The whole megillah on Youtube
Posted on March 3 2007 by Cecilie Surasky under Alan Dershowitz.Here’s a funny Purim joke for you: Watch Alan Dershowitz claim the notion that anyone who criticizes Israel risks being called an anti-Semite— is completely made up. Tikkun’s Michael Lerner gets in a few words edgewise on CNN with Paula Zahn.
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March 3rd, 2007 at 10:24 pm
[…] The whole megillah on Youtube Here?sa funny Purim joke for you: Watch Alan Dershowitz claim the notion that anyone who criticizes Israel risks being called an anti-Semite? is completely made up. Tikkun?s Michael Lerner gets in a few words edgewise on CNN with Paula … […]
March 4th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Cecelie, please take another look at that passage, more carefully.
Your claim is false. You say “Watch Alan Dershowitz claim the notion that anyone who criticizes Israel risks being called an anti-Semite— is completely made up.”
But this is NOT what Dershowitz says.
Dershowitz is very clear that certain types of criticism do cross the line into anti-semitism, but for the most part, criticism of Israel is not anti-semitic.
This is consistent with what many of us have been saying. People who demonize or dishonestly criticize Israel love to claim they are called anti-semitic “just for criticizing Israel”.
You can find virulent and honest criticism virtually everywhere these days. Haaretz, college campuses, many blogs, many books, major newspapers… And if you look carefully, honestly, much of it DOES cross the line into dishonesty or demonization.
That is the problem. You like to pretend you are being brave for “just criticizing Israel”. It’s your game, alas.
March 4th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Rabbi Lerner certainly lost that debate big time. And it’s not as if Dershowitz is such a formidable opponent. Dershowitz challenged him to cite examples of accusations of anti-Semitism for simple criticism of Israeli policy. Lerner came up blank.
The reason of course is that he let Dershowitz set the rules. There are lines, Dershowitz avers, that it is antisemtitic to cross – comparing Israeli actions to Nazi actions and singling out Israel for criticism above other countries were the ones he mentioned. Lerner blew it by refusing to challenge the lines. Why shouldn’t we compare Israeli actions to the Nazi actions that they resemble? Yosef Lapid, President of Yad Vashem, did it a few weeks ago and he has first hand knowledge of both. Is he an anti-Semite? I’m not saying that a bunch of IOF yobbos forced a Palestinian to play his violin for them BECAUSE they were explicitly trying to emulate the Nazis, although they might have been, but there’s no denying the resemblance.
Israel has always claimed that it was established for the benefit of all Jews everywhere, to protect our interests, and everything it does is on our behalf. Only Jews can say, ‘Not in MY name you don’t!’ So does that make it anti-Semitic for Jews to take that obligation seriously?
The learned Rabbi could have rejected Dershowitz’s lines without even having to compromise on his support for a Jewish state. Ultimately, however, the real antisemites are the ones who claim that it’s ok to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians with a view to establishing a colonial state with a Jewish majority and Jewish sovereignty and implicate me in their crimes.
March 4th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Can you supply us with the citation or url re: Yosef Lapid
Re: Comparison to the nazis and why its so deeply offensive:
I read this explanation on indymedia of all places, and it really makes the point:
“One of the characteristics of antisemitic rhetoric I’ve seen in my years of experience fighting Holocaust denial in the Usenet newsgroup alt.revisionism is the utter glee with which antisemites will use any imaginable excuse to equate Israel to the Third Reich, no matter how tenuous a linkage, simply and solely because they know that Jewish readers find that equation specifically painful in a way non-Jewish readers don’t. It is an inherently discriminatory rhetorical trick, and as such, wisdom and compassion suggest dumping that one from your rhetorical toolbox.
It’s also bad rhetorical form, because the message sent is so much different than the message intended. You may think you’re making a clever my-my-how-ironic comment when equating Israeli policy with Nazi policy, but believe me, that’s _not_ the message you’re really sending. The message you send is “I’m offending Jews? Jamming my thumb into a deep historical wound to score cheap rhetorical points? So what! Ha ha ha, full steam ahead!”
The full essay is well worth reading:
Unweaving The Tangle: Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism
http://archive.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/10810
March 4th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
The source on Yosef Lapid:
Ha’aretz, January 21, 2007.
Here is the article:
Yad Vashem Council Chair slams settlers for abusing Palestinians
By Reuters and Haaretz Service
The head of the council of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial on Saturday assailed Jewish settlers who harass Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron, saying the abuse recalled the anti-Semitism of pre-World War Two Europe.
A Yad Vashem spokeswoman told Haaretz that Yad Vashem Council Chairman Yosef (Tommy) Lapid’s comments do not reflect the memorial center’s position.
Lapid’s unusually fierce and public attack was prompted by television footage showing a Hebron settler woman hissing “whore” at her Palestinian neighbor and settler children lobbing rocks at Arab homes.
Lapid, a Holocaust survivor who lost his father to the Nazi genocide, said in a weekly commentary on Israel Radio that the acts of some Hebron settlers reminded him of persecution endured by Jews in his native Yugoslavia on the eve of World War Two.
“It was not crematoria or pogroms that made our life in the diaspora bitter before they began to kill us, but persecution, harassment, stone-throwing, damage to livelihood, intimidation, spitting and scorn,” Lapid said.
“I was afraid to go to school, because of the little anti-Semites who used to lay in ambush on the way and beat us up. How is that different from a Palestinian child in Hebron?”
Hebron has been a frequent flashpoint of more than six years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Some 400 settlers live there, under heavy military guard, among 150,000 Palestinians.
Hebron settlers were not immediately available to respond to Lapid’s criticism, but Israel Radio broadcast earlier comments by the community’s spokesman, Noam Arnon, in which he played down the televised harassments as “fringe incidents.”
“In six years, 37 Jews have been murdered in Hebron, and now they’re preoccupied with curses?” Arnon said.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered a cabinet-level probe last week into Palestinian allegations that abuse by Hebron settlers is commonplace and routinely ignored by Israel.
Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh said he hoped for a military crackdown against the settler “provocateurs”, but Palestinian officials called for comprehensive action.
“If they are serious about coexistence, the Israelis must take practical steps on the hundreds of daily violations against Palestinians in the old city,” Hebron Governor Arif Jabari said.
Jabari’s apparent pessimism was shared by Lapid, a former justice minister.
“We Jewish citizens of Israel wave a reprimanding finger at most,” he said. “Worse still, I tolerated this silently as justice minister too.”
Lapid said while there was no comparing the Holocaust with Palestinian suffering from Israel’s policies, this did not mean Israelis could not be culpable.
“It is inconceivable for the memory of Auschwitz to warrant ignoring the fact that there are Jews among us who behave today towards Palestinians just like German, Hungarian, Polish and other anti-Semites behaved towards Jews,” he said.
March 4th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Ernie’s statement: Why shouldn’t we compare Israeli actions to the Nazi actions that they resemble? Yosef Lapid, President of Yad Vashem, did it a few weeks ago and he has first hand knowledge of both
What was really said: Lapid said while there was no comparing the Holocaust with Palestinian suffering from Israel’s policies, this did not mean Israelis could not be culpable.
Lapid was not talking about Nazi policies of Israel, but about the intolerance of some mmebers of the Israeli community. To some of you that might be a distinction without a difference, but to others, its significant.
Sorry Ernie- its another one of the cheap rhetorical tricks that serve to squash meaningful dialog, both here and in Israel.
March 4th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
SAM thanks for posting the link.
Ah. So. It’s neither a distinction nor a difference. The Israeli government either placed those settlers in Hebron deliberately, or at least tolerates and protects their presence there. These are the people who throw stones and eggs and shit at the kids trying to walk to school, who abuse and kick and punch human rights observers and tourists with impunity while the army and police watch. So don’t go getting all rtighteous about it just being a few ‘intolerant’ members of the community. They are the ‘human face’ of government policy.
I suppose it would be too much to ask, but it would make for a more interesting conversation if people would attempt to intersect with what each other actually say. In this case, what I said was, ‘Why shouldn’t we compare Israeli actions to the Nazi actions that they resemble?’ Not, ‘Israel is carrying out another Holocaust’. Not ‘Israeli government policies’.
If Israelis are so sensitive about comparisons to the Nazis, it’d be easy enough to avoid. Tearing down the wall and dismantling the checkpoints would be a start.
March 4th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
One of the logical errors in Dershowitz’s comments, that the idiotic Paula Zahn didn’t follow up on (and neither did Lerner) is that one person’s definition of “legitimate” criticism of Israel is another person’s definition of “illegitimate” criticism of Israel so for Dershowitz to say that there’s a difference between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” criticism of Israel is a meaningless statement. It’s a clever rhetorical trick I suppose: Make a statement that sounds reasonable, but because it does not define its terms, has no meaning whatsoever. That way Dershowitz gets to look reasonable without being forced to describe what he is really talking about and being held accountable.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:56 am
I just saw a documentary about he children who survived the Beslan Massace. I am ashamed of Islam and the hatred it has brought to Jews, Arabs, and all people. When a child calls my people a “barbaria” after killing 171 children and over 200 adults and used the scholl as a political tool, this is where I as a Muslim woman, mother have to say stop! This issue of hating Israel, hating arabs, hating Jews, is causing th world a lot of pain. I think sites that thrive on demonizing people rather than teaching love and tolerance do more harm than war. This is not a Jewish voice for Peace, it is a site that promotes hatred and intolerance. I think, Cecily that you need to stop being so angry at your culture, embrace who you are and make peace, not create such hostility. The letters on this site are not ones of peace, but of ridicule and mocking people we do not agree with. This is not dialogue, this is the promotion of hate.
March 7th, 2007 at 5:03 am
Fatima, please name one example of this site being critical of Jewish or Israeli culture, I dare you.
The fact that you missed the co-opting of Jewish cultural-religious elements in the title of this post is rather telling.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:13 am
poker…
news…