The Open Liberalism at Open Zion 


There is a post on Peter Beinart's Daily Beast blog "Open Zion ". You can read it if you wish. My concern is with the type of discussion that takes place on the threads that follow O-Z's articles. Why? Because of this.  

My intent is to show what kind of commenters patronize Beinart's blog and how their morally-rancid products appear to be accepted by the new moderation regime installed on Open Zion since a couple of days.

Here is a revealing example:

This commenter posts a list of names* whom she suspects of  harboring "dual loyalties", because they hold both American and Israeli citizenship.  If you open the link and look at the list, you will find that: a) Very few, if any, of the names on the list have Israeli citizenship. b) Some or most of the names on the list are Jewish. c) at least one of the names, John Bolton, is not even that (Jewish, I mean).

Now where did she get this list? All you need to do is google a part of the list to find it comes from some high-stink websites like "Rense" and feted on such respectable message boards like "Stormfront".

So here we have a list of names which promotes verifiably false facts and anti-democratic premises, hailing from sources of information that are tainted by their record of  "a general mistrust of the establishment (ranging from the right-wing to President Barack Obama), and a range of theories about who was behind the September 11 attacks on the New York World Trade Center in 2001."

 Another commenter tries to respond by pointing to the falseness of the list. But the initial commenter will have none of it:  "s you know, you can be born in Brooklyn, Warsaw or Kenya, and as long as you're Jewish, can be granted Israeli citizenship. Rahm Emmanuel's name is not on the list I posted, but you refer to him in your rebut. Something we should know?"

You see, if you are a Jew, you automatically have an Israeli citizenship and in consequence, you are de-facto, to all intents and purposes, an Israeli citizen. And with that in mind, you are automatically a suspect. In other words, no American Jew should ever be appointed to a government position or be a politician.

When people talk about the virus of antisemitism being a highly adaptable virus that can mutate to accommodate any given set of circumstances, they know what they know talking about.

Since Open Zion has just established a new moderation policy, wherein:


" NO RACIST COMMENTS ABOUT ARABS, JEWS OR ANYONE ELSE. USERS VIOLATING THESE RULES WILL BE BANNED.  -- MODERATOR"

I expect the commenter's antisemitic list will be deleted from the conversation and she will be banned.

[... And pink pigs might fly.]   

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Addendum:  

" I see what is going on. I tried to post on Lisa Goldman's twitter and she removed me.  I also note I am not seeing Gil Troy here anymore.  
The one thing I respected about Open Zion was they allowed people to answer.  And I was noticing that more and more, it was people like you and others who would counter with facts and that the haters were finding it harder to respond as they were limited to cries of "zionazi"  ( which the  mod obviously does not find a lack of 'civility' )
Comment boards are now read by 40% of readerships and increasingly are clearly being used by media outlets to promote views too radical for them to put into articles and  also to silence people like us."
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*The list in the comment was removed but the gist of the comment, accusing american Jews of dual loyalties, remains. I flagged the remainder of the comment with this complaint to the editor:

This partial removal of the comment is unsatisfactory. The main gist of the claim still remains with its age-old antisemitic canard about Jews and dual loyalties. It follows the same rule as MacCarthyism,  the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. Would you accept a comment  that would cast aspersions on the integrity of Arab Israelis who hold very senior positions in Israel's government and judiciary as harboring dual loyalties? Of course not. One rule should be applied across the board no matter where the moderator's own biases may lie. This is a matter of fairness, integrity, honesty and contributing to a civilized discourse.