Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Travestyzing the Holocaust (Walter Reich)

No Jews to blame
(Atlantic blog)

She didn't mean to say "Jewish money", she meant "Zionist"...
: Fatima goes on to say that:

"I do not believe that the cause of the Palestinians is served by any anti-Jewish racism.

And if it were served, would that be alright, then, to use antisemitism in the service of the Palestinians? And didn't she herself act upon her gut assumption that antisemitic rants would indeed serve the Palestinians well, when she said what she said at the moment and place she said it?

And why is her blood boiling so for the suffering of Palestinians when next door to her country there is an entire nation being oppressed, diseased, starved and massacred by an African dictator? What could be the reason for such selective morality?


9 Comments:

At 3:16 PM EST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

When serving as the Holocaust Museum chair, Reich compared Israel's policies to those of the Nazis. Reich's comments did much to legitimize this line of attack in public discourse in the US. He is like Yeshayahu Leibowitz in Israel, who slurred Israel's soldiers by calling them Judeo-Nazis.

Reich is hardly in a position to complain about others who travestize the Holocaust.

 
At 3:25 PM EST, Blogger The Contentious Centrist said...

I couldn't find the incident you speak of. But I did find this:

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/aug/18/opinion/oe-reich18

the tenor of which is not in line with what you suggest he said.

 
At 11:09 PM EST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I accused Reich of something that his successor did - my sincere apologies.

"In 1998, as Israeli-Palestinian peace talks continued, the museum invited -- and then rescinded -- an invitation to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to visit the museum as a visiting dignitary.

The museum's director, Walter Reich, refused to extend the invitation. Arafat eventually canceled the planned visit, and Reich soon was ousted.

That same year, Holocaust scholar John Roth was chosen to head the museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. But Roth was forced to resign before starting work after it was discovered that he had written a 1988 piece for the Los Angeles Times that compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of Jews."

 
At 3:39 PM EST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe something about Muslim superiority (over the non Muslim) as an Islamic principle....is also contributing to such seeming inconsistencies.

 
At 6:44 PM EST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"...Maybe something about Muslim superiority (over the non Muslim) as an Islamic principle....is also contributing to such seeming inconsistencies...."

Huh?

 
At 7:59 AM EST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fatima Hajaig's comments are a disgrace and her apology pretty meaningless.

And why is her blood boiling so for the suffering of Palestinians when next door to her country there is an entire nation being oppressed, diseased, starved and massacred by an African dictator?

I doubt this applies to Fatima in particular but generally members of the ANC members of her age who fought the long struggle against apartheid are more likely to criticise Israel than Zimbabwe for two main reasons.

Firstly, after the 1984 Nkomati Accords between Mozambique and South Africa, signed under duress since South Africa was engaged in a large-scale attempt to destabilise the country at the time, the military wing of the ANC was prohibited from operating inside Mozambique. Given the success of SADF and UNITA forces in Angola during that same period only one 'frontline' state was prepared to allow the ANC to operate from inside their borders and suffer the consequences, Zimbabwe.

Even now, when Mugabe's tyranny is obvious, I doubt ANC members of a certain age have forgotten this.

Secondly, it is beyond contention that from the 1970's until the late 80's, even after the onset of Botha's horrific 'Total Strategy', Israel moved from a position of criticising apartheid to supporting South Africa. This was at a time when most other countries moved in the other direction. For example, in 1981 Sharon visited SADF units in Namibia, which South Africa was occupying and used to launch a savage intervention into the Angolan civil war, and was later quoted as saying the SADF needed more weapons in the region!

This support including military support and convienently ignoring the fact that many prominent apartheid leaders were anti-Semitic and had been sympathetic toward the Nazis.

I doubt ANC members of a certain age have forgotten this either.

This doesn't excuse the behaviour of the ANC toward Zimbabwe but it indicates why many are more comfortable cricising Israel than Zimbabwe.

 
At 5:38 PM EST, Blogger The Contentious Centrist said...

Duncan, clearing his throat: "Fatima Hajaig's comments are a disgrace and her apology pretty meaningless."

continues, but don't forget, it's Israel's fault.

Revengism as an excuse for antisemitism. Have we seen that before?

Never mind that the ANC were best friends with the arch-terrorist Arafat, and other charming human rights champions, like Castro and Ghaddafi.

I usually only read what follows after the "but" even if it is not there.. explicitly, that is.

Duncan's marvelous sympathy and understanding for antisemites is a model of compassion for us all.

 
At 9:49 PM EST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Man, what would you apologists do without the "selective outrage" argument.

Here's why: 'Cause Israel claims to be a democratic, law-abiding state in utter contrast to its neighbors. Your comparisons are ridiculous. But quite typical of hasbara myopia.

 
At 6:44 AM EST, Blogger The Contentious Centrist said...

"Israel claims to be a democratic, law-abiding state in utter contrast to its neighbors."

Your statement is not clear. Are you saying that Israel claims to be to be a democratic, law-abiding state, in utter contrast to its neighbors who do not make the same claim?

or are you saying that Israel IS a democratic, law-abiding state, in utter contrast to its neighbors?

If the first, then wouldn't you say that Hamas apologists make the same claim for being democratically elected and therefore need to be subject to the same standards?

And are atrocities, to be waved aside when perpetrated by non-democratic players?

And how is a democracy to deal with a non-democratic entity, which commits atrocities by way of strategic calculation? Should then a democracy roll over and let itself be defeated by a non-democratic vicious entity so as to please your warped sense of fairness?

And even if what your claim is granted, how do you explain the world's equanimity in these other wars?

"The refugees believed they found safe haven. They were wrong. The air strike didn't spare their lives. Over 100 were killed. This is not an account of the tragic bombing of the UN school in Gaza. This is the story of the bombing of Korisa in the former Yugoslavia, the strikes carried out by NATO planes, which took place nearly 10 years ago on May 13th 1999. There are other accounts of this type of catastrophe. On April 12th NATO planes killed, accidentally of course, 12 civilians. April 14th saw the death of 70 refugees. On April 27, 16 civilians were killed. On May 1st, 23 civilians were killed when a bus was bombed. On May 6th, 16 were killed by a cluster bomb. On May 19th, a Belgrade hospital was bombed, 3 dead. May 30th saw 11 die when a bridge was bombed. On the very same day an old age home was hit and 20 residents were killed. The next day 11 more died. About the same time, the Chinese embassy was bombed, and a misdirected missile flew 30 miles off course and hit the Bulgarian Capital of Sofia. "It was a mistake, sorry" was the NATO spokesperson's standard response.

This is what happens during war. It is sad and lamentable. Europeans are not called upon to cast their memory all the way back to the bombing of Dresden; all they need is to look back to events that happened less than a decade ago, ere they start wagging their admonitory finger at Israel. Because Israel has not killed, nor will it kill, even a tenth of the number of innocent deaths incurred by European democracies in just wars."

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/01/chapter-2-war-crimes-and-the-failure-of/index.shtml

Nothing explains why Fatima's blood boils so only when Israel is involved in the conflict. Your "explanation" does not hold water at all, when viewed against even recent historical records. Try again.

 

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