Original Zinn

Lieutenant Howard Zinn, 1943

  Nearly a decade ago, I encountered Howard Zinn on the street in Harvard Square, one of his favorite stomping grounds.  I remember the old Brattle Theatre on weekend afternoons in the 1960's where the cognoscenti would wile away their afternoons thumbing through the current issue of World Marxist Review waiting for The Battle of Algiers or The Seventh Seal to start.  I asked Howard why he was so indefatigable in his denunciations of Israel.  He  replied, simply: "I've never hidden the fact that I'm a Jew."

I had just come from a lecture (more like an adulation) of Professor Zinn's in the spring of 2002, a year after U.S. forces entered Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom. He was speaking at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study on the Harvard Campus.  His topic, in line with his colleague, Noam Chomsky, was the "genocide" that the United States was perpetrating in that country.  9/11 was still fresh in the minds of most of the nation, but apparently, had quickly faded from memory for most of the assembled fans.  Without supplying any evidence whatsoever, Zinn railed against the "latest U.S. imperialist move" to subjugate a native people by "bombing them into the stone age."  Such facile comments have been the bread and butter of the New (and old) Left for decades, but that afternoon, one listener was having none of it.  A dark-skinned young man raised his hand from the back of the hall.   Instantly identifying him as a representative of "The Third World", Zinn called on him first, obviously expecting enthusiastic validation of his thesis.  The young man rose determinedly and said, "Professor Zinn, I am a student here at Harvard.  I come from Afghanistan.  Were it not for the courageous actions of George Bush and American soldiers, my Mother and Sisters would no doubt have been killed by the Taliban."
Needless to say, the room fell silent.  Professor Zinn waited what seemed an eternity and quietly said, "I'm sorry you feel that way."  One wonders what reply would have come from him had the questioner been  a white male.
Having passed that embarrassing moment, Howard moved on to the subject of how the Left in America has always stood for pacifism and resistance to imperialist America's foreign adventures.  He cited one of his mentors, Eugene V. Debs and his sojourn in federal prison for refusing to register for the draft during World War I.

Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers

 

At that point, I raised my hand and asked him the following question:
"Professor Zinn, in May of 1941 your friend, Pete Seeger, produced an  album called "Songs for John Doe" which was a collection of blue collar songs that included one called "The Ballad of October 16th".  At the time, Pete Seeger had formed his first commercial band called the Almanac Singers.   That song demonstrated yours and Pete's pacifist philosophy by excoriating Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt for urging United States entry into World War II to fight Hitler.  Shortly after the album's release, you and Pete were desperately trying to retrieve all the copies to take them out of circulation.  Exactly what happened between May and June of 1941 to turn you from devoted anti-war activists into, sabre-rattling patriots resulting in your enlisting in the Army Air Force as a bombardier.
An angry, bemused pall fell over the room.  Someone next to me growled, "Who are you?"

A lengthy silence from Professor Zinn finally ended in a muted response: "Well, we've all made mistakes in our lives."  He was referring, of course, to his oft-stated repudiation of his role in World War II as a "death dealer" from on high.
I decided to fill in the rest for the stunned audience.  "What you mean is that on June 22, 1941, your country was invaded.  And by that, I mean the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  On that date over a million German soldiers poured across the border in what was to prove the largest military aggression in history.   Suddenly, Roosevelt became your hero because he was now Stalin's ally.  It seems that pacifism has its limits, even for you. And that's how you went from orthodox pacifist to imperialist war monger."
Silence from the Professor.  Shouts and threats from the audience.  I began to move to the exit.  I escaped.

Three years earlier, Howard Zinn recounted what he said to a Jewish audience when asked to speak on the subject of The Holocaust.  This is what he said:
"I spoke that evening, but not about the Holocaust of World War II, not about the genocide of six million Jews. It was the mid-Eighties, and the United States government was supporting death squad governments in Central America, so I spoke of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of peasants in Guatemala and El Salvador, victims of American policy. My point was that the memory of the Jewish Holocaust should not be encircled by barbed wire, morally ghettoized, kept isolated from other genocides in history. It seemed to me that to remember what happened to Jews served no important purpose unless it aroused indignation, anger, action against all atrocities, anywhere in the world... Zionists have used the Holocaust, since the 1967 war, to justify further Israeli expansion into Palestinian land"
  Bravo, Mr. Zinn.  The murder of 6 million of your brothers and sisters functions merely as a metaphor, a road sign pointing to the more significant, real atrocities in your universe - those qualifying as examples of  classic, Marxist class struggles.  Imagine Howard Zinn speaking before an African American audience on the subject of the Atlantic slave trade and suggesting that it was merely a metaphor, a call to action for the real struggle against the oppression of Guatemalan and Salvadoran peasants.

I can't recall any petition not bearing Howard Zinn's signature advocating a boycott or divestment from Israel.

Incidentally, when he told me that he had "never hidden the fact that he was a Jew", I answered him, "And why would you hide the fact?"

Lyrics to "The Ballad of October 16th"

It was on a Saturday night and the moon was shining bright
They passed the conscription bill
And the people they did say for many miles away
'Twas the President and his boys on Capitol Hill.
CHORUS:
Oh, Franklin Roosevelt told the people how he felt
We damned near believed what he said
He said, "I hate war, and so does Eleanor
But we won't be safe 'till everybody's dead."
When my poor old mother died I was sitting by her side
A-promising to war I'd never go.
But now I'm wearing khaki jeans and eating army beans
And I'm told that J. P. Morgan loves me so,
I have wandered o'er this land, a roaming working man
No clothes to wear and not much food to eat.
But now the government foots the bill
Gives me clothes and feeds me swill
Gets me shot and puts me underground six feet.

CHORUS

Why nothing can be wrong if it makes our country strong
We got to get tough to save democracy.
And though it may mean war
We must defend Singapore
This don't hurt you half as much as it hurts me.

Listen to the song:

Harvard's Carr Center: Snake Pit on the Charles

Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights 

 Gregg Carr's fortune spawned by his genius and pioneering work in computer voice mail and early ISP's(remember Prodigy anyone?) has gone a long way in funding Harvard"s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.  Sadly, most organizations today within the NGO universe bearing the label, "Human Rights" or "Peace", push, among other worthy agenda items, a not so worthy one: Denigrating one country, Israel, to the point of de-legitimization.   And Harvard is no exception.  This week was a case in point.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) (oops, there's that label - head for the exits) is a Cambridge based group of physicians and activists whose mission is to "to investigate the health consequences of human rights violations and work to stop them." And investigate they do.  But not too hard when it involves Palestinian and Arab violations.  When pressed to report on continual Palestinian violations of international law in the use of ambulances and health facilities as agents of war, they have consistently refused or denied such use in spite of voluminous photographic evidence. Not surprisingly, their withering gaze is disproportionately trained on the  supposed endless violations allegedly committed by Israel.   Following close on the heels of hosting Human Rights Watch's Senior Researcher, Nadim Houry who lectured for two hours on Israel's human rights violations during the 2006 Lebanon War (while, incredibly, exculpating Hezbollah for using human shields), the Carr Center proudly presented Dani Filc, director of Physicians for Human Rights in Israel and author of "Circles of Exclusion: The Politics of Health Care in Israel".  Of course, we don't have to widely speculate as to the victims of Jewish exclusion: Palestinian Arabs, migrant workers, and refugees.
The Israeli health system, incidentally, is consistently rated as one of the most "Progressive" in the world, ranked ahead of Canada, Finland, Cuba and the United States:  Single payer, no one is turned away from treatment, inexpensive and comprehensive.  Even according to Dr. Filc, it is an outstanding system (and it is located in one of the more backward areas of the world).  But then, Dr. Filc is not merely a physician.  He is also a lecturer in the Department of Politics and Governance at Ben Gurion University in the Negev.  Those are the wonderful folks who gave us Jeff Halper (of the International Committee Against House Demolitions) and the voluble Professor Neve Gordon, who champions international boycotts and divestment from Israel.  Dr. Filc's latest offering is"The Political Right in Israel: Different Faces of Jewish Populism."  It would seem that Dr. Filc's medical specialty is more political than clinical. 
His bill of particulars against Israel's health system is part general criticism on the basis of its growing reliance on private insurers and part anecdotal.  Of course, as a result of the global financial meltdown, every country has been forced to scale back state-financed health services, even exemplars like France and Sweden.  This minor point escaped Dr. Filc.
 During the Q&A Dr. Filc was reminded that life expectancy increased and infant mortality improved notably during the period since 1995 when he claimed Israel and its people had suffered a deterioration in health care due to increased privatization a clear contradiction of his thesis.   He replied that improvement in infant mortality rates was due more to basic services such as water, sewage and electricity than to improved medical care.  Of course, the obvious conclusion is that infant mortality dropped off as a result of improved basic services provided by Israel.  Never mind.  Another questioner reminded him that misrepresentation and denigration of Israeli health care delivery systems serve to provide fuel for those that seek Israel's destruction.

Try as they might to the contrary, PHR and Dr. Filc inadvertently painted a complimentary picture of a country devoted to excellence in health care.  As to the issue of security when dealing with Palestinian patients (who are routinely treated at Israel's best health care facilities) a questioner recounted the 2004 incident involving a Gaza resident, Wafa al Biss, who was stopped from entering Israel for medical treatement (at Dr. Filc's own hospital in Be'er Sheva, ironically) when she was discovered to have 20kgs. of explosives hidden beneath her clothes.  She said later that she intended to kill as many doctors and patients as possible.  Dr. Filc's presentation included no references to security matters and seemed irritated by the question.  Israel's health system may be the worst in the world, or as Winston Churchill quipped of democracy, "except for all the others."

In the interests of diversity, wouldn't it be refreshing for PHR to host a Palestinian physician who would present a critical evaluation of  the Hamas health system (assuming there is one)? Don't hold your breath - you might need to be put on a ventilator.

The Roots of Rootlessness: Part II - Walter Lippmann

 

Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise of Reform Judaism

 Assimilation is one thing - betrayal is another.  Italian Americans assimilate into American culture; Irish Americans do as well; Asians likewise, as do African Americans.  Jews, however, are a special case.  A funny thing happened on the way to the 21st Century.  Most ethnic groups strove to assert their unique national and cultural identities.  Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos - all had something to prove.  It would seem, however, that rather than having something to prove, American Jews had something to disprove. While African Americans were demanding that American society recognize their African roots and heritage, American Jews were demanding disassociation from their people's similar struggle for national liberation: the re-establishment of Israel and Zionism.  Progressive America - and the world, for that matter - began to enshrine ethnic and national movements from Putamayo Indians to Lakota Sioux. For Jews, it became a kind of cultural game of musical chairs.  Many American Jews - if they still chose to identified as such - decided that they weren't going to play.  Instead, they would become the game's referees.  When you're a referee, you will never be a loser.  And you won't have to compete with everyone else scrambling for a seat.  They would  steam-clean themselves of any ethnic and nationalist identity.  They would become COWS (Citizens of the World).   American Jews (aka Progressive Jews who would eventually become the overwhelming majority of self-identified Jews) decided that they would become uber-Americans in the sense that they would function above the rough and tumble of ethnic and national competition.  Being a referee is a no-risk persona.   American Jews could become un-Jews.  All they had to do was to morph into good people.  Having developed the theory of "The Other", projecting their own past oppression onto that avatar, American Jews became champions of the oppressed - so long as the oppressed was someone other than Jews.  Ironically, the decriers of "The Other" became the chief architects of constructing their fellow Jews as "Other."  In order to remain safe and to validate their Progressive credentials, they felt it necessary to point out to the gentile world the bad Jews in their midst.  The famous Viennese-American psychoanlayst, Heinz Hartmann,  predicted the so-called Stockholm Syndrome when he coined the phrase "Identification with the Aggressor." The fact that Jews would champion every other ethno-nationalist group (so long as it met muster in the Progressive lexicon) was seen as no contradiction to their own identity trajectory.

The sequence of the Holocaust followed closely by the re-establishment of the Jews' ancient homeland in Israel presented a quandary.  Just at the time when most American Jews were seeking to seamlessly blend into the American social fabric, along came European extermination trumped, in part, by national redemption.   The collision of self-erasure with the triumph of Israel in the wake of the Holocaust inevitably signaled the victory of assimilation to the point of disappearance.  If anything, the unstated lesson of The Holocaust was to teach American Jews that, above all, it's dangerous to be a Jew.  The answer was to become invisible.  To be small meant to be invisible and hence, not a target.   Rabbis began to rail against "Triumphalism."  And what could be more triumphal than the re-establishment of the Jewish national homeland after 2000 years? 

In spite of its socialist origins, Israel increasingly became the target of traditional Islamic and Arab antisemitism masquerading as Progressive, anti-colonialist ire.  The genius of their strategy lay in their ability to anneal fundamentalist Islam  - along with its anti-Progressive core to a naive Progressive movement - from one end of the earth to another.   To be pro-Israel eventually came to mean pro-Reaction and pro-Colonialism.  

But the roots of anti-Israel sentiment predate the founding of the state in 1948.  The seeds of self-erasure and fear of being identified as a Jew in any shape or form have been germinating in America for hundreds of years.  Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the founder of Reform Judaism, presided over the famous Pittsburgh Convention of 1885 in which was declared:

"We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state".

Just as the admission ticket to European salons and professions in the 18th and 19th centuries became the Baptismal Certificate, Progressive American Jews  decided early on that opposition to and denigration of Israel and Zionism would open all doors to them on this side of the Atlantic.

The trajectory self-erasure is confirmed by every succeeding poll of American Jews:  More mixed marriages, fewer children schooled in Judaism, and, most disturbing of all: A pattern of 3 C's in relation to Israel's survival.  They are Cowardice, Complicity and Collapse.  This series will examine this sad phenomenon by looking at a number of representative leaders.

Among the shapers of American public opinion and the theoriticians of public opinion in the last hundred years, no individual looms as influential and powerful as Walter Lippmann.  A self-described elitist, contemptuous of "the bewildered herd", Lippmann was born to an upper middle class, German-Jewish family which distanced itself from any association with a Jewish community.  Precocious, good looking (in a distinctly non-Jewish way) and privileged, he was one of the first Jews to enter Harvard.  Ironically, Lippmann favored Harvard President Lowell's Jewish quotas.
In 1913 he founded The New Republic and was quickly elevated to Presidential adviser by Woodrow Wilson and was appointed to the Committee on Public Information whose mission was to produce anti German propaganda to facilitate U.S. entry to World War I.   Lippmann helped fashion Wilson's ill-fated 14 Points presented at Versailles.  Un-Jewishness, he soon realized, would be no impediment in propelling him to public prominence.  As his biographer Ronald Steel commented, "He criticized the Jews for being 'different' rather than the Gentiles for emphasizing and punishing those differences."  He would become the archetype of the de-racinated Jew for later, successful public figures like Madeleine Albright.  His animus towards and fear of being identified as a Jew was shared by his contemporary, Edward Bernays, the father of public relations and popularizer of Sigmund Freud, his uncle.  Dismissive of the threat posed by the Nazis, even the revelations of the extermination camps apparently had no effect on Lippmann.  His columns assiduously avoided any reference to the Holocaust.  He once described Hitler as "statesmanlike."   He even opposed the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, considering them "victors'" justice.  He revealed his animus towards Jews by statements like this following the question of punishing Germany collectively for the depredations of the Nazis:
“Would it be fair to judge the French by the Terror, Protestantism by the Ku Klux Klan, the Catholic Church by the Inquisition" or, "the Jews by their parvenus?"

Fancying himself a serious philosopher after his emblazonment on the cover of Time Magazine in 1937, he produced The Public Philosophy which earned him generally poor reviews by critics who considered his analysis of Natural Law puerile and incomplete.
For decades his opinions were sought by Presidents and other public officials.  A central figure helping to shape policy towards the Soviet Union, he coined the phrase, "Cold War." Today, Lippmans's haughty style and pronouncements seem to have cast the mold for current pundits. To be fair, his analysis of the Soviet Union and Communist China do stand the test of time, especially his early revelations of the Stalinist show trials of the 1930's.  But the heirs to his style and his loathing of Jews walk among us. We need look no further than Noam Chomsky.  Next time...Edward Bernays, progenitor of spin.
In depth link (interview with Lippmann biographer, Ronald Steel):

"The sun also arises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to his place where he arose."

 

    Flavius Josephus, Arguably Judaism's Most Celebrated Traitor
or Has He Been Recently Trumped?:

 

                  "Paul Christian" Debating the Rabbis, 1263 CE

 

  "Johaness" (Yosef) Pfefferkorn Debating Rabbis in 17th Century Germany

   As recorded in the Book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet), there really is nothing new under the sun.  Especially when it comes to the subject of betrayal within the Jewish community.  In times of stress (which times are virtually continual throughout Jewish history), the BF - Betrayal Factor - becomes fulsome and dominant.
In the High Middle Ages when the Church sought to humiliate Judaism by conducting "disputations" in the town squares of France, Spain and Germany, the Christian authority chosen to "debate" a rabbi was invariably a former Jew.  And so, in the infamous Disputation of Barcelona of 1263,one Pablo Christiani took up the sword of Christ to invalidate the Torah and Talmud, especially.  Previously, "Saul", now Pablo, a devout convert, took the ludicrous name of "Paul Christian", apparently to establish his non-Jewish credentials and to pay homage to the progenitor of Christianity, also a former Saul.
Three hundred years later, during a similar campaign to demonize Judaism accompanied by familiar Talmud burnings, we find one Johannes Pfefferkorn, engaging in the -by now - familiar anti-Jewish polemics against usury (unless it suited the borrowing practices of the nobility) and demands that Jews attend church services.
During the Roman period we have the example of perhaps the Jews' most celebrated traitor, Flavius Josephus, nee Yosef Ben Matityahu, whose memoirs of the revolt against Rome provide us with one of the only contemporaneous accounts of that stressful period.
Betrayal among Jews is even lauded in some circles as necessary for survival.  Problem is, the practice appears to flourish even at less stressful times. What was required for real, physical survival, namely conversion, has evolved into the modern period's urge to assimilate.
 
  Name changes, like the absurd morphing of Ginsberg to "Gainsborough" or Tomashevsky to "Tilson Thomas", while the subject of borscht belt shtick for decades, signal a darker aspect when stress rises to existential threats.  In a time of explicit exterminationist pronouncements by a global, resurgent Jihadist Muslim community, the ages old BF has reached new heights of fervor and popularity.

The most revealing method of chronicling current BF among the American Jewish Community is by examining a few of its more prominent practitioners.  As George Orwell quipped, "The worst advertisement for socialism is its adherents."  Unfortunately, the list of betrayers is so vast,  it is difficult to know where to begin.  Let's try anyway.  For starters, let's look at some notable pre-cursors of the current betrayal.   Sadly, organizations like J Street provide a home for many Jewish heirs of this centuries-old betrayal pattern.

The Strange Case of Samuel Roth

Samuel Roth's claim to infamy arose from his lifelong devotion to the world of literary erotica.  Born into shtetl poverty near Kiev in the late nineteenth century, he moved to New York where he continued his penurious existence, sometimes sleeping in the streets.  In 1916 he entered Columbia University on a scholarship and quickly discovered the brilliant prose of modernist writers like James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein.  He became a champion of literary free speech and proceeded to publish excerpts from Ulysses and other askanced works - without the authors' permissions.  He was subsequently sued, but continued to publish pirate editions of now classic works.  In the late 1920's his book warehouse was raided by police at the behest of the pornography equivalent of the Christian Temperance League resulting in year long prison sentence.

Embittered by what Roth perceived as a Jewish publishers' conspiracy against him, he authored a classic of Jewish anti-semitism entitled, Jews Must Live: “The Persecution of the World by Israel on all the Frontiers of Civilization”.  At the time, the New York publishing business was dominated by Alfred A. Knopf, Bennet Cerf, Thomas Seltzer, and Roger Straus.

"Jews Must Live" was published in 1934 at the same time of Julius Streicher's authentically obscene antisemitic magazine, Der Sturmer in Hitler's Germany.  Indeed, some of the prose and illustrations in Roth's book could have leapt out from Streicher's pages.

 

 How Jews Persecute the World by Samuel Roth, 1934

Within its lurid narrative, Roth's hate-filled screed touches upon all the familiar tropes of ancient Jew hatred: Usury, gluttony, sexual excess, and the yearning for Zion, a transgression particularly familiar to current Jewish anti-zionists. 

Jewish Self Hatred is a term commonly applied to examples such as Roth.  I contend that this is a serious misnomer.  Current practitioners of Jew hatred, like Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky, do not engage in self hatred - they adore themselves - it's other Jews, the bad ones, that they hate.  In effect, figures like Finkelstein and Chomsky are classic antisemites.  Just as Pablo Christiani survived and flourished through betrayal, so do his modern equivalents.  Next time...the strange case of Walter Lippmann. 

Israel Extends its Hand to Haiti

Israel's expert earthquake rescue team is right now helping to save lives in Haiti.  (h/t to Solomonia).  As they have done in the past (even offering aid to Iran for the 2003 Bam earthquake - rebuffed, brilliantly by the Mullahs) the world's best disaster rescue experts will set up field operations ranging from trauma and pediatrics to a full radiology lab.  All of this begs the question:  Where are the Arab countries with their billions of petro-dollars?

If Scott Brown Can Do It in Massachusetts, Why Not Lynne Torgerson in Minnesota?

2010 is proving to be a hard slog for congressional Democrats.  Martha Coakley's inheritance of "The Kennedy Seat" in Massachusetts may prove illusory next week and Keith Ellison, recipient of J Street money and America's first Islamic congressman, may end his career as a freshman at the hands of Lynne Torgeson, savvy Minneapolis lawyer who is running as an independent this year in Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District.

Ms. Torgerson has just won an important decision from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, overturning Minnesota's Massachusetts-like Supreme Court.  Her victory on behalf of her client whose habeas corpus rights were apparently violated is certain to enhance her chances of unseating the CAIR-associated Mr. Ellison.  Named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful prosecution of The Holy Land Foundation, the Council on American Islamic Relations has maintained its ties with Mr. Ellison who is one of its staunchest supporters.  Numerous CAIR officials have been convicted on terrorism related charges.  Nihad Awad, the group's director is on record supporting HAMAS and the recently convicted Holy Land Foundation, a HAMAS front group.  All of this appears to be the perfect profile for financial support from Jeremy Ben Enemi's J Street group.

Ellison's Swearing-in Ceremony: "Slay the Idolaters, Wherever Ye Find Them": Koran, 9:4-6

Lynne Torgerson, Smart and Courageous

Nihad Awad of CAIR, J Street's Next Cash Recipient??

On the other hand, expect virulent condemnations of Ms. Torgerson from the "Pro Israel" organization.  Her revelations about Mr. Ellison and his strong connections to antisemitic groups like CAIR and The Islamic Society of North America are resonating with Minnesota voters.  She has successfully filled in the blanks that Mr. Ellison leaves out.  Watch out for the upset in frigidland this year.

Consider This My Last Warning.

What do you think would have been the fate of a leader of the Irish independence movement in the 1920's had he constantly defended British rule, received thousands of dollars from British colonialists, financed anti-Irish politicians and demanded that Ireland be "Irish and democratic" by advocating the cession of half of the Irish Free State back to Britain?
 By no stretch of the imagination, that's just what J Street's Jeremy Ben Ami is proposing for Israel in his op-ed in today's Jerusalem Post.  Needless to say, any American Irish politician with such ideas would have never been published in any Irish newspaper.  Ben Enemi, however, gets featured in Israel's leading english language daily representing and advocating comparable positions.  In prose that gives new meaning to Chutzpah, the pompous one delivers his ultimatum to Jews who are facing existential threats unprecedented in Israel's brief modern history.  To their credit, a unanimity of Israeli commenters, are not impressed with the "Pro Israel" sleight of hand constantly played by J Street.  Here are a few of those comments:

• "You are not MY ambassador, Mr. Ben Ami maybe you represent Peace-Now or the PLO but not the Jewish majority here in Israel."
• "It's not hard being Israel's ambassador these days. It would only be hard if you had the misguided views of someone like Jeremy Ben-Ami. How convenient to omit from the article some of the more extreme positions of JStreet that are not pro-Israel simply because he repeats like a mantra that they are, and in fact will move us further away than ever from peace. JStreet may have a slick PR machine, but that doesn't take a way from its destructive character hiding behind the fig leaf of "pro-Israel, pro-peace." Fortunately, most people are not that stupid. "
• "I'm relieved to see that this guy is not smart and so probably cannot do that much harm to Israel as he intends to do. If he does not understand how we in Israel read such patronizing invectives then he is not very smart, to put it mildly."
• "Ben-Ami's proclaimed devotion to Israel's welfare is disingenuous considering his organization's history of refusing to back Israel's operation in Gaza, refusing to condemn the Goldstone report, rejecting until recently sanctions against Iran, etc. So long as J Street hides its decision-makers' identities and decision process, Amb. Oren is correct in treating J Street with suspicion. Last month Ben-Ami spoke before a group of donors in FL where, according to participants, he admitted that financier George Soros was a founder and funder. The JP already exposed pro-Arab, pro-Iran donors." 

"Who is this upstart, Michael Oren, to refuse an invitation to be bashed by all my Marxist friends at my "Pro Israel" conference?  And who is this "racist", Avigdor Lieberman, to presume to keep Israel a Jewish state?"
And lest you think that "Pro Israel" is just an empty phrase, Ben Enemi throws this in as his inoculation: 
"And we can stand up to those who would put the full brunt of blame and penalty on Israel, whether at the UN, on college campuses or in the blogosphere."    Yeah, like J Street's refusal to condemn the Goldstone Report.  With such obviously empty pronouncements, J Street is quickly being exposed for what it really is - a deeply, anti-Israel organization.
Flush with more cash from George Soros and perhaps the Bronfmans (Ben Enemi refuses to divulge J Street's backers) and desperately trying to extend the short-lived publicity he received from the self-proclaimed "success" of his D.C. conference (at which scores of congressmen decided to opt out), Jeremy is like the little coward who constantly threatens his opponent with the hired bully waiting around the corner.  In this case, Israel had better do what he says - or else:
 "And as pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans, we are perfectly situated to make the case to President Barack Obama and the international community"
  Notice that J Street is no longer just a Jewish organization, but has graduated to being "pro peace Americans."

Still stinging from Ambassador Oren's principled decision to avoid a conference that even John Kerry refused to attend, Ben Enemi is desperate to keep his organization afloat at a time when the Obama administration's George Mitchell-Mara Rudman initiative is looking more like a Middle East vacation than a serious engagement.   Ben Enemi's worst fear is about to be realized:  Obama is losing interest in the Israel-Arab conflict.  And that means that George Soros may be losing interest as well.  All that Jeremy has left is an empty threat:


"And you'd better do what I say, Israel, or the guy around the corner will be paying you a visit." 

"And I'm just the devil with love to spare - Viva Palestina, Viva Palestina!" (Elvis Presley, 1964)

Something Foul in the Air - They Blame Each Other

(Hamam Said, Muslim Brotherhood chief in Jordan and the Malodorous Mr. Galloway)

That old rascal, George Galloway, is up to his old tricks.  The Palestinians' CIR (Clown in Residence), Galloway, is in charge of The Viva Palestina! march to Gaza.  Fighting for the limelight with his Jewish Sancho Panza, Media Benjamin (in charge of the "Gaza Freedom March"), George has managed to grab the press's attention with a riot he spawned at Al Arish on the Egyptian border yesterday.  In spite of the surfeit of food and goods cramming Gaza's markets,

 Lots of HD TV's for Sale in "Besieged" Gaza

George concocted his "Break the Siege of Gaza" convoy to plop himself back on the news.  55 people were hurt including scores of Egyptian policemen when Galloway's minions (pacifists, mind you) took to beating Egyptians so that they could ferry into Gaza food and medicine that would no doubt be promptly sold on the black market by the (incorruptible) Hamas.  Whatever happened to the billions of dollars in aid pledged by the EU and Hillary Clinton?  Today, an Egyptian soldier was shot to death during the "Internationals" "Peace" rally at the border. Top that, Media Benjamin.   Solomonia has more.   It is no wonder that George is unwelcome in Egypt as he has paraded his affinity for the Muslim Brotherhood from Damascus to Amman to Cairo.  Ikhwanweb, the Brotherhood's official website, lavishes praise on the silly man from Glasgow.  What apparently triggered the Internationals' lapse of pacifism was Egypt's decision to allow 59 trucks in the convoy to be routed through Israel.  Aside from the  truckloads of goods and medicine arriving daily from Israel (naturally, never mentioned by Viva Palestina or the Gaza Freedom March), this minor accommodation obviously drove the pacifists to violence.  In a career marked by one embarrassment after another, feckless George has managed to alienate even Muslim extremists, be denied entry to Canada, be (credibly) accused of receiving millions of dollars from the discredited "Oil for Food" UN program for Iraq and be expelled from the Labour Party.  Here's a taste of George, his pacifist friends and his "Lifeline 3" convoy:

Myself, I prefer the King's version of Viva Palestina:

Long March to Jew Hatred: The Gaza "Freedom" March

Laughing All the Way to the Bank

The participants read like a who's who of The New Antisemitism:  George Galloway, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Media (sic) Benjamin, Jeff Halper, Gloria Steinem Ronnie Kasrils, Ali Abunimah, Alice Walker (of "The Color Yellow"), Noam Chomsky, and Howard Zinn, to name just the headliners.  It's the society page of contemporary Jew Hatred.   Oh how Jerermy Ben Ami and his dirty dozen wanted to be on the guest list! But, alas - they have to maintain the fiction of being "Pro Israel" for a little while longer.  Interesting that J Street offers no comment on The Gaza Freedom March (they're just lapping it up at their Soros-funded digs in D.C.). 

Led by the latex-body-suited-Jew hating-conspiracy- drunk-publicity monster-George Galloway, the Gaza freak show's "internationals" (notice the clever attempt to cloak their antisemitism with association with Spanish Civil War veterans) are forbidden to mention the following:

• Hamas
• The Hamas Charter
• Rocket and Terror attacks against Jewish civilians
• The far right religious fanaticism of their Gazan partners

Replete with nominal "Jews", the motley crew spells out the reason for Jewish "perfidy" by:


"Identifying Zionist ideology as the fundamental basis for Israel's "crimes"

The Grand Wizard

Obama's Left Hand Man

 

                                   




                                                                             "Media" Benjamin
In other words, the task of the Noam Chomskys and Howard Zinns is to point out the bad Jews to the killers.  And by doing so, the monsters of Hamas might spare them.  It's the Oslo Syndrome all over again so eloquently chronicled by Dr. Kenneth Levin.  Check out the full Roll of Shame (including sadly, British film director, Mike Leigh).  Remember their names, their cowardly names.