And Over at Mobius...

Here's the entire full comment section up until this morning with my comment in bold at the end.


Yisrael Medad can’t take a joke, Wonkette misses the high-road
by Mobius [his mirror site] • Monday, July 23rd, 2007

Jew-liani.

We’ve all seen it already, right?

Well, West Bank-based blogger Yisrael Medad hadn’t. And even if he had, he apparently wouldn’t have gotten the joke. Which is cool and all — you wouldn’t normally expect an Orthodox religious settler to get all that D.C. politico insider baseball. Guys like Medad usually have other areas of expertise, like say, halakhic proofs legitimizing ethnic cleansing.

At any rate, in a nod to the brilliance of said video, Wonkette’s been on a roll with a tongue-in-cheek if mildly disconcerting branding of Rudy as “Jew-liani” in various posts to their blog. If anything, Medad should have accused Wonkette of serving that dish far past its expiration date. What was that, a month ago guys?
But instead, being unfamiliar with both the video and Wonkette’s naughty charm, Medad wheeled out the antisemitism charge, setting off a round of denunciations throughout the right-wing blogosphere.

Wonkette editor Ken Layne responded in poor fashion, going so far as to allude to taking possible legal action against Medad. He later followed up with a retraction and cited an inbox full of Lizard Freeper hatemail as the source of his outrage. Being familiar with the experience, I can empathize.

I wonder, had Jon Stewart made the same joke, would Medad have reacted in the same way?
~~~

If Medad really wants to go after an antisemitic website, he should investigate why it is that every time I post a comment to this article on Digg challenging Reagan-era economist Paul Craig Roberts’ assertion that the Mossad is conspiring with Bush to fake terror attacks in America, it gets voted out of existence.
Filed under Washington, On The Web, Antisemitism

21 Responses to “Yisrael Medad can’t take a joke, Wonkette misses the high-road”
1. Hey, helllooooo! It’s Tisha B’Av, atleast for those of us currently in Israel, and soon for those abroad. I came back from hearing Eicha, and THIS is what Jewschool had to add to my meditation on the state of our people on this mournful day?! What gives?

—Sof Maarav • July 23rd, 2007 at 3:37 pm

2. Are you sure that’s not the Ron Paul brigade voting you down? They’re pretty influencial on Digg.

—Ayrkain • July 23rd, 2007 at 3:51 pm

3. “you wouldn’t normally expect an Orthodox religious settler to get all that D.C. politico insider baseball. Guys like Medad usually have other areas of expertise, like say, halakhic proofs legitimizing ethnic cleansing.”
I’m not feeling the love.

—incorrect • July 23rd, 2007 at 4:48 pm

4. Well, at least you spelled my name right.
Allow me thought to respond to one charge: that of support for ethnic cleansing (the rest of what you think of me is just silly nonsense - I got the joke but I didn’t think it funny). You write -”Guys like Medad usually have other areas of expertise, like say, halakhic proofs legitimizing ethnic cleansing.” Well, I am not sure about others like me but I don’t legitimize ethnic cleansing. Don’t worry, I won’t take you court but permit me a few sentences here.
I believe that all who wish to live in this country, the Jewish, democratic state of Israel, the culmination of the Zionist movement’s effort to redeem, at this stage, the Jewish people, can and should on one condition: that they don’t try to subvert or alter what the state is supposed to be. One thing it isn’t to be is a Palestinian Arab state. If anyone has engaged in premeditated ethnic cleansing, it it the Arabs. Tel Hai in 1920, Jaffa in 1921, Petah Tikvah in 1924, 1929 in Hevron, Beer Tuviah & Hulda and in 1947-48, Gush Etzion, Bet Haaravah, Neveh Yaakov and Atarot and Jerusalem’s Old City were ethnically cleansed of Jews by Arabs. I consider a Jew and Zionist who bandies about that term in order to malign a Jew who has returned to his homeland not only stupid and incorrect factually but a gross adoption of the enemy’s propaganda line. Despite your JBS quotation below, you have attacked a person because, I am pretty sure, you don’t know me and if you had reviewed my site (as you suggested I had done with Wonkette), you would not assign me such views in your off-handed, conveniently- justifying-your-own-views manner.
Have a nice rest of Tisha B’Av.

—Yisrael Medad • July 24th, 2007 at 3:37 am

5. Oh, and did you blog about the ethnic cleansing of Nahr el-Bared?

—Yisrael Medad • July 24th, 2007 at 3:53 am

6. The Chicago Tribune didn’t find it so funny (some paragraphs have been deleted for brevity’s sake):
Harry Potter and Gawker’s Jewish problem
The piece is about how “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” comes out at 2:01 a.m. Saturday in Israel, but Israeli law prohibits stores from being open on the Sabbath, or as Gawker puts it: “Head Heebs in the Holy Land are trying to keep bookstores closed at the appointed hour of the novel’s release.”
“Some stores are planning to open anyway — these are Jews, let’s remember, and a buck’s a buck — which has resulted in predictable outrage from the Adonai-adoring elements of Israeli society.”
They didn’t just go there, did they? What, is it Fun with Ages-Old Slanderous Stereotypes Week?
The piece then quotes someone from the United Torah Judaism Party (by way of an Associated Press story) slamming the Potter books’ “defective messages” and their subculture before the Gawker writer fires back: “[I]sn’t this exactly how some of us feel about, you know, the Bible and its subculture of weird, tallis-wearing followers?”
Hee hee — Orthodox Jews and other Bible readers sure are a bunch of weirdos!

—incorrect • July 24th, 2007 at 10:16 am

7. I find it offensive that on Erev Tisha B’Av of all days, you post such venomous attacks on Jews, complete with the sentence, “Guys like Medad usually have other areas of expertise, like say, halakhic proofs legitimizing ethnic cleansing.”
Seeing your Chofetz Chaim green boxed message to my right as I type this, “Jewish Bloggers for Responsible Speech online” — I can only assume you put it there as a cynical joke.
Your quote from the Rav beneath below is diametrically and utterly opposed to the language of your post.
Oh right…everything’s a joke to you, Mobius.
A fabulous Tisha B’av to you as well.

—Jameel @ The Muqata • July 24th, 2007 at 10:35 am

8. awww, what’s the matter jameel? did i show you a part of yourself you don’t like?
you know you could give me 1001 torah proofs for justifying transferring the arabs out of the territories. don’t even front.
that i would identify it as an area of expertise for religious settlers isn’t “a venomous attack.” it a matter of fact.
what, you think i’ve never slept in a caravan? what, you don’t think i have family out in those hills? i know your kind, bro… and tisha b’av of all days is davka when i should stuff it back down your throat.

—Mobius • July 24th, 2007 at 2:27 pm

9. Gee, this is a rereading of Kamtza-BarKamtza circa 2007. For the benefit of those reading this post, I, Yisrael Medad, resident of Shiloh since 1981 (I’ll leave out all my other bio info) do not advocate ethnic cleansing, do not advocate dumping all Arabs in the sea/river/gulf or whatever (although I do bring up the subject in arguments to offset demands for ethnic cleansing of Yesha of its Jews) and do believe, in the legacy of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, that this country can have multiple communities. I argued with Rav Kahane on the subject when I was Geula Cohen’s aide and he was an MK. So, please, let’s not get irresponsible, Mobius, and let’s stick to the facts. And I do apologize for not being the stereotype fanatic, right-wing extremist you would prefer as your opponent.

—Yisrael Medad • July 24th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

10. And the righties play “miss the point” and “change the subject” once more. But Mo, you know that snide comment was their perfect excuse.
The REAL point of the article being, when an anti-Semitic canard is adopted by alleged philo-Semites on the Right… complete silence. But if a liberal were to co-opt its usage to make fun of it… Oh, where have I heard that definition before? Oh that’s right - SATIRE.
Reality just can’t compete.

—B.BarNavi • July 24th, 2007 at 2:46 pm

11. Yisrael: Give me a break. You eat Arab babies for breakfast, just as Mobius thinks you do.

—Jameel @ The Muqata • July 24th, 2007 at 3:13 pm

12. “Guys like Medad usually have other areas of expertise, like say, halakhic proofs legitimizing ethnic cleansing.”
What an awful thing to say. I don’t understand how we can expect large groups of people with divergent religious, political and social beliefs to humanize one another if we can’t be respectful of one another on the freaking internet.

—ira • July 24th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

13. Ira: Its not an awful thing for Mobius to say; he’s lived in a caravan before.

—Jameel @ The Muqata • July 24th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
14. oh jameel, is this how you’re going to spend your day? don’t you have some olive trees to uproot, or some school children to throw rocks at, or maybe some posts to write pontificating on the utter evils of palestinian society?
maybe you’d care to explain to me which posek overturns “not by force of arms but by My hand alone…”
and i didn’t live in a caravan… i’ve just slept in a few.
speaking of which, has anyone ever told you how utterly offensive and vile the illustration on your blog’s header is?

—Mobius • July 24th, 2007 at 4:30 pm

15. and how ’bout you yisrael? don’t you have another post to write about the jewish volunteers of machsom watch being “nasty ladies” because they oppose the idf’s travel restrictions on palestinian civilians? there’s a tisha b’av lesson learned…
religious settlers are the poster children for cognitive dissonance. they condemn everyone who doesn’t see the world their way (which is practically everyone except themselves), and then cry foul and “torah violations” when other jews point out the fact that they believe, say and do abhorrent things that desecrate the name of g-d and jeopardize the security of jewish people throughout the world.
identifying this cognitive dissonance is not an act of baseless hatred — it’s an act of love. love for g-d, love for eretz yisrael, love for am yisrael, and an expression of excruciating pain at the sight of my fellow yidn conducting themselves in a way that harms all of us.

—Mobius • July 24th, 2007 at 4:52 pm

16. hey mobius– having met you, I do believe that your critique comes from a place of love.
however, I don’t think that spirit is coming across in this comment thread.
and that’s when people shut down and stop listening and start trying to win the debate instead of to learn.
It’s the afternoon of tisha b’av– ahavat chinam and all that. let’s make it constructive.

—rebecca m • July 24th, 2007 at 5:38 pm

17. i hear you rebecca, but really, which is worse: making yisrael medad look like a putz, or letting yisrael medad make all jewish people look like putzes?

—Mobius • July 24th, 2007 at 11:09 pm

18. here - let me try to reframe this:
right now, there’s a strong sentiment on both the right and left that the charge of antisemitism is a baseless accusation used to silence criticism of israeli policy and the israel lobby. the walt & mearshimer paper is just one example evidencing this sentiment’s entry into mainstream american thinking.
it’s obvious to anyone who reads wonkette that they were making fun of right-wing antisemites by calling giuliani “jew-liani.” yet not only did medad irresponsibly and unfoundedly charge wonkette with being antisemitic, but he invited the entire right-wing blogosphere to uphold his misrepresentation as proof positive of the left-wing’s moral bankruptcy.
in other words, medad stood reality on its head and willingly fabricated a false charge of antisemitism in order to delegitimize others whose political opinions he disagrees with (not that wonkette pays anything more than superficial attention to israel anyway).
he has thus engaged in a propaganda strategy that has earned him a lot of web traffic from the neocon right, but which effectively reinforces the belief that the charge of antisemitism is baseless and employed only to smear critics of israeli policy and/or the israel lobby.
in other words, he ran a play from abe foxman’s handbook, contributing directly to a “boy who cried wolf” impression of antisemitism that makes it all the more difficult to identify and combat real expressions of antisemitism that do truly pose a danger to the jewish community.
thus, through his actions, medad has contributed to the deterioration of jewish security as a whole.
so i told him he was a putz. nu?

—Mobius • July 25th, 2007 at 12:18 am

19. Mobius, I don’t think your insight into the Wonkette psyche is any better than mine or the Chicago Tribune’s, and we both thought (along with many others) that the Wonkette anti semite shout out was not satire but represented actual anti semitism in action. And the “Jewliani” nonsense has been all over the leftwing arena, not the right wing. I’m eager to fight against antisemitism on the right (e.g. Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak), why do you find it so difficult to admit anti semitism on the left?

—incorrect • July 25th, 2007 at 12:41 am

20. i find it difficult to admit antisemitism on the left? what are you freaking talking about? i’ve not only covered the subject ad infinitum, but i’ve collaborated on several projects to make more productive inroads into addressing the issue than simply crying that the left are a bunch of nazis. in fact, within the next week or so, we should be publishing a whole expose on and challenge to antisemitism at the world social forum.
and as per my insight into the wonkette psyche, tell me — how often do you read wonkette? it doesn’t much seem the kind of site you’d be terribly interested in. but then again, you seem to enjoy trolling websites you hate reading so…
are you even aware of the fact that gawker media is owned by a hungarian jew?

—Mobius • July 25th, 2007 at 12:53 am

21. Mobius, to answer your question, I use to read Wonkette fairly often when she first started, but she ultimately grew boring and I stopped. Meanwhile I went to your site regarding you objecting to anti semitism of the left and I saw a reference to a conference. I’ll repeat the question, who are the leftist anti semites you would publicly call out (and I don’t mean fringe crazies) - you call me the troll but I’m willing to identify “mainstream” rightists as antisemites because I’m willing to apply my standards consistently whether with reference to rightists or leftists. I challenge you to do the same - are you covering for anti semitic leftists, or are you willing to name them?

—incorrect • July 25th, 2007 at 2:47 am


22. Good morning to all.
There’s a lot to respond to but as I don’t want Mobius to choke on the froth coming out of his mouth, I’ll be gentle.
I know that Mobius doesn’t know me but as I serve for him as a symbol of the target of his hatred, what can I do? He needs me. He needs me to be who I am not because that justifies his outlook and anger and uncotrollable urges (no, I am not accusing you of being a wife-beater).
So, let’s make some comments:
1) him
and how ’bout you yisrael? don’t you have another post to write about the jewish volunteers of machsom watch being “nasty ladies” because they oppose the idf’s travel restrictions on palestinian civilians? there’s a tisha b’av lesson learned…
1) me
No, not until they continue acting nasty by being completely one-sided and endangering my security (and yours) by interfering with the work that needs to be done in preventing 16 year old suicide bombers from getting through. And if they have complaints, let them report it not browbeat the teenage soldiers.
2) him
religious settlers are the poster children for cognitive dissonance. they condemn everyone who doesn’t see the world their way (which is practically everyone except themselves), and then cry foul and “torah violations” when other jews point out the fact that they believe, say and do abhorrent things that desecrate the name of g-d and jeopardize the security of jewish people throughout the world.
2) me
But, dear Mobius, don’t you realize that that is exactly what you are doing? And I’ll add that yes, there are, among almost 300,00 Jews living in J&S with another 200,000 in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods who I consider wrong, fanatical and harmful to me, my ideology and themselves but that the overwhelming populace is just fine - not the stereotype you would wish. I think, given the venomous tone (oh, I did mention froth, didn’t I?) that you are engaged in ‘projection’ but don’t worry, it is only a psychological disorder and there is a cure.
3) him
i hear you rebecca, but really, which is worse: making yisrael medad look like a putz, or letting yisrael medad make all jewish people look like putzes?
3) me
Oh, come on, you don’t really look like a putz, or do you?
4) him
not only did medad irresponsibly and unfoundedly charge wonkette with being antisemitic, but he invited the entire right-wing blogosphere to uphold his misrepresentation as proof positive of the left-wing’s moral bankruptcy. in other words, medad stood reality on its head and willingly fabricated a false charge of antisemitism in order to delegitimize others whose political opinions he disagrees with (not that wonkette pays anything more than superficial attention to israel anyway).
4) me
No, I didn’t. I did not willigly fabricate. It’s there, Mob, (pronounced with a long O, as in load), you just refuse to see it because you are “Left” as in left-out, way out. Open your eyes and thou shall see.
5) him
…which effectively reinforces the belief that the charge of antisemitism is baseless and employed only to smear critics of israeli policy and/or the israel lobby.
5) me
really? no, it is very well-based (and take a look at Gawker, too).
6) him
in other words, he ran a play from abe foxman’s handbook, contributing directly to a “boy who cried wolf” impression of antisemitism that makes it all the more difficult to identify and combat real expressions of antisemitism that do truly pose a danger to the jewish community.
6) me
fox = wolf. that’s good. And when was the last time you really fought antisemitism, Mob? When I was a bit younger than you, my friends and I in Betar in 1964-65 were combatting James Madole’s National Renaissance Party in NY and preventing George Lincoln Rockwell of the American Nazi Party from speaking at Columbia University and that’s just for starters. Nu, when? where? what?
7) him
so i told him he was a putz. nu?
7) me
Nu? So you think me a putz. So feel better. I wouldn’t call you a putz, Mob. You’re not long enough.

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

—Yisrael Medad • July 25th, 2007 at 3:25 am

Mobius, I don’t think your insight into the Wonkette psyche is any better than mine or the Chicago Tribune’s, and we both thought (along with many others) that the Wonkette anti semite shout out was not satire but represented actual anti semitism in action. And the “Jewliani” nonsense has been all over the leftwing arena, not the right wing. I’m eager to fight against antisemitism on the right (e.g. Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak), why do you find it so difficult to admit anti semitism on the left?

—incorrect · July 25th, 2007 at 12:41 am

i find it difficult to admit antisemitism on the left? what are you freaking talking about? i’ve not only covered the subject ad infinitum, but i’ve collaborated on several projects to make more productive inroads into addressing the issue than simply crying that the left are a bunch of nazis. in fact, within the next week or so, we should be publishing a whole expose on and challenge to antisemitism at the world social forum.

and as per my insight into the wonkette psyche, tell me — how often do you read wonkette? it doesn’t much seem the kind of site you’d be terribly interested in. but then again, you seem to enjoy trolling websites you hate reading so…

are you even aware of the fact that gawker media is owned by a hungarian jew?

—Mobius · July 25th, 2007 at 12:53 am