M&G Misses the Missing Jewish Chapter

At the Mail & Guardian, behold the anti-Israel response to the more anti-Israel "Call by Concerned Jews". (Sign our alternative declaration of conscience!)

Ironically the response by Neville Sweijd is called “The Missing Jewish Chapter” even though that missing chapter is hardly discussed. Or at least it is sort of mentioned after a castle of amazing left wing naivety is constructed. Some excerpts

I want to join your call, but I can’t, because I am too emotional about it, too conflicted, too scared, too horrified, too traumatised and too sad. I have taken to saying kaddish (mourner’s prayer) every night for the children of Lebanon, and I lie awake with the parents of kidnapped (or is it captured?)

The article is drenched with the confused, emotional, conflicted, scared, horrified and traumatised meanderings of a man who considers Iran, Hamas, Hizballah and Syria as morally acceptable partners...but not America! The author views Iran, with the maniacal leader who denies that the Holocaust occurred but hopes that one day it will, in higher regard than the USA. Read as his fantastical hallucinations run wild...

I am entertaining fantasies that Ehud Olmert will phone Bashar al-Assad, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh and say, “Look, enough is enough! I can’t bear one more death. Please come and visit me; I want to break bread with you, [...] Muslims and Jews are kin and should be closer than either is to Christianity. I want to see Israel standing with its neighbours and not with the United States -- how can the US be a morally acceptable partner in the George W Bush era?

Neville cryptically describes Israel as an Apartheid state by making romantic references to Greater Palestine.

We all know that one-person-one-vote in the greater Palestine of 1947 cannot happen in our lifetime

Neville is deviously misleading readers because in Israel there certainly is a one-person-one-vote. All Israelis regardless of race, religion or gender have the vote.

Neville goes on to place sole responsibility on Israel for peace.

Israel has the power (both military and economic) and, therefore, peace can only emanate from the Knesset. If Israel is to be a “light to the nations”, let it bite the bullet and give back what land it can, bring down the wall, assist in establishing a viable Palestinian state, compensate financially where realistic and possible, re-build what it has smashed, share resources, train its Palestinian counterparts and behave like a constructive partner in peace. How can anyone, Jew or other, tolerate the belligerence and aggression of the Israelis? The destruction of Israeli military might is awesome and terrible, and the pain it has induced can only strengthen the enemy’s resolve. The bombing of aid convoys and United Nations observer posts will serve only to characterise Israel as a Middle-East Serbia and the atrocities in Lebanon render the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) unrecognisable and indefensible.

No responsibility is placed on the poor Arabs because Israel has all the power? The Arab world has infinitely more resources that tiny Israel does. The fact that Neville doesn’t think that they should be responsible with their resources and use the oil money to build rather than destroy is reflective of Neville’s racism – not his romantic dreams of peace.

But still, after all he has said, Neville still speaks out and condemns the one sided anti Israel “call by concerned Jews”. And for that I would almost praise him if every positive sentence wasn't followed by some snide apologising Jew remark.

Like all those who benefited from apartheid, the Jews have a lot to be ashamed of, but also a lot to be proud of. For some of us, the Tony and Lieutenant Michal “vee arr togezzerrr” Leon cringe factor exacerbates the discomfort and has us walking on eggshells.

That a man with these world-views can speak out against the unbalanced "Call by Concerned Jews" is an embarrassment to the group of “concerned Jews” who signed the letter.

Read the full response here.

Comments

[Lawrence]

there was a good letter by one Arthur J Weinburg (spelling?) of Cape Town in the Cape Argus the other day showing up the hypocrisy and one-sided anti-Semitic balderdash of those "concerned Jews" for what it was. You guys should scan the whole letter up, if you don't have it I can scan it up myself, and send it to you guys. I'm sure Weinburg won't mind that. The interesting thing was how the letter of those so-called Jews was glowingly endorsed and praised by some sheik from the Muslim Judicial Council on the same letter page of the Argus. Proves Weinburg's point.

The ever clueless Barry Ronge couldn't help himself from taking a dig at Bush and Blair who he calls "bad cop, worse cop", for daring to allow Israel (careful not to name Olmert by name but the implications are clear) to defend itself from jihadist terrorism in his column in the Sunday Times magazine today. Not that the Middle-East conflict was what his column today was actually about, but there it was...

Ronge's view is clear. Israel must sit still and subject itself to terrorism without fighting back, to fight back against the jihad is to fuel the flames of jihad. Of course he does not literally say this, but without realising it, he implies as much by telling us that this new war is only going to inflame the Muslims further and drive them to embrace Islamism. This is like saying that Churchill fueled the flames of Nazism by fighting back against Nazism. But it's one set of rules when fighting back against white European fascists and another set of rules when fighting back against Muslim fascists, at least where the Jews are concerned. The former is necessary, in the latter case, according to Ronge, Chamberlanian appeasement is the way to go. That will make the jihad go away apparently. Hey it didn't work with Hitler, but hey maybe it will be different this time around for the first time in history.

Since Ronge is an openly gay man, perhaps he will answer this question for us - does he support the view of his editor at the Sunday Times, who called for South African Jews to apologise for the killing by Israel of the high-ranking Hamas terrorist Yassin, who among other things sanctioned the killing of homosexuals as a religious duty?

Does he also share the Sunday Times's high praise for Yasser Arafat (see the ST's tributes to him upon his death) who besides routinely calling for Israel's destruction by jihad, and praising suicide bombers as martyrs, likewise sanctioned the execution of homosexuals. So much so, that Palestinian homosexuals largely flee if they can in order to escape persecution, being beaten up, tortured and killed; many of them to what is their personal Mecca of shock gasp Tel Aviv and other Israeli towns where a small but open homosexual community with their own sub-culture thrives.

Can Ronge inform us why his editors at the Sunday Times likewise do not ask SA's Muslim community to apologise for the state-sanctioned execution of homosexuals in Iran for example? Did Ronge not see the pictures of two Iranian teenage homosexuals crying with fear, being led to their state execution, for their "crime" of homosexuality? Perhaps the paper he writes a column for every week can't find the print and picture space for that, what with all the coverage given to tributes to a jihadist terrorist like Arafat and the massacre in Jenin that never happened and much more along the same lines.

Does Ronge think that Israel fighting back against "the Party of God" in Lebanon, who like their Iranian backers, santion the killing of homesexuals and the honour killings and oppression of women, is going to drive Muslims to embrace the killing of homosexuals, and honour killings of women and girls as a sacred duty? Since this pathological homophobia and misogyny is inseperable from Islamism as a whole, indeed it is integral to Muslim radicalism; are Bush and Blair also feeding the flames of hatred of homosexuals and of women too, by daring to allow the Jews to fight back against the self-same Islamists?

Is Israel's targeting of Hezbollah's rocket launchers and their fighters and the infrastructure that Hezbollah depends on in a war Hezbollah and their Iranian and Syrian backers started, with the tacit support of the Lebanese govt, going to drive Muslims the world over to sanction in the name of Allah, the throat slitting of gay men and women and the stoning to death of women and girls for not being "chaste" in the mullahs and imans eyes?

Since self-confessed Islamists in principle support the practice of Sharia law and this unequivocally means the persecution of homosexuals and the oppression of women; Ronge's notions - if followed through on their implications to the irrational and illogical claptrap conclusions they lead to - clearly implies that Bush, Blair and Israel are going to drive Muslims to homophobia and misogyny. After all such bigoted attitudes are a fundamental part of the irreducible whole of Islamism Ronge is so desperate to have the West and Israel appease.

Idiot.

[Gareth]

Lawrence, you've made my day. I so hope that got emailed off to the Sunday Times and maybe even a few other South African newspapers.

[Mike]

Lawrence I couldn’t agree with your sentiments more. I have previously taken Barry Ronge to task pro-Islamist hypocrisy.

Check out http://supernatural.blogs.com/weblog/2006/01/meet_israels_ne.html

He reminds me so much of the intellectual Western communists during the cold war. They were happy to cheers on Soviet totalitarianism but only from the comfort of their own liberal democracies. Lets see how long old Barry would last living under the spectre of radical Islam. I promise you when he is facing the stoning squad, it will be a terrifying 10.