The only thing that managed to surprise me here was that such an honest article was published by Haarets.

Extraordinary statement. First the newspaper is called Haaretz or Ha'aretz and not ever Haatets. Second, while it usually, at least by US standards, publishes honest articles, I must disagree on this occasion.

Deliberately mixing together the religion Islam/Muslim with being an Arab is on par with deliberately drawing together Zionism with Semitism. 99.99% of Arabs would obviously be anti Zionist. They need the State of Israel in the Middle East like a hole in the head. Most now accept the inevitability of this cuckoo in the nest. This has nothing got to do with their ...

The only thing that managed to surprise me here was that such an honest article was published by Haarets.

Extraordinary statement. First the newspaper is called Haaretz or Ha'aretz and not ever Haatets. Second, while it usually, at least by US standards, publishes honest articles, I must disagree on this occasion.

Deliberately mixing together the religion Islam/Muslim with being an Arab is on par with deliberately drawing together Zionism with Semitism. 99.99% of Arabs would obviously be anti Zionist. They need the State of Israel in the Middle East like a hole in the head. Most now accept the inevitability of this cuckoo in the nest. This has nothing got to do with their religion. Far from all Muslims are Arabs and many Arabs are Christian.

Very very few Jews are Semites. Many are former communists from eastern Europe. Most Arabs are Semites. To accuse Arabs of being anti Semite only makes any sense if Arabs hate themselves. Haaretz are well aware of this so I can only accuse Haaretz of downright dishonesty with this article. I accuse any that support this article with knowledge of the truth of being equally guilty of dishonesty.

Think the key word is SOME. Simply the point is that it is true that many critics of Israel and or Zionism are unjustly accused of antisemitism (as in first para) but that we should be aware that some critics are perhaps motivated by a generalised antijewishness. I think if you read the article in terms of generalising the situation into bipolar extremes, it misses the point, for me at least. Certainly I have not clipped it to support or sanction such a reading, and I welcome the opportunity to make this clear, and express the hope that SOME who read it at least will interpret it as I intended. I fully accept that interpretations are open, and that how I read anything will reflect my own rea...

Think the key word is SOME. Simply the point is that it is true that many critics of Israel and or Zionism are unjustly accused of antisemitism (as in first para) but that we should be aware that some critics are perhaps motivated by a generalised antijewishness. I think if you read the article in terms of generalising the situation into bipolar extremes, it misses the point, for me at least. Certainly I have not clipped it to support or sanction such a reading, and I welcome the opportunity to make this clear, and express the hope that SOME who read it at least will interpret it as I intended. I fully accept that interpretations are open, and that how I read anything will reflect my own reading approaches, but I find it unacceptable to be accused of propagandising any view on the Israel Palestine situation.
The fact that semitism is a concept developed by imperialist philologists is well known to the educated public, and playing on the meaning of it is somewhat silly when most people recognise that antisemitism refers to what it refers to by the social conventional dissemination and usage of language.
Clarification here will remain important precisely because the huge weight of evidence against the Israeli project against Palestinians needs expression well away from a bipolar emotive yahooing of righteousness. There are very many strands of discourse on this and any subject. For myself, and I speak only for myself, I prefer to ally with a particular approach, and resent once again being labelled an apologist or guilty of this that or the other simply by sharing information and views that may or may not differ from my own. And whether they differ or not, the sharing of information (including views of those who both differ and agree with my own) is not an approach which I feel makes me a bad man.

Quite clearly, there are those for whom the existence of the Jews is intolerable.

It is wrong to hate Jews. It is wrong to hate Jews. I can say this as often as anyone wants because I like Jews. There's a lot to like. Sure there are some things that I dislike but not that many. I hate what they are doing to their neighbours for one, as I would have hated the concentration camp treatment of Jews in WW2. This one hate does weigh heavily against those reasons that I like Jews.

You may misname the dislike of Jews as being anti Semitism if you wish. It will not change the essence of my point as to the dishonesty of the author of this article. By making anti Zionism and anti S[b]...

Quite clearly, there are those for whom the existence of the Jews is intolerable.

It is wrong to hate Jews. It is wrong to hate Jews. I can say this as often as anyone wants because I like Jews. There's a lot to like. Sure there are some things that I dislike but not that many. I hate what they are doing to their neighbours for one, as I would have hated the concentration camp treatment of Jews in WW2. This one hate does weigh heavily against those reasons that I like Jews.

You may misname the dislike of Jews as being anti Semitism if you wish. It will not change the essence of my point as to the dishonesty of the author of this article. By making anti Zionism and anti Semitism interchangeable, he is attempting to make being a Jew and the State of Israel as one and the same. His logic being if you are anti Zionist then you must be anti Semitic, which is a complete fiction. Does this need further explanation?

righthand said:

making anti Zionism and anti Semitism interchangeable

It is quite clear Bradley Burston is not arguing that. He is saying there is some overlap between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. All of the examples he uses show Islamist extremists saying anti-Semitic things, and Burston allows that his examples do not represent the totality of anti-Zionism.

righthand said:

, he is attempting to make being a Jew and the State of Israel as one

No, he is criticizing Islamist extremists for doing this.

yanceducat said:

I honestly find it hard to believe that someone who would bring up such subjects in the first place would be so sensitive that they would run away...

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righthand said:

making anti Zionism and anti Semitism interchangeable

It is quite clear Bradley Burston is not arguing that. He is saying there is some overlap between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. All of the examples he uses show Islamist extremists saying anti-Semitic things, and Burston allows that his examples do not represent the totality of anti-Zionism.

righthand said:

, he is attempting to make being a Jew and the State of Israel as one

No, he is criticizing Islamist extremists for doing this.

yanceducat said:

I honestly find it hard to believe that someone who would bring up such subjects in the first place would be so sensitive that they would run away at the first discord. Yet there are presumably such people and if you are such a one, perhaps insights could be gained from finding out why?

No, I think abailart's problem is the same as mine: Israel is abusing Palestinian human rights. The US government, as well as a lot of Americans, support Israel. Convincing people to change this situation is a lot of work. And it is not made easier when people are making inane anti-Jewish comments.

Bradley Burston is swiftboating. He accuses his opposition of the very thing his side is guilty of. He quotes Osama Bin Laden's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri. He totally dishonestly projects these views as representing ALL Arabs or Muslims. Why? Is it to frighten Americans?

Why was America scared of Arabs or Muslims pre 9/11. Was it because Americans and the West virtually stole the only asset the Arabs had through stooge western-appointed 'leader'. Or was because certain people carried on a nasty whispering campaign through their media empire against the Arabs for the purpose of promoting themselves as the US ally in the Middle East. What had Americans got against Arabs pre 9/11. Why ...

Bradley Burston is swiftboating. He accuses his opposition of the very thing his side is guilty of. He quotes Osama Bin Laden's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri. He totally dishonestly projects these views as representing ALL Arabs or Muslims. Why? Is it to frighten Americans?

Why was America scared of Arabs or Muslims pre 9/11. Was it because Americans and the West virtually stole the only asset the Arabs had through stooge western-appointed 'leader'. Or was because certain people carried on a nasty whispering campaign through their media empire against the Arabs for the purpose of promoting themselves as the US ally in the Middle East. What had Americans got against Arabs pre 9/11. Why were they the new boogiemen to hate. It cannot have been due to the Iranians as they are not Arab.

So now Burston again blames the victims - the Arabs - for their being the suffers as a consequence of Europe's problems with the Jews in the past. So you get to call them all Jahidists, Islamists or whatever while Israel murders their women and children in best swiftboating traditions.

Or maybe in good swiftboating style like when Kerry's level of heroism was attacked to disguise Bush's level of cowardice, this is similar. By attacking Arabs like this was it to deflect attention away from the racism and sectarianism of a large segment of Orthodox Jews attitude towards Arabs?

Rabbi Lior: No Hiring, Renting Out Homes to Arabs

Rabbi Dov Lior of Hevron and Kiryat Arba, who heads the Yesha Rabbis' Council, is quoted as giving a religious opinion opposing the employment of Arabs. In an interview for the pamphlet "Our Land of Israel" which will be distributed in synagogues Saturday, Lior said: "Sin...

Or maybe in good swiftboating style like when Kerry's level of heroism was attacked to disguise Bush's level of cowardice, this is similar. By attacking Arabs like this was it to deflect attention away from the racism and sectarianism of a large segment of Orthodox Jews attitude towards Arabs?

Rabbi Lior: No Hiring, Renting Out Homes to Arabs

Rabbi Dov Lior of Hevron and Kiryat Arba, who heads the Yesha Rabbis' Council, is quoted as giving a religious opinion opposing the employment of Arabs. In an interview for the pamphlet "Our Land of Israel" which will be distributed in synagogues Saturday, Lior said: "Since there is mortal danger here, it is obvious that it is strictly forbidden to employ [Arabs] or to rent out houses to them in the Land of Israel.

"It is forbidden to employ them, not just in yeshivas but also in factories and hotels and everywhere," he reportedly decided. Lior justified Mercaz HaRav yeshiva's refusal to host Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, asking: "How can they accept a man who operates against our holy Torah and continues to lead the Nation of Israel to new dangers?"

A religious opinion if you don't mind. I've not know any religious parson or priest to make such statements - well apart from a few fundamentalist evangelists allied to Zionism and McCain. And these directives were against fellow Israeli citizens who happened to be Arabs. Why isn't this racist Rabbi not run out of town or locked up?

All in best swiftboatng fashion of lies and deception.

..and the next step...
Muslim war graves attack shock France

Vandals desecrated 148 Muslim graves in France's biggest war cemetery, hanging a pig's head from one tombstone and daubing slogans insulting France's Muslim justice minister, officials said today.

Or worse.. Swindler`s List

It has become common among rabid Zionists and notorious Islamophobes to quote some isolated and mistranslated verses from the Qur’an for the purpose of collectively libelling Muslims and [url=http://[b]...

read more»

..and the next step...
Muslim war graves attack shock France

Vandals desecrated 148 Muslim graves in France's biggest war cemetery, hanging a pig's head from one tombstone and daubing slogans insulting France's Muslim justice minister, officials said today.

Or worse.. Swindler`s List

It has become common among rabid Zionists and notorious Islamophobes to quote some isolated and mistranslated verses from the Qur’an for the purpose of collectively libelling Muslims and presenting Islam as a regressive and violent belief system.

Needless to say, so far these recurring attempts have been futile if not actually counter-effective. Not a single Western politician, Zionist campaigner or neo-conservative think tank has managed to establish a comprehensive case against Islam. The reason is simple: in spite of the clear fact that some terrible atrocities have been committed in the name of Islam and in the name of jihad, these acts were performed by disparate, radicalised and isolated cells. It would seem that, in the eyes of the Western masses, it takes more than just a few random acts to undermine a humanist universal belief system and implicate its one billion followers.

I start to get the false-swastika-on-the-door feel about this Haaretz story - not allowing the victims be the real victim even for a moment. Victimhood status!