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| ALL ABOARD! |
JL
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One Reason for Not Voting
Republican
The House Speaker, and numerous Republican Congressional leaders, showed up the other day at the defeated former president’s ‘hush money’ trial in New York to say, outside of the courtroom, the things Judge Merchan’s gag order has prevented the defendant from saying. This made it clear that the Republican Party is willing to place itself in opposition to the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy. There is no question that they prefer something more autocratic than the ‘rule of law.’
JL
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Another Reason for Not Voting Republican
The previous posting on Jackspotpourri chastised South Carolina Senator Tim Scott for refusing to commit to accepting the results of the 2024 presidential election, whatever they may be. The real harm that this does is that it presents the American public with the idea that it is perfectly acceptable to deny the results of an election with which they disagree, without any basis whatsoever, other than their disagreement with it.
‘Gee whiz, if a Senator can think this way, I can too,’ they believe! This is the position, unfortunately, of too many Republican voters and elected officials. It is damaging to democracy and reason enough to vote against any and all Republicans who take similar positions.
JL
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And now, getting to the hard stuff ... the 'heavy lifting' part of this posting.
Antisemitism
Antisemitism is a subject that needs to be discussed. That word is thrown around frequently and not always in the same context. There are a lot of ways to getting into that discussion. Few are easy. Here is one way that I tried recently.
A ‘Your Turn’ guest columnist in the Palm Beach Post, who happened to be Jewish, recently accused American Jewish organizations of labeling those demonstrating against Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas from Gaza, as antisemites. The writer clearly agreed with the demonstrators and felt accusing them of antisemitism on the part of the Jewish ‘establishment’ was an act of desperation. I wouldn't go that far, but certainly some clarification was needed so I wrote the following letter to the Post (still unpublished):
'The Post’s guest columnist in Friday’s ‘Your Turn’ strongly objected to those who accuse the movement for Palestinian justice of antisemitism. Throughout history, those who harbor a hatred of Jews, which some define antisemitism as being, have rarely hesitated to take advantage of other movements to manifest that hatred. The 'Unite the Right' demonstration in Charlottesville in 2017 was an excellent example. When Palestinians speak of a Palestine ‘from the river to the sea,’ as Hamas does, demanding the elimination of the State of Israel, some antisemites do not hesitate to join in supporting their activities. Recognizing that fact is not an ‘act of desperation’ on the part of Jews or Jewish organizations but only seeing things as they are.'
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There are many definitions of antisemitism. Look them up. ‘A hatred of Jews’ is one. And it exists independently from the demonstrations referred to in my letter. My guess as to where that ‘hatred of Jews’ originates centers on two sources, (1) theological and (2) commercial.
When Christianity developed out of Judaism about two millenniums ago, many Jews refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah predicted in the Hebrew scriptures, politely referred to as the ‘Old Testament.’ Despite efforts to convert them, they were obstinate in their refusal to accept Christ’s divinity as the son of God. As governments became ‘Christian’ (Rome for example), this defiance took on almost criminal aspects, and Jews became isolated and eventually hated for it. Such hatred even led to their expulsion from entire countries (Spain and Portugal) and even to events like the Inquisition (throughout Europe) where denying Christ’s divinity could get you burned at the stake. That I see as one source of antisemitism.
Beyond this theological basis for antisemitism, economic restrictions were placed on Jews by some ‘Christian’ governments. They were kept out of the professions and most businesses. But Jews were still permitted to engage in those commercial activities forbidden to Christians according to their interpretation of the Bible, the prime example of which was a prohibition on usury or charging interest (see Deuteronomy 23:19). This opened the door to Jews becoming involved in money-lending (politely called ‘banking’) and profiting from buying and reselling goods made by others that they were not permitted to create on their own by their governments. In many economies, they became ‘middlemen,’ often functioning as shopkeepers.
In this manner, many medieval Jews avoided poverty, some even becoming wealthy. This drew the resentment of those who were not able to accumulate wealth from engaging in such mercantile activities as Jews were allowed to do, but which to Christians might be sinful. This resentment grew, over the years, into a hatred of Jews for having what they felt were ill-gotten gains. See Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice' as an example, where the name of the Jewish character, Shylock, has come to define this view of Jews.
I see one or
both of these two explanations as the basis of all antisemitism.
When an antisemite, as defined above, encounters a situation in which he or she sees an occasion that might lead to Jews being harmed, or made to look culpable of a crime, they jump into action and take advantage of it, even licensing them to commit acts of violence against Jews. These are not antisemitic situations in themselves but do provide an environment where antisemitism can flourish. Such situations occur, even if there were no such a thing as antisemitism! The attack by Hamas on Israel and Israel's reaction to it, both bringing Israel's relationship with Palestinians to the fore, is such a situation.
The presence of antisemites in the protests against Israel’s retaliation against Hamas’ October 7 attack does not make them antisemitic protests, despite some protesters’ inability to make this distinction. Accusing Israel of genocide, even if brought about by Hamas’ embedding their military facilities in civilian environments is a far stretch, but it still provides a fertile area for the involvement of antisemites. Incidentally, this creates a problem for Jewish protesters in these demonstrations who suddenly find themselves susceptible to charges of being ‘self-hating Jews.’ Stretching a point, some Jews must even wonder if a Jew who disagrees with the policies of the State of Israel can be considered an antisemite? If so, there are many Israelis who fit this definition.
Other examples of this include the execution of the Rosenbergs in the 1940s for giving nuclear secrets to Russia. Antisemites jumped in and made certain that the public knew they were Jewish. Similarly, during the last century, antisemites made certain that it was made clear that Leopold and Loeb, accused of murder in Illinois, were Jewish, and when Leo Frank was lynched for a murder he didn’t commit in Georgia, ultimately with the assistance of antisemites, was it because Frank was Jewish? In the 1950s, did the fact that Goodman and Schwerner, two of the three ‘freedom riders’ assassinated in Mississippi while working for racial equality, were Jewish, make their murderers antisemites? Or did other motivations, beyond the ‘hatred of Jews,’ also exist in these instances? The borders of antisemitism are fuzzy and ill-defined as these examples suggest.
This was not limited to the United States. In France at the end of the Nineteenth century, military information supposedly fell into the hands of the Germans and a French officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was accused and convicted, questioning his loyalty to France. The whole affair was a ‘frame-up’ and after many years, he was ultimately exonerated, but the fact that he was Jewish for years gave grist to the mill of antisemitism in France, some of which even persists today.
There are some fine distinctions to be made in determining when something is truly a purely antisemitic act, directly manifesting a hatred of Jews, such as the Holocaust, or just an occasion when antisemites find something they can latch on to and get a free ride for their ideas, like many of the demonstrations on college campuses, or clear-cut criminal activity by criminals who happen to have Jewish names. (This also is applied to Italians, but that is another story.)
At a minimum, this gives us food for thought. And I hope my remarks have not offended anyone.
JL
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Restating My Position on Israel
It is not a great leap from discussing antisemitism to contemplating the war in Gaza. Ending the war in Gaza leads directly into the larger question concerning the future for Palestinians. This might be a good time to restate my personal views on that, as I have done on several occasions in Jackspotpourri.
It is a fact that there is a Palestinian population in the territory that once comprised the British Mandate there that approaches in size the larger Jewish population in Israel. Any one-state solution (either contemplated by Israel or by a Palestinian group) would leave an enormous unwelcome population, that would either emigrate if possible, or remain as a second-class, persecuted minority. This assures that there would not be peace there. So, it must be accepted that there cannot be a one-state solution for the Palestinian/Israeli question.
A two-state solution is the
only answer. That could be accomplished if all Arab states, including
those following Iranian orders, agreed to permanently accept the existence of
the State of Israel in exchange for Israel gradually abandoning its settlements
in the area (West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem) that would constitute the
Palestinian state. The two states would cooperate peacefully with each
other in regard to customs and trade, as is the case with the nations in the EU and the UN would in no way be involved.
Each side would have to make significant changes in their present approach to reach a solution. Conceivably, it might bring about a civil war in Israel and most certainly, it would require Palestinians to forget about their 'river to the sea' imagery.
I have been saying this for months but now I see that Ehud Olmert, former Israeli Prime Minister, is going down that path as well. He recently wrote about this in H’aaretz, Israel’s leading ‘liberal’ newspaper. (Olmert was jailed after his term as PM for financial activities not unlike those that Bibi Netanyahu fears would put him in jail, only avoided by his support of right-wing zealots in the Knesset whose loyalty he has bought with his support of their dead-end one-state solution.) CLICK HERE to read the H’aaretz article or read it by copying and pasting this link on your browser line:
JL
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Tom Friedman Sees Netanyahu as the Problem
President Biden is attempting to continue the United States’ support of the State of Israel while acknowledging the need to reduce the loss of too many Palestinian lives in Gaza, where Hamas’ militants intentionally are placed within civilian environments, resulting in Palestinians being killed in Israeli attacks on Hamas militants. The only tool Biden seems to have is the supplying of weapons to Israel. Right now, he is limiting supplying certain bombs to the Israelis, but continuing supplies of other ordnance.
Discussions of this between Biden and Netanyahu seem to run in circles, mostly due to the latter’s reluctance to be tied down to a definite policy for the future of Gaza. Tom Friedman addressed this situation in a recent New York Times column. Read it by CLICKING HERE or visit https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/opinion/bidens-real-mistake-in-pausing-military-aid-to-israel.html.
Let’s go back to Yogi Berra saying ‘if you don’t know where you’re going, you may end up somewhere else.’ This seems to describe Netanyahu’s position, with which he is happy so long as it provides him with sufficient votes in the Knesset to keep him in power and out of jail.
JL
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Here’s an interesting quote from Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s 5-12 posting on Letters From an American’:
“The cowboy myth was always a political image, designed to undermine the idea of a government that worked for ordinary Americans. It was powerful after the Civil War but faded into the past in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s as Americans realized that their lives depended on government regulation and a basic social safety net.
The American cowboy burst back into prominence with the advent of
the Marlboro Man in 1954, the year of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision,
and the idea of an individual white man who worked hard, wanted nothing from
the government but to be left alone, was a sex symbol, and protected his women
became a central myth in the rise of politicians determined to overturn the
liberal consensus.
I wonder who she is writing about.
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Strange “Hits’! The large number of those accessing
Jackspotpouri from Singapore has suddenly ceased. In their place, however,
there have appeared large numbers of ‘hits’ on each posting in the hundreds,
and as was the case with those from Singapore, but this time from Hong Kong! I suspect that the Chinese are playing around
with internet transmissions, possibly to try to identify who is reading them.
Email Alerts: If you
are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time
there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email
address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a
posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be
similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email
at jacklippman18@gmail.com.
Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.
If you want to send someone the
blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or
you can provide a link to that address in your email to them.
There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog.
Either way will work, sending
them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or
clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.
Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it, particularly if they are a registered voter. This is an election year. Spread the word.
JL
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