Vrijdag 8 maart 2019 verklaarde de vooraanstaande Joods-Israelische auteur en journalist van Haaretz tegenover de joods-Amerikaanse interviewster Amy Goodman van Democracy Now!:
The Israeli lobby, the Jewish lobby, are, by far, too strong and too aggressive. It’s not good for the Jewish community. It’s not good for Israel.
What is happening now is that some kind of fresh air, some kind of new voices are emerging from Capitol Hill, raising legitimate questions about Israel, about America’s foreign policy toward Israel and about the Israeli lobby in the States. Those are very legitimate questions, and it is more than needed to raise them. But the Israeli propaganda and the Jewish propaganda in recent years made it as a systematic method, whenever anybody dares to raise questions or to criticize Israel, he is immediately and automatically labeled as anti-Semite, and then he has to shut his mouth, because after this, what can he say?
This vicious circle should be broken. And I really hope that great, great politicians, like Mrs. Omar and others, will be courageous enough to stand in front those accusations and to say, ‘Yes, it is legitimate to criticize Israel. Yes, it is legitimate to raise questions. And this does not mean that we are anti-Semites. We are not ready to play this game anymore, in which they shut our mouths with those accusations, which, in most of the cases, are hollow.’
Wat Levy kwalificeert als ‘gerechtvaardigde vragen over Israel, over de Amerikaanse politiek ten aanzien van Israel en over de Israelisch lobby in de Verenigde Staten,’ noemt mijn oude vriend Ian Buruma ‘Links antisemitisme’ dat meestal ‘stoelt op fanatieke bezwaren tegen de Israëlische behandeling van de Palestijnen.’ Eerder al had hij als mainstream-opiniemaker de Britse Liberaal Democratische politicus David Ward beschuldigt van ‘anti-Semitisme’omdat deze volksvertegenwoordiger, volgens Buruma, ‘Israel’s right to exist’ zou hebben ontzegd. In werkelijkheid had Ward opgemerkt dat het hem pijn deed:
that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.
Kortom, Buruma was juist niet getroffen door het feit dat mensen niet via ervaring leren. Ook 'Joden’ niet, die, zoals algemeen bekend is, in Israel een eigen volk vormen. Daarentegen behoren joden buiten Israel tot het volk van het land waar zij leven. Hier kan dus onmogelijk sprake zijn van ‘anti-Semitisme,’ wanneer Ward het expliciet over de Joodse (hoofdletter!) Israeli's heeft. Juist het over één kam scheren van alle — in Buruma’s terminologie — ‘Joden,’ dus inclusief de jodenbuiten Israel, kan een vorm van anti-semitisme zijn. Opvallender nog is het feit dat Buruma zo graag hoog opgeeft van het geloof in de Verlichting, dus in de Vooruitgang van samenleving en individu, met andere woorden: dat wij allen door meer kennis en inzicht de fouten van het verleden niet zullen herhalen. Ik hoop niet dat Buruma nu meent dat dit niet voor de ‘Joden’ in de zelfbenoemde ‘Joodse staat’ opgaat, een staat die volgens premier Netanyahu 'only of the Jewish people’ is, waarmee eenvijfde van de bevolking die uit Palestijnse burgers bestaat statenloos is verklaard. Buruma’s dwaasheid past naadloos in de huidige campagne van westerse politici en mainstream-media -- die kennelijk het internationaal recht niet accepteren -- om elke kritiek op de zionistische oorlogsmisdaden en misdaden tegen de menselijkheid meteen te demoniseren als ‘anti-Semitisme.’
Laat ik wat langer stilstaan bij dit onderwerp om duidelijkheid te scheppen, nu elke opportunist de kritiek op de zionistische terreur probeert te delegitimeren. In zijn boek The Fatal Embrace. The Politics of Anti-Semitism in the United States (1998), die door de Jewish Herald-Voice geprezen werd als ‘[o]ne of the most important studies on anti-Semitism in this country. It should be required reading for all Jewish community leaders and for every Jew involved in electoral politics at any level,’ benadrukt de joods-Amerikaanse hoogleraar Politieke Wetenschappen aan de Johns Hopkins Universiteit, Benjamin Ginsberg:
Their role in American economic, social, and political institutions has enabled Jews to wield considerable influence in the nation’s public life. The most obvious indicator of this influence is the $3 billion in direct military and economic aid provided to Israel by the United States each year and, for that matter, the like amount given to Egypt since it agreed to maintain peaceful relations with Israel. That fully three-fourths of America’s foreign aid budget is devoted to Israel’s security interests is a tribute in considerable measure to the lobbying prowess of AIPAC and the importance of the Jewish community in American politics.
Ginsberg wijst erop dat:
American Jews secured their position of power quite recently. During the Second World War, the Jewish community lacked sufficient influence to induce the U.S. government to take any action that might have impeded te slaughter of European Jews.
Veelzeggend in dit verband is dat hoewel
The United States Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and which had been established in 1941–1942 to coordinate intelligence and espionage activities in enemy territory) received reports about Auschwitz during 1942,
de drie daarop volgende jaren de spoorlijnen, waarover joodse Europeanen als vee naar de vernietigingskampen werden gedeporteerd niet door de Geallieerden zijn gebombardeerd. Bovendien werden tijdens,
The United States Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and which had been established in 1941–1942 to coordinate intelligence and espionage activities in enemy territory) received reports about Auschwitz during 1942,
de drie daarop volgende jaren de spoorlijnen, waarover joodse Europeanen als vee naar de vernietigingskampen werden gedeporteerd niet door de Geallieerden zijn gebombardeerd. Bovendien werden tijdens,
and after World War I, American Jewry became the target of anti-Semitism by a variety of social groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and various immigration restriction advocates. Ivy League universities were no exception, and several of these venerable schools moved to restrict Jewish enrollment during the 1920s… In 1922, Harvard's president, A. Lawrence Lowell, proposed a quota on the number of Jews gaining admission to the university. Lowell was convinced that Harvard could only survive if the majority of its students came from old American stock.
Lowell argued that cutting the number of Jews at Harvard to a maximum of 15% would be good for the Jews, because limits would prevent further anti-Semitism. Lowell reasoned, ‘The anti-Semitic feeling among the students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews. If their number should become 40% of the student body, the race feeling would become intense.’
En wat betreft Yale, de andere ‘Ivy League’ universiteit:
Not until the early 1960's did Yale University end an informal admissions policy that restricted Jewish enrollment to about 10 percent, according to a new book published by Yale University Press.
Vanwaar de plotselinge omslag die heeft geleid tot de ‘aanzienlijke invloed’ van joodse Amerikanen op de ‘economische, maatschappelijke, en politieke instituten’ in hun land? Ook het Joods-Israelische Ynet wierp op 26 oktober 2011 deze vraag op, onder de kop ‘How did American Jews get so rich?’:
Since the mass immigration some 100 years ago, Jews have become richest religious group in American society. They make up only 2% of US population, but 25% of 400 wealthiest Americans. How did it happen, and how crucial is their aid to Israel? […]
A study of the Pew Forum institute from 2008 found that Jews are the richest religious group in the US: Forty-six percent of Jews earn more than $100,000 a year, compared to 19% among all Americans. Another Gallup poll conducted this year found that 70% of American Jews enjoy ‘a high standard of living’ compared to 60% of the population and more than any other religious group.
More than 100 of the 400 billionaires on Forbes' list of the wealthiest people in America are Jews. Six of the 20 leading venture capital funds in the US belong to Jews, according to Forbes…
Jews are well represented in Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the US Congress and Administration, Hollywood, TV networks and the American press — way beyond their percentage in the population…
Their success story is even more phenomenal considering the speed in which they became rich…
The immigrants arrived in the US on crowded boats, and most of them were as poor as church mice. Dr. Robert Rockaway, who studied that period, wrote that 80% of US Jews were employed in manual work before World War I, most of them in textile factories.
Many workplaces were blocked to the Jews due to an anti-Semitic campaign led by industrialist Henry Ford. Most of them lived in crowded and filthy slums in New York — Brooklyn and the Lower East Side.
Many films and books describe the world established in those neighborhoods: Vibrant, but tough and brutal. There was a lively culture of cabarets and small Yiddish theaters, alongside a Jewish mafia with famous crime bosses such as Meyer Lansky, Abner ‘Longie’ Zwillman, and Louis ‘Lepke' Buchalter, who grew up in the filthy alleys.
Many of the Jews, who were socialists in Europe, became active in labor unions and in workers' strikes and protests. Many trade unions were established by Jews.
The Jewish immigrants, however, emerged from poverty and made faster progress than any other group of immigrants. According to Rockaway, in the 1930s, about 20% of the Jewish men had free professions, double the rate in the entire American population.
Anti-Semitism weakened after World War II and the restrictions on hiring Jews were reduced and later canceled as part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, thanks to the struggle of liberal activists, many of whom were Jews.
In 1957, 75% of US Jews were white-collar workers, compared to 35% of all white people in the US; in 1970, 87% of Jewish men worked in clerical jobs, compared to 42% of all white people, and the Jews earned 72% more than the general average. The only remnant of their poverty is that most of them still support a welfare policy and the Democratic Party.
As they became richer, Jews integrated into society. They moved from the slums to the suburbs, abandoned Yiddish and adopted the clothes, culture, slang and dating and shopping habits of the non-Jewish elite…
Alongside the Jews, millions of immigrants arrived in the US from Ireland, Italy, China and dozens of other countries. They too have settled down since then, but the Jews succeeded more than everyone. Why? All the experts we asked said the reason was Jewish education. Jewish American student organization Hillel found that 9 to 33% of students in leading universities in the US are Jewish.
‘The Jewish tradition always sanctified studying, and the Jews made an effort to study from the moment they arrived in American,’ says Danny Halperin, Israel's former economic attaché in Washington. ‘In addition, the Jews have a strong tradition of business entrepreneurship. The Irish, for example, came from families of land workers with a different mentality, studied less and initiated less.
The Jews progressed because many areas were blocked to them,’ says Halperin. ‘Many Irish were integrated into the police force, for example, and only few Jews. The Jews entered new fields in which there was need for people with initiative. They didn't integrate into traditional banking, so they established the investment banking.
The cinema industry was created from scratch in the 1930s, and the Jews basically took over it. To this day there are many Jewish names in the top echelon of Hollywood and the television networks. Later on, they took high-tech by storm too — another new industry requiring learning abilities.’
‘The Jews were the first people to undergo globalization,’ says Rebecca Caspi, senior vice president of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA). ‘They had a network of global connections way before other nations, and a strong and supportive community.
The Jewish communal organization is considered a role model for all other ethnic groups. It helped the Jews everywhere and especially in the US, which was always more open than other countries and provided equal opportunities, while on the other hand — wasn’t supportive of the individual.’
How do community institutions help people succeed in business?
‘The mutual help allowed poor Jews to study. My family is an example of what happened to millions. My grandfather arrived in New York with two dollars in his pocket. He sold pencils, and then pants and then other things, and in the meantime studied English, German and Spanish and established ties.
He had five children, and the family had a small store in Brooklyn. They got help from the HIAS Jewish organization, which allowed them to study. They were so poor that they didn't have money for textbooks, so the siblings helped each other. My father was the youngest, and until he started university the four older siblings had already managed to settle down, so they all helped him complete his medical studies.’
‘The Jews had to excel in order to survive,’ says Avia Spivak, a professor of economic and former Bank of Israel deputy governor. ‘I once had a student of Russian descent, who told me that his parents said to him, “You must be the best, because then you might get a small role.”
That was the situation of the Jews abroad, and in America too until the 1960s. The most prestigious universities didn't take in Jewish students, so they studied in colleges and got the best grades. When the discrimination disappeared, the Jews reached the top.’
Is that why they succeeded in the US more than in other places?
‘The discrimination lessened in most countries. I think Jews succeeded in America in particular because capitalism is good for the Jews. Jews have a tendency for entrepreneurship, they study more and have quick perception, know how to seize opportunities and have networking skills. A competitive environment gives Jews an advantage.’
Is that the reason Israelis are not as rich as American Jews?
‘I think the “Jewish genius” — which is not a genetic issue but a cultural issue — is expressed in Israel in other areas. The Jews in America arrived in a country with existing, stable and strong infrastructure. Here they had to build the entire infrastructure from scratch, under harsh conditions.’
Government hurting aid, but it'll continue.
‘There is no doubt that American Jews' huge success helped Jews survive in Israel. The help is beyond the actual donations,’ says Caspi. ‘The federal aid arrives largely thanks to the Jewish pressure. Israeli businesspeople use their connections in America to open markets and raise funds, especially for the venture capital industry.’
The American aid strengthens the connection between the two communities — which together make up about 80% of the Jewish people — but also creates discomfort on both sides: The Americans view Israel as a ‘shelter for a rainy day’ and feel committed to help the State, but some feel their money is being wasted due to wrong moves; the Israelis live in fear of what will happen if and when the aid stops. The fear is increasing, with one-third of US Jews marrying non-Jews and stating that they feel less connected to Israel.
‘Israel would have been established and would have survived even without the American aid, but it would have been poorer,’ says Halperin. ‘There are areas, like higher education, in which the aid is critical — and if it suddenly disappears, things will be difficult.’
Every time there are arguments between the Israeli government and Jews in America, Israeli and American public figures warn that ‘one day they'll have enough and stop donating.’ Can that happen?
‘The scope of donations is decreasing in the past few years,’ says Halperin. ‘The Jews have a sense of belonging to the American society and give their donations to American organizations. They want to see their names at a New York museum rather than at Jerusalem museum.
As the Holocaust becomes more distant, the fear for Israel's existence drops. In addition, Israel is no longer perceived as a poor country. And the Americans have their own problems: The financial crisis and education in the US, which is becoming more and more expensive. The donations will gradually drop, and may eventually disappear.
But it's hard for me to believe that the donations will disappear at once because of a political crisis. It looks like our government is trying to make it happen with all its might, but fortunately, it can't even do that.’
Dat het ‘kapitalisme goed [is] voor de Joden’ mede omdat ’[t]hey had a network of global connections way before other nations, and a strong and supportive community,’ zoals Rebecca Caspi, vice president van de Jewish Federations of North America stelt, is absoluut geen omstreden feit. Wat ook niet betwijfeld wordt is de overmatige ambitie om de goj, die eeuwenlang op de jood neerkeek, te tonen dat een jood zeker niet de mindere is van de niet-jood. Die houding heeft in het postmoderne tijdperk tevens geleid tot een soms verregaand opportunisme en conformisme onder joden, een houding die voorheen noodzakelijk was om te kunnen overleven in een vijandige omgeving. Hieraan kleeft tevens een negatief aspect. De joods-Amerikaanse onafhankelijke senator Bernie Sanders wees 19 januari 2019 op het volgende:
The most important economic reality of our time is that, over the past four decades, there has been an enormous transfer of income and wealth from the middle class to the richest people. Since 1979, the bottom 90 percent of Americans have seen their very share of national income decline from 58 percent to 46 percent, costing them nearly $11,000 per household.
Deze wijd verspreide omwenteling loopt dus parallel met het toenemende succes van joods-Amerikaanse burgers, zoals onder andere blijkt uit het artikel ‘How did American Jews get so rich?’ in Haaretz en het boek The Fatal Embrace van professor Ginsberg. Terwijl in de VS de ‘bottom 90 percent of Americans have seen their very share of national income decline from 58 percent to 46 percent’ zijn joden in de VS erop vooruitgegaan waardoor nu meer dan '25% of 400 wealthiest Americans’ van joodse afkomst is, hoewel joden hooguit slechts 1,8 procent van de Amerikaanse bevolking uitmaken. Bovendien zijn:
Jews well represented in Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the US Congress and Administration, Hollywood, TV networks and the American press — way beyond their percentage in the population.
Men hoeft geen psycholoog te zijn om te beseffen dat wanneer één specifieke groep profiteert van een onrechtvaardig neoliberaal systeem dat de meerderheid benadeelt, die groep op de duur bekritiseerd en zelfs gehaat zal worden. Dit is in eerste instantie geen ‘anti-Semitisme,’ zoals Israel lobby beweert, maar een gangbaar reflex van de massa.
Wanneer bijvoorbeeld Ian Buruma propageert dat de multi-miljardair ‘Soros might be described as the personification of the West,’ omdat ‘[h]e is everything that nativists and anti-Semites hate: rich, cosmopolitan, Jewish, and a liberal dedicated to’ wat Soros ‘the open society’ noemt, dan is dit vanzelfsprekend een perverse voorstelling van zaken. Niet alleen is Soros een vanwege handel met voorkennis veroordeelde beursspeculant die in 1992 de Britse belastingbetalers miljarden verlies liet lijden en hij op dezelfde dag ‘pocketed $1 billion,’ waardoor hij ‘cemented his reputation as the premier currency speculator in the world,’ maar Soros intervenieert bovendien met zijn miljarden in de interne aangelegenheden van andere landen, waar hij dit neoliberale systeem wil importeren. Zo steunde hij met miljarden de Oekraïense, deels fascistische oppositie, die een staatsgreep organiseerde, en daarmee een burgeroorlog en een conflict met de Russische Federatie uitlokte. Bekend is tevens dat dezelfde George Soros in juli 2015 contact opnam met de Griekse premier Alexis Tsipras om het ontslag te eisen van de Griekse minister van Financiën, Yanis Varoufakis, hetgeen de vraag opwerpt ‘what kind of power Soros had over the Greek government to be able to demand his removal from government.’
Wanneer bijvoorbeeld Ian Buruma propageert dat de multi-miljardair ‘Soros might be described as the personification of the West,’ omdat ‘[h]e is everything that nativists and anti-Semites hate: rich, cosmopolitan, Jewish, and a liberal dedicated to’ wat Soros ‘the open society’ noemt, dan is dit vanzelfsprekend een perverse voorstelling van zaken. Niet alleen is Soros een vanwege handel met voorkennis veroordeelde beursspeculant die in 1992 de Britse belastingbetalers miljarden verlies liet lijden en hij op dezelfde dag ‘pocketed $1 billion,’ waardoor hij ‘cemented his reputation as the premier currency speculator in the world,’ maar Soros intervenieert bovendien met zijn miljarden in de interne aangelegenheden van andere landen, waar hij dit neoliberale systeem wil importeren. Zo steunde hij met miljarden de Oekraïense, deels fascistische oppositie, die een staatsgreep organiseerde, en daarmee een burgeroorlog en een conflict met de Russische Federatie uitlokte. Bekend is tevens dat dezelfde George Soros in juli 2015 contact opnam met de Griekse premier Alexis Tsipras om het ontslag te eisen van de Griekse minister van Financiën, Yanis Varoufakis, hetgeen de vraag opwerpt ‘what kind of power Soros had over the Greek government to be able to demand his removal from government.’
https://www.independent.co.ug/comment-war-west/2/
Welnu wanneer Buruma, als stem van de liberale elite, de speculant George Soros als representant van ‘de open samenleving’ ziet dan is de vraag hoe ‘open’ deze neoliberale ‘samenleving,’ is die deze speculant in lucht voor ogen staat? Daarvoor dient men zich te verdiepen in wie Soros is. Op 20 december 1998 zond het bekende CBS-programma 60 Minutes een onthullend interview uit met Soros, dat de onderzoeksjournalist Steve Kroft als volgt inleidde:
When the Nazis occupied Budapest in 1944, George Soros’ father was a successful lawyer. He lived on an island in the Danube and liked to commute to work in a rowboat. But knowing there were problems ahead for the Jews, he decided to split his family up. He bought them forged papers and he bribed a government official to take 14-year-old George Soros in and swear that he was his Christian godson. But survival carried a heavy price tag. While hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were being shipped off to the death camps, George Soros accompanied his phony godfather on his appointed rounds, confiscating property from the Jews.
Kroft stelde Soros de vraag: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. Yes.
KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
KROFT: I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?
Mr. SOROS: Not – not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t see the connection. But it was — it created no — no problem at all.
KROFT: No feeling of guilt?
Mr. SOROS: No… Well, of course I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was – well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in markets — that if I weren’t there — of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would be taking it away anyhow. And – whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.
https://www.activistpost.com/2016/11/george-soros-forgotten-interview-cannot-not-look-social-consequences.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUdosc33eSE
Hetzelfde gebrek aan moraliteit maakte van de miljardair George Soros niet alleen ‘de belangrijkste geld-speculant ter wereld,’ maar ook de held van Ian Buruma die in hem de ‘personificatie van het Westen’ ziet, omdat hij ‘alles is dat nativisten en anti-Semieten haten: rijk, kosmopolitisch, Joods, en een liberal.’ Zonder het te beseffen laat Buruma zien hoe groot en problematisch het huidige probleem van de tweedeling van de neoliberale samenleving is. De vraag blijft namelijk: wat te doen met de overgrote meerderheid die niet ‘rijk, kosmopolitisch, Joods en een liberaal’ is, maar die juist de dupe is geworden van het ‘kapitalisme’ dat volgens Rebecca Caspi, ‘goed [is] voor de Joden,’ zo goed dat de speculant George Soros door Ian Buruma tot de ‘personificatie van het Westen’ wordt gekwalificeerd. Wat te doen met de vele miljoenen ‘nativisten,’ die nooit ‘de personificatie van het Westen’ kunnen worden? Moeten deze gemarginaliseerden, die van mening zijn dat de belangen van een inheemse bevolking boven die van immigranten gaan, door de elite worden afgeschreven als ‘collateral damage’ van het neoliberalisme? Zijn deze burgers onverzoenlijke tegenstanders van een ‘open samenleving’? Dus een ‘samenleving’ met een neoliberaal systeem dat de overgrote meerderheid van de bevolking laat verarmen en tegelijkertijd 26 individuen zo rijk heeft gemaakt dat zij nu evenveel bezitten als de helft van de hele mensheid tezamen? Dekt mijn oude vriend dat op die manier het onrecht zal verdwijnen? Buruma demonstreert hoever de ‘liberals,’ de door hem zo geprezen ‘urban elites,' van de werkelijkheid zijn afgedreven, en geen enkel alternatief bezitten voor een politiek, economisch, militair, en vooral moreel failliete cultuur. Wat te doen met de gemarginaliseerde meerderheid?
Wanneer een veroordeelde parasitaire geldspeculant als Soros door een broodschrijver wordt uitgeroepen tot ‘de personificatie van het Westen,’ dan is het Westen ten dode opgeschreven. Niet alleen omdat het voortdenderende neoliberalisme in burgeroorlogen zal uitlopen, maar ook omdat een immorele maatschappij zichzelf altijd vernietigt. Er bestaat dan namelijk geen samenhangend geheel meer. In een dergelijke chaos zal het anti-semitisme alleen maar toenemen, en wel omdat joden de schuld zullen krijgen van hun kortstondig succes en invloed. Zeker wanneer een toenemend aantal burgers de loyaliteit van joden ter discussie zal gaan stellen. De vraag wordt dan: zijn zij loyaal aan het volk van het land waarin zij leven, of zijn zij allereerst loyaal aan het Joodse volk in Israel? Die vraag is het logische gevolg van niet alleen de miljardensteun aan de zionistische staat, maar ook van de biljoenen kostende oorlogen in het Midden-Oosten, waarvan alleen het extremistische regime in Israel profiteert. Al dit Amerikaans belastinggeld gaat ten koste van onderwijs, gezondheidszorg, sociale uitkeringen, pensioenen, onderhoud van de infrastructuur, volkshuisvesting, bestrijding van de toenemende armoede in de VS, etcetera. Steeds meer stemmen gaan op dat de joods-Amerikaanse lobbygroep AIPAC niet solidair is met de belangen van de VS, maar met die van Israel. De beschuldiging in de ‘corporate press’ dat dit een exemplarisch voorbeeld is van ‘anti-semitisme’ werkt niet meer, integendeel zelfs, deze beschuldiging wordt in toenemende mate ervaren als juist een voorbeeld van ‘Jewish power.’ Ginsberg waarschuwt dan ook:
Not only is the extraordinary prominence of Jews in American politics a relatively recent development but, during the past several years, there have been some indications that Jewish influence might already be waning (tanende. svh). In 1992, for example, former President George Bush (Bush senior. svh) resisted and ultimately defeated efforts by AIPAC and other Jewish organizations to secure American loan guarantees to assist Israel in the construction of additional Jewish settlements in the territories it occupied after its 1967 war with Arab states.
In a nationally televised press conference during the loan garantee struggle, Bush seemed to question the legitimacy of American Jews’ efforts on Israel’s behalf. The president later denied that this had been his intention. The effect of the Bush press conference and subsequent comments, however, was to intimidate American Jewish organizations and weaken their support for the loan guarantees. The Bush administration’s larger goal was to undermine Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s Likud government, which was viewed as an obstacle to the realization of American policy aims in the Middle East. By cowing Israel’s Jewish supporters in America, the white House hoped to weaken Shamir and replace him with a more compliant Israeli government. This American effort was successful. The Likud block was defeated in Israel’s 1992 elections by a labor coalition led by Yitzhak Rabin…
Another indication that the influence of American Jews may be waning is the resurgence of anti-Semitic — sometimes veiled as anti-Zionist — rhetoric in American political discourse.
Waar de grens ligt tussen anti-semitisme en anti-zionisme, maakt Ginsberg niet duidelijk, hetgeen opnieuw het vermoeden versterkt dat de joodse lobby dit zelf niet weet, en maar al te snel de Holocaust misbruikt om de onverdedigbare politiek van Israel vrij te pleiten. Ook hier speelt het eeuwige probleem van de dubbele loyaliteit van een ieder die zich als een buitenstaander opstelt. Professor Ginsberg schrijft in dit verband:
Whatever its psychological, social, economic, or even evolutionary basis, suspicion of strangers is the norm in all societies, while it is acceptance of outsiders that is unusual and generally ephemeral. When times are good and foreigners play a recognized ad useful role in the community, they may be tolerated. On theater hand, when times are hard and outsiders seem to compete with their hosts, any latent popular xenophobia is more likely to manifest itself, and foreigners may become useful targets for rabble-rousing politicians. Recent events throughout Western Europe are unambiguous examples of this phenomenon.
Certainly, everywhere that Jews have lived, their social or economic marginality — their position, ‘outside society,’ as Hannah Arendt put it — sooner or later exposed Jews to suspicion, hostility, and discrimination. Even in multi-ethnic societies, Jews have usually been the most successful and visible — and, hence, the most exposed — outsiders. In America, Jews currently appear to be accepted by the larger community. Nevertheless, at least in part by their own choosing, American Jews continue to maintain a significant and visible measure of communal identity and distinctiveness in religious, cultural, and political matters. At the same time, most gentiles continue to perceive Jews to be a peculiar and distinctive group. Though Jews have learned to look, talk, and dress like other Americans, they are not fully assimilated either in their own minds or in the eyes of their neighbors. Even in America, the marginality of the Jews makes them at least potentially vulnerable to attack.
In America as elsewhere, moreover, Jews are outsiders who are often more successful than their hosts.
Hetgeen de vraag opwerpt: gezien de consequenties, waarom wil een deel van de joodse Westerlingen ‘outsiders’ blijven? Wat drijft hen precies in een gelijkgeschakelde cultuur dat het individualisme verheerlijkt, maar het conformisme afdwingt? Waarom wil dit deel anders zijn dan alle anderen? Waarom denken deze joden tot het Joodse volk te behoren, maar piekeren ze er niet over om naar Israel te emigreren? Waarom laten zij Israel met geweld Palestijns land bezetten, maar willen zij daar zelf niet leven? Waarom kijken zij neer op joodse vredesactivisten in en buiten Israel? Volgende keer meer.
Joodse Vredesactivisten in en buiten Israel.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten