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Before I reply to Mr. Shamir's recent commentary, I'd like to return
briefly to his first offering in critique of When Victims
Rule (WVR). I have been thinking about his commentary and I'm still
somewhat miffed by it. I fail to understand his view of what he thinks
the book represents. He began with the recitation of the old parable about
the blind men who, each prisoner of their own (geographical) limitations
in relating to an elephant, and prisoners of blindness, fail to fathom
the totality of what really stands before them. One defines the elephant
by feeling the tail, another by the trunk, another by a leg, and so forth.
Truly, we are all stuck in the perceptual limitations of our respective
grounding -- whether Ariel Sharon, Israel Shamir or, yes, myself.
Mr. Shamir aimed the parable -- if I understand him correctly -- at Jewry
as the "elephant' that is so misunderstood by a variety of partial
knowledge perspectives. It has dawned on me that Shamir's parable of misinterpretation
could just as well be self-referential to his own perception of When
Victims Rule. Surely he has not read it all, nor would we expect him
to. He touched a tail. Perhaps an ear. Maybe a toe or two. People may
pick and choose from it as they like. But whatever the case, any given
chapter, and any sliver of any given subject (like the proverbial elephant)
is only a fragment of the whole. The full view is the most accurate view.
Of course, such a parable could be pointed in any direction: misunderstanding
a strand of a book from its whole, misunderstanding Jewry by one of its
common attributes, and so on. With due respect, I would humbly present
the parable back to him for his own further reflection.
ISRAEL SHAMIR: It is good we agree on many points, and it is equally
good we differ on others. Probably the greatest difference in our reading
emerges from your words: "Being Jewish" manifests itself as primarily
a defensive allegiance against the non-Jewish Other.' In my opinion,
it is an OFFENSIVE allegiance, and it is not hair-splitting on my side.
RESPONSE: Again, I do not perceive a serious gap in our perspectives.
At least here. I believe that we are both accurate in our observations.
It is a matter of emphasis. The Jewish collective is not manifest entirely
of one attribute -- defensive or offensive -- with the implicit negation
of the other. Take the example of the Anti-Defamation League, as microcosm
of modern Jewry's collective activism. The ADL's fundamental purpose has
been to ward off virtually all criticism of the Jewish community. That
is a defensive position. (One of the major projects of the early ADL was
in fact the defense of accused murderer Leo Frank). Of course, the ADL
has built a successful propaganda machine from its defensive base to mount
a very powerful offensive campaign against anyone it views as an enemy
to further Jewish aggrandizement. The very charge of "anti-Semitism"
-- so crucial to modern Jewish identity -- has evolved into both a defensive
shield AND offensive weapon to hurt and to harm. In popular culture the
charge of "anti-Semitism" renders toxic any critic of the Jewish
community as being -- at root -- evil, thereby muting any critical threat
against Jewry - however legitimate. Jewish activism in attacking the established
non-Jewish order -- whatever it is -- has been commented upon by many
people (both Jewish and non-Jewish) in history. You have no disagreement
here. Nor does WVR hint otherwise.
SHAMIR: The same error of confusing offensive with defensive repeats
itself in the two chapters on anti-Semitism in WVR. The Author brings
numerous examples of 'Jewish extreme sensitivity' to what they consider
'anti-Semitism', and it includes such unlikely culprits as vegetarianism
and lack of reference to Jews. For the Author, it implies extreme defensiveness
of the Jews.
RESPONSE: The chapter on anti-Semitism presents Jewish opinion
about the subject, Jewish "anti-Gentilism," the usual Jewish
moral double standard, and how the charge of anti-Semitism is used as
a device to silence critics. The chapter also exposes the accusation of
anti-Semitism as a form of political manipulation and/or fraud. I also
do not understand that chapter to solely represent the "extreme defensiveness
of the Jews." On the contrary. The chapter also examines massive
Jewish denial (among other things), which is not quite the same
essence as "defensiveness." Bridged with other chapters, the
effort is to illustrate how this Jewish identity thread is used throughout
culture in celebration of Jewish martyrology towards further collective
aggrandizement in the "victim" king culture they were so instrumental
in creating. There are many, many dimensions to this. "Defensiveness"
is merely one ingredient in the Jewish psycho-social matrix.
SHAMIR: But let us apply some basics of psychology. If a person
is dead certain that he is hated, he probably knows of a very good reason
to be hated. Jews in Israel have no doubt the Palestinians hate them,
for they would hate Palestinians if the situation would be reversed. If
you steal, rob and kill you are sure you should be hated. If you install
yourself as a Master Folk over subservient population, if you eradicate
their culture, demean their traditions, make fun of their faith and emasculate
them, you KNOW you should be hated. The Palestinians are not Jews and
they do not hate the Jews, but many Jews do not understand it, as they
extrapolate their own feelings to their enemies.
RESPONSE: I agree with what most of what you say here, except I'm
afraid that, collectively, the Palestinians -- as a thoroughly suffocated
and tortured people -- have come to that point of outrage that clouds
carefully reasoned reflection. Taking some "basics of psychology,"
I don't think such people probably have the moral luxury -- nor suprahuman
emotional strength -- in the heat of agony to sort out the proverbial
"good Jew" from those many who are quick to drive a tank through
their houses, crushing, perhaps, in the process, a grandmother or two.
Such desperate Palestinian rage in the face of overwhelming odds is human
nature. The protocols of "political correctness" mean little
to those forced to the edge of the abyss. In other words, Israel reaps
what it sows. As self-defined, this state acts in the name of international
Jewry. Holding all Jews responsible is of course unjust, but so is just
about everything over there. In the heat of battle, it is not easy to
search out brothers in the ranks of a nemesis.
SHAMIR: The anti-Semitism fighters within the Jewish community
are the Jews actively engaged in warfare against the host society. They
consider themselves the Herrenvolk and the Gentile Americans are their
flock to be controlled and shepherded. For them, all protestations of
Gentile innocence are of no avail: the Jewish anti-Semitism-fighters KNOW
the goyim have a very good reason to hate them.
RESPONSE: How often have you read such commentary like this by
someone of Jewish descent? And look what you face in the Jewish community
for daring to say so.
SHAMIR: Holocaust supplies an easy external explanation for their
fears, but in 1920s it was supplied by 'Russian pogroms' and in the 19th
century by 'Inquisition'. In case one runs out of reason there is a very
good explanation of Elie Wiesel, that of totally irrational anti-Semitism.
Still, these explanations are just a cover for the real reason: these
people took over America's discourse, and they expect their successes
to be met with hatred of the subjugated people. Search for anti-Semitism
is an active offensive search for the remaining pockets of resistance
within American psyche. It is akin to the search-and-destroy operation
carried out by soldiers in the conquered city.
RESPONSE: I agree. I fail to understand what you have read that
frames you in opposition to the material posted at WVR except, of course,
to the degree it outlines Jewish convention and power, which you condemn.
Again, as you know, you are virtually alone -- at least in the public
arena -- with such commentary, as a person of Jewish descent. It is extraordinary.
Even shocking. But, like it or not, your courage is considerably
more important than any special insights you might shine in your articles.
If you were a Russian Gentile, or French Gentile, or Desmund Tutu, your
arguments would carry less weight in the public arena, whatever their
respective wisdom. That is because you are of Jewish origin (despite whatever
that does or does not mean to you) and your bold comments outrageously
rip across the grain of Jewish convention. I suspect the flavor of your
commentary here is goaded by your disgust for the Jewish convention detailed
at WVR. In this sense, your reaction to it is highly unusual. Most Jews
condemn WVR for its function as an unwanted expose. And I remind you that
non-Jews, for the most part, haven't the slightest idea of what we are
talking about here, per the intricacies of the Jewish side of "anti-Semitism."
And like the blind men and the elephant, I suspect we all are limited
in comprehending the world to some degree by the distinctive baggage that
is our respective lives and experiences. You bring your world, your biases,
your life, to WVR. I bring mine.
SHAMIR: In their eyes, palpable absence of anti-Semitism in the
US is a clear proof of total surrender of the Americans to their new elite.
While discussing 'anti-Semitism', the Author could consider the search
for anti-Semitism as a sterling proof of the searchers' guilt. An innocent
sane person has no reason to believe he is hated, and there is no reason
to commit them to psychiatric asylum.
RESPONSE: I just think that all you wish posted at WVR is, in fact,
there. Perhaps it is not as overt as you'd like it. People must be nursed
to understanding. Not clobbered with it.
SHAMIR: In the forthcoming struggle, it makes sense to know who
your enemy is and what sort of victory you hope to achieve. In my opinion,
the enemy is Jewish supremacy carried out by organised Jewry. Now, following
Isaac Deutscher and other thinkers, I would distinguish between Jewry
and Jews, i.e. people of Jewish origin. Jewry is a structure, a state
without territory, an offensive ideological formation. Jews, people of
Jewish origin could belong to Jewry or reject it completely and become
ordinary Americans, French or Palestinians, like thousands and thousands
of their predecessors, from the Apostles to St Teresa of Avila to Karl
Marx. It is a question of personal choice, but we are not indifferent
to the result. Isaac Deutscher put it neatly: let Jewry perish and Jews
live.
RESPONSE: Yes, but there are some fundamental flaws in your analysis
here. As is so popular in "Jewry's" bemoaning of itself these
days, "Why be Jewish?" Devoid of the old religious base, it's
a good question, and it includes both your concepts of a collective, politicized,
transnational "Jewry" and the individual "Jew" who
divorces himself from this totalitarian collective. What's the difference
between "Jewry" and "Jew?" Why would a Jew still want
to identify as a Jew -- and all the troubles for everyone it has historically
represented -- in a truly honest, enlightened world? Perhaps Deutscher's
statement might be better framed as: Let the ideology of Jewry perish
and let people live. Otherwise, in the way that the renovated language
of Hebrew cannot totally be swept clean of its religious base, you'll
not be able to separate the self-defined "Jew" from the ideology
of Jewry. Because the very term "Jew" is rooted in the ideology
from which it was created.
When the French Jewish-born Cardinal Lustiger, for example ( possibly
the next Pope), declared to Elie Wiesel that he remained loyal to the
Jewish people, that he still remained a "Jew," herein lies the
heart of the problem. What exactly is this allegiance he claims? To Israel?
To Jewish suffering? To the Holocaust? To the Torah? To a folk dance?
And why, in light of all this, should he not be suspect as a Catholic
which, by definition, is NOT a Jew? It is, at root, an unreconcilable
dichotomy. A Jew, by self-declared root definition, is antithetical to
the rest of the world: goyim. Yet, the Jew, also by definition, is everywhere,
anywhere, self-defined as Christian Jews, Buddhist Jews ("jubus")
or anything else. And in this Lustiger story lies the essence of the common
inability of the Jewish-born individual to fully clip the cord to Jewish
chauvinism, whether he/she steps out of the formal chains of "Jewry"
or not.
SHAMIR: There is always a problem how to distinguish Jews - members
of Jewry and ordinary people of Jewish origin. In the days of old, religion
provided sufficient indicator for a person's relationship to society.
The Jew was in the state of declared warfare with the society, as Marx
put it. If he would not like to be antisocial, he would accept Christ.
RESPONSE: I do not think Marx posited that a Jew should accept
Christ. Per the "problem of how to distinguish Jews." In Europe,
this was traditionally easy enough, at least per males: circumcision (traditionally,
a ritual of marking absolute Jewish identity). In this regard, per Judeocentric
domination of American culture, it's an interesting speculation to wonder
if Jewish influence in the medical field was of any significance in the
popularization of circumcision in a society (secular and/or Christian)
which did not require it. Nor, in recent years, has circumcision proven
to be medically sound. In other words, if circumcision became (which it
has) a medical norm in Gentile American culture as well as the Jewish
(which REQUIRED it) enormous Jewish male vulnerability to any "anti-Semitic"
threat was physically diffused. In essence, Christian boys/men -- without
their choice in the matter, with parents deferring to the judgment of
the medical establishment -- bore mutilation on their procreative organ,
emulating Jewish religious tradition. Hence, incredibly, in this regard
non-Jewish culture in America effectively assimilated to Jewish
culture, while Jewry to this day still resists full assimilation into
the American milieu.
SHAMIR: Nowadays, it is not that clear: Christianity in America
isn't posited as the only alternative, nor a religion is considered necessary.
Fortunately, we have three criteria. They are 1. Support for Jewish supremacy
in Palestine, 2. Preference of Jews over non-Jews, and 3. Support of anti-Semitism
fighters. These three parameters allow us to separate goats from lambs
by non-ethnic criteria. Conrad Black, a friend of Sharon and of Foxman,
neatly falls into Jewry, while my friend Michael Neumann finds himself
on the side of angels. Now, what sort of victory should one wish for?
RESPONSE: By this argument you position yourself and Michael Neumann,
both of Jewish origin, as non-Jews and the likes of Conrad Black, George
Bush, and every American who is ignorant enough to support Israel as Jews.
In its extreme, if "being Jewish" is that loose, then all the
Jews in New York could leave the "Jewish" fold tomorrow and,
say, all Native Americans alternatively enter it. Something is missing
in this analysis, don't you think? Something like the Jewish root itself.
Your position negates the very essence of Jewish origin, which is ancestral,
and tribal. Conrad Black doesn't ancestrally qualify. Again, people's
allegiance can be bought for anything. Black may even believe that Jews
are humanity's consummate sufferers and Israel is entitled to express
any brutality it wants to defend against "anti-Semitism." But
being brainwashed and "being Jewish" aren't necessarily the
same things.
SHAMIR: In my opinion, the first goal is liberation of discourse,
removal of means of mass communication from the clutches of Jewish supremacists,
democratisation of access to media. In the longer run, cutting Jewry to
its natural size. Let the religious Jews pray in their synagogues, but
in case they take their synagogue with them to a bank or to a newspaper
office, the affirmative action anti-discrimination law should be enforced.
The Jews constitute two per cent of the US population, and that is exactly
the maximum share they should have in the resources and administration.
It is very generous approach: nowadays, in the Jewish state, non-Jews
constitute 50 per cent of population but occupy no important positions
at all.
RESPONSE: I agree with most of what you say here. But if you are
going to include the likes of Conrad Black, and Rupert Murdoch, and the
many, many non-Jews who are beholding to Jewish power throughout culture
as "Jews," your percentages for anti-discrimination laws are
going to get very slippery.
SHAMIR: But Christian approach is not a mirror copy of the Jewish
one. Eventually, Jews will leave Jewry and join all-American population.
Our three criteria would allow us to see whether we deal with sincere
conversion, or a trick.
RESPONSE: You echo history here. There is precedent for the Jewish
"trick" -- on massive scale. Spain's conversos and so
forth. This has always been part of the problems Jews have had and it
is self-created: Gentile distrust of Jews no matter to what they proclaim
allegiance. This is a task people like you must overcome. The challenge
to you on all sides -- both Jewish and non-Jewish -- is colossal.
SHAMIR: If a person sends his money to Jews, instead of general
population, if he calls to support Israel, if he alleges Christian customs
make him feel uncomfortable, he belongs to Jewry and should be treated
as such. If he freely intermarries and communicates with the others, if
he cares for all and not for Jews only, if he values the spirit of America,
he is just an American.
RESPONSE: There is more to this. Such a person must be able to
transcend the complex neuroses of self-love and self-hate that inform
the "Jewish" character. He
must likewise transcend the notion that he is a victim and that all the
world owes him reparations of any and all sorts. And on and on. It's more
a root system than the single trunk of a tree.
SHAMIR: I regret that you misunderstood Michael Neumann's opus
(Blame Yourself: American Power and Jewish Power) you described as Defence
of Jews. Yes, Neumann tried to make light of the Jewish power and to magnify
the power still in Gentile hands. On my list I run Jeff Blankfort's response.
Jeff refuted him, in brief but poignant description of the vast powers
of the Jewish lobby. (I would recommend you to link or display Blankfort's
piece). You, in your response, perceived Neumann's essay as a usual Jewish
dissimulation. But actually Neumann tried to encourage you, the Gentile
America, to cheer you up, to remind you that you still have the immense
strength of your sinews and your mind.
RESPONSE: Sorry. I still don't see it that way. Mr. Neumann, in
classical form, attempts to deflect the justifiable criticism that comes
Jewry's way. And he blames non-Jews for Jewish exploitation. This, as
you know, is quite the norm in the Jewish community. It is the same paradigm
as the ADL, isn't it? The accusation of "anti-Semitism" (ENTIRELY
blaming non-Jews for the Jewish share of human failing) is the same
thing. Likewise, per Neumann, I don't think "Gentile America"
will take solace in being "cheered up" by a man of Jewish heritage
denying the enormous influence of Jewry in American culture. Whether intended
or by default, it is a form of dissimulation.
SHAMIR: He was worried that your spirit is crushed by comprehension
of the Jewish power. He behaved like Jesus in the Sufi poem by Jalal ad-Din
ar-Rumi, who whipped a sufferer around town, until he vomited a huge snake.
Why did you beat me? Asked the healed sufferer and Jesus replied: if I
would tell you the truth about the snake you would die of fear. It is
necessary to make people aware or the great unjust and discriminative
concentration of power and wealth in hands of a small group. But it is
also tactically reasonable to play this power down, like Mao Zedong did
when he called the nuclear might of the US, 'a papier-mâché tiger'.
RESPONSE: I'm sorry. This sound like Orwellian doublethink. Freedom
is slavery. Power is weakness. Light is dark. If we play Jewish power
"down" it will be more vulnerable to criticism? If we ignore
it, it will go away? If we don't mention the giant snake, and have someone
sadistically whip us (!), the snake will take wings and fly off? I do
not think Rumi wrote his poems as political treatises and ideological
strategies. Rumi probably wandered off into the desert or forest to stare
into the wings of a gnat to find God. He probably twirled himself dizzy.
No thank you. I'll take my chances with naming the snake, so people have
the primary information that the snake exists in the world. As I have
stated to Mr. Neumann: dissimulation feeds dissimulation. Lie feeds lie.
Illusion begets further illusion. And not the opposite. I'll read Rumi
to transcend the materialist follies of this world (for that is
the Sufi aim), but not as remedy to negotiate them.
SHAMIR: Neumann's call for more civil courage was timely: unless
you will speak up nobody will do it for you. Your response to him was
a bit too suspicious. There are many guys with Jewish names who prefer
equality to Jewish supremacy, because they know: Jewish supremacy is not
rule by Einstein or Freud, it is rule by Mort Zuckerman, Ariel Sharon,
Richard Pearle et al. Together we can win the game. Though I am flattered
by being described as 'anomaly', but as a matter of fact, I receive many
letters to the contrary. Just today I received a letter from an anti-Zionist
(or should I say 'pro-equality') activist of Jewish origin in California:
RESPONSE: So, what? A handful of "guys with Jewish names"
contacted you in solidarity? A dozen? Fifty? For every Israel Shamir,
there is -- what? A thousand, ten thousand "Jews"? -- condemning
you. I'm also sorry to disappoint you, but Sigmund Freud is part of the
"Jewish supremacy" paradigm too. No question. It is another
expression of the authoritarian Thought Police. That's discussed at length
at WVR.
SHAMIR: When speaking at an event last year on the subject of "Washington
as Israel's Most Important Occupied Territory," I began my speech by describing
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as "funny papers" compared to the
reality not only in Washington but in most of the cities of the United
States including San Francisco and Berkeley where I was speaking. Most
people who refer to the Protocols have not read them - and I am convinced,
given the times and language in which they are written and the terms used,
that it is indeed, a forgery, but a forgery that, ironically, presaged
what we see today in the US and to a lesser extent in other Western countries,
albeit today's version is much more sophisticated and solidly based in
reality.
RESPONSE: My understanding is that the supposed source of the Protocols
was a French novel. I can't read French. Scholarly convention declares
the Protocols to be a forgery. All materials I've read about the Protocols
were written by Jews. The more relevant issue for me is the sociopolitical
context in which this notorious text surfaced in Russia, with Jewish American
capitalists like Jacob Schiff attempting (successfully) to overthrow the
Tsar, etc. and the looming communist revolution -- of which Jews played
such an important part). The point should be to understand the social-political
origin of the Protocols, in all respects, towards understanding why they
were given such credibility by those upset with Jewish power.
SHAMIR: In short, life imitating bad art. And no sector of our
society is immune. There are hundreds of similar letters written by people
who explicitly reject any claim of organised Jewry on their soul. That
is why I believe in possibility to undo the Jewish hegemony in full partnership
with 'Jews'.
RESPONSE: The problem, as you surely must recognize, is the implicit
subtext to your argument: To loosely paraphrase: "Jews created
the problem. No, per Michael Neumann, they did not actually create the
problem. Gentiles let them create the problem. And Jews will be instrumental
in liberating Gentiles from Jewry, after oppressing them." Herein
lies the age-old problem: the incessant Jewish "mission" to
the world, killing for communism, killing for Zionism, or simply being
so central in the development of oppressive capitalism. Whatever. Jews
everywhere rush to clutch the steering wheel, as Republicans, Democrats,
Communists, post-communist Russian money moguls, and everything else --
heading the boat north, then heading the boat south, then heading it in
circles till it (in your view) backtracks and picks back up a few folks
that were tossed overboard."
It's suffocating. Do you understand that? If we soon have a Jewish president
(Lieberman), a Jewish pope (Lustiger), and even if George Bush is a "Jew"
in your eyes, why does anyone need a few more Jews to seize control to
show the way out of this mess? This is the historic problem. Fair share
is not domination. Assimilation is not seizing control. As you surely
know, the Jewish "partnership" in so many realms has typically
led to co-optation to Judeocentric interests, even in marriage (see below).
Is all of life merely a "Jewish" merry-go-round in your eyes?
This omnipresence -- in all spheres -- is part of the troubles of history.
"Partnership" is one thing. Co-optation and subversion -- which
is more typically Jewish history, from the American civil rights movement
to the communist revolution -- is another. These are the realms that need
public discussion. Jews are entitled to their fair share of influence.
Beyond that, there will always be problems. Sooner or later.
SHAMIR: Again, it is not an ethnic divide: goys Black or Murdoch
are as pro-Jewry as Zuckerman. You write: "The key to Black joining
the powerful "tribe" of course, in any sense, rests upon his Jewish connections
-- in this case his wife, Barbara Amiel." I think this is an
error of judgement. Black is not a weakling managed by his wife. A lot
of people have Jewish wives (or Jewish husbands). It means nothing.
RESPONSE: Oh, Jewish wives and husbands mean a great deal. Most
are influences towards a spouse's Holocaust martyrological sensitivity
training (at the very least) and -- by association -- defense of the Jewish
collective and its victimology tradition. There are many Jews who subscribe
to this and "being Jewish" becomes a form of defiance ("I
can't give up my Jewish heritage after all we've been through over the
centuries," etc.), even in partnership with a non-Jew. How many people
of Jewish heritage out there are writing that "being Jewish"
is the wrong direction?
SHAMIR: Probably every family in the US elite has a member of Jewish
origin (probably your family as well). It is quite normal way of assimilating
minorities. In such a way, other successful and powerful minorities were
integrated and dismantled in the course of human history. The Jewish leadership
hopes to perpetuate its control over these descendents of Jews, but Jews
can be assimilated and dejewified like everybody else, if America is alive.
That is the challenge for America: to dejewify Jews before Jews will jewify
them.
RESPONSE: The further we go back in history, the more all are interrelated.
That's not news. But there are cutoff dates that separate people (per,
for example, the birth of Jewish self-conception). But I point out to
you that even Benjamin Netanyahu was married to a woman whose mother wasn't
Jewish and Max Nordeau, one of the early Zionist pioneers, was married
to a Christian. Herzl, Weizmann, and Ben Gurion all had children who married
non-Jews. So? Does this evidence cultural and ideological homogeneity:
a blending?
Calvin Goldscheider notes that "usually the Jewish partner remains
attached to the Jewish community and in many cases the partner not born
Jewish becomes attached to the Jewish community through friends, family,
neighbors, organizations, secular and religious. Most of the friends of
the intermarried are Jewish; most support the state of Israel; most identify
themselves as Jews." [GOLDSCHEIDER, p. 139]
"In my experience," says social worker Edwin Freedman,
"it is far more likely that when Jews and non-Jews marry it will
generally be the non-Jewish partner who is influenced away from his or
her origins. When the focus is confined to those marriages in which the
Jewish partner is female, then I have to add that I have almost never
seen such a union where the non-Jewish male will be the less adaptive
partner in family matters." [FREEDLAND, E., 1982, p. 503]
Jewish identity is quite complex, and innately contradictory. As you well
know.
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