RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Referencing the great Christopher Hitchens, the equally elegant Professor William A. Jacobson posted today on this subject and I commented four times, thrice discursively, as follow:
” … the common enemy of humanity and of civilization …”
Correct, it is not anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism. It is anti-humanity. Human eliminationism. Caliphists are no different than environmentalists, other than articulation. Deeming it anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism is weak, bleating, narrow, peevish, unconvincing. The comments here and, pace our host, the post miss Christopher’s point. It is anti-humanity. Fascists and Caliphists are united in hating men and women — including themselves. That is the point that needs pounding. That is what Christopher is saying and he is right.
and:
If the argument against oppression is about Jews — either way, oppressor or oppressed — it will fail. That I guarantee you.
Jews are no more and no less oppressed than anyone else. Jews are no more “a canary in the mine” than is anyone else. Shakespeare’s Shylock makes this point and it was sufficient for Nazis to ban The Merchant of Venice in their jurisdiction. Germans, after all, were the world’s then-preeminent Shakespeare scholars and Nazis were not entirely uneducated or stupid in regard to the Bard’s — who was a Roman Catholic persecuted by so-called Good Queen Bess — produce.
Nor are Jews a unified bloc. There is no “the Jews.” There is no “the Christians.” Jehudi Menuin’s father, a Sephardi, opposed Zionism as Ashkenazi-enunciated and Jehudi’s career was stunted much on that account, although his supreme musicianship triumphed finally over internal Jewish prejudice.
Oppressors’ target is humanity, no matter where they are, who they are. Oppressors pick groups to oppress for propaganda reasons and, more fundamentally, because they, oppressors, see this or that group as representing humanity generally and simultaneously easy (politically) to hit. Think Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Jarrett-Obama, Saud, Khomeini, al-Baghdadi.
It is a good and salutary thing, therefore, that Israelis choose to defend themselves. They should drive their enemies to unconditional surrender and not relent until reaching that goal. Still, they have US American blood on their heads and hands (USS Liberty and here), which is the deep reason USA will not support them unconditionally. Israel is not a friend of the USA, never has been. Think espionage, for starters.
An argument against anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism is going to fail because neither is where the action is. The action is anti-humanism. Eliminationism. The die-off movement against all humanity, Jews included, by Fascists (environmentalists, new agers) and Caliphists. Argument there will succeed. Israelis and everyone else should make it.
and:
We neither accept nor use categories created and employed by people who hate, lie, cheat, steal, etc. Hate (etc.) and its consequences are those people’s business, not ours. The stochastic structure (world) they inhabit is theirs, not ours. If haters come at us or our friends, we biff them a good one in the kisser rather than pursue the futility of talking with them. And we never accept to think as they do. Were we to, we would be haters (etc.).
Update 1: And Al Saud intends to keep it up. See also here.
Update 2: Global Divestment Day
Update 3: An interesting comment string arose at Instapundit when Glenn Reynolds referenced Mark Cunningham on the subject of what The Fraud should say about Islam. I commented as follows, making an important observation regarding the effect of religion on affairs:
Were I to take Cunningham’s essay as serious thought — and I think it is not — I would say his face is too close to the canvas, he has seen a couple of swirls of paint and yelled, “Eureka!” Were he serious, he would pull back to ponder the whole canvas or at least more of it than has caught his fancy. His enthusiasm would, shall we say, moderate.
Serious, productive thought cannot come from other than a monastic. Men and women bearing the daily burdens and cares of life, such as Cunningham, simply cannot and will not create intellectual and moral forms that benefit anyone lastingly. They are too busy, and justly so, one hopes. Such men and women can use such forms once they are created, but create them they can not and will not. Those stepped way back from the canvas — monastics — do that. The truth is the whole.
Update 4: The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism and Global Jihad, and related: Qatar.
AMDG – VICTORY
