Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Shalom, Eve and Norm wrote it:
You claim that Israel's conduct violates traditional Jewish values, and you celebrate yourselves as the true defenders of these values. Oddly, you invoke them only for the purpose of announcing your abhorrence of Israel and its supporters in the Jewish community. Your deep concern for Jewish principles of justice and compassion do not lead you to step forward as Jews in order to condemn the genocide in Darfur, the blood-letting in the Congo, the massacres in Chechnya or any other cases of massive human rights violation far surpassing the brutality of Israel's occupation of the Palestinians. To us it is clear that you wrap yourself in the flag of Jewish concern solely for the purpose of avoiding the tidal wave of irrational hostility to Israel as a country that has now moved from the fringes of political opinion to the mainstream of public discourse in Britain. You respond to the distortions, half-truths and libels concerning Israel and Jews that are now common currency in large segments of the British media by embracing them rather than subjecting them to critical scrutiny. In this way you seek to retain your membership in fashionable society. The perverse parodies of Jewish ritual that you stage for political effect compound the ugly absurdity of this exercise in self-ingratiation...
The rest of the note is here. Norm had an earlier comment on the group worth a look here: Shamefaced apologists for Hizbollah?
Jews for Justice for Palestinians. Hmmm.
Where is a group called "Muslims for Justice for Israel"?
There is a "Peace Now", or "Gush Shalom".
Where is "Salaam Now"?
Where is a grassroot Arab/Muslim group that condemns the murder of Jews, that promotes peaceful coexistence with Israelis, that condemns al-qada?
It seems to me that someone believes that ethnically cleansing the Middle East of non-Arab, non-Muslims is what "allah" wants.
My belief is that these people suffer from classic Stokholm Syndrome, plain and simple. If you feel real geniune fear of someone or group of people, subconciously you can be safe by taking their side as a defensive mechanism but reality is something totally different. This is one of the many sad and pathetic consequences of terrorism.
--John W.
John W.
I wouldn't put it down to Stockholm Syndrom, or even the Oslo Syndrome, as Kenneth Levine, the psychiatrist has written, but rather the morphing of a Jewish tendency to find some element of superiority to other Jews, outside of being observant or whatever part of the Diaspora your family came from. Now, "holier than thou" is expressed by showing sensitive you are to "victims".
Lynne,
I've never heard of "Oslo Syndrome" prior to your post but will now buy his book to educate myself as it sounds very interesting. When I was in college quite a long time ago, we were required to read Chomsky and I didn't know any better at the time. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the absurdity of it all.
--John W
I have only just come across this Open Letter and wish to congratulate the signatories on their response to the arrogant and ignorant "Jews for Justice for Palestinians." Having spent over half my life (1967-2008) in Israel, I know a great deal more about Middle East realities than those self-elected moralists and "Independent Jewish Voices" do. Apart from my distant cousin, Miriam Karlin, they include renegade Israelis such as Avi Shlaim (whose distortions I have exposed in the latest issue of Oxford Today) and a few others whose Jewish credentials are, to say the least, open to question -- Keir Hardie, Revd. Canon Nicholas Kerr, Prof Anton van der Merwe et al.! It is therefore surprising not to find Vanessa Redgrave and her like among them. As my late father used to observe, "There are none so blind as those who will not see."