Living conditions for Jews in Europe are obviously a touchy subject that arouse some defensiveness on the part of European leaders. They do not appreciate hearing Israeli officials like Natan Sharansky say that the Jews have no future in Europe and should emigrate. But this is part of an emerging theme that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing everything he can to encourage.
He’s getting support for amateurs, too, like this guy who decided to walk around Paris and its suburbs in identifiably Jewish dress and film the reactions he received. As you might imagine, some people in the Arab neighborhoods were confused by his presence and others were outright hostile. I guess if you go looking for intolerance and hatred, it’s not that hard to find, but this hardly proves that all French Jews need to be on a plane for Tel Aviv by tomorrow noon.
“I can’t allow things to be said in Israel that would lead one to think that Jews have no place in Europe and particularly France,” French President Francois Hollande said near Paris after vandals damaged about 300 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in northeastern France.
“The fact that you’re in an election campaign doesn’t mean you can just make any statement,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Monday. “The place for French Jews is France.”
I’m not an expert on Israeli politics, by any means, but Netanyahu’s campaign has irritated Western leaders to such a degree that there is going to be lasting fallout for Israel’s relationships with their best and most powerful allies. And the Israeli right’s policies were already making it increasingly painful for popularly elected European officials to remain allied with them before Netanyahu decided to attack Europe as anti-Semitic and uninhabitable for Jews. It was painful enough before Netanyahu nakedly tried to destroy the Iranian nuclear negotiations, to which the U.K., France, and Germany are parties.
You have to wonder, at what cost is Bibi willing to secure his position?
You have to wonder, at what cost is Bibi willing to secure his position?
Anything? After all, have we cut off Israel’s aid? Have we stopped vetoing any UN resolution condemning them for their blockade of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank?
Yes. I’ve seen some stuff in Haaretz to the effect of the US is now limiting what it shares with Israel regarding Iranian negotiations. But is this an actual rift, or could it even be leaks from opposition political parties (such as Livni) to hurt Netanyahu?
Until I see actual repercussions, I’ll brush this off as more good cop/bad cop bullshit.
After all, it’s not like Israeli/US relations haven’t been in a bit of a tiff in the past…and things always “got better” such as it was:
Six times that U.S.-Israel ties hit rock bottom
Until this rogue state is cut off, it’s business as usual.
The Iron Law of Institutions predicts that.
The great irony is that prior Israeli actions had a large role in putting innocent Jews such as myself in a precarious position.
Bibi’s ego is beginning to remind me of the blustering rants the old championship wrestling performers from 50s – 60s redneck entertainment used to work up the rubes.
Jews killing their own kind and blaming “anti-semitics” to advance the invasion and occupation of Palestine is not without precedence. It’s right there in The Book.
By deception shalt thou practice the art of war.
By definition, they are all semites: Arab, Aramenian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Ethiopean, Persian, Phoenician and Turk as well as Jews.
I’m against them all.
WTF do you mean that you are “against” all semites?
Your crossing a line here, Ten Bears.
Consider this a warning.
While I like amusingly pointing out that Arabs are in fact Semites, Turks and Ethiopeans are not… and Persians are fucking Aryan.
Also wtf? What human group wouldn’t employ subterfuge to advance their causes? Total nonsense here.
While many Ethiopians are Cushites (like the Somalis and Oromo) or Omotic, about 40% speak at least twelve different Semitic languages (such as Amharic, Tigrinya, Gurage, etc.) as their first languages. Even more speak Semitic languages as second languages (Amharic is the official language of the country). In this sense, at least a large minority of Ethiopians actually are Semites.
Huh, I thought it was closer to 20%. Really interesting, thanks for the tip.
If the books the Bible, Koran, Torah and Cabella are of Any value at all it is as documentation of one group of people, the semites – by definition “One of a people of Caucasion stock, now represented by Jews and Arabs but originally including ancient Babylonians, Akkadian, Assyrian (Persian), Armenians and Phoenicians, whose languages include Akkadian, Arabic, Aramic, Amharic, Ehthiopic, Hebrew and Phoenician – six thousand year refusal to get along with each other.
Like I give a shit about your blog.
You know, the kind of people who enjoy keeping track of who’s a semite and who’s not, and get excited about the prophecies in thousand year old books are exactly the people who tend to make places like the middle east such a hole.
in addition to crossing a line, what you write is nonsense:
Persians, Turks, Armenians are not Semites.
Netanyahu’s Cossack-inspired election slogan: ‘Smite the leftists and save Israel!’
Somehow, leftist and secular Jews aren’t welcome in Netanyahu’s Israel. In fact, 40 percent of Israelis are thinking of emigrating. Does anyone ever mention THAT fact when Netanyahu drums up his frankly antisemitic rhetoric? Jews and everyone else should be able to feel safe wherever they are.
Perhaps that is why he is working so hard to win some immigrants from places like Europe.
Though from my view, as a non-Jew/atheist, a Jew going from Europe to the Middle East would be like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire (Brooklyn is where you’d want to go).
It also makes no sense, as Rabbi Michael Melchior says:
“We have a prime minister who says Israel is about to come under an attack of terrible dimensions, and at the same time says that everyone should run away from there to come here. I don’t even want to go into this way of thinking.”
It could start a feedback loop, though. More RW/ultra-orthodox head to Israel, secular and leftist/liberal Jews leave, rinse, repeat.
It seems very true, this feedback. Israel is becoming more and more a nation that does not really share the values of a liberal secular nation, like the United States. The fact that Bibi is all in with the GOP/Christian Nation crew really attests to the total break away from a liberal society.
As the Christian Nation demographic in America shrinks (as most predict) and Israel continues to evolve towards a racist/messianistic state (who will stop it?) that won’t be recognizable to American Jews, there should be a very loud breakup between the two nations.
But a majority of the ultra-Orthodox don’t work at productive jobs or serve in the armed forces, do they? They dedicate their lives to studying religious texts and living off government handouts, don’t they?
That being so, if secularist Israelis increasingly say the hell with it and leave the country in droves, who’s going to support the economy the ultra-Orthodox leach off of? Who’s going to serve in the armed forces and defend them and their yeshivas?
This could become a death spiral.
Precisely.
I don’t know about the economy, but I read that right-wing settlers are enlisting in the army and are heavily represented in the junior leadership — which will become the senior leadership in 20 years. It makes sense when you consider that the settlers depend on the army more than other Israeli Jews do.
Yep. I grew up in Brooklyn. Many of my Jewish friend moved to Israel in the 70’s. They stayed 5 of 6 years and then moved back to Brooklyn….they are still in Brooklyn.
Israel, under Bibi’s leadership, is losing her story. She is led by a man who believes the messenger, not the story, is the priority. He is not the face of Israel, he would do well to be reminded of that.
Bibi is a ‘Fighter’. Fighting is what he knows. And fighting is all he will ever do.
It seems to me that he keeps losing the fights he picks. But for some reason, when it’s election time people love those ‘Fighters’. A sad comment on humanity.
Actually Sharansky said they need to be careful not to ally with anti-Jewish forces to get more people to immigrate according to TPM.
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Israel-must-balance-encouraging-French-aliya-with-not-wanting-to-be-se
en-as-dancing-on-blood-387369
Natan Sharansky? Wasn’t he one of the original PNACers, along with the Jebster?
When European (and American) governments embarked on this great experiment in diversity, they only did half the work. Sure, they allowed in plenty of immigrants from all over the world, but they never created a society capable of absorbing them or assimilating large numbers of them. It seems like everyone just sort of expected that all would get along famously and that would be that. Now that its clear such policies have been a complete and utter failure, it is no wonder that some are thinking about picking up and moving. In America we called it White Flight.
I really don’t know why we all insist on implementing these policies when it is perfectly clear that most people really don’t like each other… and they like people from other cultures even less. There is a certain willful ignorance associated with the idea that all humanity can live together in peace and harmony… that people will be respected for their character (assuming they have good character) without regard for their political or religious beliefs.
Martin Luther King’s Dream is still pretty far off when it comes to racial and religious tolerance. I’m not so sure anymore it can be forced upon people without a whole lot of push back and occasional violence.
Very much an overly individualistic way of looking at it. A functioning diverse society isn’t based on ppl liking each other, it’s based on laws that protect its citizenry
And yet Bibi is only re-stating the fundamental reason for historic Zionism, from the beginning.
Jews anywhere in the diaspora but mostly in Europe felt like vulnerable outsiders and the conviction rose and spread that they needed their own modern nation-state to make them safe both there and in the diaspora, but mostly there.
The Russian pogroms were the best support for that argument until WWII, and then the best support came from the Holocaust.
Zionism relies on the belief that the Jews are safer in Palestine (historic Israel) than anywhere else, and safer elsewhere because modern Israel exists.
Both beliefs are false.
Jews are safer in the US than anywhere and arguably safer in Europe than in modern Israel.
But falsehood never hurt any popular belief.