I was on the #5 subway line as it pulled into the Fulton Street Station in lower Manhattan (one stop north of the Wall Street Station and one block east of Ground Zero...) when I saw this carved into the pillar on the opposite side of the tracks.
Needless to say, I was shocked to see it and saddened too. I remember when I was in my early 20's being so frustrated that Jews continued to hold on to their fears of anti-semitism. I proclaimed that their fears were surely imaginary. The world had learned the lessons from the Holocaust and obviously anti-semitism had finally been eradicated from the world. Why couldn't they see that?
I must admit that it embarrasses me to think I thought these thoughts and that I was so naive. And more horrifying to me, I said these things to people who bore witnessed to the Holocaust first-hand.
Now, one swastika on one pillar in a NYC subway should not be a sign, but hate-filled graffitti is cropping up all over NYC these days. Weekly, there is some report of swastikas being painted on synagogues and attacks on orthodox Jews are becoming a regular event. Add to that a dramatic rise in attacks on Jews in Europe like in Paris earlier this year. Just this weekend, a drunken mob launched an attack on a synogogue in the UK and in Hungary, a Jewish cemetary was desecrated. The skeletons pulled from graves and tossed over toppled headstones. It has gotten so unsettling that many Jews in France are having serious discussions on whether to just leave.
Then there's the UN Human Rights Council:
Yes, Israel has been condemned by the UN Human Rights Council more than any other group. Once Israel's most reliable ally, our present administration grows increasely belligerent towards Israel and is openly hostile towards Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama is angry (and probably embarrassed) that Bibi won so easily last week. He wasn't supposed to. Obama sent his campaign experts to Israel to help the opposition party. But it did not help.
Well, anyway, as I should have suspected, the State of Israel and Jews are once and will always be considered the cause of all the ills in the world simply because they refuse to not exist...
Needless to say, I was shocked to see it and saddened too. I remember when I was in my early 20's being so frustrated that Jews continued to hold on to their fears of anti-semitism. I proclaimed that their fears were surely imaginary. The world had learned the lessons from the Holocaust and obviously anti-semitism had finally been eradicated from the world. Why couldn't they see that?
I must admit that it embarrasses me to think I thought these thoughts and that I was so naive. And more horrifying to me, I said these things to people who bore witnessed to the Holocaust first-hand.
Now, one swastika on one pillar in a NYC subway should not be a sign, but hate-filled graffitti is cropping up all over NYC these days. Weekly, there is some report of swastikas being painted on synagogues and attacks on orthodox Jews are becoming a regular event. Add to that a dramatic rise in attacks on Jews in Europe like in Paris earlier this year. Just this weekend, a drunken mob launched an attack on a synogogue in the UK and in Hungary, a Jewish cemetary was desecrated. The skeletons pulled from graves and tossed over toppled headstones. It has gotten so unsettling that many Jews in France are having serious discussions on whether to just leave.
Then there's the UN Human Rights Council:
Yes, Israel has been condemned by the UN Human Rights Council more than any other group. Once Israel's most reliable ally, our present administration grows increasely belligerent towards Israel and is openly hostile towards Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama is angry (and probably embarrassed) that Bibi won so easily last week. He wasn't supposed to. Obama sent his campaign experts to Israel to help the opposition party. But it did not help.
Well, anyway, as I should have suspected, the State of Israel and Jews are once and will always be considered the cause of all the ills in the world simply because they refuse to not exist...
19 comments:
Bev, I honestly don't know what to make of this. I suspect what is really going on is that a tiny number of people are doing this and it's being painted as widespread by a media that wants to scare its customers.
Supporting this view, I would point out that it only seems to happen in a handful of places, and when it does, it's generally single incidents rather than a wave of such conduct. It's also rare enough that when people try to describe it, they end up point to the same handful of incidents. That's usually a sign of the MSM selling a few events as commonplace.
On the other hand, I am troubled that the left seems to have stopped condemning anti-semitism. When OWS ran around spewing Jewish banker conspiracy theory, no one on the left stood up and ejected those people from OWS. They also seem to automatically dismiss Muslim anti-semitism as something it's somehow racist to challenge.
I think what bothers me is not the level of anti-semitism today, but the fact that the left seems content to let it grow.
The Left is convinced that if Israel will return to it's pre-67 borders everything will be alright, of course, it would make their borders indefensible and if and when they are overrun the Left will cry crocodile tears and says it was Israel's fault.
Andrew - I would like to think that you are right about it being a tiny fraction, but only a tiny fraction started the Holocaust. And btw, this isn't just from what I read in the papers about crimes being committed, it's in comments. It has even reached the WH. There is no other time in US/Israel relations that the WH would allow such an openly hostile statement to made -
LINK
Critch - For the first time in my life, my Jewish friends are leaving the Democratic Party and because of Obama. These are people who avidly campaigned for him and other Democrats. I even had one of my friends ask me in all sincerity "How did you know about Obama?". To me it was obvious - watch what they do, not what they say.
Oh, the Left will say it doesn't matter, but Jewish groups are very active workers and they give a lot of money to candidates. When the Party realizes that they will lose strong backs and major buck, that's when their tears won't be so crocodiley.
Bev, I've been paying a lot of attention lately to how large these groups of trolls are. Not just in politics, but in sports and at all kind of other websites... even Amazon has trolls like this. Every time I've been able to find evidence of the relative size of what is going on they come up in the under 5% range. Even the right-wing talk radio crowd is only about 6% of the US population, which mirrors their leftist cousins, who appear to be around 6% as well. The thing is that they cluster and they are vocal, which makes them seem much larger.
I haven't specifically looked into the antisemitism stuff, but what I can say is that instances of antisemitism are incredibly rare outside of a handful of large cities. (Colorado Springs, for example, hasn't had such an instance that I can ever recall, despite there being 750,000 people here.) And even then, the number of incidents in those big cities is small... perhaps a few dozen or so each year despite a population in the 10 million range. So I am fairly certain that you are only dealing with a tiny, tiny group of asshats. That doesn't make it right, but it means that we need to keep in perspective that this is not common to the public.
To me, the real problem is that the left seems to have become accepting of this. If I stand up in a stadium in Colorado and say, "I hate Jews" or something like that, 80,000 people will boo me and throw stuff at me. But if I say it at an OWS rally, then I get cheered. That's a problem because acceptance leads to growth.
On Israel, a lot of conservatives seem to equate blind faith as the only acceptable position without being anti-Semitic. I don't buy that. Israel has flaws, as does everyone else, and it is in our best interest to address those. What troubles me here again is that the Democrats seem to have gone irrationally in the other direction. Whereas too many conservatives demand blind faith in Israel, the Democras have gone with demonization. To them, it's not that Israel has flaws, so much as Israel itself is a flaw. And they are supporting people whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of its people... something that would outrage them if it were Mexicans or Hawaiians or blacks. Yet, it's ok with them when its Jews. And the only reason I can see for this is thinly veiled antisemitism. I see this throughout the administration, and that is troubling.
Antisemitism has an historic tendency toward validating slippery-slope reasoning.
"If I stand up in a stadium in Colorado and say, "I hate Jews" or something like that, 80,000 people will boo me and throw stuff at me. But if I say it at an OWS rally, then I get cheered. That's a problem because acceptance leads to growth."
If I did that an Alabama football game I'd probably be booed, too —for interrupting a state religious festival. That is if they could hear me. ;-)
Andrew - I would buy the whole "it's such a small percentage of very vocal people" statement, except [and I can't stress this enough" It only took a small percentage of very vocal people to do ALL the horrible things in the world and more importantly for the larger, less vocal people to do nothing.
"To [Democrats], it's not that Israel has flaws, so much as Israel itself is a flaw."
Yes this is true. Israel is a flaw. It was meant to be a flaw. Final solution and all. What better place to finally get rid of those annoying European Jews than to plunk them down in the most hostile place on Earth when they all could go to en masse. It would make it so much more convenient. Surprise!
And as for conservatives, it is not so much "blind faith" as recognizing the truth. Look, of course Israel is not without faults. It is a land made up of leaders and citizens who are human. But their "faults" are part of their survivial (see above) But of all of the despots in the world, Israel's fairly flaws are magnified irrationally by the constant condemnation of the UN Security Council and Human Rights Council. Irrationally, because have you heard a peep out of the UN Secretary General Ban at ALL over what is happening in Syria or Yemen or Iraq or Egypt? The riots, beheadings, chemical weapons, women and children being burned alive? Again...not a peep. BUT the condemn Israel for bombing back after being attacked is swift and loud. Yes, the investigations by the UN Human Rights Council to determine Israel's criminal violations, not why there are bombs/missiles raining down from the Palestinians. The UN is poised to give Palestinian statehood in April with Obama's silent approval. Which means they will bring criminal charges against Israel in the World Court for "crimes against humanity".
Sorry, I don't mean to be preachy. I wouldn't be so worried if Obama weren't so openly hostile toward Israel. Traditionally, the US has been Israel's ONLY faithful ally. Understand that if the US abandons Israel, Israel will abandon restraint. THAT is what I worry about...
Kit, LOL. True! :D
Bev, You are correct. It only takes a small percentage of people with the right circumstances to cause something horrible. But I honestly think these trolls are not those kinds of people. They are losers who will never amount to anything.
The real threat to me lies in the future. If the Democrats continue to tacitly endorse antisemitism, then it will become more acceptable and people who can achieve some measure of power will start to feel free to embrace it. In other words, some retard skinhead or Muslim jerkoff will never be able to do more than a random act of violence. But if the left continues to allow this to fester, then it becomes possible to see it become part of a political agenda, and that is when the danger arises.
And let me be clear, I'm not dismissing the skinhead or the Muslim idiot by any stretch. I think the law should come down harshly on them. I think it is incompatible with a free society to let individuals try to intimidate others.
On Israel, the blind faith that troubles me in (some) conservatives is the idea that no matter what Israel does, it is right. In the 1980s, that led them to support Israel remaining a socialist mess -- breaking away from that not improved their economy dramatically, but gave them lots of independence from us. In the 1990s, it kept conservatives from seeing that Israel's best solution was to create a state for the Palestinians and to dump the responsibility on them for running that state -- something which has dramatically defused the conflict because the Palestinians turned to infighting and the other Arabs lost interest in the fight.
Sometimes, being a good friend requires telling your friend when they are wrong. And this something blind faith does not allow.
That said, I absolutely support Israel. They are the only functioning democracy in the region. They are our friend and our ally. It is in our interests as a nation to support them. No one else over there has earned that.
In terms of the UN, I dismiss those bastards out of hand. The UN has become an antisemitic club. I also don't think Israel should ever rely on us. That would be a mistake.
As for Obama, I agree. I don't like his politics and I think he is at least reflexively antisemitic.
BTW, Bev, Don't get me wrong. I am as troubled as you are by this. I just think the real danger lies in a little different place.
Took me about 5 clicks to get that comment posted. Google, why doth thou screw with me?
Has Hillary called Netanyahu to congratulate him (according to a Fox a few days ago the answer is 'no'? I doubt Israel's problems with the Democrats will end with Obama.
It will be interesting to see how much Jewish support the widening schism costs Democrats.
Andrew - I know we see the same things from different perspectives and regions of the country too, btw. And as for the dangers we see being in different places, I am not so sure that we are that far apart.
Kit - I can actually say that I did see OWS rallies where people shouted and carry signs that were pretty much "Everything that is Wrong In The World Is Because of Jew Bankers" and the like. No one did anything...that was pretty scary to me.
Btw, as for the football game, it would be the same in Texas...they would pummel you for politicizing their sacred ritual and for desecrating the sacred ground of their might football stadium..;-D
Anthony - I doubt Hillary will ever call Netanyahu and she doesn't have to. I am sure that someone would call it a "breach of protocol" if she does and anit-Israel, if she doesn't call. On that she can't win. However, she has mostly been pretty tepid on Israel and US Jews don't really like her that much.
And when the photos start popping up of her wearing a headscarf to cover her head at the insistence of Muslim men when she visit the Middle East as Sect of State, well, I am wondering how that will play with the feminists. Something that Condoleeza Rice refused to do as Sec't of State. Of course, she hasn't even really declared that she is running yet. So who cares.
Bev, I don't think we are that far apart at all. There is no place for this in civil society, the left needs to start condemning it rather than condoning it, and the Democrats need to stop treating Israel like it's a bad thing.
As an aside, I heard that the NYT has gone after Chelsea's hubby's hedgefund and their connections to the Clintons. I wonder if this is the camel nose under the tent which will open the Clinton vault of dirty secrets?
The MSM is smelling blood when it comes to the Clintons. I can't wait to see both Hill and Bill have open their books at The Clinton Foundation Of Good Works And Personal Profit.
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