This is the same idiocy that leads to people thinking that voting for trump would be good because it will hasten the downfall of the United States and be reborn like some phoenix rising from the ashes that will give us all puppies and starships.
I hate that anyone listens to her. Of course, I can say that about any number of people at the ends of the horseshoe. I'm sure she'll now go on Joe Rogan and cry about being cancelled.
Nov 28, 2023·edited Nov 28, 2023Liked by The Opinionated Ogre
Hey, Justin, I grew up in a lower-middle class majority Italian neighborhood in Queens! We should have lunch sometime.
Your story about trading (somewhat bigoted) insults with your peers back in your early days (as did I), and your revelations after watching “Porky’s” reminded me of this story:
It was 1962, I was 12, I was just leaving my junior high school and waiting for the bus. Now, I don’t know if I bumped into this girl, or stepped on her foot, or whatever, but she turned to me and spat out “You Jew bastard“. That was the first time I had ever heard anybody say that, or anything like it, to me. Being ridiculously naïve about such things, the thought that went through my mind was “How did she know I was Jewish?”. (Ironically enough, the junior high school that we both went to was named after Benjamin Cardozo, one of the earliest Jewish Supreme Court justices.) I truly appreciate the perspective you and Ben have brought to this issue. 🤔😉😊
Hah! As you can tell from my profile pic, I do not look Jewish in the slightest. The first and only time someone called me a "Jew bastard" was in my 30s and I was stunned that he knew. I wondered the exact same thing: "How did he know?!" 🤣🤣🤣
"including those like myself who do not support Israel’s barbarous actions" - just be aware that you're only a couple shades less ridiculous with that blanket statements about 7 million Jews. Barbarous is what Hamas has done. Sarandon is indeed scum, but progressives who blame Israel for "war crimes" and tout a performative "ceasefire now", yet offer no alternatives for Israel regarding what happens with Hamas aren't really moral, ethical, or sane. Your hyperbole is disingenuous and shows a hate for the biggest group of Jews in the world.
Yeah, but many of their causes they championed do not address real problems facing underprivileged persons, much of what the alt left focuses on are second or even third-tier issues. For example:
Only about 3% of black homicide victims are killed by police, yet the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement focused on police killings as its target for reform.
But it is the 3% that are being *killed* (as opposed to dying of disease). Curing a disease is difficult, not pulling a trigger on an unarmed person or kneeling on their neck should be easy, IF attention is brought to it.
What disease are you talking about? I was talking about homicides also know as murders. Ben was murdered because he looked like the guy the shooter intended victim. Had Ben been white he'd still be alive because the shooter was obviously looking for a black dude. Simply being black in certain neighborhoods puts you at risk of death and there is nothing you can do about it. That's a way bigger problem than police shootings.
BLM is an awful commie popular front group that openly supports the worst police violence in the entire fucking world as long as it's conducted by enemies of the West. That is when they're not busy supporting violence generally, particularly when conducted upon Jews.
The only thing they should focus on is their own dissolution.
I know, right? I mean, those darkies saying they shouldn’t get executed by cops after all we’ve done for them. Just a bunch of ungrateful ingrates, aren’t they?
Extrajudicial killings happen frequently in America because we have a lot of guns and a lot of violent crime. But we don't commit them at unusually high rates for our amount of violent crime. Rates are much higher per capita in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and so much higher in Venezuela's case that they actually have more in raw numbers as well as more per population percentage, and the BLM Founding Mothers couldn't hop on Maduro's dick fast enough. Even though the extrajudicial killings in Venezuela are over either picayune shit like petty theft, or just the government murdering the pueblo into sufficient enough submission, as opposed to the US, where it's overwhelmingly more likely to actually be a legitimate use of lethal force against serious criminals.
BLM isn't anti-police brutality. They're just pro-crime and anti-West. They should be treated exactly the same as the CPUSA.
Where was the outrage from sarandon when over 400,000 Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistani civilians were killed during our two pronged war after 9-11? Can you imagine if Israel had fought those wars. There was outrage for our young soldiers coming home in body bags from Vietnam. But none for the one million plus Vietnamese civilians killed in that incursion. If Israel had fought the war instead of us you better believe the world would have reacted far differently. Imagine if Israel had dropped two bombs in six days that killed a quarter of million people. That said, I abhor netanyahu and his policy. But like the author of this article said, it's 99 percent antisemitism and one percent caring for the Palestinians.
There was plenty of protests on behalf of the civilians we killed in Iraq and Afghanistan but nothing with this level of vitirol.
Additionally, I'll point out that the alt-left cried bloody tears over -Obama's- use of drones but went quiet during the Trump years. Trump, who vastly increased the use of drones and killed FAR more civilians with them. Then, when Biden was in office, the alt-left suddenly remembered how much they opposed drone warfare and went back to throwing temper tantrums. They got very sulky and pouty when Biden stopped all of that, which is alledgedly what they wanted. But, really, they just wanted to attack Democrats.
They're doing exactly the same thing right now with Palestine. They're screaming and crying for a ceasefire WHILE Biden has one in place and is trying to make it permanent.
It's all nonsense and they don't care at all about Palestine. They're weaponizing it for political use and to unleash their insane hatred of Jews.
Nov 28, 2023·edited Nov 28, 2023Liked by The Opinionated Ogre
Is “alt-left” the best way to describe that cohort? Further evidence that the “left-right” spectrum is deeply fallacious. Libertarians (back when that word didn’t mean “insane neo-fascist”) recognized this, and they added a second dimension. But two dimensions are still not adequate.🤔😉😊
Palestinians lynched Jews in 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-1939, decades before the state of Israel, a hundred years before October 7th. When the Palestinians where the majority they lynched and committed pogroms on Jews. Any territory conquered by Palestinians and Arab armies in 1947-1949 was ethnically cleansed of all Jews.
That doesn't count because...reasons. Although I have to say, while it doesn't justify what Israel is doing today, it certainly is fascinating that we have completely erased that history from the conversation. Unless it's from a Nazi, evil towards Jews just doesn't seem to exist. Weird.
Honestly, I don't know. They HAVE to do something. They have to. But carpet bombing the the north after telling civilians to evacuate south and then attacking the south when the civilians have no place left after cutting off food, water, and electricity isn't it.
There has to be a path between letting Hamas live (Hamas has to go) and all-but guaranteeing maximum civilian causalities the way Hamas wants.
It's nothing to do with overshadowing. The far left has always supported violence against Jews. And their racism is systemic. They hate any group that overachieves from their percentage of the population, and with the Ashkenazim having average IQs a standard deviation higher than the average European, the logic of the left decrees they must always be victimized.
For even more perspective and even putting in perspective that maybe we can emerge from this latest period of anti-Jewish, anti- immigrant, pro-Nazi, pro-White Supremacy, Pro-"America First" outrages, start with Rachel Maddow's latest book, Prequel.
Good column except disagree about Israeli ‘barbarity’ or whatever he called it. That’s your American western privilege talking. Israel is in a war it never wanted and had an enemy that embeds with civilians and I honestly don’t know what a civilian is in Gaza. Sorry but it’s true. And the death counts? Realize that every single NGO in Gaza is in bed with Hamas. They have to be. Hamas is a totalitarian Islamic regime that lies constantly.
Israel's far-right government is guilty of serious and horrific crimes. Don't sugarcoat it just because Hamas are also monsters. There are no heroes here.
Not for nothing, the government actually admitted they were doing this so please, tell me more about how it's not true because something something "anti-Israel bias."
Ah. You see, the problem with using this particular tactic, attacking the source as "biased," is that when the story has been -widely- reported and confirmed, you leave yourself open for embarassment. Now you'll have to move the goal posts which makes you look foolish and shows you are not arguing in good faith.
I don’t think it’s fair to call Israel’s current government - which includes Benny Ganz’s National Unity Party - “far right”. The previous government, yes - definitely. But now there are at least some adults in the room and you should acknowledge that and stop looking in the rear view mirror.
"Slightly less far-right?" Until they prove otherwise, as long as Netanyahu is at the head of the government and they're still trying to gut the judiciary, it's a far-right government.
Yeah, that's not how that works. Bibi -is- still PM and his government -is- still trying to end judicial independence. When the Israeli government stops sprinting towards authoritarianism, I'll stop calling them far-right.
I'm sorry but last I checked Bibi is still the PM and in power. Bibi and his version of far right are every negative thing you could say about them. Including the parts where in the past he propped up Hamas to score political points. The argument Bibi IS totally responsible for 10/7/23 is NOT farfetched or tin foil hat conspiracy. AND he is STILL in power. If i was going to make a (flawed) historical comparison it would not be ridiculous to compare Hamas to the Nazis and Bibi to Stalin. Both evil and both bad for their own people in different ways.
You are deluded. I blame Bibi for a lot. But Stalin? Really? It’s just bizarre. Israel is divided like the US is about Trump. It’s not great but it’s not Stalin. Bibi doesn’t make people taste his food that’s a minor example.
I’ll start by saying I am white but have never known this white privilege I hear of. I wish. I was dirt poor, ragged shoes, beans every day, the whole bit. I hate that stereo typing of all white people when it’s not true and it’s as bad as any other. That said, I only know Sarandon through her movies as I’m not one to give a flying blank about celebs and I would’ve thought her to be an intelligent woman but you can’t know people through their acting roles.
In the countless books I’ve read, not only about the holocaust but going much further back-The persecution of Jews goes back over 2,000 years, back in the dark ages 900 Jews were burned alive during the plague that killed a third of the population of Europe as they were accused of poisoning wells, when as many Jews died of this plague as Christian’s, an untold number of Jewish communities were destroyed, Jews murdered and burned out of their homes anyway being the scapegoat as always. It’s surprising they survived the thousands of pogroms and constant persecution from being blamed for any mishaps. Jews in Europe lived mostly in ghettos, in their own communities to survive and they had to be smart, they had to be needed as in finance for one when Christian’s weren’t allowed to loan money at interest it was Jews that businesses went to for loans so of course they became adept in banking-they had to-but it wasn’t always enough to keep them safe. This is why when Hitler imposed laws against Jews and had them herded into ghettos way before WWII it didn’t raise alarm as it would today, or I hope it would today. And it’s no wonder that sentiment came to “the new world” with European immigrants. There’s just so much and so much terror in their history it’s impossible to list even a drop of it but I don’t see how the currant war, the reaction to Hamas terrorist can be understood by those who don’t know. The Zionist movement began by students but spurred on by the Dreyfus affair in 1890 France, what was supposed to be the most enlightened and Jewish friendly country revealed the undercurrent of antisemitism.
Belief in an ultimately positive outcome and restoration to them of the Land of Israel gave them hope of a lasting home, a state of their own, but since its statehood in 1948 they still haven’t had peace and their motto “never again” means never again, and if the ignorant people of the world don’t understand just how far they’ll go to keep their promised land safe then they have a hell of a lot of reading to catch up on. I did it over years and years of interest in their plight, I would hate it if I had to catch up at this late date.
They look at the war and see the death of innocents, I see it too, but they can’t see the bigger picture, what started this bloody deadly war, and they can but won’t see Hamas as cowards who came in like the snakes they are, killed, cut heads off babies, kidnapped 200 innocent people and ran back into the Palestinian population to hide like the cowards they are. Hamas knew damn well what Israel’s reaction would be but I hear NONE of these protestors shouting about their evil. Hanas could stop the war right now by giving up but they’re cowards, cowards funded by a country that years ago announced that the state of Israel should not exist.
Since the late 60’s I watched this even back when Walter Cronkite was the CBS News anchor, we could only get CBS. It’s damn sad that it’s still going on-that they still aren’t left alone, still no peace agreement since Carter and Sadat and Sadat was murdered for being human and sensible.
This is all cool, but neglects to actually get the opinion of a single Israeli. "Have never known peace?" yeah! I was cowering from bombs the entire time I grew up in Israel. I must have missed something. So here's the thing - when I came to the US for college, I was shocked reading that tiny San Francisco had 95 murders. Every Israeli I know, when they visit the US, are wary of the insane crime stats of American cities. I have to tell them that you don't really notice those when you live here, unless you're in a poor neighborhood and/or involved in the drug trade. Similarly, I have never seen any criminal violence in Israel, nor terrorism, other than limited violence during my army service. I came here when I was 24, so I had plenty of years to have the full Israeli experience.
In Israel most people, other than running to the bomb shelter every few years due to Hamas rockets shot indiscriminately at Israeli civilians, live in a less violent country than the US. Do you fear for your life, do you not "know peace"? This claim is absurd.
Israel is also a country where you grow up without the gross background antisemitism that Justin wrote about. It is a Jewish majority country, and you simply don't experience statements like "you guys are really good at money" (told while living in Australia) or "I don't think your rabbi would approve of that hot dog" (told by a stranger at the movie theater concession stand) or "you're barbarians" (read in an article that wildly attempts to create a false equivalence between fucking Hamas and the Jewish state Israel). I definitely was never threatened with physical violence for being Jewish until I came to the US (hilarious, I was after military service and couldn't give a shit). I was never shouted at antisemitic things by classmates like in section at university here. So Zionism actually provided exactly what it set out to do - an escape from virulently antisemitic Europe and the Arab World, to a country where Jews don't fear constant discrimination and ostracizing and violence. Yes, there's terrorism, and it's still safer to be a Jew in Israel than in many European cities. I can walk around however I want in an Israeli city and not be assaulted - try to pull that off in New York City these days.
Seriously, WTF is wrong with you Jewish progressives that you can opine so strongly about something you have limited knowledge about, and likely little to no personal experience with.
I feel you. I’ve been in the Bay Area or adjacent most of my years in the US, with some Easy Coast and Australia interruptions. My main point is the US in reality is safe, and Israel felt extremely peaceful with intense short periods of interruptions. This specific moment is off the scales, which is also why both Jews and Israelis are especially sensitive, I think, to the stupid responses of progressives and offensive ones of far Left kooks.
I didn’t experience crime until I moved to California, lots of theft, more than I’ve ever known. I’m in north San Jose, not at all a poor neighborhood but thieves come up here as gangs in a van, jump out while a driver waits and within flllllł
I don’t personally have Jewish friends or any friends, I never claimed to know what it’s like to be Jewish. I said I’ve read a lot of Jewish history during their time in Europe that most people I think wouldn’t know. Hmm that’s about it. Gotta run now.
See, the benefit of having grandparents that escapes Polish antisemitism in the early 1920s and grandparents that escaped German antisemitism in early and very last moment of 1930s to British Mandate Palestine, is that I know several such people very personally.
Someone posted an article about the hatred and fear American Jewish college students are experiencing, and so many of the comments were saying things like “I wonder why,” “perhaps it is b/c they are killing thousands of innocent babies,” etc. As if college kids a world away bear the onus of the entire Israeli government.
If ppl treated brown, Palestinian immigrants in the U.S badly or attacked their family-run store and claimed it’s b/c of Hamas, pro-Israel and pro-Palestine groups would both agree that that was unfair, racist, and xenophobic. They’d be cancelled immediately. Why is it so hard for ppl to see it the other way around?
They think they are social justice warriors, but they only stand up for the groups that are “popular,” if you will. Transphobia, racism, homophobia....they are all about it, but so is everyone else, other than fringe groups no one cares about. Jews are actually getting hate all over the place and they are silent. I call bullshit on their other “causes,” then, b/c you care about human beings or you don’t.
It is unfortunate that it has come to this, but these toxic radical left memes need to be purged from society. The dangerous anti-Jewish hate they have generated will hopefully speed the process once the war ends through the consequences it will have on those who espoused it. They will serve as examples to others to help speed their recovery from the abyss they fell into.
Susan Sarandon is real and a bona fide bigot prancing around fancying that she is good and wise. But “Judy Burnette” is a troll. Her “comment” may be AI-generated; she nay be a bot. Perhaps she has Russian connections. Her “comments” are intended to divide, wound, polarize and dishearten...to “heighten the contradictions.” So keep in mind that Judy Burnette is not real. Anti-semitism is the ur-hatred, a centuries old cultural construct that can be activated quickly and unthinkingly by angry, hate-filled people...some of whom are psychopaths and narcissists. For them, anti-semitism is a way to gain power. But other times, it is just a knee jerk response, a little inculcated bombshell that the ignorant lob when angry. They don’t even know what the words signify. So, faced with an anti-semitic comment one has to clarify whether the statement is malicious (seeking to gain power by heightening the contradictions, etc) ...eg, Sarandon...or just stupid parroting of racial slurs. Why does Susan Sarandon want to gain power...I would guess she is a narcissist.
This article would be even better if the hyperbolic vitriol toward anyone on the right was judiciously curtailed. Just so as not to obscure the meaning. Call out evil as evil but realize that people you politically oppose are often people you know little about except thumbnail sketches about them written by their fiercest detractors. If they have done evil, don’t obscure it. But a different letter after their name ought not be carte blanche to paint someone as morally deficient.
A decade ago, I would have agreed with you. But the party has been taken over by literal fascists who openly preach violence and white nationalism while openly bragging about their plans to end democracy. If you are still voting Republican, you are explicitly endorsing that. That makes you an evil person. There's really no way around it.
You don't get to say, "I really don't like the fascist white nationalism but I'm a single-issue voter on abortion/guns/taxes/etc." We are way past that.
This is the same idiocy that leads to people thinking that voting for trump would be good because it will hasten the downfall of the United States and be reborn like some phoenix rising from the ashes that will give us all puppies and starships.
I hate that anyone listens to her. Of course, I can say that about any number of people at the ends of the horseshoe. I'm sure she'll now go on Joe Rogan and cry about being cancelled.
A brilliant synopsis, Mr. Rosario. Thank you for your good work here to explain it all again. Sigh - when will we actually learn from history...
When people actually care to know it.
Hey, Justin, I grew up in a lower-middle class majority Italian neighborhood in Queens! We should have lunch sometime.
Your story about trading (somewhat bigoted) insults with your peers back in your early days (as did I), and your revelations after watching “Porky’s” reminded me of this story:
It was 1962, I was 12, I was just leaving my junior high school and waiting for the bus. Now, I don’t know if I bumped into this girl, or stepped on her foot, or whatever, but she turned to me and spat out “You Jew bastard“. That was the first time I had ever heard anybody say that, or anything like it, to me. Being ridiculously naïve about such things, the thought that went through my mind was “How did she know I was Jewish?”. (Ironically enough, the junior high school that we both went to was named after Benjamin Cardozo, one of the earliest Jewish Supreme Court justices.) I truly appreciate the perspective you and Ben have brought to this issue. 🤔😉😊
Hah! As you can tell from my profile pic, I do not look Jewish in the slightest. The first and only time someone called me a "Jew bastard" was in my 30s and I was stunned that he knew. I wondered the exact same thing: "How did he know?!" 🤣🤣🤣
The conclusion I finally came to was that “Jew bastard” was sort of a generic, all-purpose insult. She didn’t know I was Jewish; she didn’t care.🤔😉😊
I thought about that but it seemed so random!
My sole comfort is that SS is really not a serious person, nor a relevant one.
"including those like myself who do not support Israel’s barbarous actions" - just be aware that you're only a couple shades less ridiculous with that blanket statements about 7 million Jews. Barbarous is what Hamas has done. Sarandon is indeed scum, but progressives who blame Israel for "war crimes" and tout a performative "ceasefire now", yet offer no alternatives for Israel regarding what happens with Hamas aren't really moral, ethical, or sane. Your hyperbole is disingenuous and shows a hate for the biggest group of Jews in the world.
The Return of the Indecent Left:
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-return-of-the-indecent-left?r=1mebvk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“Either way, the alt-left will have done tremendous damage to the causes they claim to champion.”
Will have done? No. Already have done.
Yeah, but many of their causes they championed do not address real problems facing underprivileged persons, much of what the alt left focuses on are second or even third-tier issues. For example:
Only about 3% of black homicide victims are killed by police, yet the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement focused on police killings as its target for reform.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/the-abstract-versus-the-real-in-left
So... police killings of darker people should be ignored? BLM should instead turn their focus to something like heart disease research?
(
No. But if the problem is black people being killed, perhaps a focus on the 97%, rather than the 3% would be in order.
But it is the 3% that are being *killed* (as opposed to dying of disease). Curing a disease is difficult, not pulling a trigger on an unarmed person or kneeling on their neck should be easy, IF attention is brought to it.
What disease are you talking about? I was talking about homicides also know as murders. Ben was murdered because he looked like the guy the shooter intended victim. Had Ben been white he'd still be alive because the shooter was obviously looking for a black dude. Simply being black in certain neighborhoods puts you at risk of death and there is nothing you can do about it. That's a way bigger problem than police shootings.
Heart disease was specifically mentioned. No idea what Ben who was shot you’re talking about.
BLM is an awful commie popular front group that openly supports the worst police violence in the entire fucking world as long as it's conducted by enemies of the West. That is when they're not busy supporting violence generally, particularly when conducted upon Jews.
The only thing they should focus on is their own dissolution.
I know, right? I mean, those darkies saying they shouldn’t get executed by cops after all we’ve done for them. Just a bunch of ungrateful ingrates, aren’t they?
Extrajudicial killings happen frequently in America because we have a lot of guns and a lot of violent crime. But we don't commit them at unusually high rates for our amount of violent crime. Rates are much higher per capita in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and so much higher in Venezuela's case that they actually have more in raw numbers as well as more per population percentage, and the BLM Founding Mothers couldn't hop on Maduro's dick fast enough. Even though the extrajudicial killings in Venezuela are over either picayune shit like petty theft, or just the government murdering the pueblo into sufficient enough submission, as opposed to the US, where it's overwhelmingly more likely to actually be a legitimate use of lethal force against serious criminals.
BLM isn't anti-police brutality. They're just pro-crime and anti-West. They should be treated exactly the same as the CPUSA.
More rambling nonsense.
Where was the outrage from sarandon when over 400,000 Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistani civilians were killed during our two pronged war after 9-11? Can you imagine if Israel had fought those wars. There was outrage for our young soldiers coming home in body bags from Vietnam. But none for the one million plus Vietnamese civilians killed in that incursion. If Israel had fought the war instead of us you better believe the world would have reacted far differently. Imagine if Israel had dropped two bombs in six days that killed a quarter of million people. That said, I abhor netanyahu and his policy. But like the author of this article said, it's 99 percent antisemitism and one percent caring for the Palestinians.
There was plenty of protests on behalf of the civilians we killed in Iraq and Afghanistan but nothing with this level of vitirol.
Additionally, I'll point out that the alt-left cried bloody tears over -Obama's- use of drones but went quiet during the Trump years. Trump, who vastly increased the use of drones and killed FAR more civilians with them. Then, when Biden was in office, the alt-left suddenly remembered how much they opposed drone warfare and went back to throwing temper tantrums. They got very sulky and pouty when Biden stopped all of that, which is alledgedly what they wanted. But, really, they just wanted to attack Democrats.
They're doing exactly the same thing right now with Palestine. They're screaming and crying for a ceasefire WHILE Biden has one in place and is trying to make it permanent.
It's all nonsense and they don't care at all about Palestine. They're weaponizing it for political use and to unleash their insane hatred of Jews.
Is “alt-left” the best way to describe that cohort? Further evidence that the “left-right” spectrum is deeply fallacious. Libertarians (back when that word didn’t mean “insane neo-fascist”) recognized this, and they added a second dimension. But two dimensions are still not adequate.🤔😉😊
How old are you? You never heard of "Hanoi Jane" Fonda?
Regarding Jews who were lynched, look up Leo Frank: https://is.gd/QrREzz 🤔😉😊
Palestinians lynched Jews in 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-1939, decades before the state of Israel, a hundred years before October 7th. When the Palestinians where the majority they lynched and committed pogroms on Jews. Any territory conquered by Palestinians and Arab armies in 1947-1949 was ethnically cleansed of all Jews.
That doesn't count because...reasons. Although I have to say, while it doesn't justify what Israel is doing today, it certainly is fascinating that we have completely erased that history from the conversation. Unless it's from a Nazi, evil towards Jews just doesn't seem to exist. Weird.
So what kind of Israeli response is justified following the rape, torture, murder and kidnapping of civilians, in your opinion?
Honestly, I don't know. They HAVE to do something. They have to. But carpet bombing the the north after telling civilians to evacuate south and then attacking the south when the civilians have no place left after cutting off food, water, and electricity isn't it.
There has to be a path between letting Hamas live (Hamas has to go) and all-but guaranteeing maximum civilian causalities the way Hamas wants.
Perhaps because when you have as obvious and large an example as the Holocaust other examples tend to get overshadowed and forgotten.
It's nothing to do with overshadowing. The far left has always supported violence against Jews. And their racism is systemic. They hate any group that overachieves from their percentage of the population, and with the Ashkenazim having average IQs a standard deviation higher than the average European, the logic of the left decrees they must always be victimized.
😴
Don’t forget the second intifada.
For even more perspective and even putting in perspective that maybe we can emerge from this latest period of anti-Jewish, anti- immigrant, pro-Nazi, pro-White Supremacy, Pro-"America First" outrages, start with Rachel Maddow's latest book, Prequel.
I really do have to read that book.
Just FYI you got me as a new subscriber because of this post (unpaid until I start my new job)
Good column except disagree about Israeli ‘barbarity’ or whatever he called it. That’s your American western privilege talking. Israel is in a war it never wanted and had an enemy that embeds with civilians and I honestly don’t know what a civilian is in Gaza. Sorry but it’s true. And the death counts? Realize that every single NGO in Gaza is in bed with Hamas. They have to be. Hamas is a totalitarian Islamic regime that lies constantly.
Don’t cringe at Jewish Israeli power.
Israel's far-right government is guilty of serious and horrific crimes. Don't sugarcoat it just because Hamas are also monsters. There are no heroes here.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/28/ethiopian-women-given-contraceptives-israel
The Guardian is an anti Israel rag paper. Try harder.
Not for nothing, the government actually admitted they were doing this so please, tell me more about how it's not true because something something "anti-Israel bias."
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2013-01-27/ty-article/.premium/ethiopians-fooled-into-birth-control/0000017f-f512-d044-adff-f7fb92c30000
Ah. You see, the problem with using this particular tactic, attacking the source as "biased," is that when the story has been -widely- reported and confirmed, you leave yourself open for embarassment. Now you'll have to move the goal posts which makes you look foolish and shows you are not arguing in good faith.
For example:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ethiopian-women-claim-israel-forced-them-to-use-birth-control-before-letting-them-immigrate/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseknutsen/2013/01/28/israel-foribly-injected-african-immigrant-women-with-birth-control/?sh=76aeb78467b8
You quote the Guardian. Do you read actual news without a 60 year-long anti Zionist bias? Next you'll be quoting Al Jazeera.
I don’t think it’s fair to call Israel’s current government - which includes Benny Ganz’s National Unity Party - “far right”. The previous government, yes - definitely. But now there are at least some adults in the room and you should acknowledge that and stop looking in the rear view mirror.
"Slightly less far-right?" Until they prove otherwise, as long as Netanyahu is at the head of the government and they're still trying to gut the judiciary, it's a far-right government.
If you are still harping on Bibi who would lose the election by a landslide Israel if it would be held today, you have totally lost the plot.
Yeah, that's not how that works. Bibi -is- still PM and his government -is- still trying to end judicial independence. When the Israeli government stops sprinting towards authoritarianism, I'll stop calling them far-right.
Name one news article since October 7 on how popular Bibi is and how he is trying to change the judicial system in Israel.
I'm sorry but last I checked Bibi is still the PM and in power. Bibi and his version of far right are every negative thing you could say about them. Including the parts where in the past he propped up Hamas to score political points. The argument Bibi IS totally responsible for 10/7/23 is NOT farfetched or tin foil hat conspiracy. AND he is STILL in power. If i was going to make a (flawed) historical comparison it would not be ridiculous to compare Hamas to the Nazis and Bibi to Stalin. Both evil and both bad for their own people in different ways.
You are deluded. I blame Bibi for a lot. But Stalin? Really? It’s just bizarre. Israel is divided like the US is about Trump. It’s not great but it’s not Stalin. Bibi doesn’t make people taste his food that’s a minor example.
I’ll start by saying I am white but have never known this white privilege I hear of. I wish. I was dirt poor, ragged shoes, beans every day, the whole bit. I hate that stereo typing of all white people when it’s not true and it’s as bad as any other. That said, I only know Sarandon through her movies as I’m not one to give a flying blank about celebs and I would’ve thought her to be an intelligent woman but you can’t know people through their acting roles.
In the countless books I’ve read, not only about the holocaust but going much further back-The persecution of Jews goes back over 2,000 years, back in the dark ages 900 Jews were burned alive during the plague that killed a third of the population of Europe as they were accused of poisoning wells, when as many Jews died of this plague as Christian’s, an untold number of Jewish communities were destroyed, Jews murdered and burned out of their homes anyway being the scapegoat as always. It’s surprising they survived the thousands of pogroms and constant persecution from being blamed for any mishaps. Jews in Europe lived mostly in ghettos, in their own communities to survive and they had to be smart, they had to be needed as in finance for one when Christian’s weren’t allowed to loan money at interest it was Jews that businesses went to for loans so of course they became adept in banking-they had to-but it wasn’t always enough to keep them safe. This is why when Hitler imposed laws against Jews and had them herded into ghettos way before WWII it didn’t raise alarm as it would today, or I hope it would today. And it’s no wonder that sentiment came to “the new world” with European immigrants. There’s just so much and so much terror in their history it’s impossible to list even a drop of it but I don’t see how the currant war, the reaction to Hamas terrorist can be understood by those who don’t know. The Zionist movement began by students but spurred on by the Dreyfus affair in 1890 France, what was supposed to be the most enlightened and Jewish friendly country revealed the undercurrent of antisemitism.
Belief in an ultimately positive outcome and restoration to them of the Land of Israel gave them hope of a lasting home, a state of their own, but since its statehood in 1948 they still haven’t had peace and their motto “never again” means never again, and if the ignorant people of the world don’t understand just how far they’ll go to keep their promised land safe then they have a hell of a lot of reading to catch up on. I did it over years and years of interest in their plight, I would hate it if I had to catch up at this late date.
They look at the war and see the death of innocents, I see it too, but they can’t see the bigger picture, what started this bloody deadly war, and they can but won’t see Hamas as cowards who came in like the snakes they are, killed, cut heads off babies, kidnapped 200 innocent people and ran back into the Palestinian population to hide like the cowards they are. Hamas knew damn well what Israel’s reaction would be but I hear NONE of these protestors shouting about their evil. Hanas could stop the war right now by giving up but they’re cowards, cowards funded by a country that years ago announced that the state of Israel should not exist.
Since the late 60’s I watched this even back when Walter Cronkite was the CBS News anchor, we could only get CBS. It’s damn sad that it’s still going on-that they still aren’t left alone, still no peace agreement since Carter and Sadat and Sadat was murdered for being human and sensible.
This is all cool, but neglects to actually get the opinion of a single Israeli. "Have never known peace?" yeah! I was cowering from bombs the entire time I grew up in Israel. I must have missed something. So here's the thing - when I came to the US for college, I was shocked reading that tiny San Francisco had 95 murders. Every Israeli I know, when they visit the US, are wary of the insane crime stats of American cities. I have to tell them that you don't really notice those when you live here, unless you're in a poor neighborhood and/or involved in the drug trade. Similarly, I have never seen any criminal violence in Israel, nor terrorism, other than limited violence during my army service. I came here when I was 24, so I had plenty of years to have the full Israeli experience.
In Israel most people, other than running to the bomb shelter every few years due to Hamas rockets shot indiscriminately at Israeli civilians, live in a less violent country than the US. Do you fear for your life, do you not "know peace"? This claim is absurd.
Israel is also a country where you grow up without the gross background antisemitism that Justin wrote about. It is a Jewish majority country, and you simply don't experience statements like "you guys are really good at money" (told while living in Australia) or "I don't think your rabbi would approve of that hot dog" (told by a stranger at the movie theater concession stand) or "you're barbarians" (read in an article that wildly attempts to create a false equivalence between fucking Hamas and the Jewish state Israel). I definitely was never threatened with physical violence for being Jewish until I came to the US (hilarious, I was after military service and couldn't give a shit). I was never shouted at antisemitic things by classmates like in section at university here. So Zionism actually provided exactly what it set out to do - an escape from virulently antisemitic Europe and the Arab World, to a country where Jews don't fear constant discrimination and ostracizing and violence. Yes, there's terrorism, and it's still safer to be a Jew in Israel than in many European cities. I can walk around however I want in an Israeli city and not be assaulted - try to pull that off in New York City these days.
Seriously, WTF is wrong with you Jewish progressives that you can opine so strongly about something you have limited knowledge about, and likely little to no personal experience with.
Within a few minutes they’re back. I’m only here for my children and grands, otherwise I’d be back home where gas isn’t over $5.00 a gallon. P
I feel you. I’ve been in the Bay Area or adjacent most of my years in the US, with some Easy Coast and Australia interruptions. My main point is the US in reality is safe, and Israel felt extremely peaceful with intense short periods of interruptions. This specific moment is off the scales, which is also why both Jews and Israelis are especially sensitive, I think, to the stupid responses of progressives and offensive ones of far Left kooks.
I didn’t experience crime until I moved to California, lots of theft, more than I’ve ever known. I’m in north San Jose, not at all a poor neighborhood but thieves come up here as gangs in a van, jump out while a driver waits and within flllllł
I don’t personally have Jewish friends or any friends, I never claimed to know what it’s like to be Jewish. I said I’ve read a lot of Jewish history during their time in Europe that most people I think wouldn’t know. Hmm that’s about it. Gotta run now.
See, the benefit of having grandparents that escapes Polish antisemitism in the early 1920s and grandparents that escaped German antisemitism in early and very last moment of 1930s to British Mandate Palestine, is that I know several such people very personally.
Someone posted an article about the hatred and fear American Jewish college students are experiencing, and so many of the comments were saying things like “I wonder why,” “perhaps it is b/c they are killing thousands of innocent babies,” etc. As if college kids a world away bear the onus of the entire Israeli government.
If ppl treated brown, Palestinian immigrants in the U.S badly or attacked their family-run store and claimed it’s b/c of Hamas, pro-Israel and pro-Palestine groups would both agree that that was unfair, racist, and xenophobic. They’d be cancelled immediately. Why is it so hard for ppl to see it the other way around?
They think they are social justice warriors, but they only stand up for the groups that are “popular,” if you will. Transphobia, racism, homophobia....they are all about it, but so is everyone else, other than fringe groups no one cares about. Jews are actually getting hate all over the place and they are silent. I call bullshit on their other “causes,” then, b/c you care about human beings or you don’t.
It’s not actually about equality or being kind - it’s about being able to choose the new out groups.
It is unfortunate that it has come to this, but these toxic radical left memes need to be purged from society. The dangerous anti-Jewish hate they have generated will hopefully speed the process once the war ends through the consequences it will have on those who espoused it. They will serve as examples to others to help speed their recovery from the abyss they fell into.
Susan Sarandon is real and a bona fide bigot prancing around fancying that she is good and wise. But “Judy Burnette” is a troll. Her “comment” may be AI-generated; she nay be a bot. Perhaps she has Russian connections. Her “comments” are intended to divide, wound, polarize and dishearten...to “heighten the contradictions.” So keep in mind that Judy Burnette is not real. Anti-semitism is the ur-hatred, a centuries old cultural construct that can be activated quickly and unthinkingly by angry, hate-filled people...some of whom are psychopaths and narcissists. For them, anti-semitism is a way to gain power. But other times, it is just a knee jerk response, a little inculcated bombshell that the ignorant lob when angry. They don’t even know what the words signify. So, faced with an anti-semitic comment one has to clarify whether the statement is malicious (seeking to gain power by heightening the contradictions, etc) ...eg, Sarandon...or just stupid parroting of racial slurs. Why does Susan Sarandon want to gain power...I would guess she is a narcissist.
This article would be even better if the hyperbolic vitriol toward anyone on the right was judiciously curtailed. Just so as not to obscure the meaning. Call out evil as evil but realize that people you politically oppose are often people you know little about except thumbnail sketches about them written by their fiercest detractors. If they have done evil, don’t obscure it. But a different letter after their name ought not be carte blanche to paint someone as morally deficient.
A decade ago, I would have agreed with you. But the party has been taken over by literal fascists who openly preach violence and white nationalism while openly bragging about their plans to end democracy. If you are still voting Republican, you are explicitly endorsing that. That makes you an evil person. There's really no way around it.
You don't get to say, "I really don't like the fascist white nationalism but I'm a single-issue voter on abortion/guns/taxes/etc." We are way past that.