De Blasio’s Tweet: Anti-Semitic? A Misspeak? Or What? (UPDATED Oct. 21/22)

UPDATED to include DeBlasio's statement Oct. 21.

See below.

On April 29, probably after being alerted by this tweet, and after shutting down a Satmar yeshiva a week earlier and a report that mikvaot will still operating despite a closure order on April 7, and a report on March 31 that some Jewish NYC funeral homes were overstacked with bodies, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted:

@NYCMayor
Something absolutely unacceptable happened in Williamsburg tonite: a large funeral gathering in the middle of this pandemic. When I heard, I went there myself to ensure the crowd was dispersed. And what I saw WILL NOT be tolerated so long as we are fighting the Coronavirus

Jewish funerals with hundreds and even thousands of Haredi particpants not practicing social-distancing or mask-wearing were all over the news (like that on April 2 of the Skulener Rebbe which also led to police being injured -

Photo: Todd Maisel

and another funeral here; and here; on April 5; and April 1; and one which led to contretemps and shouting at cops and an arrest). Not to mention this wedding or this one. 

In other words, these infractions of a dangerous nature (and defined as pikuach nefesh and those who practice such can be termed a rodef) were multiple, repeated, highlighted in the media including the Haredi press and web sites but with little, it would appear, or better, not enough, adequate enforcement either by the city institutions or by Jewish community leadership. In practice, the Aharon Teitelbaum Satmar Hassidic court on March 18 became strict 

but not, it would seem, in practice. They form the backdrop to what happened next.

A short while later, he tweeted out this

My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period.

While the first was liked some 6,600 times, the second, which explictly mentioned Jews, received some 34,100 likes (as of May 3).

His third tweet on the matter, again, that same day, after the uproar, was

We have lost so many these last two months + I understand the instinct to gather to mourn. But large gatherings will only lead to more deaths + more families in mourning. We will not allow this. I have instructed the NYPD to have one standard for this whole city: zero tolerance.

Did de Blasio purposefully employ Jewish community? Did he think there are several Jewish communities and the one closest to him, politically and financially, that is, the Hassidic/Haredi community, was the one that counts? Did he practice a double standard? Or what?

Was it an example of this perspective?

Select instances of noncompliance in Haredi communities, while certainly real, are given outsized attention in news media and internet discourse, creating a sensationalist public discourse that falsely suggests that Haredim, as a homogenous bloc, refuse to practice social distancing. The scapegoating of Haredim is increasing

For sure, there is some proof of anti-Jewish remarks stemming from that funeral. For example, Peter Bradley wrote:

If you watch the video, you will see a person barking orders. He is concerned that the people in the street aren’t wearing masks. In all likelihood, his concern is probably more based on the continuing negative publicity that this Hasidic funeral will generate from the media!

(I commented that that was: is a big guess, an assumption based on ??? Bias?)

This April 15 video was posted zeroing in on Williamsburg and Boro Park and it included a warning to stay at home and not attend synagogue services. On April 7 Naftuli Moser published his op-ed on Hassidic/Haredi behavior at weddings and funerals and linking that to connections with the political establishment, including the Satmar Rebbe`s March 16 prounouncement (with its problematic content):

 and after three Haredim were attacked as mosrim (here in another instance)

and an April 6 report on police crackdowns. Two days after the major Williamsburg incident, another crowd gathered for another funeral, this time in Boro Park.

Satmar came out and backed the Mayor:

We strongly denounce the vicious attacks against the Mayor, particularly those accusing him of anti-Semitism. The close relationship between Mr. De Blasio and our community go back close to two decades, during which time we have come to know, respect and appreciate his understanding and sensitivity to the unique needs of our community. We consider him a dear friend and pray for his success.

although that was attacked, some claiming it a reflection of Galut mentality. The clear message of the Novominsker Rebbe in early March, who later died of the disease, was ignored, even though there were community voices that decried the violations of the Corvid19 rules. As did a Rebbe.

One result, perhaps, is the appointment of a Frum Captain to serve as NYPD Jewish Community Liaison and another was the letter of Ted Cruz in which the Texas Senator wrote

it is especially dangerous to single out the Jewish community in a city that is experiencing a substantial rise in violent anti-Semitism.The Department of Justice should not hesitate to closely monitor New York City to ensure that the mayor’s rhetoric does not translate into constitutional violations

So, was De Blasio being anti-Semitic? With blood on his hands?

Or was this a one-off anti-Semitic incident? Can he really afford to be anti-Semitic? Did he scapegoat the Jews (even though he tweeted “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities”)? Is the city’s past pitiful response to anti-Semitic violence indicative of an anti-Semitic City Hall? Was he displaying underintelligence? Was he insensitive to the special circumstances that had developed in the situation of high-profile Jews perceived as purposefully and negligently flouting restrictions that could possibly affect other Jews and non-Jews and that his words would encourage anti-Semitism? When he tweeted the “Jewish community”, was he blind to the Jewish community at large or other Jewish communities or did he think, as perhaps Satmar assisted him to so think, that they are the real Jews and he just followed through?

One aspect stemming from the Satmar letters is one faces a tough choice: if you believe Satmar, no anti-Semitism by de Blasio. If you do not believe them, are you perhaps anti-Semitic?

According to Jacob Kornbluh, de Blasio is claiming to have spoke unintentionally, that he:

reached out to a number of Jewish community leaders in the last few days to clarify his tweet. He added: “I regret that I used words in the wrong way — in terms of giving the wrong impression, but I don’t regret sounding the alarm.”

Was the attack on de Blasio an attempt to cover for what has been described as a gross failure of leadership by Jews from all types of communities?

We may never know.

I would suggest that rules and regulations be followed if only to follow the instruction in the Ethics of the Fathers 3:2:

"Pray for the welfare of the government, for without the fear of it, man would swallow his fellow alive." 

Or was his outburst a cover-up for his incompetence?

P.S.

Here is a new summary article.

There is this feeling I have seen:

De Blasio repeatedly failed to act on a surge of antisemitic attacks in NYC, and sought to dismiss them as the work of the right and the fault of Donald J. Trump.De Blasio announced he had mixed feelings about the Trump Executive Order on campus antisemitism, because protecting Jews from campus antisemitism allegedly infringes on free speech rights.De Blasio’s own subordinates attacked De Blasio’s repeated attempts to whitewash African American antisemitism on the grounds that ALL antisemitism is right-wing.

And a Christian pro-Israel spokesperson Laurie Cardoza-Moore of PJTN wrote to her followers that:

Threatening to arrest “the Jewish community” for violation of social distancing by a minority faction, cast a further shadow that validated Jew-hatred and a backlash of antisemitic violence and response in America’s largest city. This is unacceptable and the Mayor needs to step down from his office as he is “unfit to serve” as the leader of a city that is home to the one million-plus Jewish community he was set in place to serve. “Rounding up” the Jewish community for arrest in the public forum speaks of a time we must never allow to re-emerge.

And now I see this:

Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, one of the heads of the Ponovezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, gave a Torah class in which he explained why he believes most of those infected with coronavirus in Israel were from the haredi community.
"We need to understand something - in Israel and around the world, there are haredim who died of this plague more than anyone else," Kikar Hashabbat quoted Rabbi Edelstein as saying. "The Chazon Ish (Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz - ed.) said that when people sin, it's by accident. A haredi who sins is doing it on purpose. Judgement is harsher for haredim."

_____________________

UPDATE  May 11, 2020

In a letter to Makor Rishon, Shmuel Pappenheim, himself who was sick with Corona, indicates that major sections of the Haredi community do have ideological problems with authority, and view governmental instructions with disdain:

UPDATE

Kahal Tolaas Yaakov threatened with closure for ongoing violations.

Previously violent couple use the Mayor’s  words to justify their anti-Semitic hate attack on May 11.

---------------------------

DeBlasio Update

“I look back now and understand there was just more dialogue that was needed,” de Blasio said during a press conference Tuesday. “I certainly got very frustrated at times when I saw large groups of people still out without masks but I think more dialogue would have been better so I certainly want to express my regret that I didn’t figure out how to do that better.”

“That one night in Williamsburg I let my frustration and concern get away with me and I should have been more careful in my language and I’ve expressed my apology for that before,” de Blasio said Tuesday. He added, “The No. 1 takeaway from the meeting is more dialogue. More communication is the way forward.”

Next day's Andrew Cuomo:

“No,” Cuomo simply said during an Albany press briefing when asked by a Post reporter whether he believes an apology is owed.

“I am sorry that they feel the disruption, I am sorry that they are disrupted, their religious ceremonies are disrupted, how many people they can have in a synagogue is disrupted, how many people they can have at a wedding is disrupted, the operation of their schools is disrupted. I am sorry for that,” said Cuomo.

The governor continued, “In the same way I’m sorry to the Catholic community and Muslim community and to all New Yorkers. I’m sorry that we are going through this. I’m sorry that people are dying. I’m sorry the state has to impose disruptions on your life. I’m sorry that we had to close your businesses which may mean you lose your business.”

^

"From the Breasts of the Youth": Poland 1922

In November 1922, Gabriel Narotuwicz was elected President of the Polish Republic. He was eventually assassinated a mere five days later, accused among other claims that he was too sympathetic to the Jews..

On the background of the remarks of Acting Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz, quoting Yitzhak Shamir, "that Poles 'suckle anti-Semitism with their mothers' milk'” it is historically necessary to note this:

From the breasts of the youth a spontaneous call went forth: ‘We don’t want this kind of president! We don’t know him! Down with the Jews!’ This chant echoed through the streets of Warsaw and spontaneously a march was formed. (p. 2 of this doctorate)

As explained there

When the Bloc’s votes tipped the scale in favor of Narutowicz, the candidate of the left, a violent and fiercely anti-Semitic campaign was orchestrated against the new president. It was waged jointly by the National Democratic press, parliamentary deputies, and demonstrators in the street, all of which claimed that only a “Polish majority” had the 2 right to elect the president of Poland.

Jews were always "aliens" in Poland. No matter what other charge Polish nationalists make, justified or not during the interwar period and just entering the Holocaust period - about Jewish Bolsheviks, about part of the Soviet oppression, economic exploitations, etc., at the end, Jews were not real citizens. And so, ghetto benches were set up, kosher ritual slaughter was banned partially, pogroms took place and other violent actions.

UPDATE

Background on the new Polish controversy:-

"Zimmerman finds, among other things, that the attitude of the Polish underground toward the Jews reflected the prewar political views of its individual officers, commanders, and major constituent bodies. Those who had been open to a more pluralistic Polish society—one that accepted minorities as part of the landscape of Poland—had a radically different attitude toward Jews than those whose orientation as narrowly nationalistic.
Attitudes toward the Jews not only mirrored prewar political stances, but also were shaped by geography and the progress of the war. Why geography? Attitudes common in eastern Poland—the territories first occupied by the Soviet Union after
September 17, 1939—were strikingly different from those common in territories occupied at that time by Germany. Zimmerman’s findings correlate with Timothy Snyder’s description of “double occupation” and “double collaboration” in the zones first occupied by the Soviets and later, after the June 1941 invasion, by the Germans. Poles in the East generally did not grasp that Jews may have been more
welcoming to Soviet occupation because the alternative was German occupation; for Jews, the Soviets represented protection from ghettoization and persecution, though few could as yet conceive of the coming annihilation. Similarly, many Poles were ready to identify Jews with Communism, but less willing to understand the impact that Communism had had on Jews as individuals—merchants and religiously observant Jews, for example...

...Those who argue that many Poles were not unhappy about the elimination of Jews from Poland—even if they were revolted by the Germans’ means—will find substantiation of their views in Zimmerman’s work. Yet, those who take note of Polish sympathy toward the Jews can point to other compelling and competing evidence."

From Michael Berenbaum's review of The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945 by Joshua D. Zimmerman

^

Foreign Ministry Haughtiness

These past three days I have been attending the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem.

It was impressive and ultimately important.  Although I caught two spelling errors in the titles on the opening evening's movie (its, not it's and hatred, not hatered), those were  minor things to what did, however, cause me to be critical of some other elements of the program.

Under the ministership of Binyamin Netanyahu and his deputy, Tzipi Hotovely, the first session had three persons: Dan Meridor, someone who fled the Likud, returned but is quite an opponent of Netanyahu, Shlomo Avineri, a veteran Mapainik who founded Chug 77 to oppose the Menachem Begin government that won the elections in 1977 as well as redirect Labour Party's political agenda and a relatively politically non-descript European Jewish establishment figure. And they brought in Israel's government's behavior towards Hungary in quite a critical fashion with no one to offer a different voice.

In another session on intersectionality on the campuses, again, the panel was imbalanced. Entitled "Antisemitism in the Far Left - Intersectionality as a Cover for Hate Speech in Current Progressive Activism", it was chaired by Jonathan Arkush, President, Board of Deputies of British Jews with David Bernstein, President and CEO, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a Bill Clintonite, Dave Rich, Associate at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, an organization that is quite problematic politically in England, 
Nadine Epstein, Editor-in-Chief, Moment Magazine, the periodical founded by Leonard Fein, a radical leftist and Sohrab Ahmari, Senior writer, Commentary Magazine, an Iranian Catholic who, oddly enough, was the staunchest defending Zionism, Israel and facing down forcefully anti-semitism.

The third day I was bestirred at a session entitled "The Denial of Jewish History in International Organizations: The case of Jerusalem in the United Nations and UNESCO" chaired by Dan Mariaschin, CEO and Executive Vice President, Bnai Brith. 

The keynoter was Irina Bokova, former UNESCO Secretary General and she was fine. Of the respondents, Peta Jones Pellach, Director of Educational Activities, The Elijah Interfaith Institute, Ivo Goldstein, former Croatian Ambassador to UNESCO, Shimon Samuels, Director for International Relations, Simon Wiesenthal Centre, it was David Roet, Former Deputy Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations who, for me, highlighted a background problem I discerned: biased planning.

Samuels had discussed how the Palestinians were, year-by-year, turning UNESCO into a forum for anti-semitism by the theft of national cultural locations, stripping them of their Jewishness. One was the Western Wall which was exclusively called Al-Buraq in UN documents with "western" simply being a direction rather than referring to the Temple. He was upset at such blatant identity theft and rearranging history.

At question time, and Josh Wander caught my question and the reply, I noted that Yasser Arafat, right after Oslo, had always referred to the Wall as Al-Buraq and he did so purposely based on the findings of the 1930 International Commission whose

aim and object...have been to inquire into and to pronounce a verdict upon the disputes that have arisen between Arabs and Jews in connection with the practice of the Jews to resort to the Western or Wailing Wall (by the Arabs called Al Buraq) for the purpose of devotion.

and which decided

To the Moslems belong the sole ownership of, and the sole proprietary right to, the Western Wall, seeing that it forms an integral part of the Haram-esh-Sherif area, which is a Waqf property.

To the Moslems there also belongs the ownership of the Pavement in front of the Wall and of the adjacent so-called Moghrabi (Moroccan) Quarter opposite the Wall, inasmuch as the last-mentioned property was made Waqf under Moslem Sharia Law, it being dedicated to charitable purposes.

I have blogged about it several times, for example see here from 2007.

My question was: why did the Foreign Ministry fail in seeing already 20 years ago where this was heading with Samuels now bemoaning the situation.

Roet, at the far left,

Credit: Yisrael Medad

first replies by making fun of the suggestion that was made to refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria.

Odd. That was the whole point of Samuels complaint: the Arabs are stealing our national legacy, our geography and our place names.  

Perhaps if 20 years ago or even 50 years ago the genuine and historically correct terminology had been used, the world today would not be voting for UNESCO resolutions that erase our past.  Roet displayed not only institutional failure but haughtiness. He was deriding both the truth and a political view that promotes standing up for rights.

If Roet can't stand up for the rights of Israel's national heritage sites, how can we trust him for other matters? A lousy Israeli diplomat, I'd say.

He then continues with hubris and suggests that it is I who am harming the situation of anti-Semitism as instead of targeting those who do Israel and Jews harm, I am attacking the Foreign Ministry.

But I had just proven then his policy was the harmful one.  

He ignored the Foreign Ministry failure and sought to blame me.

Is he not smart? Too "smart"? Coovering up decades of Foreign Ministry failure and wrongheadedness?

All this reminds me of something the prophet Tzefaniah composed in Chapter 3 of his book:

Woe to her [Jerusalem] that is filthy and polluted...Her prophets are wanton and treacherous persons; her priests have profaned that which is holy, they have done violence to the law...For then will I [God] turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one consent...In that day thou shall not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against Me; for then I will take away out of the midst of thee thy proudly exulting ones, and thou shalt no more be haughty in My holy mountain...The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth...

I hope Ambassador Danny Danon takes note.

P.S.  After a night's sleep, I improved on this.

And here is Israellycool.

And the JPost report leaves out the tiff, although she was there taking notes.

^ 

John le Carre and Israel (And the Jews)

In his new book, "Our Kind of Traitor", he manages to get in a mention of Israel in a neutral fashion on p. 121:

...his son Ben having invited an Israeli school friend...

I point this out because of le Carre's conflict with the issue of anti-semitism:

a) 1996

...people might say you were embracing anti-Semitic stereotypes?

I have carried that label around with me ever since I wrote "The Little Drummer Girl." I received such awful letters from organized Jewish groups that I never felt on safe ground after that. My great sin was suggesting that the state of Israel — that Palestine — was in fact a twice-promised land.

Still, I didn't feel queasy about addressing the tradition of Jewish tailors in the East End.

b) 1997

In his Nov. 15 article Mr. le Carre said he was warned by friends of the futility of responding to the Times review that appeared on Oct. 20, 1996, which he contended ''smeared'' him as an anti-Semite. The review, by Norman Rush, a novelist, praised the book as a ''tour de force'' but faulted it for portraying the principal character, a Jew, as ''yet another literary avatar of Judas.'' Mr. Rush said the association, ''however little Mr. le Carre intended it,'' left him with a feeling of ''unease.''

Mr. le Carre described his reaction in the article, saying, ''I realized that we were dealing not with offbeat accusations of anti-Semitism so much as the whole oppressive weight of political correctness, a kind of McCarthyite movement in reverse.'' He said he wished he had ignored his friends' advice and gone ahead and written to The Times.

But in fact he did. The Times published his letter complaining that he had been ''tarred with the anti-Semitic brush.'' on Nov. 3, 1996, along with a response from Mr. Rush denying the contention. ''I have not said or implied that Mr. le Carre is an anti-Semite, and I do not think it,'' Mr. Rush wrote.

c) 1998

Here, in the plush surroundings of London's Savoy Hotel, John Le Carre wants to talk about the pain of the outsider and the yearning to belong, about Smiley and Jews and anti-Semitism. And, of course, about Israel.

"Perhaps I learned too early how the British can treat you if you are not quite one of them," he says. "Perhaps that lesson continued as I discovered how the English punish their artists.

"Or perhaps," he suggests, "I am no different from any other artist anywhere in the world who feels himself an outsider in his own country and believes there's another country somewhere else where he will be happier and safer."

..."I knew nothing of the Middle East, but then I have always seen my novels as opportunities for self-education," he says. "Investing my ignorance in my central character -- a leftist English actress -- and making a virtue of her naivety, I set off on a journey of self-enlightenment, living my character, leaning with each breeze -- now toward Israel, now away from it -- in a series of schizophrenic visits to Amman, Damascus, Beirut, South Lebanon and later Tunis. Then back to Israel, across the Allenby Bridge or by way of Cyprus."

Israel, he says, "rocked me to my boots. I had arrived expecting whatever European sentimentalists expect -- a re-creation of the better quarters of Hampstead [in London]. Or old Danzig, or Vienna or Berlin. The strains of Mendelssohn issuing from open windows of a sumer's evening. Happy kids in seamen's hats clattering to school with violin cases in their hands..."

Instead, what he found was "the most extraordinary carnival of human variety that I have ever set eyes on, a nation in the process of re-assembling itself from the shards of its past, now Oriental, now Western, now secular, now religious, but always anxiously moralizing about itself, criticizing itself with Maoist ferocity, a nation crackling with debate, rediscovering its past while it fought for its future."

"No nation on earth," he says passionately, " was more deserving of peace -- or more condemned to fight for it."

In the offices and homes of his Israeli hosts, Le Carre bounced around ideas and probed -- without, he notes, ever having to persuade anyone of his goodwill. "And when I told my hosts that I was about to walk through the looking-glass and take my questions to the Palestinians, they said, 'good idea' and wished me luck. And I believe they meant it."

...What exercises him above all -- wounds him -- are dark charges of anti-Semitism from the United States that have persistently hung over him and his closely examined, intricately dissected work.

"In my perception of the Jewish identity -- in my continuing dialogue with it, in private and in my novels -- I have been aware from early of a spiritual kinship that embraces what is creative in me, and forgives what is despicable, and shares with me the dignity and solitude and anger that are born of alienation.

"Ever since I can remember, my ears have been pricked up for the careless chamber music of English prejudice. And certainly I pride myself on having as good an ear as anyone for the nuances of that repulsive, but mercifully dying art-form, British anti-Semitism in the chattering classes.

"I have been so keen to reproduce it in my books that sometimes the undiscerning have mistaken the singer for the song. These are nervous times. They were nervous from the day I started writing some 40 years ago."

d) and let's go back to 1983

...examining Fiedler in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, a character Mr. Laqueur summarily dismisses. There are four main characters in the book, a spy novel which has not been equaled since its publication in 1963: Leamas, the disillusioned anti-hero who works for London; Mundt, the ex-Nazi who runs East German security; Fiedler, the brooding intellectual East German Communist who suspects his superior of treason; and Liz Gold, the naive, idealistic British Communist party member. Her Jewishness is crucial to the story, but it is inexplicably overlooked by Mr. Laqueur.

London wants Fiedler destroyed to save Mundt, its “mole” in the East German regime. London's plan hinges on the mutual sympathy that will develop between Leamas and Fiedler: behind their cynical, jaded façades, both men in fact . . . attempt to stay true to what they perceive as their ideals. It is the book's supreme irony that in a fearfully symmetrical denouement, Leamas unwittingly helps destroy Fiedler, thus helping to restore Mundt's credibility in the eyes of the East Germans. . . .

But The Spy Who Came in from the Cold should be read on another level: as a reflection of the Stalinist show trials of the late 40's and early 50's in Eastern Europe. Fiedler personifies the old guard, intellectual Communists—mostly Jewish—whom the Stalinist apparat had to destroy. Leamas's words to the tribunal: “I'll tell you something—no one else will. . . . Mundt had Fiedler beaten up, and all the time, while it was going on, Mundt baited him and jeered at him for being a Jew.” This mirrors the actual truth: Hungarian, Polish, and Czech Communists of Jewish background were above all jeered at as Jews during their interrogation and torture. Nowhere was this as obvious as in Czechoslovakia; seven out of nine “deviationist” Communists tried in Prague, including Slansky, general secretary of the party, were vilified as Jews. And earlier, in a similar trial in Hungary, the accused who had changed their names were meticulously identified by their original, Jewish-sounding names.

It is surprising that Mr. Laqueur would miss these historical analogies and can accuse Le Carré of implausibility. After all, how many Western authors have written about these trials, not to mention with Le Carré's insight and sympathy for the falsely accused Jewish Communists—and as early as 1963?

And now about The Little Drummer Girl, set in the Middle East. In a curious twist, Mr. Laqueur now finds a “fraudulent air of authenticity hovering about all [the] implausible situations” described in the book. He singles out Kurtz, the leading Israeli anti-terrorist expert, for his analysis. First he searches for literary clues and finds that the trail leading to Conrad is a cold one. Mr. Laqueur is looking for a Jewish villain, but Kurtz defies categorization. . . . Mr. Laqueur himself supplies enough quotes to illustrate Kurtz's nonconformism, yet never spells it out.

Kurtz is a Jewish Smiley. But just as Mr. Laqueur consistently refuses to recognize Smiley's humanity and integrity amid the cunning required by his profession, so he refuses to see Kurtz's higher morality in his skeptic's disguise. Le Carré describes Kurtz as “too paradoxical, too complicated, made of too many souls and colors,” and this does not fit into Mr. Laqueur's argument. In fact, Le Carré captures the more general fate of the Jews when he says about Kurtz: “When he spoke of death, it was clear that death had passed by him often and very close, and might any moment come his way again.”

I also take exception to Mr. Laqueur's accusation that Le Carré takes a pro-Palestinian Arab line in this book. Equating sympathy for bombing victims with a pro-Palestinian stand can only be attributed to narrow-mindedness. After the unusual publicity build-up that preceded The Little Drummer Girl, I was frankly disappointed by the book. I found its overwrought plot slightly insulting to my intelligence, but not at all offensive to my hypersensitive Jewish feelings.

Thomas B. Windholz


Walter Laqueur writes:

...Thomas B. Windholz has lived under both Hitlerism and Stalinism, but Le Carré, alas, has not. Mr. Windholz says that he found The Little Drummer Girl not offensive to his Jewish feelings. Nor did I. Le Carré was charged with anti-Semitism by some critics following the publication of an earlier book, a fact which seems to have escaped Mr. Windholz. I tried to make it clear, unfortunately without success, that I thought this specific charge misplaced: Le Carré seems not to like people in general, why should Jews get preferential treatment? As for Fiedler, the Jewish Communist in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, it is perfectly true that Le Carré makes him more sympathetic than Mundt, the ex-Nazi; one ought to be grateful for small mercies. Regarding Liz Gold (in the same novel), I did note that there are a number of characters in these novels who, judging by their names, may or may not be Jewish. But their Jewishness is no more meaningful in this context than the color of their hair, and the issue is therefore irrelevant.

I always remember that he even got the scene in Jerusalem's Hall of Heroism Museum wrong, when he has his character visitor to gallows' room where two Hebrew underground fighters took their own lives rather than permit the British occupiers to hang them.

^

And The Antisemitism Czar Is...

Sec'y of State Hillary Clinton spoke recently of:

Iran, with its anti-Semitic president and hostile nuclear ambitions, also continues to threaten Israel,

The Administration has a antisemitism czar, Hannah Rosenthal, yes?

Well, soon, we can hear her on this, maybe, at this event, the ADL National Leadership Conference on May 3, at 8:15 A.M. at the Mayflower Hotel's GEORGIA ROOM on a session devoted to "Combating the Global Anti-Semitism Pandemic" where Hannah Rosenthal, Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, U.S. Department of State is scheduled to speak.

In the meantime, she'll be in Tunisia for Lag B'Omer. Don't ask me why.

Back to the Theme of Jewish Self-Hatred

I have dealt with Irene Nemirovsky previously and now in the Times Literary Supplement, Frederic Raphael has a review essay.

The issue, for me, is insanely attracting in that elements of her outlook and behavior seem to keep repeating themselves. In Israel, the theme of self-hatred is not simply a polemical shout of political antagonism but a very real and threatening development among our elite, as self-crowned as they are.

I have selected passages from the essay that deal with the question of the author's Jewishness, self-hatred and reaction to antisemitism:-

...Did Némirovsky satirize Jews simply in order to ingratiate herself with an alien audience? Anti-Semitism was a stylish conceit in the Parisian circles to which she so diligently sought entry, but the émigrés’ world of conspicuous insecurity was also the one she knew best...

Like Proust, only more so, she at once acknowledged and derided the Jewishness she could never shuck (although females are never quite “Jews”, even to themselves, to the degree to which the anti-Semite takes males to be). Literary “self-hatred” can combine self-advertisement with a play for exemption. Karl Marx’s early polemic against the “huckster race” is an example; Harold Pinter’s bully boy Goldstein, in The Birthday Party, just might be another. Self-criticism is, however, fundamental to Judaism: it metastasized into both Communist and psychoanalytic confessional modes.

Némirovsky said later that she would never have written David Golder (and other stories) in so scathing a tone, if she had known that Hitler was imminent. In fact, the dormant bacilli of the Dreyfus affair, and its vocabulary, were always, like shingles, ripe for resuscitation in the Right as it itched for revenge. Meanwhile, the young Robert Brasillach, although already an acolyte of Charles Maurras’s right-wing Action française, stepped out of the ranks of Tuscany to cheer Irène’s early work: “this young woman of both Russian and Jewish origin . . . [grasps] the secrets of our race better than French writers”.

Only with the rise of Fascism, and then of Nazism, was Brasillach engorged by the prospect of power and happily perverted by the genocidal malice which, some say, has to be excused in Céline’s lethal frivolity. In the same spirit, after the defeat of 1940, Henri Béraud – a “friend” of Némirovsky who had won the Prix Goncourt in 1922 – chose to associate Jews with the English and with Freemasons and conclude, “In all conscience, yes, one should be anti-Semitic”. Anti-Semitism is often less a recondite sentiment than a social contagion; opportunism in its Sunday best. Under the Occupation, it could be worn, with profit, all week. Brasillach then advocated giving “serious thought to the deportation of little Jewish children”...

...Suite française occupies a place in Némirovsky’s oeuvre not unlike that of the last section of À la Recherche du temps perdu, in which Proust’s narrator perceives that the gratin to which he has deferred so sedulously, and so long, is a decadent crust. Redemption is recovered personality. Némirovsky’s last work mentions the word Jew only twice. All the vices which had seemed specific to Jews she now realized to be pandemic: her fastidious Parisian aesthete, Langelet, in his flight, cares more for his porcelain collection than for France itself. He scorns the Jewish fugitives hoping to reach Portugal or South America, but all his refinement cannot save him from being run over in the common panic. In the margin of her manuscript, describing his end, Némirovsky scribbled “the end of the liberal bourgeoisie”. Similarly, Hugo Grayer, in the short story “Le Spectateur”, presumes himself too fine for the doomed Europe which he abandons, only to find that he has taken flight on a literally sinking ship...

...As for Némirovsky’s “self-hatred”, a single intelligence might have guessed that the mercilessness directed at “her own people” concealed a much wider scorn. Her underlying topic was the interplay of emotion and callousness, the alternations of vanity and despair, in all the players of the world’s game. Imaginative impersonation is the mark of the natural novelist; fiction is where the truth can be found; documentary is too often where it is confected. Némirovsky could play male or female, be villain or dupe, candid or duplicitous. She moved the black and the white pieces with equal versatility. The insolence of her impostures was a function of an isolation from which neither success nor marriage dispensed her...

What do you say?

Harridan Hannah - Cont'd

Who is the "I"?

...I found the issue of Israel overwhelming in nearly every meeting. Wherever I went, denials of anti-Semitism were abundant from those I encountered. Yet, these same parties were all too willing to easily slide into denunciations of Israel to my face and then proceed to blame Jews collectively for Israel's actions next. For example, in 2008 in Jakarta, Indonesia, I met with several members of the Ulama (Muslim religious council). My hosts immediately denounced Israel and for good measure, mocked the Torah, calling it “illegitimate.” They then asked that “no more Jews come to Indonesia.” In Egypt, a journalist admitted to me Egyptians see all Jews as Israelis as did Muslim leaders in Argentina, France, Holland, the UAE, and professors and my translator in Saudi Arabia. In Venezuela, I met with members of the Jewish community who expressed great fears of Hugo Chavez's and his Foreign Minister's anti-Zionist declarations of “Israeli genocide” and of the existence in Venezuela of a “Zionist lobby” as well as claims that Jews were “Christ-killers.” In short, I found anti-Zionism to be the new anti-Semitism...

...

Ms. Rosenthal would do well to study these points to gain an understanding of the problem that will predominate her portfolio. Today, individual Jews around the world are blamed for Israel's actions and Israel is denounced for genocide and Nazi-like actions...

Ms. Rosenthal's criticisms of Ambassador Oren strike a chord particularly because this is not her policy portfolio to advocate. She is supposed to fight anti-Semitism, not defend J-Street, an organization on whose Advisory Board she formally sat before her appointment to the State Department.

Find out by reading this.



(Kippah tip: Solomonia)

Reed College Students All Killed By Secret Jewish Cabal

That, of course, is not true.

But what was published in a university newspaper?

This story:

A student editor at a college campus-run humor publication in Portland says he and others plan to be more cautious when making decisions about the newspaper's content after running a phony article that said students at another college killed all the Jews at their school.

Glenn Harrison, a student at Reed College and an editor and writer for The Pamphlette, said in an e-mail to The Oregonian that..."We were negligent as editors and members of the community," he wrote. "We are now more aware of the effect of our writing, and we will be exercising more cautious editorial judgment going forward."

The article appeared last week, and it took aim at students at Lewis & Clark College...The article carried the headline "LC students kill Jewish people."

It begins: "In what is being called a 'tragic, but all too predictable' event, the staff of The Leaphlette, a student humor publication at Lewis & Clark College, have been accused of rounding up and gassing all of the Jews on their Portland, OR, campus."

The phony article goes on to describe students asking the chemistry department for a chemical to conduct "Jewsperiments" and a "towering crematorium" where the library once stood.

...Harrison said that Pamphlette editors didn't know about the swastika incident at Lewis & Clark when the story ran.

He said the article was a response to a commentary published in Reed's regular student newspaper. A previous Pamphlette article had spoofed Anne Frank's diary, which resulted in the other paper's criticism that satirizing the Holocaust "enables real genocide," said Harrison, a 21-year-old senior and sociology major...

This is so not funny.

How stupid can university students be?

And I Thought It Was An Article On Anatomical Practices

The editor-in-chief of the Swedish newspaper that printed an article alleging that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians to harvest their organs denied accusations on Monday that he was anti-Semitic.

"I'm not a Nazi," Jan Helin, the chief editor at the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, wrote in a blog entry on Monday. "I'm not an anti-Semite. I'm the editor-in-chief who has allowed the publication of a culture article because it asked a number of relevant questions."

Source


and

When accusation of organ theft appear in the culture section, it's time to notice some European trends.

see here.

So, They'll Be Publishing Mohammed Caricatures Next?

Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has rejected Israeli calls for an official condemnation of a Swedish newspaper article about organ harvesting, saying freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democracy.

Source

Maybe they are so blond it's because they are so...bleached, mentally, as well?

This Is Known as "Dripping Antisemitism"

Who said:

“They want to build their temple at a time when our blood is on their clothes, on their doorsteps, in their food and in their drinks...“We are not those who ate bread dipped in children’s blood.”

The leader of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, Sheikh Raed Salah

and

He went on to deny any Israeli or Jewish historical claim to the city, denying that there ever existed a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount.

"The claims of the Jews are big lies and they have no right to any speck of dust here," he said.

RETRACTION OF - "Haaretz: Netanyahu's Gov't A Nazi 1000-Year Reich"

After reconsidering, and following comments my friends sent me, I am retracting the implication I assumed regarding the political cartoon drawn by Eran Volkovsky for David Grossman's article on the front page of Haaretz on Wednesday, "Netanyahu's message is there will be no peace":




That's Benny Begin (of all people!) saying to Bibi Netanyahu:

"Well, that leaves us 999 years and 362 days".

That is a clear and unmistakable reference to Hitler's 1000-year Third Reich, the 'Drittes Reich'. In other words, after Netanyahu's speech, their government has that much time left, minus the three days since the speech at Bar-Ilan.

It didn't appear in the English-language edition. I can't find it at the Haaretz web site, nor anywhere else.

This is ugly, self-hating Jewish antisemitism. It's sick.

Volkovsky is vicious. In the past, he's drawn Bibi leading Avigdor Lieberman, as a dog, on a leash.

Here's the Haaretz logo, the caricature and the top part of Grossman's article:



UPDATE

A good friend suggests I am wrong and that the 1000 years reference is to this:-

Senior Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat rejected Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech on Israeli-PA diplomacy Sunday night. Dr. Erekat said, "Netanyahu will have to wait 1,000 years for someone to agree to talk to him."

It's Business As Usual In the Arab Middle East

...anti-Semitism is now a part of Middle Eastern culture. It has infiltrated textbooks; it is recited in mosques. It is aired on television -- for instance, the broadcast of a play produced at Gaza's Islamic University in which Jews were portrayed as drinking Muslim blood. "You must drink from the blood of Muslims," a father tells his son, according to a transcript provided by MEMRI. "Okay," the son says, "but just one cup, because I'm full."

Such views are routinely espoused by religious figures. MEMRI quotes an official of the Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowment as saying that all Jews are descended from pigs and can therefore be slaughtered. This particular statement was rebutted by other religious officials -- such sentiments do not always go unchallenged -- but it remains remarkable and scary that they are aired in the first place.

...the toleration of the vilest kind of anti-Semitism is not a precondition for peace, only a warning to Israelis that the past can be prologue. If Arab leaders do not attempt to rebut and eliminate the hatred of Jews that is poisoning their societies, they will find that the peace that most of them undoubtedly want will not be possible.

Source

I See It Too Often Here As Well

A "new anti-Semitism" that emanates from an alliance of Western leftists and Islamic extremists is more dangerous than the "old European" form of Jew-hatred, Canada's minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism said as he wound up a four-day trip to Israel Sunday.

"The existential threat faced by Israel on a daily basis is ultimately a threat to the broader Western civilization," said Jason Kenney, explaining the staunchly pro-Israel positions of his government, led by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"It's a threat that comes from profoundly undemocratic forces that don't have the same conception of human dignity or freedom, and which abuse Israel as a kind of representative of the broader West and Western liberal-democratic values," said Kenney. "I also very acutely understand the nature of the new anti-Semitism, and I think it's even more dangerous than the old European anti-Semitism."

Kenney said many anti-Israel attacks come from adherents of a form of anti-Semitism that who appear to view a Jewish homeland as illegitimate.

"Israel is not perfect, obviously," Kenney said. "Israelis should be the first to admit that. But we acknowledge that so much of the criticism Israel faces is motivated by a dangerous form of anti-Semitism that tries to hide behind anti-Zionism and is represented by a coalition of the far left in the West with extreme currents of jihadi Islam that seek the destruction of the Jewish nation. They seem to believe that the Jewish people are the only people in the world that don't have a right to a homeland."

(Kippah tip: Melanie Phillips)

Antizionism Goes Legit

An Antizionist political party has been formed:



and its running in the European Union elections:

...the newly formed anti-Zionist party headed by French comedian Dieudonné, who has been convicted on charges of anti-Semitism. On Sunday, French Justice Minister Rachida Dati said that despite an attempt by some French politicians to oust Dieudonné’s party from the elections, the group would remain in the campaign. “For the moment, we don’t have any evidence capable of preventing Dieudonné from running,” she said on the French TV network Grand Jury RTL-Le Figaro-LCI.

and this

...the Anti-Zionist Party or PAS.

The news of their collaboration and electoral ambitions has caused oceans of ink to flow at all the websites, and has spurred some to call for a ban on the party. Others are opposed to such a ban since it would only help the cause of the PAS by granting it instant martyrdom. Ivan Rioufol, a journalist with Le Figaro, writing at his blog earlier this month speaks of the possibility of banning this new party from the elections:

Personally, I have always felt that a democratic debate was not improved by silencing scandalous opinions or realities. For this reason, I have always opposed the Gayssot Law that penalizes Holocaust denial. It seems to me that the best way to victimize Dieudonné and his friends, who are eager for victimization, would be to ban the public expression of their anti-Zionist obsessions. [...] You cannot smother out dangerous ideas. Rather, you fight back in public discussions and in the voting booth.

The PAS would have the remotest chance of succeeding were it not for the Muslim presence in France. The Muslim presence is now coming to the aid of those anti-Semitic elements that lie dormant waiting for their hour to come. The Muslim presence has brought together the Left and Islam and the anti-Semitic Right in a coalition fit for hell. Dieudonné and Soral, but especially Soral, hold hybrid positions on various issues, mixing socialism, tradition, nationalism, anti-EU-ism, multi-culturalism, etc... thus disseminating even more confusion, but at bottom, for these two men and their Muslim-led party, Israel (and by natural extension all Jews), are the cause of all the evil in the world. This is the "traditional" point of view held by the congenital anti-Semite.

Last March, Le Monde announced that Alain Soral had accepted Dieudonné's invitation to join him on the ballot:

Addressing him as "my dear Dieudonné", Soral, former member of the French Communist Party and one-time adviser to Jean-Marie Le Pen, affirmed that he heard loud and clear Dieudonné's "vibrant appeal for a union of all those who refuse to submit." And that he was in favor of "opposing Zionism and denouncing the ever more conspicuous and weighty interference by the French pro-Zionist lobby in the affairs of our country." […] Soral has added a few other points to his humorist friend's political road map: "The fight against the rise of commercial globalist totalitarianism which is what the European Union is in reality; the defense of French workers and their rights against the plan for the destruction of our industries, public services, and small businesses by globalized capitalism, hence by the European Union; the return of the State to all large economic sectors, or a well-reasoned protectionism"

For the Record and For Reflection

In an ugly speech on Monday that served to divide and incite rather than find constructive solutions to racism, Mr. Ahmadinejad said the formation of the state of Israel left “an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering” in order “to establish a totally racist government in occupied Palestine.”

Source


Reflections:

1. If the formation of the state of Israel refers to 1948, why were Arab residents of the British Mandate living in Judea and Samaria and Gaza "homeless"? All of them?

2. Was Jewish suffering a pretext or, perhaps, the justification of Zionism that only in our own country could Jews defend themselves against suffering?

3. If the Arabs had agreed to the UN Partition resolution and established their Arab State, would it be racist too, or is only a Jewish state racist?

4. What are the borders of "occupied Palestine"?

Buchanan Blows It

Patrick J. Buchanan goes ballistic and blows it in:

UnAmerican Activities: The Israeli Lobby’s Assassination Of Chas Freeman

Notice the langauage:

... Charles Freeman...opposed the bombing of Serbia and said aloud what few privately deny: Reflexive support for Israel's repression of the Palestinian people is high among the reasons America is no longer seen as a beacon of liberation in the Arab and Muslim world.

Freeman echoed the Obama of yesterday, who bravely blurted, "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people."

At MEPC, however, Freeman committed a great crime. He published The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, which went onto the New York Times best-seller list—and put Freeman on AIPAC's enemies list.

Hence, when his name surfaced as Blair's choice to chair the NIC, the Israel Firsters went berserk, with Steven Rosen declaring him to be a "textbook case of the old-line Arabism"...

...Picking up the Rosen dog whistle, the neocommentariat came howling...

Within this smear bund (Murray Rothbard's phrase)...

...long ago, Al Smith addressed the age-old problem of the Rosens within: "The best way to kill anything un-American is to drag it out into the open, because anything un-American cannot live in the sunlight."...

(Kippah tip: Noah Pollak)

For Human Rights Activists

From a letter sent out to Human Relations Councils:

Jews and their supporters are experiencing vicious verbal abuse from the pro-Hamas demonstrators at various rallies throughout the city.

In light of the current GAZA crisis between Hamas and Israel, emotions locally, nationally and internationally are reaching a fever pitch that have the potential to result in very dangerous repercussions for members of the Jewish community...throughout the country.

Under the protection of the US Constitutional First Amendment, the pro-Hamas movement is allowing and/or encouraging the use of deleterious words to be hurled at, and about Jews reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The U.S. designated HAMAS as a terrorist organization pursuant to Executive Order 12947 in 1995 and as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. HAMAS was also designated a “specially designated global terrorist” under Executive Order in 2001.

Vicious chants such as, "Put Jews back in the oven", "Rest in peace Hitler" and "Use Jews as fossil fuels" are being spewed along with threats of violence at an accelerating rate from New York to Florida, Los Angeles and Chicago. Sadly, there has been little or no coverage of this problem by the m edia, and above all, no reaction or response from The Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations.

While the numbers of individuals who participate in these obscene outbursts are relatively few, these anti-Semitic chants are being widely circulated throughout the world via the Internet. History teaches us that if allow this to continue to intensify, such words have the potential to lead to violence.

...We find it difficult to fathom that you have been silently standing by as people wear Hezbollah jackets, fly Hamas flags and praise Hitler in the streets of Los Angeles while calling for the "Ovens to be re- fired." We urge you to stand with the Mayor of Los Angeles, the County Board of Supervisors and the LA City Council by publicly denouncing such dangerous and egregious rhetoric about Jews and the State of Israel.

Racial slurs of such enormity being used against any other ethnic race or religion in this city would have been condemned and denounced by your Commission immediately. Why are you stand ing by silently and allowing this to become commonplace in Los Angeles? We are hoping that you are contemplating an action to curtail this phenomenon -- we encourage you to do it, and urgently so.

Example: Dueling Rallies in L.A. by Israeli Consulate - Jan 6, 2009 ... "Put Jews in ovens". YouTube ... LA:Pro-Hamas Rally, "use Jews as Fossil Fuel" ...

On The New Antisemitism

The TLS has published a piece by Christopher Hitchens on a new book, "Globalising Hatred" authored by Denis MacShane, which is of great interest.

It is the new antisemtism.

Excerpts:

...Willis Carto of the Liberty Lobby...unburdened himself of quite a long burst about the power of finance capital, whereupon our host, to lighten the atmosphere, said, “Come on Willis, you’re sounding like Ezra Pound”. “Ezra Pound!” exclaimed Mr Carto. “Why, I love that man’s work. Except for all that goddam poetry!”...

...Labour MP Denis MacShane, who chaired an all-party commission of inquiry into the subject [of antisemtism], argues that this most ancient and fierce of hatreds is undergoing a worldwide recrudescence. Rather dauntingly, he begins his book Globalising Hatred with a taxonomy of six distinct kinds of anti-Semitism, as compiled by the no less dauntingly named Professor Armin Pfahl-Traughber. The disease, it seems, can present as religious, social, political, racist, secondary or anti-Zionist, and of course these symptoms are not mutually exclusive and may often be found in clusters.

...the Jew is seen as so protean as to have been – in the course of the past century alone – the covert engineer of both capitalism and Bolshevism. Examples of this combination of envy with paranoia are not difficult to locate: a recent New York Times report from Egypt described a settled conviction at all levels of society that, while nineteen Arabs could not have brought down the World Trade Center, the Israeli Mossad had the means, the method, the motive and the opportunity to do so. (One might pause to note the element of Arab self-hatred that is latent in this view.) When asked for proof, the believers point to the fact, which “everybody knows”, that all the Jews employed in the Twin Towers left work shortly before the planes arrived. I have myself heard this alleged at elite dinner parties in Islamabad, and MacShane has heard it from educated Muslims in his own constituency of Rotherham.

...Not everybody will agree with his generally lenient approach to the state of Israel, but he does argue convincingly, with some telling quotations, that resentment at Israel’s occupation of the West Bank simply cannot explain some of the more lurid formulations of Arab and Muslim propaganda...

...“You catch it on the edge of a remark”, as Harold Isaacs phrases it in Chariots of Fire. I have felt myself “catching” it quite a few times of late, as when chaps from the BBC insisted despite repeated correction on saying Paul “Vulfovitz” with a special emphasis, instead of pronouncing the name correctly the first time round, as the BBC used to train people to do. Writing about the same person, the American isolationist and Charles Lindbergh admirer Patrick J. Buchanan referred to him as playing Fagin to George Bush’s Oliver Twist which, an arresting image as it certainly is, makes rather the same point in an only somewhat different way. And meanwhile I would never expect to read the sort of criticism of Pakistan that I read every day about Israel. Yet of these two states, born at almost the same moment at the close of Britain’s imperium, can it really be said that Israel is so much the greater offender in terms of democratic rights for citizens, invasions of neighbours like Afghanistan, oppressions of non-Punjabi minority inhabitants, massacres of co-religionists as in Bangladesh, and illegal acquisition of nuclear weapons? One can just about picture a worldwide campaign to redress the injustices of Pakistan, in which unions of British teachers and journalists would join with their own courageous boycotts, but I confess to a slight difficulty in picturing the same level of enthusiasm and commitment.

..."The bitch that bore him is on heat again”, as Brecht has his closing speaker say about Hitler at the curtain of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. The next nightmare will not take the same shape or form, but it will be sure to emit the same plain and unmistakable warnings. MacShane has done a service by giving us a handbook of the signs.