Irfan Yusuf is a regular Webdiary columnist. His last entry was From Shaykh Bandung to Syria - More Danish food for thought. The following is longer than the usual contribution, but worth every word. Thanks Irfan.
by Irfan Yusuf
They say that you can pick your friends but you can never pick your relos. Well, apart from your in-laws. But that would mean divorce. And as a small “c” conservative, I don’t wish to be seen promoting the breakup of families.
Thankfully, I don’t have to experience the joys of having lots of cousins and uncles and aunties in Australia. Virtually all my relos live overseas.
I have a good friend of Arabic-speaking background who works as a freelance journalist and lives with her Scottish husband in suburban Sydney. The poor thing has literally thousands of relos of differing degrees of relation but all having the same surname.
When you fight with the rels, it tends to be nasty. What makes it worse is that you often can’t help ending up feeling the pain you joyously inflict on them. It’s a bit like scratching your face to squash a mosquito sucking the blood from your cheek.
What I say holds true in both personal dealings and between nations and communities. Huh?
Abraham’s two sons and my Jewish mum
We know Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Many Arabs are ethnic descendants of Ishmael, while many Jews are ethnic descendants of Isaac. In a religious sense, Muslims and Jews are cultural and spiritual cousins.
The spiritual relation between the two faiths has translated into a long history of positive interaction between Jews and Muslims. Some will be surprised to learn that the Prophet Muhammad had a Jewish wife named Safiyya. Like other wives of the Prophet, she is held in high esteem as one of the “Mothers of the Believers”.
Safiyya is our very own spiritual mum. When I recite or write her name, I should also write or recite a prayer in Arabic which goes “radhi Allahu anha” and which literally means “may God be well-pleased with her”.
So there you have it. Every Muslim has a Jewish mum.
Historical Inertia
That’s not all. The great Kurdish warrior Saladin, who gave the Crusaders a run for their money, appointed as his personal physician and adviser the famous Andalusian theologian and physician Shaykh Musa bin Maymoun al-Qurtubi. The Shaykh’s statue can be found in certain places to this day. He sports a neatly-trimmed beard, a long gown, a tunic and a cap with a turban wrapped around.
If someone dressed like him boarded an airplane in the US, he’d probably be subjected to racial profiling. Or perhaps even shot by an air marshall. He looks more like Usama bin Ladin/Reagan than a Jewish doctor.
Of course, the great Shaykh al-Qurtubi was a Jewish doctor. European Jews call him Moses Maimonides. Yep, a Muslim general appointed a Jewish theologian as his adviser to liberate Jerusalem!
When Jews were expelled from Spain as part of the Inquisition, they were welcomed with open arms in the newly-conquered Istanbul which became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Yep, the spiritual descendants of Ishmael were once again lending their elder cousins from the house of Isaac a helping hand.
Islam recognises both Ishmael and Isaac as Prophets of God. Theoretically Muslims should be equally upset if a newspaper published cartoons lampooning either of these sacred personalities. In terms of theology, religious jurisprudence and culture, no two faith traditions resemble each other more than Islam and Judaism.
Cooperation between Jews and Muslims has been a position of historical inertia. The Arab-Israeli dispute has been the exception, not the rule.
Cousins fight sometimes
The long history of positive interaction between Jews and Muslims should be reason for the two communities to work together. Sadly, politics and nationalism have come in the way. Cousins are known to disagree, and even come to blows. Some Jews and some Muslims have had some phenomenal battles.
However, good sense should (and usually does) eventually prevail. At the end of the day, when one member of the family suffers pain, other members also feel it.
Recent efforts toward interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims across the Western world are beginning to reap fruit and see a return to the historical inertia of good relations. Ironically, the Iranians have had an indirect role to play in this.
The Hamshahri cartoon competition
In response to a Danish newspaper’s publication of 12 cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has announced it will hold a competition for cartoonists to poke fun at the Holocaust. Apparently, the purpose of the competition is to enable Europeans and other westerners to get a taste of what Muslims are feeling.
The Iranian cartoon competition has been widely publicised across the globe. It has also been condemned in a number of quarters, including by mainstream Muslims.
In the United States and Canada, the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned any attempt to lampoon and demean the Holocaust. Its press release of 8 February 2006 cited a verse from the 41st Chapter of the Koran which states:
“Goodness and evil cannot be equal. Repel (evil) with something that is better. Then you will see that he with whom you had enmity will become your close friend. And no one will be granted such goodness except those who exercise patience and self-restraint.”
The press release goes onto call for “responsible people of all faiths to avoid inflammatory actions that are clearly designed to incite hatred. We call on Hamshahri newspaper to drop its plans to denigrate the immense suffering caused by the Nazi Holocaust and urge the Iranian government to repudiate such an insensitive proposal.”
Shifting sands of opinion and hypocrisy on both sides
Such statements represent a distinct shift in Muslim opinion, largely led by second and third generation younger Muslims and converts to Islam. The executive director of CAIR, Ibrahim Hooper, is himself an Anglo-American convert.
This shift of opinion is significant for a few reasons.
Firstly, critics of Muslim responses to the Danish cartoons have quite rightly pointed out that government-run newspapers in a number of Muslim-majority states have published anti-Semitic cartoons in the past. Rarely (if ever) have mainstream Muslim groups condemned the depiction of Jews and Jewish culture in this manner.
(Of course, the difference is that no Muslim newspaper is ever known to have lampooned Moses or any other Biblical prophet. But that can be dealt with elsewhere …)
Such cartoons have lampooned the traditional religious dress of observant Jews in much the same way that cartoons in Western and Israeli papers have lampooned the dress of observant Muslims. But when was the last time you saw a prominent Jewish leader agitating against the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim depictions in the Israeli or Western press or by prominent Israeli writers?
Also, I doubt I have ever seen Israeli and mainstream Jewish leaders come forward and condemned the extremely racist and xenophobic works of prominent columnists such as Daniel Pipes [url: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/14/1094927579748.html] and Mark Steyn. Their writings have been at the forefront of generating intense hatred against Muslims, particularly Muslim minorities living in Western countries.
Instead of condemning the writings of these certified racists, we find their works appearing prominently in mainstream Jewish publications and on Jewish websites [url: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0802/steyn1.asp]. What little response that has arisen from Israeli and Jewish circles is usually limited to left-wing and interfaith sectors of Jewish opinion who are often marginalised within their own communities.
So when it comes to racism and xenophobia, both Jewish and Muslim leaders aren’t exactly cleanskins.
Learning lessons from the Holocaust
I could go on and on about how both Muslim and Jewish writers and artists and cartoonists and others have been generating hatred against each other. But what would it achieve? Do we want to wallow in yesterday’s excrement? Or do we want to move onto less smelly pastures?
By taking the stance they have, CAIR and other groups are exercising strong leadership in changing attitudes on both sides. They are joining with mainstream Jewish Groups such as the Australian chapter of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, who have issued strong condemnations of the Danish cartoons. However, rhetoric isn’t enough.
Jewish and Muslim organisations and leaders must realise that only by actively cooperating against xenophobia will they achieve substantial gains in Western countries where cultural chauvinism is on the rise. In the nominally Christian West, both Jews and Muslims are minorities. Both are potentially vulnerable.
Jewish leaders must realise that attacks on Muslim culture often come from the same circles that had demonised Jewish culture during the early part of the 20th Century. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry when I see the likes of Daniel Pipes hanging out with wacko Christian fundamentalists from the Deep South of the US of A. Today he is drumming up hatred of Muslims and support for Israel using Armageddon analysis. But he ought to realise that once these in-breds have dealt with the Muslims, they’ll soon be after his hide.
Shared Destiny
With all this nasty rhetoric spewing forth from the op-ed pages of certain national broadsheets, many Muslims are beginning to see themselves as the “new Jews”.
If the fears of an increasing number of Muslims are realised, and if Muslim minorities do end up suffering a similar fate as their Jewish cousins did during World War II, Muslims now have no option but to learn from the experience of their religious cousins. The Holocaust and the survival of European Jewish culture should be the object of our serious study, not our ridicule.
Whether they like it or not, Muslims and Jews will both suffer from the rising xenophobia and cultural chauvinism such as that witnessed in Cronulla last December. Hatred doesn’t require a lot of brains. And after you’ve had 6 schooners and 3 cones, it isn’t easy to tell the difference between an observant Jew and an observant Muslim. The phrase “Middle Eastern appearance” can be just as easily applied to an Israeli as an Arab.
Muslims mustn’t participate in demonising Jews or vice versa. They must stand up for each other when one is being unjustly demonised by a majority. They must also honestly recognise and critique their own when justice demands this happen. They must feel each other’s pain, not be the source of it.
I call upon both Jewish and Muslim minorities to recognise their shared destiny. We can’t keep harping on about past grievances, about an imam’s speech 20 years ago or about what someone said about Dr Ashrawi. The fight’s over now. Time for cousins to shake hands.
An important point
Irfan: I think you make a very important point in talking about the 'familial' relationship of Jews and Moslems. It is too easy to take the 'short history' view of things instead of the 'long history' one.
I am sure as you know, the reason that many Jews opposed the creation of the State of Israel was because they saw Judaism as a religion, which it is, and not as a race, which it isn't. They were also farsighted enough to see the problems that the 'invasion', occupation and colonisation (followed by more occupation and colonisation) of Palestine would cause to the people who lived there and to the region in general.
Interestingly, spending time in Israel and Palestine in recent years, it was clear that Israelis have far more in common culturally with Arabs than with anyone else. This statement would of course be considered very politically incorrect in Israel but that does not make it less true.
Despite the clear racism that Israelis seem to have toward Palestinians in particular and Arabs in general .... probably an historically recent development ... the culture, cuisine, society seemed very Arab. Having also spent a lot of time in New York, where I think as many if not more Jews live than in Israel, I could see fewer similarities between that culture and Israel's. Perhaps the settler movement excluded because it does seem to have high numbers of Jewish American immigrants.
I could not help but think of American soldiers in the Second World War who discovered, through necessity, that they had far more in common with their 'black' compatriots than they did with 'white' foreigners.
Your article is a reminder of how important it is to spend time thinking about what we have in common rather than concentrating on where we disagree.
I know a Jewish argument is to cite 'expulsion' of Jews from Arab countries at certain times but this was not a specifically Jewish experience as any Armenians will tell you and as some Christians will too. And given that the Zionists sought to expel non-Jews from Palestine no-one has clean hands, as you said.
Israel, or rather the foundation of Israel, is the thorn in the side of the Middle East today. It was founded on a wrong and like all historically recent colonisers remains in essence 'illegitimate' until that wrong is admitted and redress made. Australia, the US, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa have had to do it so why not Israel?
I think most people in the world, and most Arabs, accept that Israel exists because you cannot turn back the clock, but that needs to be on original borders. And, denying the wrong of foundation and compounding it by occupation and continued colonisation has made this initial injury into a festering and potentially mortal wound.
I also feel that much of the paranoia in Israel and amongst some Jews in regard to this conflict arises from a subconscious recognition of the illegitimacy of the Israeli State. It's kind of 'don't mention the war.' But denial does not make for a balanced mind or State.
We are here and we are now and the reality on the ground is that Israel needs to accept that it only came into existence through the dispossession of others and those 'others' have rights as well.
I think from that point on it will become easier for each side to remember they are 'cousins'. The reality is that a Palestinian State and Israeli State are so small that they need each other if they are to survive in the future. As older generations die too I am sure the fears, if not paranoia, underlying the desire for a Jewish State will die with them and Israel and Palestine will become even more of a shared entity.
One can only wish that the least blood is spilled in achieving that.
Humpty-Dumpty
Will Howard, I'm reminded of Humpty-Dumpty:
Like it or not, words have a life of their own. One of the problems with formal logic is that words have to have such restricted definitions that it ends up telling us nothing useful. Interesting words like "Zionism" or "race", which we are discussing here, or "God", which is getting a good run elsewhere on WD, defy definition. A good thing, too.Words like "Zionism" and "anti-Zionism" mean many things, and different things to different people, and different things in different times and contexts, whether we like it or not. Pearl provides one version, and Avi Shlaim another. Hamish raised the question earlier in this thread. I guess my answer to his question is to fight (but only with arguments, and fairly) for the definition that best describes the world, as best you can understand it. It's a losing battle, because not everyone fights fair, and some use guns. But life wasn't meant to be easy.
"Racism" (and "anti-semitism") are a bit different. Given the history of the last few hundred years, and in particular the slave trade to the Americas and the Holocaust (and our own history), they carry more than usual weight. They are not to be used lightly. They amount to an accusation of evil. So Leunig is accused of producing an anti-semitic cartoon, but is very carefully not accused of being anti-semitic. There was a thread last year where someone (who?) claimed not to know of a case where anyone was accused of anti-semitism simply for criticising Israeli policy. The Cronulla incident is similar. Lots of apparently racist statements, on both sides, but in the minds of many only a lunatic fringe of actual racism - and the "Lebs" of course, who are criminals as well.
So Pearl is in effect, accusing Hamish's friends, Avi Shlaim, a hell of a lot of muslims, and sundry others, of being evil.
I'm not very keen on using "xenophobia" though.
First, is is (pop) pyschologising what is very much a social phenomenon. It emphasises the fear of the other, which is probably a common feature of what we are trying to describe, but doesn't seem either necessary or sufficient on its own. And it de-emphasises the social, political and economic factors which are often very significant.
Second, a lot of what we are trying to deal with is very like racism in its classical sense, when we consider that race is a social, not biological construct. It should not carry the evil connotations of the Holocaust or the Slave Trade except when the evil is comparable. But it is in the same family.
And here is something that has just struck me. The accusations of anti-semitism against Hamas tend to be based not on the fact that it has killed rather a lot of Jews, but on the infamous charter. Clearly, the suicide bombings and other attacks in Israel and the occupied territories are part of a political confrontation. Their genesis is not in an antipathy to Jews (whatever extent that exists), but in the fact that family, friends and neighbours have been killed or maimed, in the daily indignities of checkpoints and separation from the land, and and the fact that all sides (let the blame fall where it may) have failed to negotiate a settlement.
Racism and religion are in the mix on both sides. My Macquarie (sorry, most of this is being done off-line) defines "anti-Semite" as "one hostile to Jews". So the Palestinians qualify, on the evidence of the intifada. Or is that a confusion between the Israeli State and Judaism? And the Israelis would qualify for "Islamophobia" (sorry, not in the Macquarie, and it doesn't have the same resonance) on the same evidence.
Should someone be branded "anti-semitic" if family and friends etc. etc?
We are left with the Hamas charter, which is anti-semitic. It calls for the destruction of Israel, and references, with approval, the Protocols. But there is a passage in the charter that I haven't seen quoted before:
My understanding is that that is a very old position within Islam, and has offered comfort to Jews in the past - under Islamic rule. Is it very different to the the attitude of Israel to their muslim citizens? You (whoever) have the rights and obligations of a citizen, but this is a (insert religion here) state.
So it is the destruction of Israel as a (Jewish) state. Not of the Jews. A lot of anti-semitic rhetoric that is, to say the least, ill-advised.
Here is Article Twenty from the charter:
It's the Leunig cartoon. Let's get beyond the problem of scale, and ask if the grievances are legitimate. We are talking about crimes against humanity (but just common or garden, mot Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot).I don't think that collective punishment is seriously disputable.It's midnight, and I have a big day ahead. I may try to do it justice later, but on the issue of a Jewish Nation my position is that "nation" does not have a necessary implication of a territorial state. Check the dictionaries. There is no "right" to a territory. Or maybe there is, in which case all of us liberal (post-colonial) democrats are stuffed.
And a definition: I was searching for "nation", but it wasn't there:
Humpty-Dumpophobia
Mark Sergeant notes: "The accusations of anti-semitism against Hamas tend to be based not on the fact that it has killed rather a lot of Jews, but on the infamous charter."
Well not just the charter, but a heck of a lot of their overall rhetoric. Really they've declared themselves anti-Semitic.
"Clearly, the suicide bombings and other attacks in Israel and the occupied territories are part of a political confrontation. Their genesis is not in an antipathy to Jews..."
Perhaps the genesis is not in inherent antipathy to Jews, but Jew-hatred has been a key weapon in the confrontation, before the State of Israel was ever established, and certainly decades before the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. The first Arabic translation of the Protocols was published in 1948.
"Racism and religion are in the mix on both sides. My Macquarie (sorry, most of this is being done off-line) defines 'anti-Semite' as 'one hostile to Jews'. So the Palestinians qualify, on the evidence of the intifada. Or is that a confusion between the Israeli State and Judaism? And the Israelis would qualify for 'Islamophobia' (sorry, not in the Macquarie, and it doesn't have the same resonance) on the same evidence."
I don't actually think the Intifada in itself qualifies as anti-Semitic, nor do I think Israeli military action against Palestinians qualifies as Islamaphobic. Remember: not all Israelis are Jews, and not all Palestinians are Muslim.
So Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel. For "destruction of Israel" let us seek (as you put it) "the definition that best describes the world, as best you can understand it." I don't know any definition of this phrase, in the world as I understand it, that does not entail the death or forceful expulsion of millions of people, most of them Jews. And if Hamas wants to destroy Israel, what are their intentions for the non-Jewish Israelis? And if their destructive intentions are only for Jewish Israelis... you see where this ends up.
Mark, you also note, regarding Islamic policy of coexistence: "My understanding is that that is a very old position within Islam, and has offered comfort to Jews in the past - under Islamic rule."
True, and you are correct that this was in the past - centuries ago. The reinvocation and reinvigoration of that spirit would really be a positive step.
"Is it very different to the attitude of Israel to their Muslim citizens?" Perhaps not in the 14th Century, but today it's completely different. We've been through this before. Jews (those that weren't expelled in the 1940s and '50s) have essentially no rights in Arab Muslim countries today. Non-Jews, and Muslims in particular, have full citizenship rights in Israel, though they do face social and economic inequalities.
I saw the Leunig cartoon, by the way, and to me the comparison between Nazi annihilation of Jews and Israeli treatment of Palestinians is fatuous and unfounded, as is Article 20 of the Hamas Charter. These comparisons fail on factual grounds, anti-Semitic or not.
But, Mark, you still haven't defined, much less answered, your own question: "There is a problem with the idea of a Jewish National State. The definitions of 'nation' vary on the matter of geography... Without disputing the right of existence of a Jewish Nation, there is a proper question about the legitimacy of a State imposed on an indigenous people. A question which should be familiar in all 'post-colonial' states."
So what's the question?
Geoff Pahoff hits the nail on the head in regard to Hamish's question "is it possible for a person to be against the political view that Jews should reclaim their homeland ... and not be racist? If so, what should they call themselves if not anti-Zionist?":
"As usual the problem is the vacuum in which the question languishes. The Jewish homeland does exist and, no matter how inconvenient that is for certain kinds of political theory, that is a fact that hardly can be glossed over. What else can this phrase mean other than the destruction of the Israeli state? If that is what is meant why be mealy mouthed about it?"
Recall that the Nazis called their project "die Endlösung der Judenfrage:" The Final Solution of the Jewish Question. The "question" must have been "do Jews have a right to exist?" And the Nazis obviously answered this question in the negative. So "questions" about the Jewish State's legitimacy have a certain resonance.
This gets back to Judea Pearl's challenge as well: is the Israel-Palestine conflict "a conflict between two legitimate national movements?” If the answer is "no," then which is the illegitimate one? Or perhaps neither is legitimate? As Pearl notes, we in the small-l liberal West "adore even-handedness and abhor bias."
If you think neither is legitimate, then perhaps you are against all nationalism on principle? But it's not as if we're living in a post-nationalist world. As commentator George Jonas points out: "Nation-states are thriving in the 21st century - and they're also considered to be legitimate forms of social organizations for groups to aspire to, attain, or preserve. All groups, that is, except the Jews, according to anti- or post-Zionists."
The question is
Will Howard, you wrote: "Perhaps the genesis is not in inherent antipathy to Jews, but Jew-hatred has been a key weapon in the confrontation, before the State of Israel was ever established, and certainly decades before the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. The first Arabic translation of the Protocols was published in 1948."
I'm a bit surprised it was so late. Demonisation of the enemy seems to be a universal weapon of war, and mostly it only accidentally coincides with truth - except for the (mutual) allegations of atrocity. Your evidence seems to coincide with the establishment of Israel, rather than preceding it, and technically it falls a year short of "decades". And it was an old conflict by then.
And it isn't just one way, either. This...
...is from a later era, and the research didn't go back to the Israeli equivalent of Hansard to verify the quotes. And I am taking the Wikipedia author's report of his research on trust. But I don't think that you will dispute that there are many contemporary instances of prominent (proto-) Israelis saying comparable things of the Palestinians.
Will, the Soviet Union was destroyed. Apartheid South Africa was destroyed. The Third Reich was destroyed. The states are gone, but the people are still there. Numerous (American) Indian Nations were destroyed, and mostly the people are not there. Some of them are in Oklahoma. It doesn't follow that the destruction of a state means the genocide of its people.
The way I discussed the coexistence policy made it easy for you to denigrate it as something long ("the 14th Century") dead. But the reference was to the Hamas Charter, and that is very much now. My understanding is that it is not just an optional extra in Sharia, however twisted the interpretations get. Just as it is a religious duty to defend Islam from those that attack it, it is a religious duty to deal fairly and peacefully with those at peace with Islam. That is why it is in the Charter.
Shouldn't that read "... face State and quasi-State discrimination"? Your phrase implies no particular origin to the inequalities, but it is clear that a large part of it is due to discrimination by the State (or, mostly, State sponsored and funded organisations). That discrimination against non-Jewish Israeli citizens is State practice. if not official policy. And yes, the Arab States do it worse.
So to the "question" of the Jewish National State.
It started out as a semantic point. The dictionary definition of "Nation" does not require the existence of a state or territory. Merriam-Webster is confusing, but if I'm reading it correctly, their primary definition comes down to "a people having a common origin, tradition, and language and capable of forming or actually constituting a nation-state". In my hard copy Macquarie, the primary definition is "an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family...". Neither of those definitions implies state or territory. Of the other definitions, most, but not all, do. It made sense to talk of the "Jewish Nation" in the nineteenth century, and it was talked about.
The question is: Is it (was it) right to impose a State (in this case, Israel) on an indigenous people without their consent?
I thought that was reasonably clear in my original post. It's the reason for the colonial references. The mother country is Britain, by the way, though not on the usual patterns.
My answer to the question, if you were wondering, is no. But it has happened so let's get on with it. Maybe it could have been done right, but I don't see how.
They certainly, and properly, do. It doesn't mean they don't have to be answered, though.
I'm strongly tempted by anti-nationalism. Patriotism is the first refuge of the scoundrel, and the nation state is more trouble than it's worth. But we are stuck with it, at least until Diebold gets global distribution for its voting machines. That will be worse.
So are they two legitimate national movements? Yes. Did you note Pearl's aspersions on the territorial claim of the Palestinians?
A while back I was more or less agreeing with you on the prospective border. I think I'm moving to the Green Line.
Re: the question is
Mark Sergeant, I appreciate your clarity on the question of the legitimacy of Israel, though I still think the "colonial" model, with Britain as "mother country" does not fit the situation at all. There have never been more than a few British Jews in Palestine. So if the Brits were trying to colonise Palestine with Jews, they didn't do a very good job. They also worked hard, from the late '30s onward, to keep Jews out.
Arab demonisation of Jews, as I pointed out, far predates the State of Israel. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem offered cooperation with the Nazis as soon as they took power in 1933. (The Nazis rebuffed these approaches because they still thought they might make a deal with the British and didn't want to unnecessarily antagonise them by getting close to the Arabs). It was to be four years before the first mention of Jewish and Arab "states" in Palestine in the Peel Commission report of 1937.
My statement "Non-Jews, and Muslims in particular, have full citizenship rights in Israel, though they do face social and economic inequalities" should have read exactly as I wrote it. Some of the inequality does originate in state policies, some in social attitudes. You are free to express your own ideas your own way. I also did not think Pearl cast any aspersions on the territorial claims of the Palestinians. He and I both acknowledge their claim to a state as valid.
You note: "The way I discussed the coexistence policy made it easy for you to denigrate it as something long ("the 14th Century") dead. But the reference was to the Hamas Charter, and that is very much now. My understanding is that it is not just an optional extra in Sharia, however twisted the interpretations get. Just as it is a religious duty to defend Islam from those that attack it, it is a religious duty to deal fairly and peacefully with those at peace with Islam. That is why it is in the Charter."
I in no way intended to denigrate Hamas' references to coexistence - I welcome them and hope they can be built upon. The question is, how do you (and how will they) reconcile such impulses toward coexistence with the other parts of the Hamas Charter - now the official policy of the Palestinian government?
The idea of coexistence between Muslims and Jews in the Islamic world contains some myths as well as some truths. As Bernard Lewis notes in his recent essay The New Anti-Semitism:
Lewis also notes that:
But even this limited medieval "tolerance" is far more "progressive" (by today's standards) than anything granted the remnants of Jewish communities in the Muslim world today, and likely would not be the situation for Jews in a Hamas-ruled State of Palestine. Though many Israeli Jews have said nasty things about Arabs (and vice versa, of course) bigotry is not enshrined in Israeli government policy the way the "Protocols" are in the Hamas Charter. And Menachem Begin died 14 years ago. Hamas is alive now.
Finally, let's talk about "the destruction of Israel." Mark, you note "the Soviet Union was destroyed. Apartheid South Africa was destroyed. The Third Reich was destroyed. The states are gone, but the people are still there. Numerous (American) Indian Nations were destroyed, and mostly the people are not there. Some of them are in Oklahoma. It doesn't follow that the destruction of a state means the genocide of its people."
Fair enough point. So what is your vision of how the "destruction" of Israel will be achieved?
A Vision
Will Howard, first, on the issue of colonialism. Palestine is listed as a colonial territory of the British (after the Ottomans). The British Mandate of Palestine was not technically a colonial relationship, though it had most of the features, and there is the four years before the Mandate. My argument on the semantic point is that the Mandate was sufficiently like colonialism to qualify (it is undisputed on wikipedia), so Israel is a post-colonial state, and the relevant colonial power is Great Britian.
Immigration from the mother country beyond administrative and commercial personnel is only an occasional feature of colonialism. Much of Africa was too inhospitable for mass immigration, and the Europeans did not know how to farm it. In India there were a lot of military, but not many settlers.
In the slave colonies of the Americas there was mass immigration, but from Africa, not the mother country. Is Africa the "mother country" for the Caribbean nations? Not in the colonial sense, but in important ways, it is. Just as the roots of Israel are in the Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.
But my original reference ("A question which should be familiar in all 'post-colonial' states") was referring to the minority of post-colonial states, like Australia, where there is a large and dominant settler population and a continuity in administrative and financial power with the colonial power. The question ended up being explicit as "Is it (was it) right to impose a State (in this case, Israel) on an indigenous people without their consent?". Us post-colonial nations have had to deal with the consequences (and usually done it badly). Israel is in the midst of the process now.
Here is the wikipedia definition of Colonialism:
It seems to fit the Israeli situation in the West Bank and Gaza over the last 40-odd years.
We now have evidence that Arab demonisation of Jews goes back to at least 1933. But I said of 1948 that "it was an old conflict by then", and the same was true in 1933. From wikipedia's article on the Mandate:
How do I (and Hamas) reconcile the charter? It isn't up to me, though I'll give you my view. It is a reconciliation that will come out of the interaction of the Palestinians, Hamas, Israel and the international players. With a lot of good management, and luck, it will result in a stable two state reconciliation.
I have referred before to the fact that Hamas is a political organisation, with a constituency that expects results. It has pragamtists and ideologues. Senior figures have been saying that they can live with Israel (at least for a generation), and the election manifesto was all good governance, nothing about the destruction of Israel.
Did you see Hamas: Behind the Mask on SBS? There is a lot of "destruction" rhetoric, but when people talk (as opposed to the rhetoric), it is of a just settlement with a presumption of Israel's continued existence.
Hamas has not conducted major attacks on Israel or Israelis for over a year now. Is it more important to remove the offensive words from the charter and require Hamas to recant on its policy, or to work for a practical settlement?
"So what is [my] vision of how the "destruction" of Israel will be achieved?"
It is a nightmare, and not clear, but a vision of sorts.
Will, I've said several times that Israel is there, and has to be dealt with. And it will be. My personal preference is that it gets sorted out at stage 1. My judgement is that it's likely to get to stage 4. If it goes further we are all in deep shit.
A secular republic for the Vatican
In the interests of consistency, I think we should observe a few conventions generalised from contemporary politically correct usage regarding Israel.
We should, I think, refer to "Pakistan" correctly as "occupied India" - or perhaps the "Islamist Entity".
I mean, the existence of Pakistan is entirely an artifice of meddling western imperialists like Clement Attlee and Aneurin Bevin and Louis Mountbatten.
It wouldn't exist at all if it hadn't been for the partition imposed upon Greater India in 1948.
Also, I think we should call the Vatican, actually occupied Italy, the "Jesuit Entity".
Another openly racist state, it was imposed upon Italy by the French, in particular Napoleon III.
There'll be no justice in occupied Italy until it becomes possible for Jews, Muslims and Protestants to be elected Pope in free, open and internationally supervised elections.
All talk of a Two Sate Solution for Occupied Italy is merely compromise with imperialism.
It goes without saying that Catholic domination in Eire, actually Occupied Gaul, is an affront to justice.
There'll be no peace until the Gaelic Entity is expunged from Europe, which reels under the Jesuit Hegemony.
Re: secular republics
C Parsons says: "I think we should observe a few conventions generalised from contemporary politically correct usage regarding Israel." Too funny, because it's so true.
But why stop with Pakistan, Vatican City, and Ireland? The conventions can be extended to the USA, Canada, and the rest of the Euro-Christian Entities in the Americas (a label itself imposed by an Italian!). Let's not forget Australia and New Zealand.
Take the logic to its extreme, and we all have to go back to Africa where we evolved. But wait, where are the Africans gonna go?
Funny strange
My ears were burning
Hamish asks: "is it possible for a person to be against the political view that Jews should reclaim their homeland (a view initiated by Theodore Herzl about 45 years before the holocaust in my shadowy understanding), and not be racist? If so, what should they call themselves if not anti-Zionist? Most of the Jews I know (not many - let's say about 20 or 25) are 'anti-Zionist'. What should I call them instead? What should they call themselves?"
Complicated question, and one we've touched upon in one form or another before on Webdiary. But it is one that requires us to confront how we use labels like "Zionist" and "racist." First a little historical perspective.
Irfan makes a good point about "anti-Zionists" like Isaacs. Before the rise of Fascism in the 1930's, and before the Nazi Holocaust during WWII, most Diaspora Jews were at best ambivalent about Zionism. When I say Zionism I mean it in the sense Herzl did: establishing a national Jewish homeland in Palestine. Not all Zionists wanted to set up a sovereign Jewish "state;" many wanted to set up a community within the context of, first the Ottoman Empire, and later the British Mandate. Jewish communities had existed in Palestine continuously in some form or other since Biblical times (Jerusalem, Safad, and Hebron were prominent centers). Ironically, when Jews and Christians were driven out of the Arabian Peninsula early in the history of Islam, one of the places Jews were sent was Palestine. The idea of a Jewish state arose at the first Zionist Congress in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland. Theodor Herzl, widely regarded as the founder of modern Zionism, had already written his pamphlet "Der Judenstaat" in 1896. The first concrete proposal for a Jewish state in Palestine was embodied in the Peel Commission report of 1937. Other pre-Israel documents, such as the League of Nations Palestine Mandate, speak of a "national home" for the Jews, though not a "state" as such. There were proposals to establish a Jewish homeland in places other than Palestine, such as Uganda, Argentina and even here in Australia. The Labor Zionists of America, for example, publicly campaigned for a Jewish refuge proposed in Alaska (of all places). Though they were committed to a Jewish homeland in Palestine, they endorsed the Alaska idea on the basis that it might save lives. Even the Nazis floated a "Madagascar Plan" in 1940 to solve the "Jewish Problem" by shipping all of Europe's Jews there. According to the German Foreign Ministry: As I mentioned, before WWII most Jews were at best lukewarm towards Zionism. Indeed, the Jewish community of Munich refused to host the 1st Zionist Congress in 1897 as they felt it would reflect badly on their identity as Germans. Today there are ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects who reject the legitimacy of the State of Israel; they take the position that Jews can only re-establish a state in Zion once the Messiah comes. In the US, especially in the early 20th Century, many mainstream Jewish leaders opposed Zionism. Rabbi I.M. Wise said "Zion was a precious possession of the past... but it is not our hope of the future. America is our Zion." Justice Louis Brandeis, on the other hand, embraced Zionism, though he was himself not an observant Jew. The Holocaust, and Palestinian Arab leadership's rejection of Jewish immigration to Palestine (recall the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem spent the war years in Germany urging the Nazis to get on with the Final Solution), convinced most Jews that a "state of their own" was needed. So after WWII many more Jews were "Zionists" than before, in the sense that they supported and strongly identified with the idea of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, and felt it had to have its own sovereignty. But even today, many Jews, for political, philosophical, or theological reasons, oppose the existence of the State of Israel. Are these people "racists" or "anti-Semites?" No. The problem with "anti-Zionism" is not so much that it's racist, but that it runs against so much of the Western small-l liberal tradition of espousing "self-determination" for various groups of people. Because it seems to me Zionism is merely a movement for Jewish national self-determination. Why is Israel's very existence such an issue? Last year, a University of California campus (I think it was Irvine) hosted a symposium called “A World Without Israel.” Can you imagine the international uproar if a meeting called, say, "A World Without Saudi Arabia" took place at a Western university? (And don't forget, Saudi Arabia is another of those "artificial" nations carved out of the Mideast by the post-WWI European colonial powers). "National self-determination." Now there's a "motherhood statement" no self-respecting post-colonialist could object to. Who could be against that? For Tibetans, East Timorese, West Papuans, Saharawis, Chechens, you name it. Palestinians, of course. Bumper stickers and campus posters all over Australia proclaim support for their rights to nationhood and "self-determination." So why not Jews? Are their national aspirations less worthy than those of other groups? Less than those of Palestinians? Zionism does not, in and of itself, deny the Palestinians a state. But anti-Zionism does seek to deny Jews a state. And that asymmetry is the problem.Roll Out the Labels ...
At the risk of getting in to what Will Howard would pungently call a pissing contest (where is he by the way?) there are a couple of matters below that I cannot allow to pass without some comment.
Firstly, Irfan, your comments about Isaac Isaacs are glib and a cheap shot. Isaacs was a strident critic of what he termed "political Zionism". But I have never heard it suggested before that he believed that Zionism necessarily displaced Jewish faith, especially at a personal level. It would have been regarded as a grave impertinence if he had. There are Jews who come close to believing that. They are ultra-orthodox sects whose objections to the Israeli state are theological. Isaacs was not a member. In fact he was not particularly religious.
He was, however, suspicious of nationalism in all its forms. He did oppose the concept of Jewish nationhood. But his opposition to Zionism was inspired mainly by his strong pro-British, pro-Empire views. He was at his most outspoken when Zionism and British imperialism clashed. He would have been just as insistent an opponent of Irish nationalism. Palestinian Arab nationalism was not even on the agenda in his day. In many ways Isaacs was a great man. But he was a product of his times and somehow I just cannot picture him in rhythm with the beat of the civilisation of the "emergent Muslim nations" in the twenties, thirties and forties.
Which brings me to my main point. Isaacs was 83 when he retired from his last public office, Governor-General, in 1936. He was dead before the declaration of the Israeli state. Of course, there were many political movements among Jews prior to the establishment of Israel. Nothing has changed. There will be 36 parties contesting the Knesset election next month. In Isaacs' era a number of Jewish groups and individuals opposed Zionism. Some were political (eg Bundists on the "left", Anglophiles and Imperialists in the "centre" and "right") and others were religious. There were also a number of strains of Zionism. Still are.
To resurrect Isaacs, or anybody else, as some kind of hero of modern anti-Zionism in any guise is frankly mischievous. Taking a stand on principle against the formation of a Jewish homeland in 1920 or 1940 is one thing, irrespective of what that principle is. Opposing a Jewish homeland in 2006 is something else entirely.
Which brings me to the problem with Hamish's brief piece. "To be against the political view that Jews should reclaim their homeland ..." sounds so innocuous. Wrong-headed perhaps, unreasonable in a historical context, certainly revealing a fundamental misunderstanding of what Zionism is, even hypercritical; but hardly antisemitic or racist.
As usual the problem is the vacuum in which the question languishes. The Jewish homeland does exist and, no matter how inconvenient that is for certain kinds of political theory, that is a fact that hardly can be glossed over. It takes an advanced form of "doublethink" to even attempt it.
What else can this phrase mean other than the destruction of the Israeli state? If that is what is meant why be mealy mouthed about it? What are you trying to avoid?
C Parsons' point that antisemitism, or if you prefer, racism, is very often shrouded in the language of "anti-Zionism", is clearly true. To call for the destruction of Israel, and therefore what can only mean the obliteration and dispersal of its population, can mean what else? Of course those who take this position usually put on the whole suit. On Lateline tonight, Frederick Tobens was interviewed on his way to the Holocaust Denial Conference in Tehran, carrying his model of Auschwitz under his arm. The same conference that David Irving has had to send a regretful apology.
Tobens supports Iran's view that the "racist, apartheid Zionist" state should be "dismembered". Tobens would never describe himself as an antisemite or a racist. No fear. He's an "anti-Zionist".
And, of course, it does not end there. Take a look at the Hamas Charter. Read what their spokesmen have to say. See what was published by the Palestinian Authority even before the Hamas takeover. What is broadcast there and in Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and a dozen other Arab and Islamic countries. As Tobens pointed out, there is nothing new about this. It's been going on for years. Many years. Before the foundation of Israel which incidentally has had to be a haven for Jews fleeing racist persecution in the Arab and Muslim worlds in the last century, just as much as Europe and Russia.
Antisemitism has been at the very core of the Arab/Israeli dispute ever since the Mufti of Jerusalem hobnailed with Hitler and Nazi war criminals on the run took up a comfortable and privileged residency in Damascus and Cairo. It is a travesty that it is Israel that is labelled as "racist".
Finally, Hamish, I have to say that I do not care much what you call most of the Jews you know if their views are what you have described and I have surmised. Certainly I do not care what they call themselves. I have nothing to suggest.
Christian Zionism
Hi Geoff. I think I can see your point of view. As I've said before, I'm no expert on Israel, Palestine or Zionism, and I'm not about to spend too many hours becoming one for the sake of this debate. I'll try to stick to a direct observation of my own experience which has left a deep impression on my view of 'Zionist'.
I'm appreciating more and more that there are many types of 'Zionism', just as there are clearly different strands of 'anti-Zionism', some of which are doubtlessly racist. So I'm going to start by saying we should all be careful with our labels, and be as clear as possible, especially as the very serious charge of racism starts getting thrown around.
Nearly 25 years ago I became a very rebellious High School student, but not in the usual way. I abandoned my family, friends and society and joined an evangelical church. I was 14, and in the next three years dedicated myself to the most arrogant, hateful, wantonly destructive god you could imagine. Twice in that time I went to the United States to study and attend a large congregation which was in the middle of a cornfield in Indiana.
Christian Zionism essentially says that Israel is to be restored to the boundaries of King Solomon's Empire (for which there's very little archaeological evidence, by the way, but that is another matter), which is quite a vast chunk of the Middle East. It draws from prophesies in Ezekiel and Daniel. Along with it is a prophesy somehow concocted from Mark 13 that the generation which sees the restoration of Jerusalem (actually, a fig tree), will see the last days, Armageddon etcetera. (If you want to have some serious nightmares, read the book of Revelation - there are millions in the world today who believe that nuclear war is a necessary step toward heaven on earth - George Bush may well be one of these).
Now, I actually concur with Will Howard that the only possible solution is a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. It's not philosophical or anything to do with race - it's just, to me, the most realistic approach to a horribly difficult and violent situation. So for a start, can you see that it is possible to be anti-Zionist, at least in the theological sense, but still support the existence of the nation of Israel? Israel is there, as you say, and to say it shouldn't exist is, as you also say, to call for an enormous, horrible violent act.
As an aside, I agree with you and CP that the Iranian regime is one of the most disgusting political forces to ever grace a government. I don't know if they're developing nuclear weapons or not, but it wouldn't shock me greatly. I also agree that the Left has a history which would be funny if it were not sad of supporting the enemy of their capitalist enemies which too often turn out to be even worse. I'm currently reading The Clash of Fundamentalisms by the secular left Arab, Tariq Ali, which has a brilliant chapter called "The Anti-imperialism of Fools", describing how communists delivered Iran to the Ayatollah in the first place. Really stupid stuff. Can I please add, though, that among the 'Left', usually from anarchists who have been marginal for other, very complex reasons, there has always been a critique of this sort of stupidity. Anyway, that's an aside.
I don't believe the type of Zionism I described above is as marginal as many might think (though thankfully it is marginal). Evangelical Christianity is growing in the West. I'm guessing that the Hillsong people are taught that shit - can someone please confirm or correct me about this. I also have little doubt there's a parallel form of Zionism among Jews - again, can someone deny this or give some more information if I'm right. In fact, it's a fair guess that a solid portion of the support, political and financial, that Israel gets from America and the West is rooted, directly or indirectly, in this end-time belief in Israel's destiny.
This theological Zionism is, in my opinion, extremely racist, implicitly violent and dehumanising of all of us, and, stretching things perhaps, is not helping the project of averting the end of the world.
The Levant is such a tiny bit of the world. It doesn't have much loot in terms of oil, minerals or agricultural land. Geoff, I don't want to fight about it with you or anyone else. I'm desperate to understand why it has such an effect on the entire planet. I think humans should collectively be desperate to find a solution. It is not a High School debate - the stakes are terribly high. I might be ignorant, misinformed or just plain stupid, but please help me here.
Re: Christian Zionism
Hamish notes the Christian prophecy that the "generation which sees the restoration of Jerusalem (actually, a fig tree), will see the last days, Armageddon etcetera." and "I also have little doubt there's a parallel form of Zionism among Jews - again, can someone deny this or give some more information if I'm right. In fact, it's a fair guess that a solid portion of the support, political and financial, that Israel gets from America and the West is rooted, directly or indirectly, in this end-time belief in Israel's destiny."
Scary stuff, and true. Christian evangelist groups put far more money, and certainly more votes, into Bush's and other Republicans' campaigns than Jews did. The Christian Zionists have a particular apocalyptic view of Israel’s role in the fulfilment of their prophecies, and things don’t end well for Jews in the Great Rapture. US televangelist Pat Robertson pissed off a lot of people in Israel when he suggested Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for relinquishing part of the Holy Land (ie Gaza).
There are Jewish groups in Israel who also have a messianic vision of "greater Israel." They are a minority, albeit a vocal and politically powerful one.
my two cents worth
Hamish, for what it is worth, I've known quite a few Israelis and they have all been secular in orientation, although many of them still observe Jewish religious rituals as a cultural preservation thing. I also understand that many Orthodox Jews are anti-Zionist in that they believe the state of Israel should not exist at the present time, for theological reasons which I don't pretend to fathom. In any case, the Orthodox are a minority within Israel.
Interestingly, in my recent reading of the Koran I came across several passages where God says to Muhammad that He gave the land of Israel to the Jews. So why are Muslims all over the world seemingly unanimous in their resentment over the creation of Israel? Isn't that resentment a form of racism in itself, and violates what their own God says in their holy book? I'd be curious to see Irfan's views on this.
Hamish: that is extremely interesting. Can you cite the passages?
Hamish
I don't have my copy of the Koran with me at the moment, but just doing a google search on "Koran Israel" turns up a bunch of these quotes. Rather than cite them all here, I'd suggest interested Webdiarists do this and see for themselves.
Hamish: I did so, and there's nothing unambiguous, though it is interesting. At a glance they seem to be sites made by pro-Israel people. The most convincing quote seems to be from Sura 5, verses 20 and 21:
Especially after reading the rest of the Sura, it's not at all clear to me whether God revoked this ordinance or not - he certainly leaves open the possibility, especially if they "war against (God's) apostle." Apologies Mike, but I couldn't leave this one to be thrown away without checking it out.
No problem, Hamish.
But does God change His mind?
Hamish: Jesus, bloody theology again! I wish I knew nothing of it. Well, in the book of Jonah he does change his mind (Ch3: Jonah prophesies Nineveh's doom / Nineveh's people repent / "God repented of the evil, that he said he would do unto them, and he did it not." (vs10)), so I guess he could in the Islamic tradition as well. It is to me a most precious verse: "God repented..."
Indeed
If God exists he's got a helluva lot to answer for, in my book.
Hamish: indeed! And if he doesn't exist, we'll have to answer for it ourselves.
How the language changes
Hamish, I think you have raised a good point about there being various groups which may oppose Zionist principles on various grounds.
Nonetheless, as I have suggested below, the term "anti-Zionist" has provided a general alibi and cover for some of the most strident racist abuse going.
The term "Zionist" has been co-opted as a euphemism for "Jew" by ardent extremes of anti-Semite of a sort unparalleled in 60 years.
People today calling themselves "anti-Zionist" have now very often purposes that would be akin to extreme misogynist males calling themselves "gay activists" when bashing and abusing women.
It is a cynical camouflage, and is widely understood as such.
As I have mentioned many times on this blog, that Lefties go on using the term without qualification, and as a general term of abuse, is merely contributing to the rehabilitation of political anti-Semitsm.
And everybody knows this.
See my comments below.
Hamish: so the question remains, what should we call it, if not anti-Zionism? Misrepresentation and appropriation of terms is an old trick used all over the place. I tried to call myself an anarchist for years, believing as I did in the sort of social libertarianism of William Godwin, Peter Kropotkin and Murray Bookchin (essentially radical liberalism). It became impossible so I've abandoned the term, but haven't changed my views that much. Frankly I can see a case for Zionists to abandon their term, equally as I can see your case why anti-Zionists (who are not racist) should abandon the term. In the end they're just words and if we load them up enough we aren't even trying to understand each other let alone seek truth together.
Meanwhile I can accuse you of using a debating trick, which is in effect, if not in intent, dishonest. By attacking anti-Zionism as a category whether it is rooted in racism or not, on the basis that it is used by racists, you have undermined a position without even engaging it. I take your point entirely that anti-Semites like Irwin co-opt and hide behind political rhetoric. I'd love to see you try to get past that to discuss how some people legitimately see some Zionisms as racist (see my post), even using 'Zionist' to hide their anti-Arab views. The story of Isaac and Ishmael remains very powerful, and very racist.
Secular republicans.
Hamish: "so the question remains, what should we call it, if not anti-Zionism?"
Secular republicans.
In the same way as I can see an argument for overturning the English monarchy on the grounds that its establishes a Church in connection with the State. Or in the same way that since 1979 Iran has been an Islamic Republic and some Iranians oppose that. Or in the same way that Pakistan is an Islamic Republic. and this excludes in some way Christians, Jews and Buddhists.
Nobody calls Pakistan "openly racist" because it privileges Islam as the central faith of the state. Maybe they should. But I'm not going to tell them to do so.
Israel is formally a Jewish republic. And doubtless that's a legitimate issue for some people. But it beggars belief that the Arab nationalist and Ba'ath Socialist ranters who continually threaten Israel behind the mask of "anti-Zionism" do so because they are principled opponents of racism. Or because they are committed to secular democratic multicultural republicanism.
As if...!
And any socialist or other secular western proponent who imagines that by peddling shrill "anti-Zionist" rhetoric they are not playing right into the hands of racist Islamist or ultra-nationalist extremists who would gladly exterminate the Jews of the Middle East (and elsewhere for that matter) is deluding themselves.
Or at any rate pretending to be deluded.
What should we call anti-Zionism?
C Parsons suggests "Secular republicans." And rightly points out the moral incongruity inherent in badging anti-Zionism as anti-racism.
Judea Pearl, father of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl and founder of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, spoke last month at a UN commemoration of the International Day of Holocaust Remembrance. In his speech, Prof. Pearl touched upon anti-Zionism in noting the widespread rejection of Israel's right to exist (in any form or size), and called this rejectionism "Zionophobia" to mirror the commonly-used "Islamophobia." He noted that:
Last year Pearl called anti-Zionism a form of racism, as opposed to anti-Semitism:
Whether "racism" is the appropriate label for this attitude I don't know; I feel "racism" is a very loaded term. CP also says:
It is, CP, but you are correct in pointing out the disingenuousness of many employing this argument. This "anti-theocracy" angle is used in Western "intellectual" discourse to call into question the legitimacy of Israel in ways no Muslim state's right to exist ever would be. I hear no academics suggesting Iran or Saudi Arabia, both explicitly theocratic states, should be disestablished. Of course Western academics would never be as blunt as the Iranian president and suggest Israel should be "wiped off the map." They say things like Israel should be replaced (peacefully, of course), by a "multicultural, democratic single state." In which Jews' rights will be respected completely, as they are in so many other Middle East countries. Uh-huh. Again, calls for a single secular democratic Israeli-Palestinian state, in which all citizens, Arab and Jew, are equal, sound great. Who could argue with that?
But one look at the recent history of the world, even "liberal democratic" Europe, shows why Jews will not (and should not) cede the right to national self-determination, self-protection, and charge of their own destiny.
Not a Pearl
Will Howard, I didn't like the Pearl article. It reads to me like a handy tip for stopping the argument: accuse opponents of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians of racism ("a form of racism more dangerous than classical anti-Semitism").
I don't know about the "troubles" on those campuses, and it may be that the majority of the "anti-Zionists" there are opposed to the existence of a Jewish state in the way he describes. But I doubt it. I suspect that most of the "anti-Zionists" on those campuses are protesting Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza, just like most of the "anti-Zionists" anywhere.
There is a problem with the idea of a Jewish National State. The definitions of "nation" vary on the matter of geography. Pearl is dismissive of the Palestinians ("many of them are only three or four generations in Palestine"), But Palestine was not terra nullius. Without disputing the right of existence of a Jewish Nation, there is a proper question about the legitimacy of a state imposed on an indigenous people. A question which should be familiar in all "post-colonial" states.
But we are stuck with nation states, so we better get on with it. Israel is there, and not everybody likes it (the Hamas charter). If we can stop the "clash of civilisations", then it isn't going away. That is pretty much the practical position of Hamas for some time now. Politicians!
You are copping out on the racism issue, Will. There has been a lot of discussion in various threads about what constitutes racism, and it seems to me that a lot of it has been with the object of denying that saying nasty things about Islam (think '30s Germany) is racist, on the grounds that Muslims are not a "race". There has also been a lot of careful distinctions. Leunig, for example, is not (as far as we know) anti-Semitic, but produced an anti-Semitic cartoon.
And just a question for anyone out there, because I haven't been able to find any figures: What are the numbers for the desecration of Jewish vs Muslim sites over the last few years? With a credible link, please.
Pearls of wisdom?
Mark Sergeant writes: "[the Pearl article] reads to me like a handy tip for stopping the argument: accuse opponents of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians of racism." Well, I think it's a tip not for stopping the argument, but for moving it onto a different space. Where we're not still fighting about the right of Israel to exist. And yes, much of the campus rhetoric is about the legitimacy of Israel, full stop. Not Israel's policies. Like Pearl, I think it's important to clarify just what's being talked about. "Anti-Zionism" usually means opposition to Israel's establishment, not Israel's actions in the West Bank (they're out of Gaza now).
You note: "There is a problem with the idea of a Jewish National State. The definitions of 'nation' vary on the matter of geography. ... Palestine was not terra nullius. Without disputing the right of existence of a Jewish Nation, there is a proper question about the legitimacy of a State imposed on an indigenous people. A question which should be familiar in all 'post-colonial' states." You are correct that Palestine was not terra nullius. But Mark, I think here you may be copping out a bit yourself. How do you ask a "proper question about the legitimacy of a State imposed on an indigenous people" without disputing the "right of existence of a Jewish Nation?" Are you proposing a Jewish nation be established some place where it will not be "imposed" on indigenous people? What is the "proper question" about Israel's legitimacy exactly? Your use of the phrase "post-colonial" suggests you are applying a "colonial" model to Israel. OK, so who's the mother country? Germany? Poland? Iraq? Iran?
Finally, you make a fair enough point about racism. I was thinking about this issue myself, and just as beauty is often in the eye of the beholder, "race" is often only in the mind of the "racist." The Nazis, after all, imposed their notions of "race" upon people (Jews, Gypsies, etc.) who may or may not have considered themselves members of a "race." Many Jews didn't consider themselves Jewish until they were rounded up for "deportation." The US-based Anti-Defamation League, though primarily a Jewish organisation, keeps track of the whole range of hate crimes, including desecrations of mosques and churches.
The Race Was Lost Before The Starting Gun Fired
The ABC has recently screened an interesting series that had as its central proposition that our entire concept of "race" does not stand up to modern scientific scrutiny.
For example, individuals chosen at random with different skin colours, usually used to define "race", may have more in common genetically than individuals chosen at random with the same skin colour (and therefore regarded as of the same "race").
Unfortunately, as is usual with programs deemed fit to broadcast by the ABC, the hard science of the geneticists was nearly swamped by the soft science of the social scientists (that the concept of "race" was invented in the US to justify the subjugation of Blacks) and not fully developed. Nevertheless, once the inevitable polemics was stripped away there was enough left to be thought-provoking.
Where does this lead? Perhaps even using the label "race" is "racist".
Losing the Race
Geoff Pahoff asks whether "even using the label 'race' is 'racist'." I didn't see the series Geoff's talking about, but from the perspective of geneticists, Homo sapiens sapiens is one of the most "outbred" (genetically mixed) species on the planet. Most geneticists just laugh when you start talking about "race." Pseudoscientific notions of race did not begin with the Nazis. Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man takes apart European notions of racial superiority as expressed through IQ testing. The most biting satire I ever saw on racism was the 1990 film (it's European so it's a film, not a movie) Europa Europa, about a Jewish boy who poses as an "Aryan" German, even to the point of joining the Hitler Youth. There's a brilliant scene in which a teacher uses this young Jew's measurements to show the class a perfect example of Aryan racial purity. The running "joke" is that he can never let anyone (including a girl who starts getting amorous with him) see his penis, lest they find out he's circumcised.
Mark Sergeant accused me of "copping out" on the issue of racism, and he was right. I was dodging the question in deferring to Judea Pearl's categorisation of anti-Zionism. Time to deal with this head-on. Quite a bit of the "racism" we see is directed at groups categorised as race, or conversely, at anyone not a member of "our" race. But much bigotry and prejudice is directed at groups who cannot be labelled as a "race" by anyone's definition: homosexuals, Muslims, the elderly, tourists, etc. Members of these groups may be identified by lifestyle, practice, dress, language (or the related attributes of accent or dialect), secret handshakes, etc. There are also physical attributes not confined to any one "race" which also are used as pretexts for abuse: height, weight, hair colour (blonde jokes, anyone?).
So maybe Geoff is right and using the label "race" is "racist." Maybe we need to use a different word. Irfan has given us the lead here in the title of this thread: "Xenophobia." (Though why anyone would hate a warrior princess is beyond me.) Maybe the suffix "-phobia" is the best way to go about labelling the various forms of bigotry and prejudice that seem to be such a chronic part of the human condition.
Xenaphobia is the fear of Xena
Actually, Xenaphobia would mean fear of Xena, which is absolutely appropriate for someone with such terrible dress sense. Cheers.
PS I don't quite understand the thread here. Is the idea of different genetically acquired characteristics, that one sees usually in general appearance (phenotype) and grouped together in a particular pattern, eg black skin, course wiry hair, flat nose, and then subgroups again such as seen in the different ethnic groups of Africa like the Dinka and the Zulu, are these no longer race of Negro group? I can understand the blurring of cross genetic mixing, and the studies that follow the migration of the Y chromosome are fascinating, aren't they?
History seems to be much more about ethnic purges rather than "race" purges. So, instead of race do we now just say "different genetically proscribed phenotypes" – GPP? That probably better summarises the differences. It is fascinating how the traits are passed down. My relative looks a lot like their siblings, but is adopted. The relative's mannerisms hide this so well. Their parents are pink British and Chinese British. The relative and their partner's children now are pale pink blonde, dark Chinese looking, pale blonde and olive blonde. Such a gorgeous mix. All bright little Aussies.
Why does noticing differences so often be mistaken for racism? Genetic variety is such a strength in a community. We are so lucky here in so many ways. I wish we celebrated it more.
"Race" - a Pictorial
Hi Angela, actually I thought one of the best things about Xena was her dress sense. But hey, that's just me. Does that make me a Xenaphile?
The point about "race" can best be illustrated with an example.
A Zulu and a Finlander will have different genes that determine skin and hair colour. But these are only a tiny proportion of the human genome. Taken overall a Zulu and a Finlander may well have more in common with each other, genetically, than either has with another Zulu or Finlander.
Often we have defined "race" only by reference to that tiny proportion of genes that determine skin, hair or eye colour and then we have attributed to that "race" characteristics that have been assumed to be innate. Even the word "race" implies a difference deep enough to transcend culture or environment. More nature than nurture. We know now this is a fallacy.
It was all just skin deep after all. The poets were right all along. There are no "races". Humankind is a brotherhood and now the scientists can prove it.
It's just a matter of time, I fear
Thank you for your comment, Will. That's very interesting about Professor Pearl.
The obvious sly appropriation and disingenuous abuse of the term "anti-Zionist" by the lunatic right, in the West and elsewhere, wouldn't be quite so disturbing to me were it not for the complacent acceptance of this fact, without comment or qualm, from so many whose left wing credentials lend "intellectual authority" to the way the term is now being used.
It is a spine-chilling development, and, in the light of other developments in the Middle East, one that fills me with the deepest foreboding.
Can we enter Michele Renouf as a cartoon?
David Irving has been sentenced to three years' gaol on pleading guilty before an Austrian court to Holocaust denial.
To waiting television cameras, and without a hint of irony, he muttered something along the lines: "The Austrian legal system is like something from the Nazi era."
He also now admits: "The Nazis did murder millions of Jews."
Nonetheless, upper class twit, and former Australian beauty queen Michele Renouf, praised Irving for "standing up to the Zionists".
She told reporters: "I am here to free David Irving and free Austria from this totalitarian law."
I say we enter her to the Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest.
Note, too, the artful assimilation of the term 'anti-Zionist' as a euphemism for 'Anti-Semite'.
On that point, at least, she's being no more dishonest that so many other 'Anti-Zionist' impersonators.
Hamish: CP, leaving the examples of Irving and Renouf out of it - and it is you who is casting the massive net of 'other anti-zionist impersonators', whatever that means - is it possible for a person to be against the political view that Jews should reclaim their homeland (a view initiated by Theodore Herzl about 45 years before the holocaust in my shadowy understanding), and not be racist? If so, what should they call themselves if not anti-Zionist? Most of the Jews I know (not many - let's say about 20 or 25) are 'anti-Zionist'. What should I call them instead? What should they call themselves?
Antidisestablishmentarianism
Hamish: "If so, what should they call themselves if not anti-Zionist? Most of the Jews I know (not many - let's say about 20 or 25) are 'anti-Zionist'. What should I call them instead? What should they call themselves?"
They should probably call themselves secular republicans.
Or maybe Disestablishmentarians. Then those who oppose them could be called Antidisestablishmentarians!
In the same way that Iranians who do not support the concept of an Islamic State should perhaps be called secular republicans.
It's ironic, though, don't you think that those who do support an Islamic State in Iran are not typically called racist for their trouble?
That Iran is not called "an openly racist state"? That Saudi Arabia is not called "an openly racist state"?
The term "anti-Zionist" is a badge too easily donned by the likes of Michele Renouf and other idiots of her kind.
Every stupid neo-Nazi in cyberspace rejoices in the title "anti-Zionist".
Why do you think that is?
It's because the term "Zionist" does not simply indicate a political movement of Diaspora Jews trying to find for themselves some kind of homeland based on their particular understanding of their history, and perhaps being prepared to fight for it, whether rightly or wrongly.
And it is not merely those who might be hoping for a more inclusive, more ecumenical political system in the Palestinian/Israeli region who call themselves "anti-Zionist", do they?
The term "Zionist" is sprayed about as an all-purpose racist epithet with the unique additional advantage that it allows cowardly criminals like David Irving and his ilk to pretend that by being "anti-Zionists" they are in fact opposed to racism.
When really they ardently preach that particularly insidious brand of racism with the most appalling record of any such since at least since Europeans and Arabs started rounding up African slaves.
The term "anti-Zionist" becomes instead a cover, an alibi that lets people attack Jews, especially Israeli Jews more or less at will while pretending to do the exact opposite.
It allows the perpetrator to attack the victim while pretending to protect the innocent.
And since everyone knows this, one has to wonder why anyone would apply the term to themselves in all innocence.
The term "Zionist" has come to connote, too, through its association with the forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" all the nuances of paranoid conspiracy theories about invisible plots and poisoning wells and blood debt and child sacrifice.
The whole festering culture of hatred and ignorance and fear and lies propagated by everyone from the Spanish Inquisition to the Nazis has been neatly condensed into that one term.
Filthy Zionist.
The term "Zionist" is hissed out, almost spat at its intended target in the way the most vile anti-Semite once spat out the words "filthy Jew", not as an objective indicator of someone's political or cultural or confessional stance, but as an pejorative epithet.
It's not mere coincidence that the most ardent Marxists and the most hysterical neo-Nazis both use the word "Zionist" as a term of abuse.
It allows them to conceal their cowardly, murderous intentions behind the sanctimonious conceit of sham virtue.
Meanwhile, they kowtow to Hamas and write books filled with lies to cover up for Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich.
Then, with a smirk, it's off to cocktails with Michele Renouf.
Hamish: I just wrote a reply to Geoff. If I'd read the above first I would have addressed you more directly, but I wouldn't have changed much. Please take it as directed to you as well.
Jewish Nazi?
CP, if being anti-Zionist or being against the creation of Israel makes you anti-Semitic then the late Sir Isaac Isaacs must have been the biggest Jew-hater on the planet.
Why? Because our first Australian-born Governor-General (who also happened to be Jewish) was opposed to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Isaacs rejected Zionist propaganda of Palestine being "a land without people", and believed that the creation of Israel would lead to a potential civilisational war between emergent Muslim nations and the West which neither side could win.
He was also of the view that anyone who adopts Zionism has renounced their Jewish faith. He saw Zionism as an affront to Judaism.
If one of Australia's great Jewish leaders could hold such a view about a foreign country, why can't any other Australian?
Orthodox Islam regards national chauvinism as pagan belief. God created people of all races. The notion of a chosen nation is regarded as ugly and racist. We are judged by our devotion to God, not by some historical accident.
I wish Ba'ath socialists and other Arab national chauvinists were more honest about the racism inherent in their beliefs. I wish some Zionists would do the same.
A world without Jews
Irfan Yusuf: "CP, if being anti-Zionist or being against the creation of Israel makes you anti-Semitic then the late Sir Isaac Isaacs must have been the biggest Jew-hater on the planet."
This explains why Michele Renouf admires David Irving so much. He must remind her of Sir Isaac Isaacs.
Irfan Yusuf: "I wish Ba'ath socialists and other Arab national chauvinists were more honest about the racism inherent in their beliefs. I wish some Zionists would do the same."
Seeing as Jews are hunted like dogs all over the Middle East, and seeing as "Ba'ath socialists and other Arab national chauvinists" have shown no inclination whatsoever to stop killing Jews at every opportunity, I think indulging in moral equivalence serves no purpose whatsoever except to disguise the fact that when "Arab national chauvinists" and other Islamists talk about a "a world without Zionism" they're actually talking about a "world without Jews".
That is "the racism inherent in their beliefs".
You know it. I know it.
So, let's stop pretending. Okay?
Exclusive for Webdiary
Early entry in the Antisemitic Cartoon Contest (The Israeli One) first published in Australia by Webdiary.
Unprovoked attack on Iranian national pride
Clearly, this cartoon is another blatant, racist attack on Muslim Arabs and Iranians by the Zionist West.
The clear insinuation here is that Muslims need to be taught how to create anti-Jewish cartoons by the Zionist cultural hegemonists. An inference ironically and none-too-subtly hinted at in the cartoon itself.
Just getting back to my idea about the underlying psychology of the cartoon hysteria, I might have to retract my earlier suggestion about repressed subconscious drives.
Because such ideas too are racist according to Edward Said, it seems.
Attacking as racist the scholar William Robertson Smith, who said:
It is characteristic of Mahommedanism that all national feeling assumes a religious aspect, inasmuch as the whole polity and social forms of a Moslem country are clothed in religious dress. But it would be a mistake to suppose that genuine religious feeling is at the bottom of everything that justifies itself by taking a religious shape.
Said observes:
This allows "us" [the West] to say in the first sentence that all political and social life are "clothed" in religious dress (Islam can be characterised as totalitarian) then to say in the second that religion is only a cover used by Muslims (in other words, all Muslims are hypocrites essentially) - p236, Orientalism, Penguin Books.
I don't think Said meant to be funny when he wrote that.
Imagine, however, the reaction if Tony Abbott of George Pell, say, claimed that Catholics simply don't have unconscious motivations or drives?
At any level?
And that, say, feminists are racist in suggesting that, for example, Catholic doctrine regarding women is at any level motivated by anything other than the spiritual welfare of women?
Or that the veneration of the Virgin Mary is at any level anything other than "genuine religious feeling"?
Now, that would be funny!
Angela Ryan "Why do it?
Angela Ryan: "Why do it? Why ‘Jew creators only’ …?"
I think if you read the link you will find this is some type of national pride thing going. I mean, these people do not want to be outdone by your basic Islamofascist or Nazi now, do they? Hell no, pride is on the line here! Perhaps they should claim the one thousand Iranian coins, profitability and Jewish pride hand in hand, now that's a winner.
I myself only find the most offensive Catholic jokes are those that are better than mine. Even worse when they come from a no sense of humour bunch like the Anglicans! I hate that!
Drowning Hate in Ridicule and Humour
The organisers have made it clear that Arabs who want to draw anti-Arab cartoons will have their entries published if they insist but the entries cannot be accepted as contenders in the antisemitic cartoon contest which is restricted to Jews. They have suggested that Arabs who want an anti-Arab contest should start up their own blog.
Also antisemitic jokes (as opposed to cartoons) from anybody will be published.
Much more than national pride is at stake here, Jay.
Cartoon Competition Update
Update on The Great Antisemitic Cartoon Contest (the Israeli one)
Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt, author of Denying The Holocaust: the Growing Assault on Truth and Memory and History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving has volunteered to be a judge in the competition.
I will keep you informed of further developments.
Libido, Itchy and Scratchy
Given that it's obviously not the cartoons per se that has been the impetus to the eruptions of emotional energy expressed in the form of riots, killings, hysterical threats and the like, what has been the underpinning psychic force driving these recent events, I wonder?
I am distinguishing here between, on the one hand, the various political motives that the social and political leadership had in giving licence to the street actions, wild riots and demonstrations and, on the other hand, the actual reasons impelling the rioters.
Could these eruptions be a by-product of the intense sexual repression that characterises societies like Iran, Pakistan, Syria and other Middle Eastern and Central Asian societies?
I don't want to be too Freudian about it, but it's odd that Al Faqr can publish the cartoons without effect, that the Prophet can be lampooned in South Park without effect, and that such genuine causes for indignation and outrage as the Abu Ghraib pictures can elicit palpable, but by no means hysterical anger in the Muslim, and especially Arabic world.
Yet huge and actually deadly civil unrest can be sparked by a few re-run cartoons appearing in a Danish newspaper that virtually nobody in the Middle East would ever see?
It's as if there was a huge volume of volcanic emotional energy seething beneath the surface of these societies that needed some authorised focus.
And that the more symbolic and remote the object the better.
It's understandable that, given the repressive nature of most Middle Eastern and Central Asian states, that frustrated psychic energy could be directed against specific external targets, as there's no authentic means by which to express opposition within these states.
Certainly, we've seen large demonstrations against specific western policies that could be construed as overtly anti-Muslim. The French ban on headscarves in schools for example.
But nothing like the cartoon hysteria.
The cartoons, when you think about it, are such a remote, almost ludicrous target for such anger, don't you think there must be something else at work here?
I'm put in mind of the bizarre extremes of witch-hunting frenzy that were a feature of both Protestant and Catholic societies during the early stages of the Reformation, when the sudden availability of officially designated heretics gave focus to long repressed energies.
This might have no small bearing on the endless, raving anti-Semitism that was a feature of both Medieval Europe and today's Middle East.
What do people think?
Beautiful one day. Perfect the next.
A Queensland newspaper has entered a Holocaust cartoon in an Iranian newspaper competition to test the notion of free speech.
It depicts a Western man holding a Muslim man by the throat as he is about to deliver the punchline on an old joke about how many Jews you can fit in a Volkswagen.
Mr Ternowetsky said The Weekend Choice had no qualms about sending its cartoon to Iran.
"We are the first Australian (publication) to publicly admit it," Mr Ternowetsky said.
"We're entering wholeheartedly into it and intentionally trying to engage debate and accepting all the responsibility that comes with it."
Standing up for what they believe
A group demonstrating at Kerry Packer's funeral have put their weight behind the free speech movement;
Touching.
So, censoring games? For or against?
"Multimillionaire US fashion designer Marc Ecko has slammed the Federal Government's decision to ban his new video game."
"The Classification Review Board yesterday refused to classify the game, Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, meaning it cannot be sold, demonstrated, hired or imported."
"The decision was endorsed last night by the Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, who had asked the board to review of the game's MA15+ classification after local councils and state governments voiced concerns that the game would promote graffiti."
This sort of thing really pisses me off.
I can just imagine some opinionated, self appointed "community representative" or "youth adviser" voicing his or her baseless opinions in a local or state government "working party" on how video games "promote graffiti."
I suppose the "thinking" behind this sort of line is that by featuring graffiti aerosol art, the video game would "valorise" or "glamourise" it.
And that people who had never contemplated making graffiti would be suddenly impelled to leave their computer game, go out, get some real paint, and spray it on a wall somewhere.
That unless they played a video game with graffiti art in it, it would never have occurred to them to paint bomb something?
It's precisely this kind of illogic and credulousness that underlies so much hysteria about censorship.
As if there's a simple one-to-one correlation between media representations, on the one hand, and behavioural outcomes amongst audiences on the other.
A dumbed down "input-output" model of behaviour that everyone else is subject to.
Yet somehow censors, religious busybodies, elected representatives, political fanatics and dickheads who got such low TERs they were forced to do Diplomas in Social Work at TAFE then sit on local council community working parties as "youth advisers" are personally exempt from this process?
They're above it somehow? Unlike the rest of us?
And are therefore specially entitled to adjudicate on what everyone else can watch, read or play on their computers?
Is there any substantive evidence whatsoever linking digital media portrayals of graffiti to actual paint-bombing?
Any, whatsoever?
It's been 21 years since Super Mario Brothers came out.
So, an entire generation of people have grown to adulthood under its "influence", the most famous and most popular video game of all time throughout the world.
Has there been any appreciable increase in the number of people wanting to become plumbers as a result of this massive exposure to the Mario Brothers?
Given the logic behind banning Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, young people everywhere should be fixing pipes and rescuing maidens in the Mushroom Kingdom.
They should all have really, really big moustaches.
Do people who watch horse races on TV want to become jockeys?
Do they want to become horses?
The flip side of this crude "input-output" theory about how mass culture is supposed to work is the constant importuning aimed at creative directors, script writers, editors and other artists to include in their work as many token gestures of moral and political righteousness as possible.
I've actually been compelled to include in a brochure for a tourist advisory service a picture of a "family" comprising a man, a woman and three children - all of different ethnic groups.
This was to appease some ardent proponent of multiculturalism who wanted to ensure ethnic "balance" in the brochure.
It looked like a mixed race couple driving a car had kidnapped three kids from entirely different families and forced them to go on a driving holiday.
Possibly the only way kids would actually go on a driving holiday, come to think of it.
Weirdly, on another occasion the same person vetoed a picture of a University of Western Sydney faculty board meting because it had a bald man in it - and because more men than women in the picture were holding pencils.
Worst case of pencil envy I have ever encountered.
pen to your can
C Parsons: "...The Federal Government endorsed banning...local councils thought would PROMOTE GRAFFITI." Nice link.
Of course, how timely when the most famous graffiti world wide will have the sale of the wicked paint tin to raise money after a magistrate told the police it's OK (and what a bunch of wankers they were - well, not really, but for goodness sake! First time I have ever criticised the police, I think, in my life. Would make family gatherings awkward). They sure served their time: 6 months' gaol and a hundred thousand bucks' bill. Pretty impressive for humiliating Howard, many paedophiles only get a few years, but then they aren't there to set an example. Opera House paint tins now for sale.Anyone know the site, we might need them again soon - oops - was that seditious? Or promoting terrorism of graffiti?
This all seems a little surreal,and not quite the Australia I call home. There must be more to that videogame being banned for promoting graffiti - the Harry Potter game promotes avada kedavra after all.And as for the war games - first person killem dead etc.....but not graffiti. Skeptical button is ringing. Then again, when all the cartoonists are imprisoned and all the websites controlled and all the newspapers just Dnoticed, what is left? The great white highway bridge for the F3 and one's graffiti skills from the video game that was banned. And no doubt a tazer experience. Sheez. Wasted youth. Never learned such seditious skills in my youth, too busy seeing countries where this had already happened.
Cheers
PS and you'd be envious if they had a can to your pen.
It's not what you say. It's how you say it.
Angela Ryan: "They sure served their time: six months' gaol and a hundred thousand bucks' bill."
They must have been playing a video game beforehand.
I do rather wish they hadn't splattered the sails of the Opera House with red paint, though. How much was the clean-up bill?
Perhaps the should have chosen the walls of St Mary's Cathedral? Or Trades Hall?
And wasn't the intention to influence the election outcome?
Perhaps they did? If this doesn't add further insult to their injuries.
Fundamentalists at it again.
A report in the Media section of the Australian today details the successful censorship of an episode of South Park deemed likely to offend many Christians. (A statue of the virgin Mary that bleeds from its ass)
It's not reported whether or not any threats were made to burn producers at the stake, but Melbourne's Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart wrote to SBS asking that it not be shown. It's not being shown.
Take that, you crazy Islamic fundos, and learn a lesson from Christianity. We get our censorship done right first time.
As for the Holocaust, it's hard to go past "Six million...with chips".
Ed. Fiona: Hi Bryan – can you possibly provide a link to this story?
Simple Solution for Southpark Saturnalian Excess
I like Southpark but sometimes an episode "goes over the top". Not to my taste, as it were.
No drama. That's what they invented remote controls for.
funny episode!
I thought they were trying to ban it, but hadn't had any luck (thankfully). Besides which it is a very funny episode. (spoiler to follow, so look away if you dont want to know). Basically the church has to decide whether this statue is a genuine miracle or not. After the pope inspects it (after the bishops etc all pronounce it a miracle of "bleeding from the ass"), the pope declares it not a miracle as the statue (Virgin Mary) is bleeding from the vagina, and women have been doing that forever.
SouthPark makes fun of all the religions. During this whole cartoon "crisis", it was missed that Mohammed actually appears in a SouthPark episode called "Super Best Friends", alongside Jesus, Moses and Buddah. There was no reaction to that however, which is strange considering that the audience for SouthPark would certainly be wider than a certain Danish newspaper.
Amazing
James Squires: "During this whole cartoon 'crisis', it was missed that Mohammed actually appears in a South Park episode called "Super Best Friends", alongside Jesus, Moses and Buddah. There was no reaction to that however, which is strange considering that the audience for South Park would certainly be wider than a certain Danish newspaper."
That's fascinating. It adds to the evidence that the "controversy" is nothing more than a cynical ploy by ultra-right wing religious fundamentalists and fascist politicians to whip up a bit of hatred.
But since they're Arabs and Persians, we're all supposed to feel guilty about how we "offended" their sensibilities.
Super Best Friends
Just thought I would post a wikipedia link where information on the episode is available. Interestingly, no one is calling for the image to be taken off this page either (Mohammed is the one next to Jesus in the image).
Warning
Great find!!
South Park Takes On [Insert Religion Here]
If you go here you can see the whole episode. On the face of it I can't see how it would be offensive to Muslims, but I can easily imagine it getting a few Scientologists hopping.