Daily Kos lately has been replete with accusations and counter-accusations about anti-Semitism. Many start diaries or comments with "anti-Israel is not anti-Semitism, so don't call me an anti-Semite," or, more commonly, "some people use the accusation of anti-Semitism to stifle debate," often followed by something about "the Jews." So I decided to take a look at the accusations, the counter-accusations, and the underlying "support" for the arguments. This all came to a head with the Elie Weisel diaries. This One, which received recommendations and plenty of tips, was derived entirely from propagandist anti-Semitic websites, and enthusiastically quoted Daniel McGowan, an apologist for Ernst Zundel, the man who wrote "The Hitler We Loved and Why," and "Did Six Million Really Die?"
Anybody who doubts the existence of genuine Holocaust denial or real anti-Semitism here on Daily Kos need but read on. This is NOT a discussion about disagreeing with Israel, but of genuine, honest to goodness, hateful anti-Semitism.
The diary cited above also quoted Christopher Hitchens at length, and if that wasn't enough of a clue, Hitchens relied extensively on Joran Jermas, known on the nets and unfortunately far too often on Daily Kos, by his fraudulent Jewish perssonna "Israel Shamir." If you want clear proof of anti-Semitism on Daily Kos, just Google "Israel Shamir" on daily kos, and you will find it. Shamir, by the way, is the fellow who brought us such things as
Palestinians are perfect mammals; their life is deeply rooted in the ground...Israeli people represent a virus form of a human being because they can live anywhere.
Jesus taught, love your neighbour as yourself, even if he is a traditional enemy of Jews, a Samaritan. That is why he was hated by the Jewish supremacists of his time. He said: you can not worship God and Mammon, the god of greed, you have to choose. That is why he was hated by supply-side economists and bankers of his day. They sentenced him to death and the Empire obliged and carried out the execution, in order to keep peace with these all-important forces. Our fathers did not dare to speak against their leaders. The spirit of domination scored a victory, but the spirit of brotherhood did not vanish.
Two weeks ago, Russian-language journalist Israel Shamir told a largely Jewish audience: 'Jews only exist to drip the blood of Palestinian children into their matzas.
But enough about "Shamir," for this is not about him. It is about so many of you so willingly sucked into his hateful hucksterism, because his image of "a Jew" willing to say such things makes you think its okay to say such things too.
I noted some of these in a comment a few days ago, but they are worth repeating. Note- Michigan Paul has repudiated his statements and apologized:
Free speech does not mean that you have a right (0+ / 10-)
to invitations to any and all fora where people do not want to listen to you.
That so ?
then why is it that the Zionazi Horowitz demanding freedom of speech in universities - apparently you and other Zionanzis seems to believe that people should be forced to listen to that yapping idiot Horowitz - why ?? because he spews that bS calim that Jews are supposedly special ?
by DonR on Mon Feb 05, 2007 at 11:59:13 AM PST
The use of the phrase "Zionazi" alone is enough to qualify as anti-Semitism in this Jews' book.
He's a jew (1+ / 38-)
he is just another Jewish right wing freak... They are all over the place these days. Their agenda is make the world safe for Israel and kill as many arabs as possible makes that possible.
They won't say it.. but it is transparant as glass... They got us into the Iraq war... or at least did whatever they could to make it happen.
Does it really matter who the poster was referring to when he said "He's a jew?" No, I didn't think so either.
Jews should be ashamed of their (1+ / 18-)
mafioso culture.
It's a cultural problem they need to deal with amongst themselves, like yesterday. Liberal Jews need to be more assertive in telling their extremist brothers where to park their whackjob agendas. Lord knows Jews won't let anyone outside their circle criticize them without screaming "Antisemite!!!" (Juan of course is well aware of that brand of bullcrap) like a bunch of lemmings, so they need to take care of it within their own community.
As it stands, their crooked culture of deamonization and extremism is as much an embarrassment to America as rightwing cristo-fascist culture.
Joe Lieberman exists for a reason. And America should be ashamed of him and his supporters. I think we're seeing that.
by ghostbuster on Wed Jun 14, 2006 at 03:04:19 PM PST
Jews are a monolithic block, a "mafioso culture," uniquely responsible for the actions of each other. That is yet another anti-Semitic canard, another version of an international Jewish conspiracy.
actually now I deny the holocaust (0+ / 18-)
before it was just kind of a curious "fails the smell" test but after further research I've decided I can offically deny any "final solution."
The jews were forced labor in a coal-gasification to supply the German's dwindling eastern front gas needs. Zyklon B was a delousing agent. The Po9lish gov't has reduced the official death count at Aushwitz from 3 million to 600,000. 3 million bodies could never be cremated in the amount of necessary time. No functioning gas chamber was ever found (except the one built be the Soviets, after the war). The aushwitz commander's confession was coerced (and written in English), and the Nuremberg trials were a kangaroo court. None of the evidence presented to prove the existance of confined-space gas chambers would hol dup in any American court and I find that troubling.
But your mind is made up. Good for you. So don't talk to me. I really don't care all that much about this, but at least I smell bullshit when I see it, unlike a mindless drone like you.
cum lade in chemistry
"He lives most life whoever breathes most air." Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"Reduce carbon emissions. Now." - SeattleChris
by SeattleChris on Mon Dec 18, 2006 at 03:10:36 PM PST
Ah, Holocaust Denial, an entire industry of anti-Semitism, far too common the basis for diaries and comments right here on our "Democratic" website.
You are an exception (0+ / 17-)
Yes, I know, there are actually some average income Jews out there, even poor ones. But they are clearly an exception. I know this sounds horrible, and it is not the point of my posts-which are clearly against the present barbaric actions of the Zionist state of Israel-but look up the names of the owners of the mainstream media in this country, along with the banking and finance sectors.
Also, the neocons who brought us the disastorous Iraq war is heavily represented by Zionist Jews eager to advance their goal of the "Greater Israel" and go back to the borders God gave to Moses in the Old Testament-I think Exodus or Deuteronomy or somewhere.
I used to think of Jews in general as natural liberal allies and representatives of compassionate policies both at home and abroad.
No longer.
"The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."-FDR
by Michigan Paul on Mon Jul 17, 2006 at 04:51:03 PM PST
Michigan Paul did apologize for this, but it does show not only how he felt at the time, but that he felt sufficiently "mainstream" here to write such a comment.
Joe the Jew? (0+ / 16-)
I did not know until today that Joe is a Jew. Now I know why he is so pro war. It seems all Jews are, or the Israelis are all pro war. I know, I know, people are going to say I am against jews. No, I just do not like what the Israelis are doing to the lebanonis, what they are doing to themselfs, just to try and look like bush, and how much hell are we, the USA going to catch in the future over this unjust war?
by Dwolfaz on Thu Aug 10, 2006 at 02:16:27 AM PST
Joe=Jew=Israel. It just goes around and around and around.
JEWS TOO GOOD FOR US MILITARY (0+ / 15-)
If Jews love the US so much- how come their #'s in the US military are dismal? Instead of selling ones soul to be diamond brokers, investment bankers, doctors, and entertainment smucks (on borrowed grants/loans for tuition) perhaps the US should be like Israel and require some military service. Now this goes for every spoiled Northeast brat as well. Daily Kos bitching would be a little more germane if the bitches could fire an M-16 or take an order ot two. Everyone is a chief in Kos with no good answers.
by PEARSAYS on Mon Jul 17, 2006 at 08:26:30 PM PST
Was there some kind of contest to see how many stereotypes could fit in one paragraph.
But it's not just comments by random posters. We get more diaries, too, including this one which clearly ATTACKS based upon the author's conflation of Jewish and Israeli.
Here is a perfect example of one of our most virulent anti-Semites hiding behind the claim people cry "anti-Semitism" too easily:
overcharging "anti-semitism" (0.55 / 9)
Zionists are going to call criticism of Israel anti-semitism no matter what.
And Jews don't speak up against this abuse of "anti-semitism" in most instances.
Right Wingers don't like Bush and the war to be criticized. Like during the Vietnam War the war apologists say they support a limited right of dissent, but just not the kind of dissent that's happening.
But even Cindy Sheehan gets criticized, because her dissent is... too effective.
If Zionists want to play the game of attacking the motives of Israel's critics, this game can go two ways.
It seems there is ample evidence that Zionists have a deep seated hatred of Arab, Muslims and especially Palestinians.
As I've pointed out, the "anti-semitic" Israel critics on dKos have never advocated killing, torturing or imprisoning a single Jew or Israeli.
But Zionists advocate policies that kill, torture and imprison Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians and consider this normal and AOK.
If you are interested in the politics of Proviso Township in Cook County, Illinois, visit Proviso Probe.
by Carl Nyberg on Sat Aug 20, 2005 at 11:59:00 AM PST
So why do I call Carl anti-Semitic? How about these gems:
non-Jews are all Nazis (0.85 / 14)
Jews are worse than the Nation of Islam on this point. The NOI only preached "Whites" were the Devil.
Jews teach each other that non-Jews are all potential Nazis. If they wouldn't send Jews to the death camps they'd look the other way when it happens.
This is profoundly racist on the part of Jews to be spreading this ideology. It also makes Jews dysfunctional when dealing with non-Jews on Israel.
If you are interested in the politics of Proviso Township in Cook County, Illinois, visit Proviso Probe.
by Carl Nyberg on Wed Jun 22, 2005 at 01:38:52 PM PST
Jewish orgs benefit from the conflict (0.57 / 7)
American Jewish orgs basically profit from the conflict.
1. The Israel/Palestine conflict heightens Jewish identity within the United States. Jewish orgs hope this will lead to more Jews marrying Jews so more children will be raised Jewish.
2. American Jewish organizations raise money on tragedies from the conflict. Nothing makes the cash register jingle like the picture of a pretty pregnant Jewish woman killed by a suicide bomber.
If you are interested in the politics of Proviso Township in Cook County, Illinois, visit Proviso Probe.
by Carl Nyberg on Tue Jul 05, 2005 at 10:03:36 PM PST
That's not all for Carl- I just didn't feel like digging through the archives to find his comment about "money-lenders." Unfortunately, he is not alone. We have seen blatant anti-Semitism and blatant Holocaust denial, sometimes alone, sometimes together. Here is a good example of Holocaust denial, written in a diary about Aushwitz, on the anniversary of its liberation:
Was that the only prisoner of war camp in WWII (0+ / 8-)
cause a guy I knew in my town where I grew up spent 11 months in a P.O.W. Camp under the Japanese military! Hope he wasn't telling me a lie.
Oh and de-nuke the entire middle east or have Israel sell Iran a couple of nukes and India heck sell them 5 nukes. Take North Korean's market away!
1)Diamonds and gold should go the way of furs! 2) Have Israel sell Iran a nuke and stop N. Korea's market!
by tonyray on Sat Jan 27, 2007 at 04:43:44 AM PST
This diary is an ugly combination of anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, and absurd equivalence. It asks whether the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were heroes, and describes the Gestapo as "local law enforcement," in yet another version of 'the Jews bring it on themselves':
The Jews begin to establish underground organizations to collect intelligence on German activities as well as to smuggle food and arms into the ghetto. These are violations of German law and the Gestapo with their usual thoroughness use terror and torture to try and break their ranks for they were the lawful law enforcement agency.
From there it goes on to discuss the I/P issue, in as disgusting a bit of equivalence as one can expect to see. And the diary, instead of being roundly condemned, brought plenty of supportive comments, like:
No, I agree there is a point of comparison (6+ / 0-)
between Warsaw 1939 and Palestine 1948, and only in the limited sense of ethnic cleansing.
As far as Israel continues to perpetuate the cleansing operations conducted by the Hagana in 1948, in that sense there is a comparison.
The broad outline is the awareness that the Final Solution was arrived at gradually, in part as a response to events that occurred during the war.
Denying the Nakba is on a par with denying the Holocaust
by litho on Tue Jan 30, 2007 at 04:31:08 PM PST
and this bit of historic revisionism, which got 7 recommends:
I hope they're not (7+ / 6-)
and I'm not suggesting they are, but this is really speculation on your part. When the Jews were first herded into the Warsaw ghetto, the Holocaust wasn't announced. The Warsaw ghetto fighters were responding to the conditions in the ghetto, not those in the death camps, and they were entiraly justified in doing so. I generally don't think comparisons between Zionism and Nazism are very helpful precisely because we can't help but view everything the Nazis did through the lens of their mass extermination of the Jews. But its not hard to see why folks might be tempted to compare the Naqba to Kristalnacht or Israeli policies in the occupied territories to those used in the Warsaw ghetto. One group that has not hesitated to see the parallels have been Israeli military planners who have studied the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto for the lessons it might offer their efforts to suppress Palestinian resistance.
"Tell no lies. Claim no easy victories" -- Amilcar Cabral
by Christopher Day on Tue Jan 30, 2007 at 03:25:58 PM PST
One example of such support, which includes fantasies about rich Jews, is:
nice post-- (5+ / 6-)
I think there are important lessons from Warsaw that can be applied to Palestine--one being that not everyone inside or affected by a bad situation is automatically "good" or a "hero"--there were wealthier Jews who were able to game the system, and there were the equivalent of "trustys" and fake "councilmembers" who also hurt themselves and others, and there were those who used violence and other things to try to either get out or just make life bearable and survive.
Comparisons are always tricky. And i personally think that Zionism has failed precisely because of the entrenched fear (and actions arising out of that fear) overriding all other considerations.
I read this the other day, and was absolutely appalled and shamed for us (us as Jews, and humans in general: Life Under Prohibition in Palestine
by amberglow on Tue Jan 30, 2007 at 03:14:14 PM PST
Not, by the way, the poster's only comment:
Yes the Jews did (0+ / 6-)
And it was psychological. They stole the German language. After War I they were permitted to go to University and they went in droves. It was as if they had been studying entrance exams all their lives. They took over every branch of learning. They excelled in languages, art, music, medicine, law, literature, science, physics, everything the Germans held dear was taken over by brilliant and creative Jews. The Germans were completely pushed out of academic achievement except for the few exceptions.
I felt that way when I went to Beaver College in 1953 and took an American literature course. The Jewish girls in my high school had been preoccupied (as all of us were) with clothes, dates, etc. The Jewish girls at Beaver were something else again. They were brilliant. They could write papers the likes of which I could hardly understand. And I came from one of the top five public schools in the US and nobody wrote like that there except for some Jewish rabbi sons. My high school was full of anti semitism and black racial profiling in classes.
I very quickly learned that I was not from a privileged class if they could perform like that. So I imagine that was just a slight tickle of the way the Germans felt when their literary language of German became the mouthpiece of the Jews.
Walter Benjamin. Alfred Doebler. Kurt Weill. And so many others I have forgotten. They were violently jealous and fell into Hitler's thinking more easily. Who is the writer that wrote I am a Camera about that time as he was living there then?
by abbeysbooks on Tue Jan 30, 2007 at 06:31:45 PM PST
and this one, comparing "walls" to institutionalized slaughter:
Yes (5+ / 10-)
Talking about Israel on this site is like talking to neocons about Bush. They just can't see.
Is Israel building walls around the Palestinians? Are Palestinians herded into a smaller and smaller areas? Are Palestinians restricted in their movements? Are their homes and villages taken and destroyed at the whim of Israeli authorities? Are the Palestinians being crushed through brute military force?
Yes, just like the Jews in the Ghetto. And like the polish Jews, the Palestinians resist with the only means they have available.
Yes, there are parallels. Reality and truth is important even though Neocons and our own Israeli defenders claim their own reality.
by Jagger on Tue Jan 30, 2007 at 04:04:48 PM PST
Let's move on to some other diaries, and see what kind of comments we find. Here's one little horror entitled Holocaust Hucksterism.
here is one of the comments that delight brought to us:
There's no business like (1+ / 3-)
Shoah business and the Likudnik-nudniks know this all too well.
by Litvak36 on Fri Feb 09, 2007 at 03:42:25 PM PST
what other comments and posters do we find at Daily Kos?
Please forgive Mel Gibson ... (0+ / 6-)
for speaking the truth ... as they say in Canada ... in vino veritas eh!
LIVE FREE OR DIE
by Easterling on Mon Aug 07, 2006 at 10:14:09 PM PST
Jay, I think it is violence per se that is (10+ / 7-)
probably on the rise - I continuously see a hostility in tone, in language, in actions, everywhere; from email, phone, crime statistics in the US, hostility against people of color, there is an upward trend across the board; people continuously do double-takes of us when they see us on our street, driving, in the supermarket, anywhere. I dont take it personally - they don't know me.
A woman on the metro about 3 weeks ago, would not let me sit because she felt I was occupying more space than her, and she felt she was being 'discriminated against' being a 'thinner' person, and therefore consuming less of 'metro's' precious consumable - space - so she stuck her bag between her and me and pushed against me for more than half the journey, until I thought it was ridiculously childish and got up and walked away to the center aisle.
I thought that was an isolated incident, until last week, a similar thing happened, with a woman refusing to yield an empty seat in a crowded train, to a 2nd woman, instead using the empty space to rest her bag, as she was 'first' in the crowded train - this is in DC, the 'capital of the western world' in a country with an annual budget of $2.9 trillion!!
I have ridden trains in India with people hanging from open compartments and still stretching out their hand to help push a straggler through much like the New York construction worker who put his life on the line to save an ill man on the subway..the difference being that in India it used to be the norm, in NYC, it was lauded as the exception.
I'm not trying to generalize, I think both the women concerned, had some borderline mental issues.
My point is that aggressiveness, self-centeredness, and fear of the "Other" or xenophobia is rising in general, and they are also mental issues.
You must not feed upon the paranoia that jews and only jews feel pain, feel hurt, feel excluded, and are continually victims, in a world where jewish dominance and strength and political power spanning across continents and oceans has been enough to drive this $2.9 trillion economy into a one-sided war that has totally battered and militarily exterminated the people, culture, and economies of 2 countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, whose combined land mass is probably at least a third as large as the US!
So please lend some balance to your campaign to save jewish humanity, and only jewish humanity, and the rest of the world be damned. I yearn to hear the cry come out that a human is in pain, and not hear a reference to color, ethnicity, bank balance, religious, political, gender or other affiliation of the victim - I think only then can we say we have turned away from the brink - until then we are all doomed, my friend!!!!
by LibertyGuard on Mon Feb 05, 2007 at 07:38:10 PM PST
here's once conflating Jew with Israel:
by no credible metric (1+ / 6-)
are jews the net victims today. jews are the net oppressors, not the victims. israel is at "war" today because of the resistance of the world to israel's forcible occupation of the west bank and gaza anbd israel's inhumane and brutal treatment of the 4 million or so palestinians living under occupation.
i have no sympathies whatsoever for a barbarian who feels misunderstood.
by BlueMe on Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 04:16:29 AM PST
Just as an aside, let me give you an example of something I do NOT think is anti-semitic, but just anti-Israel, even if I personally find it stupid and disgusting:
No Israel = Peace in the Middle East (0+ / 14-)
There will be no peace in the Middle East until there is no longer a group of terrorists called "israeli's" in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and surrounding cities. The United States continues to push billions of dollars at our "friends" in israel who have yet to do one god damned thing for the United States except generate votes. I personally support the President of Iran in his condemnation of Israel. I also believe that the only "roadmap" to peace in the Middle East is one that has roads running through Palestine with no mention of Israel anywhere in the neighborhood. If only it could come true. Fuck Israel.
"I think I may need a bathroom break. Is this possible?" - Love note from Dumbya to Condi
by Curlew on Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 04:24:43 AM PST
and now, back to our show.
We even had a diary claiming anti-Semitism doesn't really exist, 'it just means not pro-Jewish enough." This particular horror story was a reiteration of Henry Ford's lies about Jewish "exceptionalism," found in his "The International Jew." Ford wrote about it:
Jewish intolerance today, yesterday and in every age of history where Jews were able to exert influence or power, is indisputable except among people who do not know the record. Jewish intolerance in the past is a matter of history; for the future it is a matter of Jewish prophecy. One of the strongest causes militating against the full Americanization of several millions of Jews in this country is their belief - instilled in them by their religious authorities - that they are "chosen," that this land is theirs, that the inhabitants are idolators, that the day is coming when the Jews will be supreme.
Ford also seemed to agree with diarist on the non-existence of anti-Semitism, saying
There is no such thing as anti-Semitism. There is only a very little and a very mild anti-Jewism.
Ford, of course, was really just rewriting The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which had this to say about Jews:
In this divergence between the Gentiles and ourselves in ability to think and reason is to be seen clearly the seal of our election as the chosen people, as higher human beings, in contrast with the Gentiles who have merely instinctive and animal minds. They observe, but they do not foresee, and they invent nothing (except perhaps material things). It is clear from this that nature herself predestined us to rule and guide the world.
and that diary was recommended, uprated, and even described as "brilliant" by one person:
Brilliant Diary (3+ / 0-)
Well said and right on.
by Near Vanna on Wed Feb 07, 2007 at 09:25:10 AM PST
I'm going to bed too (4+ / 7-)
I can't believe so many people praise Elie Wiesel so.
He can write well. So.
"Good article," writes another. "Just what I suspected. Whenever that old Holocaust Knight of Sad Countenance, Elie Weisel, starts tilting at the old genocide windmill, crying ‘Never again!’ I get suspicious."
a stupid prof
Let's see. He is against the Sudan government. So are the neocons (they want China out so they can get their greedy hands on the oil). He is against Iran. So are the neocons (they want the mullahs out so they can get their greedy hands on the oil). So far, I'm not impressed. Why is he sitting idly by while Saudi Arabia oppresses its people? The Saudi media is spinning the Sunni-Shi'ite hatred that will continue to kill for years to come. Where is he on that? They Saudis are funding the Sunnis the Iraq who are doing the majority of the killing. Neither the Nobel Prize winning (FOR WRITING, NOT FOR PEACEMAKING) Elie Wiesel or our adminstration says squat. Let's bomb Iran.
He thinks forcing everyone to look at the Holocaust (the Jews killed, not the gays, the union workers, etc.) will solve the world's problems? Now to that, I call bullshit. He is an arrogant individual.
I went to school in an all white small town. Since there were no tribes, races, religions, to distinguish us whiteys, I was picked on for being skinny. Thrown against lockers, beat up, picked on, on a daily basis. That is, until the Mexicans showed up. Finally, I had some friends. We got picked on together...
Humans are evil. And Jews don't have a corner on the who got killed market. And this is one of my two complaints about Mr. Wiesel. One, he focuses on the Jewish side. Two, he gets in front of popular struggles. How brave.
Give me Mel Brooks any day. (Just watched Blazing Saddles the other night. Mel Brooks as the Jewish Indian..."Oy vay! They darker than us!" Great movie.)
Or Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart stands up to the assholes leading the our country into moral decay. He doesn't give them cover, he exposes them.
by mickT on Mon Feb 12, 2007 at 08:31:53 PM PST
So why am I writing this? Just to document the atrocities? No. I'm writing this because it is getting out of hand. Somehow, somewhere, Daily Kos because COMFORTABLE to these people, because a place this kind of outright hate, the kind of thing one might find on a neo-nazi website, became okay, even getting recommends. These people should have all been troll rating into oblivion in perpetuity. Why?
Let me tell you why. Because Daily Kos exists to get Democrats elected. And Jews are a big part of that equation. And every time one of these bits of filth writes with approval, or anything less than our complete disdain, they hurt that cause. These diaries and comments pop up on the right-wing sites, and you are just kidding yourself if think that can't come back to haunt us. So, final observation.
STOP IT! JUST STOP IT! ENOUGH ALREADY! YOU ARE HURTING PEOPLE HERE, AND YOU ARE HURTING THE PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG. TO THOSE WHO CLAIM ANTI-SEMITISM DOESN'T EXIST HERE, OPEN YOU'RE DAMNED EYES. AND IF YOU ARE ONE OF THE PEOPLE QUOTED ABOVE AND YOU STILL DON'T GET IT, JUST GO AWAY. YOU ARE EVIL, AND YOU ARE PERPETUATING EVIL THROUGH YOUR HATRED.