same is the problem in india.Indian leftists never support indian nationalism.Sadly indian msdia has been hijacked by leftists.
September 22, 2010 1:41:04 AM
Barry Rubin
The most sinister threat that Israel and Jews face today is not posed by the Palestinians and the Arabs but Left-wing Jewish intellectuals who excel at the game of running down their own people. This is not a recent phenomenon: The Left within has stalked Jews for a century now, haranguing and harassing them to deflect attention from the crimes of others
It's always fascinating to find historical parallels to contemporary events. When one discovers an obscure gem of this type, cutting the stone to let it reflect the light of truth is irresistible.
For well over a century, the Jewish people have been beset by an eleventh plague inside their own house: Extreme Left-wing intellectuals who urge they throw away their own interests, concerns, and even lives for the supposed higher ones of humanity or the chimera of being morally perfect.
According to this view, their supposed true interests lie in bringing about utopia for everyone, paved by abandoning their own aspirations, dissolving their identity while other groups are encouraged to do the opposite.
While I admire Bertram Wolfe for things he did in later life, he spent 30 earlier years campaigning for Communism. During that period he produced one of the greatest examples in this genre of Left-wing calls for Jewish suicide. On April 6, 1939, Wolfe made a speech to the Keep America Out of War Congress, opposing US involvement in the looming war in Europe against the Nazis, the worst persecutor of the Jewish people (so far) in modern times.
Wolfe was then an exemplar of what has become known recently by the name, "As-a-Jew". That is, those who never identify as a member of the Jewish people or religion except when bashing some aspect of it, usually in our era, Israel. So they start their rant by saying, "Äs a Jew..." I oppose this or that thing. (With the implied meaning: Aren't I a great and noble person!)
In this tradition, Wolfe's speech ordered Jews to sacrifice themselves for a Left-wing cause based on a distorted Left-wing view of reality: "The element that makes the war party [who want to fight Nazi Germany] so much larger in New York than elsewhere in this country, [are] those whose anguish blinds their visions as each day their spirits are bruised and shocked afresh by the daily budget of news of Jewish persecutions throughout the world. Profiting by their anguish which amounts to hysteria, there are those who would sell them the coming war as a war against anti-semitism. And this is the more dangerous delusion because the growth of militarism and reaction in this country is bringing with it the growth of anti-semitism.
In those days, "New York" was a code word, often used by anti-semites, for Jews. True, he expresses sympathy to gain credibility but only uses it to warn that the worst thing Jews could do was to advocate a war against Hitler.
Why? The Left always portrays the true threat to Jews in America as being from the Right-wing. Of course, historically there was real truth in it — Charles Lindbergh made a similar anti-semitic speech at the time — and of course it was quite true in Europe at the time. Still, everyone remembers that the conservative British Prime Minister Nevil Chamberlain practiced appeasement; nobody remembers that the Labour Party voted against Chamberlain's last-minute reversal of that policy to rearm Britain's Army.
The threat to the east came from fascism, but the danger in the West came from not fighting fascism. You are free to make a modern-day parallel to that sentence.
Those conservatives in America — as well as the more numerous liberals doing so — advocating the US ally with Britain and France to fight Nazi Germany weren't anti-semitic. On the contrary, the isolationists were anti-semites. And those anti-semites on the extreme isolationist Right held precisely the same view as Wolfe and the communists or pacifists on the Left. Both extremes were enemies of the Jews, not just one. And you are also free to make a modern-day parallel to that paragraph.
Why were Wolfe and his comrades against American involvement in war? Not because they were pacifists or defenders of the poor and downtrodden but because they were following the interests of the Soviet Union, interests which in a few weeks would lead that country to ally with Hitler and seize the Baltic states and eastern Poland. Indeed, that very Soviet state so idealised by all too many Jewish intellectuals was systematically destroying the Jewish religion and culture while killing Jews in numbers far exceeded in modern times only by the Nazis and their loyal allies.
To summarise, Wolfe, in line with the current Communist political line, was warning Jews not to support war against Nazi Germany claiming that such a war would be against Jewish interests and stir up anti-semitism in the US. He and his comrades advocated standing by and watching while the Nazis conquered most of the world and murdered all of the Jews there. When they changed their line, in June 1941, it was only because Germany attacked their Soviet idol, not out of concern for the Jews of Europe or the defence of democracy.
Wolfe concluded his argument by saying: "There is no way of putting an end to your endless torture except by putting an end to militarism, reaction, war, and capitalist imperialism which begets them all."
Of course, as even Wolfe himself was to realise a few months later, the USSR and its allies were equal or indeed bigger agents of militarism, war, and dictatorship.
But today the idea that Jews should throw away having a country achieved after two millennia of suffering in exchange for the alleged pie-in-the-sky utopia still lives on. The enemies of this aspiration today in the US is represented by a small, relatively isolated segment of the isolationist Right — exemplified by my old neighbour Patrick Buchanan and by Ron Paul — and a large, powerful far Left, much of which is currently pretending to be liberal.
Ironically, the Left's argument for the Third World is the same as that used by radical Arab nationalists, Islamists and assorted demagogic dictators to subordinate their people to ideological distractions. They tell their masses to fight, sacrifice, shed their blood, and postpone their material progress until the Jewish and Western enemy is wiped out or chased out.
This claim that victory must precede progress is the bane of the Middle East today. All of these ideologies also use fomenting hatred and externalising blame to conceal their long record of failure.
Back to Wolfe, at the end of his speech came another threat: "Take care, I beg you, lest"¦those who desire to keep this country out of war should get the idea that you are working to put America into it." In other words, shut up or you will be blamed for wanting to get the US in war with Germany against its own interests and then the pogroms in America will begin.
What delightful parallels to today when Jews are blamed by some mainly on the American Left for the war in Iraq and for wanting to get America into war with Iran. How quickly the Left resorts to using anti-semitism as a whip to keep Jews in their place and blame them for international problems.
This intimidation does work to a considerable extent, though the scape-goating is less effective in America. Many Jews — especially in Europe but also in America — are frightened into silence lest opposition hurt their careers, reputation, or be used to smear them as Right-wing or bigots. College students have been frightened into passivity. Intellectuals want to prove themselves to be fair, cosmopolitan, and untainted by "primitive tribal" impulses. Yet just as our ancestors would have been fools to keep silent about the Nazi or Communist threats and need to combat them — and were proven right to the American people for doing so — there are equivalent tasks for today.
Oh, when asked in 1946 whether he considered himself to be Jewish, Wolfe replied: "Because Jews are so persecuted today I would gladly proclaim myself a Jew if that would help this persecuted people in the slightest. But, by the same token, I should gladly proclaim myself a Negro, if that would be of use to Negroes, a Chinaman or a Korean or a Pole or member of the defeated German people if that would help them..."
Yes, but who else but a Jewish intellectual would have lived the life Wolfe lived or made such statements as he had in 1939 and 1946? How could he reconcile this claim with his behaviour a few years earlier?
There is also something very sinister behind these clichés despite their surface nobility: The substitution of oneself for others. For if one is going to "proclaim" oneself to be of these groups then one is also defining them, telling them how they ought to think and behave, thus taking away their freedom to do so themselves.
--The writer is director of the GLORIA Center, Tel Aviv, and editor of the MERIA Journal.
Beware the deceitful Left
September 22, 2010 1:41:04 AM
Barry Rubin
The most sinister threat that Israel and Jews face today is not posed by the Palestinians and the Arabs but Left-wing Jewish intellectuals who excel at the game of running down their own people. This is not a recent phenomenon: The Left within has stalked Jews for a century now, haranguing and harassing them to deflect attention from the crimes of others
It's always fascinating to find historical parallels to contemporary events. When one discovers an obscure gem of this type, cutting the stone to let it reflect the light of truth is irresistible.
For well over a century, the Jewish people have been beset by an eleventh plague inside their own house: Extreme Left-wing intellectuals who urge they throw away their own interests, concerns, and even lives for the supposed higher ones of humanity or the chimera of being morally perfect.
According to this view, their supposed true interests lie in bringing about utopia for everyone, paved by abandoning their own aspirations, dissolving their identity while other groups are encouraged to do the opposite.
While I admire Bertram Wolfe for things he did in later life, he spent 30 earlier years campaigning for Communism. During that period he produced one of the greatest examples in this genre of Left-wing calls for Jewish suicide. On April 6, 1939, Wolfe made a speech to the Keep America Out of War Congress, opposing US involvement in the looming war in Europe against the Nazis, the worst persecutor of the Jewish people (so far) in modern times.
Wolfe was then an exemplar of what has become known recently by the name, "As-a-Jew". That is, those who never identify as a member of the Jewish people or religion except when bashing some aspect of it, usually in our era, Israel. So they start their rant by saying, "Äs a Jew..." I oppose this or that thing. (With the implied meaning: Aren't I a great and noble person!)
In this tradition, Wolfe's speech ordered Jews to sacrifice themselves for a Left-wing cause based on a distorted Left-wing view of reality: "The element that makes the war party [who want to fight Nazi Germany] so much larger in New York than elsewhere in this country, [are] those whose anguish blinds their visions as each day their spirits are bruised and shocked afresh by the daily budget of news of Jewish persecutions throughout the world. Profiting by their anguish which amounts to hysteria, there are those who would sell them the coming war as a war against anti-semitism. And this is the more dangerous delusion because the growth of militarism and reaction in this country is bringing with it the growth of anti-semitism.
In those days, "New York" was a code word, often used by anti-semites, for Jews. True, he expresses sympathy to gain credibility but only uses it to warn that the worst thing Jews could do was to advocate a war against Hitler.
Why? The Left always portrays the true threat to Jews in America as being from the Right-wing. Of course, historically there was real truth in it — Charles Lindbergh made a similar anti-semitic speech at the time — and of course it was quite true in Europe at the time. Still, everyone remembers that the conservative British Prime Minister Nevil Chamberlain practiced appeasement; nobody remembers that the Labour Party voted against Chamberlain's last-minute reversal of that policy to rearm Britain's Army.
The threat to the east came from fascism, but the danger in the West came from not fighting fascism. You are free to make a modern-day parallel to that sentence.
Those conservatives in America — as well as the more numerous liberals doing so — advocating the US ally with Britain and France to fight Nazi Germany weren't anti-semitic. On the contrary, the isolationists were anti-semites. And those anti-semites on the extreme isolationist Right held precisely the same view as Wolfe and the communists or pacifists on the Left. Both extremes were enemies of the Jews, not just one. And you are also free to make a modern-day parallel to that paragraph.
Why were Wolfe and his comrades against American involvement in war? Not because they were pacifists or defenders of the poor and downtrodden but because they were following the interests of the Soviet Union, interests which in a few weeks would lead that country to ally with Hitler and seize the Baltic states and eastern Poland. Indeed, that very Soviet state so idealised by all too many Jewish intellectuals was systematically destroying the Jewish religion and culture while killing Jews in numbers far exceeded in modern times only by the Nazis and their loyal allies.
To summarise, Wolfe, in line with the current Communist political line, was warning Jews not to support war against Nazi Germany claiming that such a war would be against Jewish interests and stir up anti-semitism in the US. He and his comrades advocated standing by and watching while the Nazis conquered most of the world and murdered all of the Jews there. When they changed their line, in June 1941, it was only because Germany attacked their Soviet idol, not out of concern for the Jews of Europe or the defence of democracy.
Wolfe concluded his argument by saying: "There is no way of putting an end to your endless torture except by putting an end to militarism, reaction, war, and capitalist imperialism which begets them all."
Of course, as even Wolfe himself was to realise a few months later, the USSR and its allies were equal or indeed bigger agents of militarism, war, and dictatorship.
But today the idea that Jews should throw away having a country achieved after two millennia of suffering in exchange for the alleged pie-in-the-sky utopia still lives on. The enemies of this aspiration today in the US is represented by a small, relatively isolated segment of the isolationist Right — exemplified by my old neighbour Patrick Buchanan and by Ron Paul — and a large, powerful far Left, much of which is currently pretending to be liberal.
Ironically, the Left's argument for the Third World is the same as that used by radical Arab nationalists, Islamists and assorted demagogic dictators to subordinate their people to ideological distractions. They tell their masses to fight, sacrifice, shed their blood, and postpone their material progress until the Jewish and Western enemy is wiped out or chased out.
This claim that victory must precede progress is the bane of the Middle East today. All of these ideologies also use fomenting hatred and externalising blame to conceal their long record of failure.
Back to Wolfe, at the end of his speech came another threat: "Take care, I beg you, lest"¦those who desire to keep this country out of war should get the idea that you are working to put America into it." In other words, shut up or you will be blamed for wanting to get the US in war with Germany against its own interests and then the pogroms in America will begin.
What delightful parallels to today when Jews are blamed by some mainly on the American Left for the war in Iraq and for wanting to get America into war with Iran. How quickly the Left resorts to using anti-semitism as a whip to keep Jews in their place and blame them for international problems.
This intimidation does work to a considerable extent, though the scape-goating is less effective in America. Many Jews — especially in Europe but also in America — are frightened into silence lest opposition hurt their careers, reputation, or be used to smear them as Right-wing or bigots. College students have been frightened into passivity. Intellectuals want to prove themselves to be fair, cosmopolitan, and untainted by "primitive tribal" impulses. Yet just as our ancestors would have been fools to keep silent about the Nazi or Communist threats and need to combat them — and were proven right to the American people for doing so — there are equivalent tasks for today.
Oh, when asked in 1946 whether he considered himself to be Jewish, Wolfe replied: "Because Jews are so persecuted today I would gladly proclaim myself a Jew if that would help this persecuted people in the slightest. But, by the same token, I should gladly proclaim myself a Negro, if that would be of use to Negroes, a Chinaman or a Korean or a Pole or member of the defeated German people if that would help them..."
Yes, but who else but a Jewish intellectual would have lived the life Wolfe lived or made such statements as he had in 1939 and 1946? How could he reconcile this claim with his behaviour a few years earlier?
There is also something very sinister behind these clichés despite their surface nobility: The substitution of oneself for others. For if one is going to "proclaim" oneself to be of these groups then one is also defining them, telling them how they ought to think and behave, thus taking away their freedom to do so themselves.
--The writer is director of the GLORIA Center, Tel Aviv, and editor of the MERIA Journal.
