From yesterday's Independent, a letter which puts the problematic of the New Anti-Semitism into a three-sentence nutshell:-
'Sir: Tony Pearce (letter, 21 July) asks if "a map which has the word Palestine over the territory of Israel and the word Israel in the sea" is the road map to redemption. Rather, it is a description of historical fact. Before the West created Israel in 1948, all that territory was Palestine. Israel was an off-shore threat of Zionist invasion.
'MIKE DAVIES
'CHAIR, ALLIANCE FOR GREEN SOCIALISM, LEEDS'
Criticism of Israel - let's say it for the zillionth time - is not necessarily anti-Semitic. I'll go further: questioning whether the Holocaust provided a moral justification for the creation of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic. But when the Holocaust disappears so completely from the context that the founders of Israel cannot be acknowledged as victims at all, but become simply 'invaders', a 'threat', we are truly dealing with a form of Holocaust denial.
I expect Mr Davies acknowledges the reality of the Holocaust as a bare historical fact. But it seems as if he cannot conceive of its surviving victims as human beings on whose psyches it left a devastating, indelible mark. Denied empathy even in the greatest conceivable extremity of suffering, they are excluded from the human community.
Green socialism? I'd as soon vote BNP.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Did I understand these comments correctly?
Has the loathsome Independent printed letters from people who really do want to see the Jews driven into the sea?
And if so, isn't that overt anti-semitism?
Really, I thought that the Indescribablyboring had reached a nadir with its disgraceful, nazi-style cartoon of the Israeli Prime Minister biting the heads off Palestinian babies.
But it seems that it can plumb even lower depths.
Apologies. Tony Pearce, whose letter is referenced by Mike Davies, is pastor at the Bridge Centre in London, and a staunch friend of Israel.
I missed the point of his comment.
Green socialism... Hmm...
Kind of a oblique reference to a cheese that has gone off?
Sorry for being too graphic.
Dear Oprah,
I am writing to you about discrimination which has been expressed by the selective enforcement of city ordinances against me with respect to my rental business in Southern Indiana once city officials discovered that I am a Jewish person.
More about me: I was named to the "30 under 30" list by my alma mater and did my PhD work at Princeton Univ. under John Nash. I am a applied mathematician/ entrepreneur in my day job.
In the years since I completed my undergraduate work at IU in 1998, I proceeded to buy a small number of rental properties in Bloomington, Indiana, which I have successfully run as a side business for a number of years.
However, about 2-3 years ago, the normal flow of my side rental business ran into some serious roadblocks.
It started when two housing inspectors made a number of explicit anti-semitic statements to me and to a Jewish tenant at one of my rentals.
Soon thereafter, four (4) groups of my otherwise law-abiding and happy tenants were threatened with $10,000 + fine (assessed PER tenant) for alleged ordinance violations.
Long story short, I was soon stuck with numerous vacancies and left paying the mortgage payments on these properties which were subsequently burglarized and vandalized. At the same time, the Housing Department caused complaint inspections to take place at these properties, identifying dozens and dozens of "defects" in the properties not otherwise noted in previous move-in inspections and causing me to incur thousands of dollars of needless "improvements".
And then the Legal Department went to work on me, filing at least five (5) lawsuits against me for alleged ordinance violations, and at the same time, the Legal Department Chief's wife, over at Student Legal Services, encouraged my erstwhile tenants to sue me for recovery of their security deposits, in spite of their breaches. I was soon dealing with about ten lawsuits at once.
So in April 2007, I filed a lawsuit against the City of Bloomington for violating my right to equal protection of the law, and a number of other civil rights violations. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I have become of the despotism of city government in small town Indiana. My attorneys have recently discovered that my case is not unique. Another Jewish landlord also has a case pending in federal court against the City, regarding the improper withholding of a building permit based upon the impermissible consideration that the prospective buyer of the commercial property in question was a Jewish investor from New York.
My life has been turned upside down by the systematic abuse of ordinances and
judicial proceedings. I find it outrageous that such a negative spirit still thrives in modern America. I would love the opportunity to talk about my story on your show, as I think it is in the public interest.
~~ Never Stop Learning ~~
markkruzan.blogspot.com
monroe-county.blogspot.com
william-j-beggs.blogspot.com
bungerlaw.blogspot.com
lawbr.blogspot.com
bunger-law.blogspot.com
kevinrobling.blogspot.com
martha-szatkowski.blogspot.com
cityofbloomington.blogspot.com
patriciamulvihill.blogspot.com
margieschrader.blogspot.com
margie-schrader.blogspot.com
seth-patinkin.blogspot.com
sethpatinkin.blogspot.com
Post a Comment