muslims with regard to the Koran, for example). Strains of it are found, but it is not a dominant view encompassing all of Orthodox Judaism. In the “conflict” between literalism and allegorical interpretation, Judaism has never seen it fit to choose sides. Not only is it that some passages in the Torah are interpreted literally while others metaphorically, the case is frequent that there is both a literal interpretation and an allegorical one for the same passage. It is stated many times that the passages of the t’fillin (phylacteries) are interpreted literally by Orthodox Judaism (in the form of the black boxes and strips donned by them) and allegorically by other groups (Karaites and Christians, to name just two). But the fact is Orthodox Judaism holds an allegorical interpretation, similar to that of the other groups, side by side with the literal one. Orthodox Judaism does not see the two modes of interpretation as a zero-sum game.

The Torah begins with the creation of the world. Today this has dragged Orthodox Judaism into the controversy over creation and evolution, the age of the earth, Noah’s Flood and related issues. I view this as unfortunate. As I said before, I find the case for young-earth creationism unconvincing, and the case for mainstream scientific stances (old earth, evolution, no global flood) convincing. But it is more than that: beyond finding the case for the stances convincing or not, I have not found the very issue to be of critical importance. Or in other words: so far no one has convinced me that the question is one that so much time, much less energies, should be devoted to.

I have no problem observing one day out of seven 24-hour days in remembrance of G-d’s act of creation; just as His “rest” was not, is not and never could be literal, the creation week need not be given a literal interpretation. I have no trouble writing out the year as התשס"ז, meaning 5767 years since the creation of the world; “The Torah has spoken the language of humans”, say our sages, meaning G-d did not say to our forefathers at Sinai over 3,000 years ago things they could not understand, and also, the age of the earth is such an unimportant matter, as evidenced by our sages’ lack of dwelling on it. They disputed the eternality of the world with the Greek philosophers—they said it was created at some point in time, while the Greeks believed it to be eternal, uncreated—whereas the age of the world was hardly a blip on their radar. Then as now, “In the beginning G-d created” (as opposed to an uncreated world, or a universe spontaneously generated from nothing, or co-created by many gods) is the important point, not the date of that beginning.

Some have misgivings about the message of Darwin’s theory that we have animal ancestry. They say it changes everything about us, everything about how we perceive ourselves and our nature. I have not found that convincing either. Very few scientific theories and advances have bearing on the very thought-patterns of mankind, despite what pundits on all sides of the debate wish us to think. Man walked on the moon in 1969, yet in spite of Neil Armstrong’s words, we are still the same human beings, with the same thoughts and feelings, fighting the same wars, over the same things and, since September 11, 2001, are manifestly faced with the continuation of a 1,400-year-old war. Evolutionary biology changing everything about us and our nature? Only if you are an academic thinker with too much time on his hands.

The inerrantists say that, as the scripture in question is divine writ, issuing from the Creator of all things, it should be free of error, as proof of that. I accept that on the general level, but when we go into particulars, this isn’t a black-or-white matter. The interpretation of a passage need not be literal, as I mentioned, and more importantly, there are more critical and less critical passages. One of the cardinals who tried Galileo said, “To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin”, thus laying the foundation of his entire faith on the edge of a cliff; a logical application of his statement would mean there could not be a single Christian today. Some religious apologists say, “Science is at variance with scripture right now, but wait a few years and you’ll see science going back to agreeing with our holy scriptures”. Possibly. But “a few years” may be quite a lot of years. Suppose it takes 100 years for a rift between science and scripture to be sealed, and suppose the authority figures of the religion have decreed that issue to be a maker or breaker for the religion. That means 100 years of a high risk that scores of believers could fall out of the faith because of that issue. If the issue is indeed important, then the risk might be worth it. The inerrantist view, however, makes all of scripture subject to that issue, effectively turning scripture and religion to a house of cards—take one out and the whole structure falls.

I am not going to let my faith stand or fall on whether the world is 6,000 or 4 billion years old, or whether the earth revolves round the sun or vice versa, or on the question of hares chewing the cud. Apologists for religion can solve all those issues to either side of the debate, but I don’t care, because I consider them peripheral, as do very many Orthodox Jewish rabbis. Thankfully, Judaism never had the equivalent of the Galileo Affair, but it is equally unwise to go to war with the biology, chemistry and physics of our day. In fact, I hold that the one branch of science that merits the perpetual scrutiny of Orthodox Jewish defenders of the faith is archeology. The findings of the archeologists, especially in the Middle East, are very often of critical importance to the faith. All the historical narrative of the Bible from Abraham onward needs to be literally accurate, otherwise the belief of ourselves as his descendants and heirs of the promise cannot be literally accurate. It is here that I arrive at the message of the Exodus.

The Exodus from Egypt is the literal birth of the literal Jewish people. It was also a literal show of G-d’s reality and awesome power. If the Exodus never happened, then all the Jews can pack their bags and join the natural cycle of the nations: rise for a period of time, then fall into oblivion. Millennia of a difficult existence could not have been bearable for the Jews if not for faith. If we look at Jewish history from the standpoint of quality of life, then a euthanasia advocate for the Jewish people would have a solid case. But the faith has it that we are under G-d’s appointment, and we have His word that He will redeem us with miracles surpassing those of Egypt.

It is also a battle for faith in HaShem—I call it “The Battle over the One True Allah” (note: “Allah” is just Arabic for “G-d”. Jews from Arabic-speaking lands have always used it the same way as English-speaking Jews have used the English word). Many people, indeed the majority of humans worldwide, speak of “G-d”, but what do they mean? On the one hand, the Muslims mean an absolute Oriental despot, to whom the relationship of humans is slavery and nothing else; on the other, the New Agers mean a “guiding, influencing spirit”, having nothing but “love, love, love” toward all its creations, uh, I mean, emanated projections, never judging, never condemning and, needless to say, far beyond Biblical displays of wrath toward the wicked and vengeance for their transgressions. The two sides, the two allied sides, have each taken a truth about G-d (power and sovereignty by the Muslims, love and fatherhood by the New Agers) while throwing the other half of the truth away.

Finally, a literal belief in the Exodus is the pillar for belief in the Torah’s divine authorship itself, for the covenant at Sinai is part of that same Exodus. And now, bringing it with the stated purpose of this blog—defense of Zionism—the belief in the divine authorship and authority of the Torah is absolutely critical for us Jews today, for the Torah is our title deed for the Land of Israel. It is the only way in which we are able to move the entire Israel/“Palestine” debate from the corrupt court of international law to the incorruptible court of Universal Law—G-d’s own law, the Torah, to which all humans, including Luis Alfonso de Alba, are accountable.

Humans can put the fig leaf or either Marxism or Islam over their judicial nudity, but they will not escape the fact that the Torah is the one true Constitution for justice, stemming as it does from the source of all justice Himself. For those fathers who have not loved their sons, but instead have raised them to be bombs, and for those husbands who have not loved their wives, but instead have turned them into walking strips of cloth and beaten them, our G-d, HaShem, Father of His children the sons of Israel, groom of His bride the nation of Israel, will teach the truth of His love through His feats; and for those who have such kinds hearts that they refuse to send criminals to punishment, our Lord, the King of the entire world, the Judge of all humanity, will pour forth His righteous anger. All will know Him as He is, and not as humans have thought Him out to be.

Sof ma’aseh b’machashavah t’chillah—“The end of the deed [was] the first in thought”, it is said of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was the end of the creation week, but was in G-d’s planning the first—the whole week was for the purpose of the Sabbath, whether you take it literally or allegorically. All the length of history and prehistory, too, is but a prelude for the fruition of HaShem’s final plan: His building of “a housing in the lower levels”, dirah b’tachtonim, meaning the dwelling of His glory on earth. His glory will issue from the Land of Israel; His countenance will be [spiritually] seen in the Temple; and His voice, His instruction (Hebrew: torah), will go out from Jerusalem, also known as Zion. Only if this is true can over 3,000 years of Jewish existence be justified. Only if the past, the Exodus, is literally true, can the future, the Messianic Salvation, be literally true. We had better believe it to be so, because, as any eye not clouded by moonbattery can see, we will not be able to rely on any other. May it come speedily in our days, amen.

Pesach kasher v’sameach! (A kosher and happy Passover)

Paging King Solomon

“In those days, in this time”. Click to view full size.

Ancient reference: 1 Kings 3:16–28.

Modern confirmation: see Cox & Forkum cartoon for March 27, 2007.

Is it time for a verdict yet?

The Postmodern Wedge

“Narrative”. That word has become the earmark of postmodernism. Say or write the word, “narrative” in your talk or essay, and many people will identify you as a postmodern lecturer or writer, and either trash or hail your words according to their attitude toward postmodernism.

But I use the word, “narrative” a lot, yet I am no postmodernist writer. It would be, then, a false positive. It would be so because it is a red herring. The idea of narratives is not inherently a postmodern one. To be a postmodernist, more than that is needed. Also, few of those we regard as postmodernists are truly such, yet that does not subtract one whit from their being on the enemy side. Now for the details of what I am talking about.

We cannot do without narratives, even if we believe in objective reality. There are facts, but their interpretation may not always be straightforward, and also, there may be bias in selecting them. We like to think of the hard sciences as being the realm where facts rule supreme; this is true for mathematics most of all, but the Global Warming™ brouhaha shows how interests can lay a fog even over hard sciences. All the more so when we discuss things closer to human peculiarities, such as politics and history and art.

The destruction of the World Trade Center towers is the fact. There is the Lesser Disputation, which is the “9/11 Truth” movement, claiming it was an inside job by the American government; thankfully, this is derided as kookery even by Marxists like the ones on CounterPunch. But there is the Greater Disputation, which is the view of the root causes of 9/11, and therefore of the remedies against its recurrence. One narrative says: Islamic imperialism making its first awesome statement of intent. Another narrative says: the colonized non-Western other making a visible protest against a long series of injustices.

I have no problem calling those two, “Narratives”, for I believe that is the best name for them; nor do I have any problem with listening to all narratives, with recognizing how other people think. Ignorance is not bliss, and listening to the other side does not equal capitulation. But knowledge of the other side does not mean assent to their ideas, and listening does not automatically translate into action in their favor. And I judge. I certainly judge. I listen to the other side’s narrative, I study it thoroughly, and then, after all that, there is a quite real possibility that I will judge that narrative as totally erroneous. That’s what sets me apart from postmodernism.

Take one of the most widely-circulated postmodern mantras of today:

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

What is wrong with that phrase? Is it false? Maybe. But if it’s not false, there is only one other option: it’s a tautology, a statement of the obvious. Of course some people give the title, “freedom fighters” to those we call, “terrorists”, and vice versa! If that phrase is true, then it’s a “Well, duh…” kind of phrase no one should be wasting such an inordinate length of time on. But people do. We all do. Because there is a serious reason for doing so.

The comparison between groups such as the Stern Gang and Hamas ought to be an open-and-shut case: though both employed violent tactics, the former had no goal other than the liberation of the Land of Israel from British rule, nor did they raise their children on a heritage of perpetual hatred toward the British or sacrifice them, while the goal of Hamas would be equivalent to claiming Britain as part of the Jewish state and striving to liberate it all from the “Anglo-Saxon invader”, and instead of doing anything in the way of building their state, on lands they already have (the Gaza Strip, for example), they use their money for weaponry, and raise their children on the heritage of genocide and suicide-terrorism. The Stern Gang were freedom fighters using terrorist tactics from time to time; Hamas are terrorists in essence, having no way of life apart from terrorism, and cannot be considered freedom fighters, for they are fighting against the freedom of the other side.

Is the above just my narrative? If it weren’t for postmodernism, then no, it would be a foregone conclusion, borne out by the facts. But here comes our phrase, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, and inserts a wedge into the upright tree. It innocuously poses as an invitation to listen. That is not the actual problem, for I just said listening is basically a good thing. But it is no innocent enticement at all, for it comes with a threat: “Don’t be judgmental! Don’t look down upon the Other! Don’t be such an intolerant Orientalist!”, and so on.

I have no problem with the fact that the members of Hamas may actually consider themselves to be freedom fighters. I have a problem with this order, this command, not to be judgmental. This is no artistic matter, no literary criticism, no hour of entertainment passed by on the couch; this is an issue where life and limb are concerned. Judgmentalism is not only allowed—it’s an imperative! Postmodernism is somewhat sufferable when expounded by professors of literature with too much time on their hands sitting atop the ivory tower; but, as the Sokal Affair showed, when carried over to hard, real-world matters, it can be disastrous. We cannot afford it now at all, for the future of the world is at stake.

Nor is the enemy postmodern. Not the Muslims, whose certainty and judgmentalism, when displayed by a Bible-believer, are decried by the Marxists as “colonial haughtiness”; but not the Marxists themselves either. “Bush = Hitler” is anything but postmodern. It requires, first, the judgment of Hitler as an evil man, and then the judgment of Bush as equivalent to him. The rants of the moonbats against “money-grubbing corporations”, against “the human blight on the environment”, against “the racism of Western governments”, against “the Zionist history of ethnic cleansing” and for “peace and justice for all, no peace with justice!”—all these are decidedly judgmental, to such a degree that it would make a fundamentalist Christian hellfire preacher (or a Muslim imam—but that’s “Racism! Racism! Raaaaaacism!”) blush. It is as far removed from the “all narratives are of equal worth and truth” tenet of postmodernism as can be.

The reality is, postmodernism is nothing but a wedge against the West’s traditional truths, to be used as the beginning of their toppling, and a safety-valve against the same, to be used once they have already been toppled. Postmodernism invites the listener to grant worthiness (and not just an ear, which is what I do) to the view that the customs of wife beating or cannibalism are to be tolerated in modern Western society, a view which self-confident modern Western minds would throw into the trashcan of depraved ideas as soon as they had finished listening. Then, when somebody dares to voice an opinion against those customs, postmodernism is invoked to stifle it on the grounds of, “intolerance toward the other”. We see it all the time at Western universities: whenever you hear the word, “diversity”, you can safely bet it’s a prelude to proscribing some opinion the heads of the university don’t like, even if it be an opinion on hard, factual, real-world matters. Taken to its logical conclusion, postmodernism could be used to force “tolerance” of the “narrative” that 2 plus 2 equals 5 if the head of the university (or state) feels like it, just as Orwell wrote.

I don’t flinch at the word, “narrative”. I will listen, and listen attentively. But I will judge once I have finished listening. I will deliver judgment on each narrative, and I will not cave in to accusations of “cultural imperialism” and “colonial haughtiness”. Any student who asserts that judging things is bad ought to be given an F, and when he protests that, his professor ought to answer, “Stop being so judgmental. Show a little tolerance toward my narrative, according to which you deserve an F”.

Human judgment carries the risk of error, of course. But sitting on the fence carries the certainty of failure. Postmodernism is either a dishonest ruse or a fence-sitting laziness; either way, we cannot afford to give it credence.

Tip: Haveil Havalim #111

Three ones in a row! The 111th issue of the toppest Jewish blog carnival (March 25, 2007), hosted on Daf notes, is here.

1. Head of the list: Only in Israel... (March 21, 2007), from The Muqata, for the usual reason—well-speaking of the Children of Israel.
2. Carl in Jerusalem does two with French Jews petition for asylum in the US (March 22, 2007) and Embassies preparing to evacuate Tehran (March 23, 2007), on Israel Matzav, infusing us with the ominous Spirit of 1938.
3. Blogosphere friend Michael has While Israel Sleeps (March 19, 2007), on an ineffective government that isn’t lifting a finger against threats both internal and external, on his blog, Oleh Musings. HaShem is just waiting for his sons to cry for deliverance, and then Ben David will come, speedily in our days, amen.
4. Barbara brings a human face to the suffering wrought by Islamic terrorism on her post ISRAEL AND ME: PTSD OF THE TERRORIZED (March 23, 2007), on Barbara’s Tchatzkahs. Kos Kidz and CounterPunchies take note: that’s the work of your beloved “resistance fighters”.
5. YID With LID excerpts Dr. Boaz Ganor in the attempt to answer the question Why do Islamofacists turn their kids into Bombs? (March 23, 2007), on his blog. As he says, any attempt to elucidate the phenomenon falls short on grounds of basic humanity. Or less than humanity: animal parents treat their offspring better.
6. Joel Pollak is tipped on the post Apartheid Reality Check (March 19, 2007), on the South African blog It’s Almost Supernatural. As I concluded a while ago: we’re at war, and part of waging a war is attacking the enemy and not just defending yourself from it.

My post on this issue of Haveil Havalim is Some Choice… (March 22, 2007), a short and sweet and visual one for a change. Barring an unexpected surge in my real-life commitments, one of my posts in the pipeline should make it to the next issue, with G-d’s help. If not, I’ll have to pass over that issue…

Clueless in Kosland

There is plenty of malice to be found on the Left, as the latest bouts of fire and brimstone from the “anti-war” demonstrators show, but the market on malice is pretty much monopolized by the Muslims, while the Leftists are dangerous more because they are stupid, supporting the Muslims in their stupidity. Some of the Daily Kos anti-Israel diaries make me grit my teeth in frustration, at seeing the vicious lies and callous reproaches heaped at Israel from the commenters and even on the diaries themselves, but what malice the Leftists have is quite latent, them being the cowards we know them to be, hence their preference to let their Muslim allies do the dirty anti-Israel (and anti-Western as a whole) work. I tend to forget this, but last night I read something on the Israel/“Palestine” diaries that brought it all before me in clarity.

It is on the diary Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands, by litho, the ever-dependable Israel-bashing Jew, of the type of Jew who has elevated Marx-given justice above all, not realizing that, even if he were right about the Jewish state being a colonialist project from the start, born of “dispossession of another people”, the reparations he suggests would not bring any peace and justice, but the opposite, more rivers of blood (G-d forbid) and more impetus to Islamic imperialism. He is, like all dhimmi Leftists, stupid, in short. But what takes the cake on that thread is a comment from Heathlander, a comment that goes beyond kumbayistic stupidity and into utter, jawdropping cluelessness.

First, for the record, Heathlander is another member of that group of adherents of the “Zionist Original Sin” doctrine. His belief is the standard fare: Zionism a “European white settler colonialist project”, aiming at dispossessing the “indigenous Palestinians”, the state of Israel an injustice from Day One, the only way to correct that being by turning the clock back to 1947 (i.e. not only withdrawing from the territories taken in 1967, but also permitting the application of the “Palestinian Right of Return”). He also sees “Palestinian” terrorism as entirely justified, labeling it “resistance”, thus: “Just as the French had the right to violently resist the Nazi occupation, just as the Algerians had the right to violently resist the French occupation, just as the West Papuans have the right to violently resist the Indonesian occupation, so the Palestinians have the right to violently resist the Israeli occupation.” (screenshot), from his diary The Boycott Continues, where he sheds tears over the boycott of the “Palestinians” preventing them from (my thoughts now, not his) purchasing the weapons they so need to engage in their “resistance”.

But back to litho’s thread, where Heathlander’s comment left me speechless (something hard to do after all the DKos diaries I’ve read). He says:

I think anyone who supports the right of the Palestinians to return to Israel (and we all should) must also support the right of those Jews who were expelled/caused to flee from the Arab countries to return to their homes.

“The right of those Jews […] from the Arab countries to return to their homes.” This ranks in cluelessness with the comment of an Arab poster on Richard Silverstein’s blog that the Jews of Israel should return to their pre-Holocaust homes in Europe. This type of comment betrays sheer ignorance of Judaism.

The first question that any Jew with even a modest measure of Jewish education asks himself on reading such a thing is, “Why would the Jews from the Arab countries, having reached Israel, want to return to them?!” In all the long history of the Jewish people, the abandonment of the Land of Israel was always forced, either immediately by foreign conquest and exile (as was the case with the Babylonian exile) or gradually by deteriorating economic conditions (the Romans never exiled the whole Jewish population of the Land of Israel, not even after the Bar Kochba revolt of 132–5 CE; but by the 5th century the economic state of the land had grown so bad that the Diaspora already outnumbered the homeland). Leaving the Land of Israel of their own free will was unheard of for Jews until modern times, when the crisis of Jewish education sapped the self-identity of many Jews. For any Jew throughout the ages properly educated on his heritage, the longing for the return to the Land of Israel was sucked together with his mother’s milk; therefore, Heathlander’s mere suggestion bespeaks a lack of even the beginning of the knowledge necessary to make one an evenhanded commenter on the Israel/“Palestine” conflict.

Except for genealogical tourism, the Jews of Europe have no desire to return to their pre-Holocaust homes in Europe, and the Jews of the Islamic world have no desire to return to their pre-1948 homes. This is because those homes were always transitional homes, never what any educated Jew would call Home; for a self-aware Jew, the Land of Israel is the only land that can be dignified with that title. The prophecies and the prayers all herald the time when the entirety of the exile will be ended, with all the Jews of the Diaspora having returned to their one and only land, the Land of Israel. To suggest a “Jewish Right of Return to their original homes in the Arab lands” is to display raw, unadultered ignorance. Hence my verdict that the Leftists, malicious though they may sometimes seem, or even act, are more victims of their stupidity, naiveté and lack of knowledge. All the more reason, then, to give them short shrift, as regards this particular conflict, and as regards the global conflict as a whole.

When Herzl of blessed memory suggested Uganda, not as permanent home but as temporary shelter, he was shouted down by the members of the Zionist Congress, many of whom even walked out of the room. He had suggested Uganda as a temporary shelter, and many of the members were assimilating Jews like him, yet even a meager Jewish education had branded the recognition onto their brains: No other home than the Land of Israel! It is, therefore, the height of stupidity for Heathlander and his like to suggest moving the Jewish population to any other land, or to “right past wrongs” by exchanging a “Palestinian Right of Return to Palestine” for a “Jewish Right of Return to their former homes”. It may not have to be anti-Semitism behind it all: I think there are quite a few on Daily Kos who are not consciously anti-Zionists, yet believe the solution of the Israel/“Palestine” conflict is the key to world peace. In which case we can chalk up another one for ignorance, naiveté and stupidity: ignorance of the Islamic enemy, the naiveté of Chamberlain’s pacifism and Lenon’s “Imagine”, and the sum of it, the stupidity of punishing the good by rewarding the evil.

Or to summarize it all: if people of this type weren’t in positions of influence, I wouldn’t waste a single second on engaging their clueless thoughts. Because they are, we Zionists must realize we are necessarily at war with them. They are aiding and abetting the dispossession of Jews from their one and only, G-d-given land.

Corrie and the German Judge

Moonbats commemorate the fourth anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s death by telling of her “martyrdom” by the hands of the Israeli bulldozers, but, as Charles of LGF says, people are less knowledgeable about the following picture, taken shortly before that:

The photo is disturbing on many levels. One could point out the fanatical rage, something creating cognitive dissonance when considering that the likes of Corrie style themselves peace activists (though perhaps no more today than the appellation, “Religion of Peace”), and heirs of Gandhi at that. The child abuse, indoctrinating little children to uncompromising, ingrained hatred of the other side, is another thing. But, for my eyes, the most disturbing thing about this picture is: Corrie’s dress.

She is covered up to her hands, and her head too sports a hijab. Obviously those were not the day-to-day clothes she had worn in the United States of America. Now, one might say, “She had no choice, as a guest of an Islamic population, just as Western women visiting Saudi Arabia put on the whole shebang”. I have my doubts. There are indulgences for non-Muslim women speaking for the “Palestinian” cause, at least as far the hijab goes. Hanan Ashrawi and Souha Antoinette were never required to appear with a hijab. Corrie’s hijab, like the kefiyyeh showing at her neckline, was most probably a choice, out of (like the name of the movement of which she was a member) solidarity.

What is my point here? My point is their lack of principle. Beyond “toppling Western imperialism”, Leftist activists have no principles, and are all too willing to sell out everything they have ever purported to stand for. Marx’s “religion is the opiate of the masses” can be thrown under the bus in the name of fighting Capitalism, and an American girl who decries “oppression of women by the Patriarchal Christian American Taliban” can cover all her body up except the hands and face in solidarity with an “oppressed other”. By themselves alone, without regard to our views, these people are lost. They have a picture of what’s wrong and must be done away with, but they don’t know where they came from, so they don’t have any positive idea of where they should be going.

From here to a German judge, a female judge no less, who allows wife-beating out of “respect” toward the Islamic law which the husband followed, the way is very short indeed. Charles says: “The nihilistic dead end of multiculturalism has been attained in Germany, where a female judge seemingly forgot which culture’s laws she was supposed to uphold”, and here is the quote:

The woman had filed for immediate divorce on the grounds that the husband, also of Moroccan origin, regularly beat her and threatened to kill her. The claims were backed up by a police report. But the female judge, who has not been named, made clear in a letter that the wife’s bid had little chance of approval because, according to her, Islamic law allowed a man to strike his wife.

The end indeed. As commenter “Persistor” says (comment #9):

Thank you, Charles.

I have been searching for one clear, irrefutable example of the moral bankruptcy of multiculturalism and "tolerance" of other "cultures."

Here it is, the Holy Grail I've been seeing--a clear-cut case of judicial sanction of spousal abuse on the grounds of multiculturalism.

I'm going to save a copy to my hard drive because I think I'm going to cite it again many times in the future (not just here on LGF either).

Now, I don’t think that judge is as fanatical and self-hating as Corrie (though it would not surprise me to find out so a few days from now), but the disease is the same: people being destroyed for lack of knowledge; ignorant of their own, prompting them to bow down before every “other”.

I wish to close this post with a Jewish, yet thematic and universally relevant, note on the coming Passover. This holy feast, like many Biblical ones with a particular message, has been taken by the moonbats and assimilated into their warped worldview: in the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Land of Israel (which they, of course, call “Palestine”, the name that denies the Jews’ connection to the land) they see a metaphor for, you guessed it, “resistance against all forms of oppression”, and it is not beyond them to construe the “Palestinians” as the Israelites and the Israeli Jews, the descendants of the ancient Israelites, as the Egyptians (think this idea is far-fetched? Think again).

Passover is certainly about liberation of the enslaved, and it can bear this positive message for all peoples of the world (for G-d has given the Torah to the Jews for the ultimate benefit of all nations—not in order for the recipients to lord it over all others as is the case with the Koran), but the Marxists, with their message in which they believe the universalist aspects and interpretations of Jewish values replace all the particularist ones, ignore the cultural message of Passover.

The Seder is all about telling the Jewish people, father to son, where we came from, and where we’re going. At the end of the Seder, the Jewish child whose brain is developed enough knows exactly how his nation came to be, and what the future holds for him. Of the Four Sons of the Haggadah, the Wicked is the one who has put himself outside his people. He is worse than the Naïve, who merely doesn’t know his heritage, perhaps to no fault of his own; he knows and chooses to cut himself off, for the sake of some benefit. He is like the hijab-wearing Corrie and the German judge: selling his birthright for a multicultural stew.

I thank HaShem for His unimaginable favor of giving His nation the light of knowledge, the light of certainty as to the road both behind and ahead; knowledge and certainty that are the strongest shield against cultural collapse. I wish for all the non-Muslim cultures under attack to regain their self-confidence, so that they may not attain the nihilistic dead end of multiculturalism as did Rachel Corrie and the German judge. To know what we stand for, and make it our standard according to which we judge.

Some Choice…

Take a look and consider. No ideology here whatsoever, just cold, hard pragmatism.

The difference between Zionist nationalism and Islamic imperialism illustrated. Click to view full size.

If only all our choices in life were that tough.

Elitzur on Israel’s International Problem

Right-wing columnist Uri Elitzur of Yediot Achronot had the column, “The Ramallah Ghetto” last Friday (March 16, 2007). I have not found any English translation of it, either on YNET or on Israel National News, only the Hebrew original on the latter, so with G-d’s help I bring my translation of this worthy article. My commentary comes after the translation.

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(Images at 200 DPI, click to view full size)

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The Ramallah Ghetto

Bishops and cardinals from Germany visited Yad Vashem this week and then Ramallah, and announced that Ramallah reminds them of the Warsaw Ghetto. According to a poll taken in Germany about two months ago, a third of the Germans believe that Israel is doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews. And Angela Merkel appeared on some forum that discussed the issue of Israel’s right to exist, and told the participants clearly that Israel has an unshakable right to exist. The editor’s column of Haaretz was very excited, and applauded the chancellor, but as for me, Merkel’s resolute announcement made me feel like the man who has a certificate from the psychiatrist stating he is normal.

There could be no situation in which the prime minister of Israel would go out with a declaration saying Germany has a right to exist. Nowhere in Israel could an intellectual debate take place as to whether Germany is legitimate. Nowhere in the world does such a debate take place, and on no state in the world does such a debate take place. Apart from Israel. And this is not just Germany. It can be understood why it is comfortable for the Germans, more than for any other nation, to believe we are behaving like Nazis, but certainly this is not just about Germany. Polls taken around the world show that Israel is considered by very many to be one of the most harmful and wicked states in the world, and that there is nothing more pathetic and ghettoish than the closing sentence of the column on Haaretz declaring, following Merkel, that “Israel’s right to exist is not up to debate”. It’s up for sure. Merkel would not need to declare what she declared if there were no serious, significant, dangerous debate on Israel’s very right to exist.

Israel as Gush Katif

How did we arrive hither? When did it happen? When did we turn into the Gush Katif of the world? I saw AIPAC’s enthusiastic and loving gathering on television this week, and it reminded me very much of the excited and powerful symposiums of the Orange Camp [those who support the idea that Jews should inhabit Judea, Samaria and Gaza. —ZY] two years ago. In Kfar Maimon, in Jerusalem, in New York, in Gush Katif itself. I was there. There were tens of thousands, there was love for Gush Katif and support and recruitment, and an appearance of VIP’s wanting to be elected and confidence that it would not be. People declared that the fate of Netzarim was as the fate of Tel-Aviv, they swore Gush Katif was exactly like Gush Tel-Mond. But everybody knew it was not. That Gush Tel-Mond has no supporting camp and no one demonstrates for it, because it does not need it.

And now the whole state of Israel is starting to turn into the Gush Katif of the world. It exists, it is prosperous, it is blooming. It has in its favor a multitude of orange ribbons and many important friends, Obama [Hmmm, that Barack “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people” Obama… —ZY] and Hillary come to have their photos taken in a demonstration for it, prime ministers and [female] chancellors declare that it is unthinkable. Even Haaretz writes that Israel’s right to exist is not up to debate. But the truth is really the opposite. Israel is the one state in the world whose right to exist is up to debate, and the debate on its existence or destruction creeps like a serpent into the intellectual, artistic and political discourse of the Western world. It is now legitimate to ask if Israel is legitimate.

And this is not because of the occupation and not because of the settlements. The opposite. In ’67, right after the conquest, we were at the top of the list of the admired and positive states of the world. After Oslo, when the occupation was reduced, we started to dive down quickly. In the last years, the more we make peace and more separation fence and more disengagement, the more our standing plummets. Then what really? How did it happen to us? Where did we go wrong?

The Direction of the Wind

The main answer is that we did not go wrong. It isn’t us. The global trend has turned around. The state of Israel was set up when the white settler, the armed pioneer, the one who fights the desert and defeats the Indians, was a positive hero. The movies that were made and the books that were written at the first half of the 20th century sang his praises. He brought light and progress and fought the forces of nature and the savages of humanity. Zionism was part of that global story, and little Srulik [A regular character on the newspaper cartoons in the earlier years of Israel. —ZY] with his tembel-cap and Uzi was actually one of its last romantic heroes.

At the end of the 20th century, fashion changed. The post-colonial discourse took the stage by the storm, and it rules with a high hand and with zero tolerance. In nowadays’ films, the Indian is the hero dancing with wolves, and the white settler is the evil one. In all of them without exception. There is no tolerance whatsoever toward any film or book or scientific study that does not obey that rule. That is the way it turns out for us to be the bad ones regardless of occupation or borders or withdrawals. As long as the direction of the wind does not change, we will stay the bad ones, even if we withdraw to the ’67 or ’47 borders. We cannot change the direction of the wind. It changes directions in a pendulum movement, and it will probably change again in our favor in the future, but that is not in our hands.

In the meantime there are two things we can still do: first, to understand that, as long as the direction of the wind has not changed, this is the worst time for withdrawals. With our withdrawals we become both more evil and weaker, and also demonstrating disconnection from the land and from the belonging to the country of dispute, which strengthens our image as the bad ones. And another thing is possible: those of us who are creators or researchers or winners of an international prize can show some personal responsibility. In the situation of the world today, bien-pensant ill-speaking of “Israel’s policies” deepens the picture of Israel’s wickedness and shakes the basis of its existence. It is desirable to restrain oneself and maybe even forgo a few applauses in Berlin.

[Translation ends here.]

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What an amazing column, summarizing so many points that here are spread across several posts. I now wish to comment on Elitzur’s practical stance, his opinion that there is nothing much to do except wait until the wind changes.

I would have regarded that stance as fatalist. I would have said, just a few months ago, that it is in our hands, if but we wage the war of minds properly, to turn the wind in our favor. Or I would have said we could change strategy and ride the current wind, by portraying ourselves as the natives, indigenous, Indians of our land. Yet two posts of mine detailing the mindset gleaned from reading Daily Kos, On a Few Comments on DKos, from January 23, 2007, and Proving Jew-Hatred Internal, from exactly a month later, show that the problem is far too acute, too spiritually-rooted, to be solved by our own efforts. Not that our efforts are worthless, of course—I would not have this blog if such were my thoughts—but en masse conversion of minds, which is what “change of the direction of the wind” really means, is beyond our capability. We can convert individual minds, perhaps even many, but not enough for the whole tide to turn in our favor.

But then we cannot afford to wait for the tide to turn by itself either. Our situation is not getting better, and waiting for the nations’ favor for us to do the right thing is utter folly, not to mention that it goes against the core of Zionism (auto-emancipation, a sovereign state for the Jews). The only way forward, I hold, is to say, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”, and react to every act of Islamic aggression toward us with merciless mass expulsion of the invaders away from our land. The cries of protest would be going to the roof after that, but then they already are, right now, when we are still handling the “Palestinians” with kid-gloves. In other words, as I said before: we have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by disregarding world opinion entirely. Alas, a precondition of such action is a new, Jewish-minded, post-post-Zionist leadership. To that our most fervent prayers to HaShem should now be directed.

Living In The Past

Don’t go telling me this is the year 2007,
I’m not ready for living in a world post-9/11.

For me, the clock stopped ticking forty years past,
And I’m keeping the banners from then flying on the mast.

Rip van Winkle is peanuts next to me,
I follow the thought-patterns of decades ago to a T.

If you think like me, I call you progressive,
And if you don’t, then you’re a reactionary, a regressive.

It’s still the world to which was born Rosa Parks,
The world when radical and untried were the ideas of Karl Marx,

The world where everything could be explained by people’s color,
And all the evil things were the cries of those living in squalor.

I’m a taboo-breaker, fighting all forms of oppression,
Defending women from patriarchal suppression,

Because, we all know, ever looms the threat of the Inquisition.
“Women in the Muslim world”? Stop your racist condescension!

I remember what fun I had back in the day,
When I asked hard questions of that tyrant LBJ,

And now I’ve come to relive that history book’s page,
And take part in a demonstration where everyone’s my age.

“Islamic supremacism”? “Rise of the Caliphate”?
You vile hatemonger! You purveyor of race-hate!

It’s all about the grievances, the brown people’s lament,

And the real danger is the one to our environment.

I have the courage, I have the power,
To take on the primitive Bible a short shower.

Fighting for freedom of speech, liberty of expression.
But I’m sensitive toward the “other” of Arabian desert persuasion.

Tomorrow belongs to me,

Progressive radical that I be,

Or maybe not—my gray-haired cheeks have never felt

The kiss of a child, for I was so concerned that the planet would melt.

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Credits: zombie, Age of Hooper and Urban Infidel (1, 2), for the demonstration photos; Midwest Conservative Journal and a commenter on The Anchoress whose memory escapes me, for the last two, respectively.

Makdisi

From HonestReporting, March 12, 2007: the Los Angeles Times gave “Palestinian” activist and UCLA professor Saree Makdisi op-ed space to question the right of Israel to exist. Of course this has everything to do with a nationalistic struggle for independence and freedom from oppression, and nothing to do with Jew-hatred—of course, that’s why Israel is the only country in the world whose right to exist it is acceptable to dispute (more on this from Yediot Achronot columnist Uri Elitzur, whose op-ed from last Friday I have already scanned and will, G-d willing, translate and post soon)… But I have not come here to vent my frustration, although I harbor plenty of that; I wish to show how this gentleman refutes his stance, the general “Palestinian” stance that “Israel is a fantasy of the Jews”, before he begins to write even a single word. How he is gainsaid by his very name.

G-d describes Ishmael’s kleptomania from the very beginning, in Genesis 16. Ishmael’s thievery is bad enough in and of itself, but it is compounded with a sense of entitlement, which makes it nearly impossible for him to repent. So it is that the Muslims of Israel (and many Christian useful idiots of theirs) show no shame in visiting countries that are officially at war with Israel, and no pang of conscience in opining that the kidnapping of the three Jewish soldiers that led to the Summer 2006 Lebanon War was justified, and no gratitude for living conditions far more favorable than those of any of their brethren in the entire Arab and Islamic worlds. Ghaleb Majadle is appointed Minister of Science of a state that strictly speaking does not owe him a thing, yet he uses his platform to decry the “racism of the Zionist state from its very inception”. And finally, any seasoned driver in Israel will tell you to be specially careful when driving near the Arab towns and villages (in the north of Israel, for example), because “the Arab drivers drive like they own the country”. Ishmael steals, and steals without regret, for he feels entitled to it all.

Likewise in the spiritual plane: Islam copies very many things from Judaism, looking like a sincere attempt to partake in the holiness, but really being theft, for the Muslims say Judaism is a corruption of the original and Islam the restoration of the original. Judaism has the Torah, Torah readings with cantillation, the Oral Tradition, the Halakhah, dietary laws (kosher food), three daily prayers, the fast on the Day of Atonement and the pilgrimage to the Temple at Jerusalem; Islam has the Koran, Koran readings with cantillation, the Hadith, shariah law, dietary laws (halal food), five daily prayers, the daytime fast in the month of Ramadan and the pilgrimage to the shrine at Mecca. The two religions are close enough for Maimonides to have regarded Islam as one of G-d’s tools for spreading the truth of monotheism, and yet he spared no harsh judgment on Islam, and prohibited Jews for posterity to teach the Torah to Muslims (while, on the other hand, permitting Jews to teach the Torah to Christians, for they accept the text as-is, and only their interpretation of it differs). Even the monotheism part of Islam is a marred copy: because the Koran describes the Creator differently than does the Torah, Muslims worship one deity but have the wrong conception of Him. Islam, meaning “submission”, elevates the truth of the kingship and sovereignty of G-d to the detriment of the truth of His fatherhood and love. This may be acceptable to G-d for furthering His plan to rid the world of idolatry, but Jews should not delude themselves that Islamic countries are countries where G-d’s mission—that all men may know Him—is accomplished. The truth is still waiting for the final hour.

Islam, the Muslims believe, supersedes all: Abraham was not a Jew (nor a Christian) but a Muslim; the Torah as given to Moses at Sinai no longer in the possession of the Jews, but rather in the hands of the Muslims, in its restored form, the Koran; the Land of Israel not a special place, but designated to be part of Dar Al Islam like the rest of the world; and, last but not least, the Temple at Jerusalem nothing but a fiction (cursed be they who say this), its site being only the location of the cornerstone of the world, and its remaining wall, the Western Wall, only a post for Mohammad to tie his flying horse that brought him there, to the mosque that now stands on top of Judaism’s one and only holy site, cementing the doctrine of Temple Denial with a fact on the ground. Here it is that I come back to our friend Saree Makdisi.

Makdisi is faithful to Islam’s kleptocratic tradition of denying all that was before. As he believes Israel is a fantasy of the Jews, it is safe to say he displays the same sentiment toward the Temple. It is easy to make that claim: Does there not remain of the Temple only a single wall? Is not a mere wall insufficient evidence? How can you compare a wall to a mosque standing there in full glory? Ah, what an open and shut case. But… Makdisi.

The Arabic name for Jerusalem today is Al Quds. It is already reminiscent enough of the Hebrew word, “kodesh” (holiness) to arouse suspicion, but let it be granted that the name was tagged on to Jerusalem because it is a holy city to the Muslims as well (the third holiest; but don’t tell them first trumps third, because that’d be Islamophobic). But Jerusalem had an earlier Arabic name: Beit El Makdis. This name is so transparent to any Jew of minimal religious upbringing as to be obvious at first glance: beit ha-mikdash, Hebrew for “House of the Temple”; or in the short version: the Temple. From this, dropping the first part, the surname Makdisi is formed.

In the view of the fact that Temple Denial is now a linchpin of the Islamic jihad against the Jewish state (marketed fraudulently as “The Palestinian Struggle for Independence”), how can this surname exist at all?

When the Muslims conquered the Land of Israel in the 7th century CE, it was not Jews they took it from, but Byzantines. The Muslims vied with people for whom the Jewish Temple was no concern, was an artifact of the Old Covenant, done away with when Jesus died on the cross. The concern of Islam back then was to undercut the legitimacy of Christianity, while Judaism was a non-factor. The Muslims had heard the expression, “Beit El Makdis” from their Arabic-speaking Jewish and Christian contemporaries, and had no trouble using it as the name for the whole city, as was customary for the Jews and Christians of the time (“Jerusalem” and “The Temple” are interchanged numerous times in the Jewish prayers). Little did they know that that surname would prove them liars about 1,300 years hence.

Like the 19th-century British photos and literary descriptions (most famously by Mark Twain) of the Land of Israel, giving the lie to the claim that the Zionists ousted a copious people from a teeming land, the surname Makdisi lays naked and bare the truth of this land’s spiritual significance to the Jews: the land which G-d has promised them. It is our land, and our only land; we concede the Arabs their 22 existing states, and the Muslims their 57 existing states, and all the non-Jews the entirety of the rest of the world, but we insist on the ownership of the one and only Land of Israel, and we insist on inhabiting it all, and ruling it according to the law G-d gave us at Sinai, and we dream of being able to observe all the 613 mitzvot of the Torah again, when G-d sees it fit to build the Temple again, speedily in our days, amen.

Thus we also see why any anti-Zionist “peace initiative” is unacceptable. Ricocheting regularly on the walls of the Daily Kos Israel/“Palestine” diaries are proposals to relocate all the Jews from Israel to some other part of the world. “Six million Jews in Israel, just about the population of New York—is it all worth the global turmoil?” say the Kossacks. See, apart from their misguided belief in the ability to appease the Islamic enemy through sacrificial offerings, they are only too eager to do what they despise President Bush for doing in Iraq: interventionism, down to the level of deciding the fates of entire populations. But it goes beyond the normal Leftist hypocrisy—these people, awash in a willingness to concede the entirety of Western culture to the diktats of the Islamic colonial invaders, show no tolerance, no sensitivity, no understanding whatsoever to the needs of Jewish religious believers. Let a Muslim complain that his student life is jeopardized by the lack of ablution fountains and the ACLU will be on his case immediately; but the fact that a generous portion of the mitzvot of the Torah can be observed only on the Land of Israel inspires a yawn from them at best, “Oh, shut up, you with your irrational bronze-age beliefs!” usually, and “Yes, but you have no right to put the whole world in danger on account of your religious beliefs” from those who wish to put on an enlightened, considerate veneer.

The mind of today may not be favorably disposed (and that’s putting it mildly) toward the renewal of Temple worship; then again, today’s “enlightened minds” are trying to redefine marriage, parenting, childhood and the very fabric of society as a totality, so one might not want to take after the zeitgeist in all things. Also, I did not hear many shrieks of horror from the Leftists about the pictures of animals slaughtered by the Muslims on Eid Al Adha, so I guess some “barbaric customs” are more equal than others. Ultimately, the truth is not obliged to agree with our feelings. Anti-Zionist Joseph Massad, in his screed Israel’s Right to Be Racist (courtesy of Al-Ahram, the principal newspaper of Egypt, with whom Israel is “at peace”), rants sarcastically:

God has given this land to the Jews and told them to safeguard themselves against gentiles who hate them. To make Israel a non-Jewish state then would run the risk of challenging God Himself.

I have no doubt it gives you a bad feeling, Mr. Massad. And to you too, Mr. Makdisi. But, Mr. Massad, we Jews are here according to our belief in the truth, the truth that G-d had promised this land to our three patriarchs, and given it to us to inhabit after getting us out from Egypt, a historical truth which we celebrate every year, this very Hebrew month. G-d chose this people to inhabit this land in order to see His glory in His Temple, the temple to which your surname, Mr. Makdisi, bears witness. And although it is in a state of ruin because of our sins, G-d has promised its restoration, speedily in our days, amen. If this is the truth, then there is nothing the uproar of the nations can do against it, for G-d rules all the nations, and it is better for them that they heed His law.

The Replacement Theology of Marxism

In the Ukraine in the first half of the 1940’s, there were two forces who took the Jewish stetl-dwellers to their deaths: the invaders from west, the Nazi Germans, aided by the local Ukrainian populace. The former were driven by an intellectual, scientific-sounding idea having great acceptability at the time, the racist ideology of Nazism. The latter were traditional, religious, believing Eastern Orthodox Christians, driven by their church’s long-held stance toward the Jews. The Ukrainian peasants often murdered the Jews outright, sometimes “only” gave the Nazis a helping hand in putting them on the trains. In both cases, they were repaying the “Christ-killers”, and in both cases the identification of the Jews as descendants of those described in the Ukrainians’ own scriptures as G-d’s nation of priests carried no weight.

Replacement Theology is a name given relatively recently to the Christian doctrine that the Jews are no longer G-d’s chosen people. It is a recent name because the repudiation of it is recent, dating to 19th-century Protestant theologians in Britain and the United States of America, and officially condemned by the Catholic Church only after the Holocaust. Physically, replacement theology has been the cause of much mistreatment of Jews by Christians, as described above; spiritually, in Jewish eyes, it is a blasphemous teaching, for it means G-d goes back on His promises. Today, replacement theology is thankfully on the wane; you will find that its existence among present-day Christians coincides with Christian dhimmitude. It is no surprise to see bishops like Naim Ateek (of Sabeel Ministries) and Riah Abu El-Assal both advocate replacement theology and declare, contrary to traditional Christian doctrine, Muslim suicide bombers to be recipients of eternal life. But the very fact that such deviants cause onlookers to sit up is testimony to the phasing out of replacement theology in the Christian world.

As I said before, it is a hallmark of the left-wing Jews of today to focus on past dangers and ignore the present ones. The way they speak of the danger of Christians and [Neo-]Nazis, you’d think we were still in the 1930’s, literally. While Christian anti-Semites and Neo-Nazis are real, their threat to the Jewish people is blown out of proportion, whereas those who truly fill their roles to day are ignored at best, or their exposers silenced in the worse case, or some Jews are actually members of their groups at worst. The role of the Nazis today is, without doubt, filled by the Muslims, who from Ismail Haniyeh to Hassan Nasrallah to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Mahathir Mohammad (may they all go to hell soon, amen) have never minced words about their intentions to do a recap of the Holocaust on the soil of Israel (G-d forbid). As for the role of the Christian aiders and abettors of the Nazis, this is filled by the Marxists. The Marxists, like the Christians of then, are driven by their own version of replacement theology.

“Replacement theology in the ideology whose founder called religion the opiate of the masses?!”—that is the question I hear begging to be asked. Obviously I mean the word, “theology” metaphorically, but there is more to it than that: the line between religion and politics has never been clear-cut, not in the past, and not even now. Marxism has its religious aspect of being based on unquestionable dogma, intellectually rationalized but never proved, sacred scriptures such as the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, missionary fervor to convert the whole world, and of course its eschatological vision of the New Man living in the messianic Dictatorship of the Proletariat; and Islam is all about political domination of the world, subjugation of it all to shariah law. It could be said Marxism is a religion masquerading as a political ideology and Islam is a political ideology masquerading as a religion, but that brings us to the truth that the border between religion and political ideology is quite a blurry one.

So it is that I come to the replacement theology Marxism teaches regarding the Jews. First off, I should note that it does not go all the way back to Karl Marx himself, or indeed to the 19th-century socialist theorists. There was plenty of Jew-hatred among them, but it was of the regular 19th-century kind, the kind in which Hitler’s brand was incubated. Marxist replacement theology can be traced to the aftermath of the Six-Day War (1967), when the Soviets rushed to construe Israel’s pre-emptive war as proof against its being a “plucky underdog” (remember, brothers: rolling over and dying will give you all the sympathy from the anti-Semites you could possibly get. And even that’s not certain). Then, interacting with the Muslims’ “Palestinian nation” fabrication, the picture was painted of the Jewish people having “betrayed” their chosen role by no longer adhering to “their mandate of social justice”. The Marxists had a very particular idea as to what being a light unto the nations entails, and when the Jews had failed to conform to that idea, they considered their chosenness expired.

Go to CounterPunch, to Common Dreams, to Daily Kos, to any Progressive Jewish website and there is a clear doctrine there that the Jewish people’s chosenness is in their role not as a nation of priests of the One True G-d, but as a social example for all nations to behold and follow. They don’t care if the Jews observe the kashrut laws or keep the Sabbath or even avoid gossip; they expect the Jewish people to be the paragon of social equality, fairness and justice, with no poverty, no class distinctions, no oppression and no “acts of imperialism”. A high standard indeed. But not G-d’s standard.

For the Progressive Jews, except to far-out self-deniers like Gilad Atzmon, activism consists in “bringing the Jewish people back to their purity”. For the non-Jewish Marxists, however, there is no interest in doing such, because it is not themselves they are concerned with. Most of them are already of the conclusion that the Jewish people irrevocably forfeited its chosenness when the state of Israel was set up involving “stealing the lands of another nation living on them and engaging in acts of ethnic cleansing”. Zionism is their problem, and there is no return of the Jews to chosenness, there is only atonement for past wrongs by doing away with the “ethnocratic character of the Jewish state”—doing away with Zionism, in other words.

The Marxists [claim to] revere the Hebrew Bible for its messages of social justice. They see those messages as being precursors to the real message of social justice: Socialism or Marxism. For them, as it is for the Christians, the Hebrew Bible is the Old Covenant; but the New Covenant is Marxism. Marxism, in which there is no Jew or Arab, just as “there is no Jew or Greek” in the epistles of Paul. Marxism, which calls for cosmopolitanism and for all nations to go down the melting-pot (or melting-gulag, more like). Marxism, which elevates its own, human-conceived morality above that of the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. There can be no room for a Jewish state, for a Zionist state, in Marxist doctrine; it is, to them, an abomination against the forces of historical materialism for a nation to retake their land after 2,000 years of being dispersed among all other nations.

All the proposed “solutions” by Marxists to the Israel/“Palestine” conflict have one thing in common: the desire to “correct” the “mistake” that was made, not in 1967, but in 1947. The Marxists know full well that all those proposals like the “Palestinian Right of Return” and the bi-national state would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Do they care? Of course not, for they either say the concept of a chosen people is anachronistic, or they hint that the Jewish people cannot be considered chosen, now that it has moved from being oppressed to being “an oppressor, no better than the ones who oppressed them in the recent past”.

The Marxists would comment on a Second Holocaust (G-d forbid) with something like, “Harsh and cruel, but you know what they say, ‘Thus always to tyrants’”. Or something like, “You can’t go on living forever on ill-gotten gains without being accorded justice”. For the Marxists, unless the Jews convert to the New Covenant of the Socialist Gospel, they are the most condemned of all people. Thus it is no wonder to find Leftists saying, quite openly, that the suicide bombings in buses and shopping malls are the Israelis’ own fault because of the “continued occupation”; and in view of this, I consider a great many of the writers and commenters on CounterPunch, Huffington Post, ZNET and Daily Kos to be capable of giving Jews to the hands of their would-be Muslim exterminators just as the Christian Ukrainians did to the Nazis. I am sure readers will take issue with this judgment of mine, but I stand by it, for experience—collective Jewish as well as my own—has taught me never to underestimate human capacity for evil.

I know which side takes care to target only those who are known to be terrorists. And I know which side has ended up with 100 million dead in the name of “social justice”, and which side raises its own children on the heritage of suicide terrorism. The Zionist state does not need lessons in morality from either of them. Better it would be for them to heed G-d’s eternal word.

Tip: Haveil Havalim #109

Issue #109 of the Jewish blog carnival Haveil Havalim, for March 11, 2007, on Life in Israel, features posts from the last two weeks instead of just one week, because of Purim, hence more hat tips here than usual.

1. Sanegoria (acting as defense attorney for the case) always tops my lists, so I start with God Does Not Desire Those That Speak Ill Of Israel, by Cosmic X, from February 28, 2007. An important lesson here: there is no permission for any Jew to climb on the backs of his brothers, no matter their level of religious observance. As I said, it will be better for secular realist (in the true sense of that word) Ben-Dror Yemini than for NK’s Dovid Weiss, no matter how long the latter’s earlocks may be.
2. From Daled Amos, the post Jerusalem, Brunei, from March 6, 2007, musing about the significance of Jerusalem to Judaism compared with the same to Islam. The verdict is unequivocal: Jerusalem, pretty much like their own children, doesn’t matter to the Muslims except as a tool for furthering their jihad for world domination.
3. Shimon of A Jewish Blog and Aussie Dave of Israelly Cool both blog about the new robot built for IDF’s use, in IDF will use new fighting robot, VIPeR and Our Latest Weapon respectively, both from March 8, 2007. The significance of this is how it contrasts us with our Muslim enemies: we take pains to ensure the safety of our soldiers, while they do everything to bring into the line of fire their civilians. But that won’t deter a group of German bishops (hat tip to Gail of Rubicon3, also featured on that issue of HH) or American lefty blog posters from comparing us to the Nazis, of course…
4. Yid With Lid brings The Press’ Blood Libel Against Israel Disproved (look for it on page 42 tomorrow), from March 1, 2007. The fact that “well-poisoning” has been updated to become “nuclear irradiation” makes no difference whatsoever: it’s still the ages-old Jew-hatred, dress it however the anti-Semites will.
5. From Boker tov, Boulder!, from March 9, 2007: Shockah: Abu Mazen LIED!, showing yet more examples of “Palestinian Authority” (oxymoron) chairman Mahmoud Abbas being just as forked-tongue as his predecessor, Arafish (long may he rot in hell, amen). But then, could we expect otherwise from the leader of a fictional nation? Unfortunately, a lot of people do. Even more unfortunately, some of those people are in positions of policymaking.
6. Judith of Kesher Talk posts (March 9, 2007) on Iran’s help in freeing Jewish hostages in 1977, back in the days of the Shah, before the country succumbed to the spell of Islamic imperialism. As always, don’t forget to thank Jimmy “Too Many Jews” Carter for the mess we’re in right now.
7. From the “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” department, Judeosphere has The Israel Lobby: 1981 vs. 2006, from March 5, 2007, bringing a screed by Strobe Talbott from 1981 showing Walt and Mearsheimer were plagiarists on top of it all. Then again, so was Strobe Talbott. The chain goes back a long way—more than 3,000 years, in fact. The coming Passover is about the first instance of it all.
8. From Lemon Lime Moon, another blast from the past: A Beloved Man Speaks Out on Anti Semitism, from March 6, 2007, where Sam Levinson (d. 1980, HaShem grant him heavenly peace) tells people how to boycott the Jews properly (now a recurrent meme on the Jewish blogosphere). Alrighty, let’s see how the Eurodhimmis like the Muslims they brought in to replace their six million Jews (HaShem avenge their blood), I’m sure they’re going to be an immense enrichment and contribution to their societies. Yeah, right.
9. Hubscubs posts Israel … Least Popular Award?, from March 7, 2007, giving vent to the feelings of a lot of us, a majority growing every day: we’re going to be branded evil no matter how much we take care to avoid casualties and damage on the other side (yes, on the other side! What a way to fight wars!), so let’s stop all this costly stupidity and fight like any nation under existential threat would. We have everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

My post on this issue of Haveil Havalim is The Wreck of Darfur, from February 27, 2007 (yes, my submission was one of the earliest, unintentionally). See you next issue, G-d willing!