RadixJournal - Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism

00:00:00.000 Let me read the resolution. So strongly condemning and denouncing the drastic rise of

00:00:06.160 anti-Semitism in the United States and around the world. Whereas acts of hate, intimidation,

00:00:12.180 discrimination, and violence based on ethnicity or religion have no place in our country,

00:00:17.980 nor in the global community. So it always strikes me as funny when you denounce something that's been

00:00:30.700 happening since the Stone Age and saying that it has no place. You know, it's like saying no one

00:00:41.460 should die of cancer or something that has no place in our society. Well, that's just a ridiculous 0.98

00:00:48.860 statement. No one should be alone. You know, everyone should have a meal. I mean, you're just 0.99

00:00:57.800 you're describing a phenomenon that is so universal, that to condemn it is just absurd. I mean,

00:01:05.600 and they're condemning not just anti-Semitism, but discrimination and violence based on ethnicity

00:01:10.920 their religion. I mean, they are describing human history. They're describing the history of their

00:01:16.360 own institutions, in fact, and claiming that this has no place. It's just a ridiculous, absurd statement. 0.98

00:01:25.500 Anyway, resolved that the House of Representatives strongly condemns and denounces all instances of

00:01:34.240 anti-Semitism occurring in the United States and globally, reaffirms and reiterates its strong

00:01:40.360 support for the Jewish community at home and abroad. All right. So we support Jews here. We support

00:01:46.820 Israel. So they're equating that. And then calls on elected officials and world leaders to condemn and

00:01:53.120 fight all forms of domestic and global anti-Semitism. So everyone on the planet must be fighting this.

00:02:02.880 In fact, clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Rejects all that's going to be the

00:02:13.060 key there. That's platform for rejects all forms of terror, hate, discrimination, and harassment of

00:02:19.840 members of the Jewish community. Now, I actually have a lot to say about this. This is a very complex 0.88

00:02:27.520 thing. And I think it's worth looking at all the layers of this. So when you hear something like

00:02:36.280 this, some immediate objections come to mind. And these objections have been voiced by mainstream

00:02:44.920 legislators. So Massey, who's a congressman from Kentucky, is actually an interesting guy.

00:02:56.140 I sometimes find him to be a bit of a libertarian crank. He is Ron Paul 2.0 in many ways, or I guess

00:03:06.220 Rand Paul was Ron Paul 2.0. So he's 3.0. But you get my drift. I think he's a decent guy. But anyway,

00:03:14.040 he opposed this. And he actually said something to the effect, you know, like the Congress in particular,

00:03:20.180 government in general should not be telling people what to believe. Like, don't you have at the end

00:03:26.900 of the day, a right to be anti-Semitic? Don't you have a right to think that the Unabomber was a cool 0.97

00:03:34.820 guy? Don't you have a right to believe in fairies and unicorns? You know, there's just, you know, some of

00:03:42.060 these views might be more benign than others. But at the end of the day, you have a right to them. And

00:03:49.740 this is saying denouncing something from government is just obviously a First Amendment violation. Now,

00:03:58.060 this is a resolution. So, you know, does this matter? You know, I arguably does, but it remains a First

00:04:07.480 Amendment violation. If they said we denounce Buddhism in all its forms, I think it'd be quite

00:04:12.540 obvious that the government was taking a stand on what you believe. So that's a decent objection

00:04:18.740 that I agree with. Denounce is different from prohibit, right? Correct. They're denouncing it,

00:04:25.620 but they're not prohibiting it. And prohibiting it would be a violation of free speech. Well, yes. And

00:04:32.560 it goes farther than that because, like, a teacher at a public school can talk about, say,

00:04:41.980 you know, what Christianity is or, you know, the life of Jesus, but she cannot, like, lead the class 0.87

00:04:49.020 in prayer. You know, so it actually does go further than that. Than just, you know, I mean, obviously,

00:04:57.520 a public school principal can't, like, not teach someone who's Buddhist or an atheist. That's pretty

00:05:06.420 obvious. But it goes a little bit further than that. Like, you can't make it seem like you're

00:05:13.500 excluded if you don't, you know, take part in this. Now, out here in Montana, I think that's often

00:05:20.220 honored in the breach more than the observance. They do these, like, Christmas things where,

00:05:28.140 you know, it's kind of, it's very benign, and they're singing about, you know, Rudolph the

00:05:32.020 Red-Nosed Reindeer and things like that. But they are kind of, you know, to me, I mean,

00:05:35.120 I'm not going to object, obviously, but they kind of are promoting Christianity, to be honest.

00:05:42.480 But it's just, you know, it's so benign. I, you know, only Ebeneezer Scrooge would complain.

00:05:47.580 But anyway, the other objection, and actually, Jerry Nadler, who is this Jewish representative 0.99

00:05:57.880 from New York, it's actually pretty interesting, because he said that anti-Zionism is distinct

00:06:05.280 from anti-Semitism. And in fact, many Jews who are his constituents are anti-Zionist. So he is a

00:06:15.500 representative from some part of New York, where there are many, many of these anti-Zionist Jews,

00:06:24.400 and they're basically extremely pro-Jewish. But they'll say things like, it's an affront to God

00:06:30.140 to re-establish Zion, or, you know, re-enter Jerusalem before the Messiah returns, or not returns,

00:06:39.280 excuse me, comes. And so they have this kind of curious stance on it. And you can find a number

00:06:46.900 of Jews who are like this. Now, I would say that those people, I don't know, represent like 3% of 1.00

00:06:54.220 world Jewry at the most. But, you know, they are. And obviously, they're not anti-Semitic. So how could

00:07:00.600 you equate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism? Fair enough. But I actually, I don't know, I guess my

00:07:11.220 objection to this, and it's, it's related to these things, but it's actually really different. And I

00:07:19.060 think it gets at something deeper and a little more insidious. And I think something that is

00:07:27.880 worth talking about. So obviously, and I'll talk about this on two levels. So obviously,

00:07:36.180 we're adults, we can make distinctions between, you know, two different phenomenon. You could be a

00:07:45.000 rabid Germanophile and love German cuisine, and you read Goethe on weekends, but you happily fight 1.00

00:07:54.160 the Nazis, and so on. Obviously, that is a completely normal perspective for many people 0.97

00:08:02.300 to have. But first off, let me, let me just, I'll start out saying this. Don't you find that

00:08:11.400 on some level, being anti-Zionist is being anti-Semitic? I mean, aren't they in a way

00:08:19.220 getting at something? In the sense that this, these actions in Gaza have no doubt inspired a great deal 0.82

00:08:32.700 of anti-Semitism among Americans and people around the world. Because Israel isn't just a country that

00:08:43.380 is majority Jewish. It is a Jewish state that is establishing itself as a fulfillment of biblical

00:08:52.620 prophecy. It's a Jewish state that is near the holy sites of this religion. I mean, it goes so far

00:09:04.220 in the sense that Yahweh might be in effect present near the temple. We might be close to the holy of

00:09:14.200 holies, the actual physical location of the god Yahweh. So the fact that this country is doing these 0.67

00:09:25.340 things that are offending the world is quite significant. And I think that they, that in a way,

00:09:36.260 it's fair to say that being anti-Zionist is being anti-Jewish. Because again, this isn't just some

00:09:45.340 curious country where, you know, it has a bunch of Jews, but it has a secular constitution,

00:09:52.340 or whatever. But this is a country that is a fulfillment of the very Bible. So in a way,

00:10:00.680 if you are criticizing Israel, you are criticizing Judaism. And I was thinking about this last night,

00:10:07.700 that I, I was reminded of one of my favorite quotations from Leo Strauss. So Leo Strauss has a

00:10:17.660 good book. It's called the history of political philosophy. He edited, edited it actually. And

00:10:23.480 it's very long, goes through basically all major philosophers. And he, he offers kind of like an

00:10:31.580 introduction or, you know, X, you know, explanation or explication, but then, but then also his own

00:10:38.320 perspective on them. And he's talking about Machiavelli and Machiavelli references David and

00:10:47.240 he references God. And it's, he has a, Leo Strauss has, and Leo Strauss claims that Machiavelli has

00:10:54.840 a kind of interpretation of this, the meek shall inherit the earth or the, you know, he must make 1.00

00:11:01.940 the rich poor and the poor rich. And what Machiavelli is saying is that when you establish a new, a new

00:11:08.840 sovereignty or a new prince, you need to make everything dependent upon you. So everything must

00:11:14.480 be new. So you have to dispossess all of the rich people and rise, raise up all of the poor people so 0.91

00:11:21.860 that they know that they are entirely dependent on you. And this is how you establish yourself as a new

00:11:26.580 leader. What Leo Strauss was getting at was that it's interesting that this is suggesting that Yahweh

00:11:36.000 is himself a kind of prince or tyrant. And you can kind of go from there in some ways, being a prince

00:11:44.760 is making yourself God. Anyway, what he's saying is that that insidious, blasphemous, very dangerous

00:11:53.060 sentiment, is implanted in the reader's mind of Machiavelli, even though it's not said outright.

00:12:02.520 He's, he's implying very dangerous thoughts. And this is, this is the esoteric quality of

00:12:13.520 Machiavelli and also the esoteric quality of Leo Strauss's interpretive method. So he's implying these

00:12:20.960 things, but he's allowing you to think them. So he'll take you from A to B to C and a half, maybe.

00:12:28.160 And then he'll let you go to D. But D is where the actual blasphemy is. And this is writing under

00:12:37.840 persecution, basically. But this is a direct quote, but the concealed blasphemy is so insidious,

00:12:44.980 not only because it projects the blasphemer against, excuse me, not only because it protects

00:12:51.540 the blasphemer against punishment by due process of law, because again, you haven't said anything

00:12:58.640 blasphemous, but above all, because it practically compels the hearer or reader to think the blasphemy

00:13:06.700 by himself and thus to become an accomplice in the blasphemer. So what I'm suggesting here is that

00:13:17.480 it's almost, when you start declaring that anti-Semitism, excuse me, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,

00:13:29.540 aren't you in a way giving people ideas? Are you actually suggesting in their mind that that is

00:13:40.600 correct? And in fact, if you are anti-Zionist, you should also be anti-Semitic, by which we mean

00:13:50.640 anti-Jewish and anti-Yahweh. Is this a kind of dangerous thing to suggest to people's minds?

00:13:58.800 And might it imply a sort of passive aggression among Jews? So let me unpack what I'm saying here. So

00:14:06.000 I've made the joke often about the anti-German guilt trip that goes on in academia, where,

00:14:17.720 and there's a long tradition of this, of, you know, German history from Luther to Hitler.

00:14:25.580 And it's just, you know, Bismarck was a Nazi. Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm was a Nazi. Well, you know, 0.58

00:14:34.280 that one has maybe some kernels of truth. You know, every, it's all Nazis. It's, it's, you know, 0.95

00:14:40.800 it's all turtles all the way down. It's all Nazis all the way down. You, you dig into German history, 0.97

00:14:45.700 you uncover a swastika under every rock. But there's a dangerous, it's a dangerous thing to say,

00:14:53.400 in fact, because if you keep telling Germans that they're inherently Nazi, at some point,

00:15:00.260 they might believe you and take you up on the offer. And the entire valuation that you're putting

00:15:08.380 forth gets flipped. And the German says, I am a Nazi. And Martin Luther was a Nazi. We're all Nazis.

00:15:20.340 It's a very dangerous thing. And when you keep equating anti, you know, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.

00:15:30.300 At what point do people hear that and say, yeah, you're right. I am anti-Semitic. So

00:15:41.460 if I were a Jew, I would take Jerry Nadler's perspective. And I think he's being a, at least

00:15:51.560 in the long term or medium term, a kind of canny operator. What's happening in Gaza right now is going

00:15:58.800 to diminish the standing of Israel in the eyes of the world. It's going to reduce its legitimacy. 0.53

00:16:03.800 And I think it will ultimately strongly reduce the legitimacy of Judaism itself. Because Israel 1.00

00:16:09.480 isn't just any country. And that is a huge problem. But as more people get this in their mind, and it's

00:16:20.300 declared to them that they are in fact anti-Semitic, they, again, might at some point start believing

00:16:28.580 their critics. And so it's a very dangerous game. But it also kind of makes me wonder,

00:16:37.120 you know, and I got at this a little bit the other night with Nick, where is there a kind

00:16:44.560 of passive aggressive instinct, like an unconscious motivation among Jews to inspire anti-Semitism?

00:16:55.180 And as I said the other night, to empower their persecutors, and to disempower their friends. So

00:17:07.900 if you can just, if you imagine, you know, 1960 demographics in the United States, remaining

00:17:17.580 for eternity. We might very well have had a lot of the liberalism that we've had today. Obviously,

00:17:27.780 this is kind of coming from white leaders and to a very large degree, etc. But I think it's also fair

00:17:35.580 to say that the country would be much more Zionist than it is right now. And if you look at some of this

00:17:43.540 polling, like Biden is flailing around, I think 30, it's like 35% of Democrats approve of Israel's actions

00:17:55.260 in Gaza. So basically a strong majority is condemning what is happening right now. This is very interesting,

00:18:04.440 would not have seen this 20 years ago. But if we had kept our, you know, demographics,

00:18:11.440 it seems like we would be a more rabidly Zionist country. 0.74

00:18:17.500 I can remember even 20 years ago, say after 9-11, when, you know, the patriot-hearted

00:18:27.200 nonsense was just at its zenith, you know, people just wearing these big flag pins and crucifixes and 0.94

00:18:37.180 big, you know, these fatzos with big American flag t-shirts waddling around talking about killing 0.99

00:18:44.960 Muslims and bringing them to democracy. You know, it's like that line from Full Metal Jacket, 0.99

00:18:50.480 within every gook is an American just waiting to get out. And, you know, within every Muslim is a 1.00

00:18:57.080 Democrat. Just, you know, if we bomb them enough times, he'll finally be empowered to,

00:19:04.840 you know, take, to vote for the right guys. That was a, that was a whiter country. And that type 0.92

00:19:16.840 of mentality was primarily popular among white Christians and probably white Protestants in

00:19:27.140 particular, and Southerners in particular, but it was, it was popular across the board.

00:19:32.180 It's harder to get America whipped up into such a frenzy at this point. There's a generational aspect

00:19:42.660 to that, no question. There's a demographic aspect. There's a, there's a racial component to that.

00:19:48.460 But you are demanding that brown people support this bombing of brown people in another country and 0.96

00:20:00.660 like it. Now, Arabs themselves are a small percentage of the population. I think they, 0.94

00:20:07.900 I think it's one to 2% or 3% maybe. I don't know. It's very, very small. But there are many more

00:20:20.180 Hispanics. There are many more Asians. There are, you know, many more Indians, just, just many more 0.97

00:20:26.620 different people where they see something like this. And there's, they're just thinking to themselves,

00:20:30.620 what do we have at stake with all this? Why are we supporting this, these obviously violent actions

00:20:39.560 against poor third world communities, this community that might remind me of home in many ways? Why would 1.00

00:20:49.020 I support this? And yet, as we know, the demographic change of the United States is not entirely, of

00:20:58.820 course, but it is to a, to a large degree, to, to a significant degree worth talking about a kind

00:21:05.300 of Jewish project. And, you know, the, the notion of America turning away boats of Jews fleeing the

00:21:14.260 Holocaust and et cetera. These are foundational myths as much as the Statue of Liberty and Ellis

00:21:21.940 Island for, you know, Irish and Italians, et cetera. So it, it has been a kind of Jewish project, but why? 0.50

00:21:30.780 Why would you ultimately in the long-term empower your own persecutors?

00:21:38.540 It, it's a, it's a, it's a fascinating question. Is there a kind of passive aggressive instinct

00:21:45.920 within Judaism

00:21:48.620 to inspire a little antisemitism?

00:21:55.480 I mean, after all...

00:21:56.720 Is there like a yoke, is there like a yoke about this, that if the rabbis got to this side in medieval

00:22:01.160 Europe, the walls to the ghettos would be even higher because they're sort of like, 1.00

00:22:04.640 some of this, like, particularly like the Orthodox types, they are getting nurture from this sort of

00:22:12.480 antisemitism because they want to be separate. And I don't really want Jewish people to like 1.00

00:22:16.660 simulate and be like part of mainstream society. So I do think that's like a big part of the Jewish identity.

00:22:24.160 It's a balance, you know, because there definitely are Jews who want to be ghettoized and they want, 0.98

00:22:29.860 they want Jew, Jewish marriage only. Let's remove ourselves from the Gentile community. 1.00

00:22:36.020 There are Jews like that, no doubt, but obviously the mainstream Jews aren't like that.

00:22:41.620 Exactly. I mean, they are to maybe a degree, you know, um, on Saturday, um, and, and, you know,

00:22:49.080 in, in, in certain clubs. And then there are many Jews who want to absolutely engage with the Gentiles and,

00:22:55.700 and, you know, be a part of it. And so it's, it's a kind of balance, but isn't there, isn't a certain

00:23:01.860 like requisite amount of antisemitism necessary to maintain cohesion? You know, I mean, as I've said

00:23:11.400 many times, like the Visigoths don't really exist. Now I might, um, you know, cause I, my,

00:23:19.980 my, my German ancestry, I might be a little bit Visigoth or something, but it doesn't have the

00:23:27.260 meaning that, that Judaism does in the sense that it's a coherent community that at least according

00:23:34.840 to them is 3000 years old. That's a remarkable thing. Um, so, and then the other thing I would

00:23:45.020 also suggest is, is, is there a kind of maybe a secret death wish? Um, is, is there a death

00:23:59.900 drive as, as, as Freud might say, in fact, on among the community where, you know, if you don't have

00:24:11.000 the bloody destruction destruction of the second temple, then you wouldn't have a wailing wall and

00:24:17.440 you wouldn't have a shrine? Like, is there an almost desire to go there, a desire to make things worse,

00:24:28.220 to experience catastrophe and suffering? And it's obviously something that, that would be unconscious,

00:24:37.820 but Richard, go on. I've, I've kind of said my piece on this. Go on, Mark.

00:24:43.980 Well, yeah. I mean, I think that the, the answer might be, I mean, there is a kind of cyclical

00:24:48.320 aspect to Jewish history and I would make the argument that that's sort of encoded into their

00:24:54.900 stories and religion and so forth. Um, you know, at some point there, there will be an exodus and

00:25:01.560 they'll leave Egypt having plundered the Egyptians and so forth. And this is not necessarily a bad 1.00

00:25:07.440 thing. It's just part of the migratory life of the Jew, as it were. So they'll either expel or 1.00

00:25:13.180 be expelled or flee or, and so forth. Um, but I think that part of that cycle though, is that, um,

00:25:21.780 that they are, their will to power is basically, uh, the promotion of egalitarianism. Um, so as they're

00:25:31.700 rising, they'll be promoting things like free speech and, uh, the liberation of the lower classes

00:25:37.780 and so forth, uh, because they see that tied to their own interests. But once they attain sort of

00:25:43.880 the heights of, uh, power, uh, they'll oppose those things. Right. But they've already set in motion

00:25:50.620 all this, uh, cultural, um, interest or love or affection for things like egalitarianism, freedom, 0.98

00:25:59.680 freedom of speech and so forth, uh, that end up, uh, you know, sort of biting them in the ass as it 0.91

00:26:05.780 were, uh, because they're no longer in favor of those things because to be in favor of those things 0.95

00:26:11.680 is disruptive to their hold on power essentially. Uh, but in previously they were using those things to

00:26:18.360 disrupt, uh, you know, the Gentile, uh, um, uh, sort of, um, stranglehold on power, whether it's the, 0.99

00:26:27.880 uh, it was the elite wasps in America or the aristocracy in Europe and so forth. Right. Um,

00:26:34.840 yeah. So I think that that's kind of the answer, you know, it's, it's the serpent that eats its own

00:26:40.160 tail. The will to power is necessarily one of leveling. Uh, but once you're in power, uh, you know,

00:26:47.240 the sort of leveling forces, these democratic forces or become your adversary. And I think

00:26:53.760 really it's just, it's the answer is that it's cyclical that they, uh, again, that their will

00:27:00.540 to power is also their undoing. Uh, you know, we have that expression to live by the sword is to die

00:27:06.720 by the sword. Um, you know, so maybe some similar aphorism can be developed as it, uh, pertains to

00:27:14.280 Jews, you know, to, to live by the egalitarian creed is to die by the, the egalitarian creed and so 0.92

00:27:19.900 forth. Right. I'm sure a better, a better, uh, aphorism can be developed in that. But, um, I think

00:27:26.220 that, uh, I think that that's what's going on and, uh, they've created, uh, they've been very

00:27:33.360 influential in the creation. I should correct myself of this kind of egalitarian climate, this,

00:27:40.720 this sort of democratized, egalitarian multicultural climate, uh, they've played an important hand in

00:27:47.660 fostering that. And now they're kind of, um, you know, reaping the whirlwind. Uh, so I think that

00:27:55.340 that's, that's basically the answer, you know, and, uh, that it is cyclical, but Jewish, a Jewish will 0.88

00:28:01.740 to power, uh, in Jewish history in general is, is cyclical because of the need to, you know, to the need

00:28:10.520 to undermine the very things that would ultimately support them once they ascend to a position of

00:28:17.120 power. Yeah. I mean, I, that's, that's what I would say.

RadixJournal - December 07, 2023

Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism

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