Friday, March 1, 2013

Professor Ruth Wisse: The Arab War Against the Jews

Mike L.

{Cross-Posted at Israel Thrives and Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers.}




Harvard Professor of Yiddish and Literary Studies, Ruth Wisse, is the author of the very important work, Jews and Power.  I've put a recent video of Professor Wisse on the right side-bar of Israel Thrives and will leave it there for a week or so.  I would very much encourage you guys to give her a close listen because her view is both pristine and correct.  This is someone who is not the least bit muddled in her thinking on the Long Arab War Against the Jews.

This conflict is not a conflict between equals.  It is an aggression from the much larger Arab-Muslim population in the Middle East toward their former dhimmis and slaves.  It represents a hatred toward pluralism in that part of the world by the Arab majority and the refusal to accept the legitimacy of another people on their own land.

She argues, correctly, that anti-Zionism is actually worse than anti-Semitism because it incorporates all that anti-Semitism is while expanding it to deny Jewish sovereignty and Jewish self-defense on the land where Jews historically came from.

She also maintians that the organization of politics around hatred for the Jew within the Muslim Middle East, as well as within the international left, is not really about the Jews, at all, but about opposition to liberal democracy.  The Jewish State of Israel is merely a proxy.  It is a fashionable target through which opposition to liberal democracy, and therefore the United States, organizes itself.

One thing is certain, if political anti-Semitism, which is the very definition of anti-Zionism, means anything it means portraying Jews as a villain, either as Jews, individually, or in the collective, for the purpose of building political bridges with others around a common hatred.

My problem with the international left, and with "progressive Zionists," is that they accept the fundamental notion of Jewish guilt upon which the entire ideological structure of political anti-Zionist anti-Semitism is built.

In this way, whatever their best intentions, they nonetheless promote the kind of hostility toward us that results in violence and mass killings and war.

Until we recognize that we are not guilty of the charges leveled against us (and we aren't) then we can never convince anyone else of this truth and therefore we can never relieve ourselves of this perpetual hostility.

If "as-a-Jew" you tend to think that the Jews of the Middle East, via the government of Israel, is persecuting the Arabs under an imperialistic "Occupation" then you are promoting hatred toward us based on false grounds.  There is no "Occupation."  There is 6 million Jews surrounded by 400 million Arabs and those Jews want nothing so much in this world other than to be left the hell alone.

What you call the "Occupation" is nothing other than the means of an historically abused minority to finally protect itself from a much larger and hostile majority population in a part of the world where, outside of Israel, itself, very few people share your values of "social justice" and "human rights."

1 comment:

  1. Some comments borrowed from friend blog Israel Thrives



    geoffffFebruary 28, 2013 at 2:24 PM
    Thank you for this Mike and thank you for cross posting it at the Joint.

    I have linked to an open forum at Catallaxy Files

    We have friends and we need to encourage them

    "I certainly hope not. And if that sort of shit is starting to happen, then it is time to give in to the desire to ‘spit on one’s hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats’. And if the islamists and their left-wing lackeys don’t like that, then tough cheddar."

    Mk50 of Brisbane
    28 Feb 13 at 7:45 pm

    Thank you Mk50 and I know I risk sounding like an alarmist nut for howling about this. But it is the truth and so be it.

    The truth is that Jews are reluctant to make allegations of antisemitism. We know what it is and let’s face it, Jews invented the concept of “turning the other cheek” and the only people to live by it.

    But this is more than just about Jews.

    Please go to my blog and listen to what this lady has to say. Not for the sake of Israel and the Jews. If it was only about Israel and the Jews I would have shut up long ago. I find this stuff embarrassing and demeaning but it is about something far far more important than that.


    geoffff
    1 Mar 13 at 9:08 am


    http://catallaxyfiles.com/2013/02/26/tuesday-forum-february-26-2013/comment-page-16/#comment-741412


    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    Mike L.February 28, 2013 at 5:00 PM
    Geoffff, I will check out the links.

    We have friends and we need to encourage them

    Absolutely, but they tend to be "conservatives."

    What I have been wanting to do for awhile is a little outreach to the Christian Evangelical community.

    They probably represent our best friends on the planet and although I do not necessarily agree with them on everything, a little outreach on our part is in order.

    Do you agree?



    geoffffFebruary 28, 2013 at 5:47 PM
    I do agree. We should not take these people for granted and we certainly should not question their motives.

    Delete

    Mike L.February 28, 2013 at 10:50 PM
    I want to get a smart Evangelical on this page.

    We're all Jews here, but we shouldn't be.

    Oh, and btw, the readership of this blog continues to grow.

    We're a niche of a niche but if you write something here, it will be read by many people.



    JayinPhiladelphiaMarch 1, 2013 at 7:27 AM
    Careful with that, though, Mike. A handful of hate-filled nobodies elsewhere on the internet may take offense, and play "gotcha!"

    (Idiots.)


    Mike L.March 1, 2013 at 8:52 AM
    Well, Jay, hate-filled nobodies will hate no matter what I do.

    The fact of the matter is that the State of Israel has no better friends on the planet than Evangelical Christians. I think that it is long past time that Jewish people acknowledge that friendship and cultivate it.

    The only Jewish leader that I am aware of that is focusing on this is Rabbi Eckstein of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

    My idea for awhile now is that if we open up friendly dialogue with them we can perhaps help moderate their views on, say, Gay people or the role of women in society.

    The people that you are referring to are bigots. They are racist toward Arabs who they treat like children and they absolutely despise conservative Christians. The level of hatred toward conservative Christians among "progressive Zionists" is absolutely off the charts.

    The only people that they despise more than conservative Christians are Jews who live where neither Mahmoud Abbas, nor Barack Obama, want them to live.

    I consider it a disgrace.

    ReplyDelete