Tony Greenstein | 17 January 2009 | Post Views:


Last week the Guardian printed a letter from 78 British Jews dissociating themselves from the genocide in Gaza. It seems that this has badly stung the Zionist propagandists. They wheeled out one Otto Ottolenghi of the cold-war Transatlantic Institute by way of reply.
However according to the anti-Semitic buffoon and jazz player, Gilad Atzmon, ‘By declaring ‘not in my name’, one affirms the totality of that which one tries to oppose… by fighting Zionism in the name of their Jewish identity they approve Zionism. To demand that Jews disapprove of Zionism in the name of their Jewish identity is to accept the Zionist philosophy.’
Unfortunately this message has not got through to the Jewish Chronicle since Ottolenghi’s article (see below) is the nastiest and most vicious attack on anti-Zionist Jews I’ve seen in the JC, which has just got a new editor, late of the Express, one Stephen Pollard.
I’ve been getting quite a lot of spam mail this week, all of which has a common theme ‘Hamas lover’ which makes me strongly suspect that this is being co-ordinated by one of the Zionist media operations and is being targetted at the signatories of last Saturday’s Guardian letter by 78 British Jews. They also have the sophistication of the average Zionist, if you oppose war crimes you must be a supporter of Hamas!
Not only has the letter got them badly rattled I suspect they won’t be over the moon with the excellent letter in Friday’s Guardian by 300+ academics, including Pappe and a good letter from Leon Rosselson.
It seems that in their desire to finish their work the Zionists are getting more and more touchy about the criticism their bloody work is bringing forth. It reinforces my view that although Israel will be able to claim, unsurprisingly a military victory, it is faced with an increasing political disaster, entirely of their own making as sections of the Jewish community are now openly peeling off.

Tony Greenstein

The Guardian just loves self-hating Jews Emanuele Ottolenghi
January 15, 2009
Some of us can’t do enough to support our enemies

Last Saturday, the Guardian published a letter that compared Israel to the Nazis; described the Palestinian Authority as “Palestinian Quislings”; called on Britain to recall its ambassador to Tel Aviv; and supported a boycott of Israeli goods.
Before informing the readers that the images from Gaza “reminded” them “of the siege of the Warsaw Ghetto”, the 78 signatories felt compelled to say: “We the undersigned are all of Jewish origin”, somehow establishing a connection between what they said (Israel = Nazi) and who they were (Jews).
This is not the first time the Guardian has given voice to Jews proud to be ashamed to be Jewish. In 2002, it published a letter in which 45 Jewish intellectuals denounced the Jewish state.
The latest letter raises, as do its predecessors, three questions: the substance of the accusations levelled against Israel; whether being Jewish makes such opinions more compelling or more legitimate; and what purpose these individuals serve, by linking their Jewish credentials to the radical ideas they endorse.
On the substance, the signatories compare Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Nazis. This is not new, of course, but its repetition does not make it truer. In Auschwitz, there were around 30,000 daily deaths — all unarmed, starved prisoners. In Gaza, since the start of Israel’s offensive, there have been fewer than 50 deaths a day, up to 70 percent of them Hamas fighters. Nazis took joy at massacring civilians. Israelis give warning via phone to civilians. Nazis starved their victims for months before destroying the Ghetto. Israel sends humanitarian aid in the form of food and medicines every day. Intelligent people should be able to see the difference and refrain from such comparisons. Are our friends of Jewish origins stupid or malicious? Judge for yourself.
But the effect is to demonise Israel by comparing it with Nazism, the quintessential evil of modern European history.
And, in the process, it ends up trivializing the Holocaust as well, much like Holocaust denial. If only 50 people a day died in the Warsaw Ghetto while the Nazis were resupplying their hapless Jewish victims with food and medicine, one cannot fault the Nazis too much. It also follows, logically, that Jews trying to turn that history into a paradigm of evil are exaggerating – for political goals perhaps? You see where this can go.Anyone with a sense of history should know better than to compare Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. Even in Zimbabwe things are worse than Gaza. Does that “remind” them of the Warsaw Ghetto? Or do people “of Jewish origin” evoke such comparisons only when Israel is involved?
Second, is being Jewish relevant? Identity is no substitute for knowledge and expertise; religious identity does not confer authority to speak on anything. So why the invocation of “Jewish origin”? Because the Jews are the gatekeepers and once they break a taboo, others can cross that line. If you are Jewish, what you say cannot be labelled as antisemitic. If you are going to trivialize the Holocaust and demonise Israel, it therefore helps being Jewish — ask Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry. Had he been an Episcopalian, no one would ever have heard of him. Because he is Jewish and the son of Holocaust survivors, his lurid thesis made him a “courageous whistleblower”. The same with the Guardian’s Jewish letter writers.
It follows that these proclamations of “Jewish origin” serve an agenda: they offer an alibi to antisemites. Shielded behind such proclamations, our enemies can call for our destruction, protected by a Jewish certificate of good behaviour that shows that what they are saying is no worse than what certain people “of Jewish origin” are thinking.
Dr Emanuele Ottolenghi is executive director of the Transatlantic Institute

Posted in

Tony Greenstein

Leave a Comment





This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.