And anti-Semitism. Is this age-old hatred once again becoming fashionable? It’s bad enough when the dyspeptic, four-eyed turban racks that constitute the Iranian mullahcracy and the “spiritual” leadership of Hezbollah preach the death of the Jewish state. But now it’s increasingly rearing its ugly head in the U.S. and Europe. In California, we see the (admittedly bizarre) anti-circumcision group that has put out a comic book which, with its grotesque caricatures of Jews, would have met with the full approval of the late A. Hitler; and in Scotland, the West Dunbartonshire Council is banning all books produced in Israel, along with other Israeli products.
These folks would do well to pay attention to Jeff G.:
Incidentally, when we said never again? We meant it.
"Lock and load" is what I think.
ReplyDeleteActually, the artwork in that comic is way better than the stuff the Nazis produced. But that just shows how sophisticated they are in SF.
ReplyDeleteTW: oveners. I shichu not.
Europe was the first place I ever heard the word jew used as a verb. I think most Europeans, like most Americans, are more interested in their own lives than anti-semitism but a quite a few conversations about Israel led to casual talk of anti-semitic stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteIn college I cut an article out of the newspaper about kindergartners injured when a Palestinian shot at a school bus and surveyed people I knew. Most found it appalling. Some would say "But (sigh) you have to understand what the Palestinians go through…" because that is what they always say when an Israeli/Palestinian issue comes up. A few of those would respond to the question of "what justifies trying to murder a small child?" with a list.
I also find some people who rail against bankers and middlemen a bit creepy. They make a lot of the same sounds as anti-semites but are more "inclusive". Scapegoating and demagoguery are bad for reason but unfortunately they will never go away because often it works.
Have you ever read Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen? It isn't a bad read but it does read like a phd thesis (which, as I recall, it was). It is also a depressing documentation of a gap of humanity by grotesque numbers of people.
ReplyDeleteColonel: I have not read the book, but did read several reviews. You're right: it did document a massive failure of humanity (and nerve).
ReplyDeleteHere is a guide for people who want to boycott Israel:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.jpost.com/content/boycotting-israel-just-do-it-part-1
The rise of anti-Semitism has historically been the harbinger of really bad wars of the global kind. Things are getting scary, folks.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most intriguing items in the book (and I wish it had more detail) was a footnote about a German count in the 1800s who knew that the Prussian central government tolerated scapegoating jews but they wouldn't tolerate the disorder of a pogrom so he had the locals come to a field to observe him order a calvary charge against imaginary jews.
ReplyDeleteTo repeat : a calvary charge against imaginary jews – that doesn't even pretend to make sense.
Sometimes we presume people are rational beings and think there must be some logic or reason behind things but sometimes people are just nuts.
Ahem, that should have been cavalry.
ReplyDelete(hangs head in shame)