Israel, Nazis, Gaza, and Dehumanization

One of you sent this off to a radio station and raised several very good issues with it.  I am posting it in order to share it with a wider audience (since I'm pretty sure that this guy Mike is unlikely to give it wider circulation).  One of the more interesting aspects of this entire discussion, and it is not given much attention, is how "people" are ignored.  Once you can label people who hold a certain belief, or indeed are of a different extraction, some groupthink term such as "terrorists," "rebels," "Nazis," and "Communists," you no longer need to deal with the fact that people are involved.  This was very much in force during Vietnam when would hear announcements that 45,000 "Communists" were killed.  Or Viet Cong.  Now, we use the term "terrorists" to describe anyone who thinks differently than we do, and forget about our official definition of the term. 

I personally get tired of how people throw terms around until they are meaningless.  Genocide is another such term.  We can find a legal definition of the term:

a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

This does not constitution the sort of actions we ascribe to certain leaders of certain countries to justify invasion (which we call "intervention").

Anyway, here is the letter:

*   I'm sorry Xxxxx, but you and Justice Goldstone are dancing all around the outrageous war against Gaza with 1400 people killed.  Not only that, but decades of brutal terrible treatment by Israel of Palestinians and theft of their land.

    How can these notoriously infamous crimes be discussed so blandly?

    To me it's like looking back at the Warsaw Ghetto and trying to find a reasonable middle ground between the 'two sides' of Nazis and Jews.

  ********************************

  I know that's extreme and insulting to the unconditionally supported government of Israel, but I am sick and tired of coddling a country, Israel, that uses such excessive force and has world wide condemnation.

o

Alan Watts, the un-rutted Sausalito houseboat philosopher once in our midst opined that Nazis got the 'chosen race' idea from the Jews. I suppose behind every tribe or nation lurks a sense of having been specially singled out and chosen. I'm sure Joseph Campbell would say so. Campbell was accused of anti-Semitism at least partly because he felt Jews hadn't been able to let go of their 'we're special' tribally inspired mythology, as other more cosmopolitan or 'evolved' groups had done.  It seems strange that Hegel's prediction

 that Judaism would vanish through natural evolution didn't come true. Religions don't disappear, become outmoded or become superseded by more 'advanced' versions.  Jesus opened 'the nations' to Jewish salvation, some would say,

 but Judaism itself wasn't about to be absorbed into a universalization of itself.  I would argue that ZIonism is a retrenchment of that more original tribal religious separateness.

 

  I would love to hear a discussion of 'Zionism' on Forum.  Is there something believed to give Israel the right to accumulate land from Palestinians?   Bible or Torah promises?  Is this part of Zionism or not?  Or are there 'wings' of Zionism, right and left?

 

  Many younger US Jews reject Zionism as an outmoded and warlike form of neo-colonialism, determined to get land away from Palestinians and others by force if necessary.

 

  Is there a 'good' Zionism and a 'bad' Zionism?  How does AIPAC and the ADL, as well as the Israel Lobby in D.C.  factor into Zionism's influence on US policy?  Does any Congressperson dare criticize Israel since a charge of anti-Semitism is political death? 

 
  Who is it that decides that criticism of Israel is 'anti-Semitic', as we have seen with Justice Goldstone and Jimmy Carter, both of whom are self-confessed strong supporters of Israel.   It's still not clear to me what ubiquitous force rears up to defend Israel again and again from even the smallest critical questions. Is it widespread in our mass media, as averred by many?

    There's a strong whiff of '1984' about all of this, a miasma of 'never dare question Israel' that is very un-American in nature.  Examining what Israel does to Palestinians isn't generally open to discussion, and certain people, like John Pilger, are not welcome on US media. 

    Justice Goldstone briefly alluded to some of the horrors of the Gaza invasion, but seemed to downplay it, perhaps in the interest of keeping things unemotional and objective.

   His voice, cultured, urbane and sophisticated, reminiscent of the English actor Ian McKellen's,  seemed above such is tasteful subjects, as perhaps a judge's voice should sound, I don't know.

 

  But the whole idea of the US  vetoing any and all UN resolutions against Israel is inexcusable.  If I am wrong about that statement I would love to hear a program devoted to exploring the reality of our unwavering commitment to Israel.  Is there any other country in the world, including ourselves, to which we give such unflinching loyalty?  I realize reasons are always given, the resolutions are 'unfairly' targeting Israel, and what about the 'other side', those Palestinian terrorists with weapons of very little destruction?

      Michael, I have nothing but praise for your abilities as an interviewer and scholar, writer and professor, thank you for your excellent work. 

    You let a little of the volcano of political magma about Israel escape today. But we need a lot more 'hot truth' to flow out around us before we can regain our integrity and health as a nation.  But a sincere thanks is in order.

    Maybe some day we can meet over coffee.  I'd love to hear your personal take on a lot of this stuff.  As I've said before, we're both Ph.D's, and like to explore the dimensions and parameters of a discussion.  My main concern is that our media is not very open when Israel comes into  focus.  Having John Pilger on Forum would be a nice additional dimension don't you think?

 

Or if you don't think so, perhaps you could tell me why sometime.  But enough, please have a wonderful sunny day in SF!

 

And as they say ( I'm told) in South Africa,

 

  Alles van die beste!