46 thoughts on “Jerusalem Post Slams My Mumbai Comment is Free Post – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
task-attention.png
Comments are published at the sole discretion of the owner.
 

  1. The attitude of the more extreme pro-Israeli supporters labelling “every thing” as anti-Semitic and not as a sad consequence of what has happened in Israel/Palestine for decades is somewhat astonishing on intellectual level but understandable on a political propaganda level. Surely they can’t politically admit that most of the “antipathy” against Israel and so also against Jews is caused by this long conflict and how Israeli propaganda has for along time portrayed the the conflict a war between religions. Even we in the Christian Europe can almost daily get news which honestly said are not very flattering to the Jewish state. In Muslim countries the number of these less favourable news for Israel and Jews in general is far greater.

    Jonny Paul and those other numerous pro-Israeli extremists could ask themselves would Israeli Jews have been targeted in Mumbai in 2008 if the land dispute and political situation had been solved peacefully and fairly 20 years ago. The result of such a honest introspection would most certainly give as the answer – no.

  2. Hey Richard,

    Are you sure that your not muslim? You should really look into who your mother was sleeping with before you were born. Seems like you care more about terrorists than jews. May g-d heal your sickness whether you are jewish or not.

  3. I may have to “go viral” and drop a few links around the web elsewhere just to make up for the lack of linkage and restore balance to the universe. 🙂

  4. @Pinchas: Talk about “sickness,” Pinchas. Seems to me that you’re the one with a bad case of one of those physically-manifesting Biblical maladies like boils which indicate moral depravity.

    This guy is a JPost reader for sure. The sentiments could’ve come from right out of their scabrous Talkbacks. Imagine writing about my mother in such a disgusting fashion. You’ll notice also something I’ve written about here before–the radical settlers have a fetishistic obsession with miscegenation between Jews & Arabs. It’s racialism that would’ve been quite familiar to the Nazis themselves.

  5. Siversterin, before you can do Tikkun Olam you need a Refuah Shelamah. That is what i pray for you. You are very misguided. Anti Israel is an excuse to be anti semetic.

  6. While I understand your blog as part of your thinking as all problems of Israel stem from the Palestinian conflict. I would like to point out, that terrorists that kill men, Woman, Children randomly are subhuman. That should not be tolerated anywhere, period. Your attempt to portray some rationale to this evil terrorist massacre, that’s what upsets me. I have my ideas about Israel politics, and other have their ideas. (That’s why I’m so proud to be American) but one think we must never compromise is that we can never rationale or legitimize subhuman behavior, regardless of our beliefs or agendas.

    What’s the difference between anti-Israel or anti Semitic isn’t Israel a Jewish State! Richard, I appreciate different ideas, but I feel you article lacks sensitivity to the victims and is irresponsible editorial.

  7. Richard:

    You could have been more condemnatory of the attacks-there were certainly horrific. The guy was smiling as he shot! Is that Tikun Olam?

  8. @David Aperel: No, actually many of Israel’s problems stem from its own internal contradictions & ethnic tensions which have little to do with the Palestinian conflict.

    I believe in everything you wrote in yr first paragraph as long as you’d acknowledge that this applies to Jewish terror as well.

    If you don’t understand the diff. bet. anti Israel & anti Semitic pls. go back & do more reading on the subject. There’s a very important distinction which I’ve outlined in my writing about the Chabad House attack. Israel is a state composed of more than just Jews. Jews and Israelis are not always synonymous. A Jew who lives in the Diaspora is not the same as an Israeli.

  9. Pinchas, are you an idiot or something? Even setting aside the rules of “lashon ha-rah,” your comment makes no sense beyond that of a sandbox bully. Even if Richard’s biological father was Yasser Arafat, he would still be counted as a Jew.

  10. Even if Richard’s biological father was Yasser Arafat…

    Some right wing idiot is going to cut & paste this one & send it to Masada2000 & PSU & have a field day with it. So just for the record, my biological father was Yoel ben Moshe Silverstein. Yesterday was his 13th yahrzeit. Maybe I need to get a DNA test to prove it to these racialist a($&)#@s.

  11. @Richard Silverstein. While Pinchas’s comment is both childish and slanderous in nature, your response is equally offensive. In your prejudice you assume that he must be a Jpost reader (aren’t you a jpost reader yourself? Perhaps it would explain the rest of your remarks) and then proceed to attack with great prejudice an entire segment of people, comparing them to Nazis no less.
    You and Pinchas are one and the same -two sophomoric and virulent sides of one extremist coin.

  12. What “Jewish urge for vengeance and holy war against Islam” is there? It must exist in your fevered imagination.

    There are some basic facts about Judaism vs. Islam (and Christianity for that matter) that seem to have escaped you. Judaism is the oldest religion of the three and CANNOT have any inherent references to religions that followed it. Furthermore, the essence of the religion is that it does not proselytize. Now compare this with Islam and there are some glaring differences.

    You make an equivalence that does not exist in the religions nor in current practice. There are TOO FEW JEWS to even have an effective “holy war against Islam.” Because of the nature of the religion, there always will be too few.

    You are correct in your self-assessment as a nonentity but CIF specializes in giving your ilk a platform and criticism is necessary as an antidote.

  13. Tsk, tsk Richard, not too accurate:

    “The headline claims that I “sparked a fury” on the Jewish right with the claim that the Chabad House massacre was not anti-Semitic.”

    Except: –

    1. the fury was with Guardian CiF, Harrys Place and Engage websites. None of these are either Jewish or right wing venues. (eg all are not Jewish, all support 2 state solutions, none support settlers).

    2. why do you constantly pigeonhole so many things as “Jewish”. Isn’t this likely to cause an anti-Jewish reaction? Doesn’t that contardict your own logic as applied to Mumbai ‘anti-Israel’ terrorists?

    2.

  14. By downplaying the brutal, savage murders of innocent Jews in Mumbai, Jews who had no hand whatsoever in the occupation or suffering of Palestinians, you are enraging a lot of decent people and justifying it by calling them right wing.

    The end result is that you drive such people into regarding people with opposing ideologies as being either willfully out of touch with reality at best, or at worst cynically downplaying the murders of people they identify with and admire. In either case increasing the contempt and hatred people in both camps have for one another.

    This is not “tikkun”, this is destruction.

    I think you are one of those people that thrives on hatred and rage. I think you are out to create division and strife among Klal. I do not believe that you are at all sincere in peace and brotherhood. I think there are a large number of Jews with left wing politics who do believe in that, but you are not one of them.

    Nor do you represent them. You should be ashamed of yourself for what you wrote, but I think you do not have the capacity for honest shame. This may sound pompous, but I think you are a wicked man, in the old meaning of the word.

  15. Ron, first, I urge you to calm down; being shrill as you are does not really help your point (if you have one). Second, can you bring one instance of Richard “downplaying the brutal, savage murders of innocent Jews”? I read all of Richard’s posts and comments and didn’t spot anything like that.

  16. If my point isn’t clear then I will make it clear.

    But first, when I said “brutal, savage murders of innocent Jews”, I was referring to the Jews in Mumbai.

    It’s very difficult to answer your main question, not because I can’t. I actually wrote a very long comment containing a lot of quotes. But it occurred to me that the matter was so obvious, that someone who doesn’t see it, simply doesn’t want to. So I will make it simple. He is trying to divert horror and honest anger over an outrage. Such a thing is filthy. It adds insult to injury, outrages the sympathizers of the victims all the more. It adds to hatred and rage.

    That is why I am so “shrill”. Actually, I’m quite calm. The main emotion I am feeling right now is disgust (1:06 – great line).

  17. Ron, if you have trouble articulating your position, may be consider for a second that this is your problem and not someone else’s (as you say, “someone who doesn’t see it, simply doesn’t want to”). I don’t see it and I asked you to bring examples in order to try to argue with you and to show you how you might be wrong in interpretation of what Richard had said. But if you’re unwilling to engage in such a dialogue to begin with because us poor souls are simply “wicked men” who refuse to conform to your definition of outrage, then I wonder why you waste your time coming here and commenting at all. Have a nice day.

  18. No problem.

    In the first three paragraphs of his Guardian article only one word or sentence is devoted to condemnation of the attacks. That word was “terrorists”. In contrast, looking at Alex Stein’s article, in the first paragraph we seem him use this description “the slaughter in Mumbai”.

    This indicates a level of dispassion which is not appropriate when discussing how decent people performing outreach have been tied up and butchered like cattle.

    The next is a bit of slight of hand – “I say, Israelis rather than Jews because the single surviving terrorist noted that they chose Chabad House to avenge the suffering of the Palestinians.” The implication being that if you tie up and butcher an Israeli whose sole purpose in life is to perform non violent outreach among Jews than that is slightly less bad than butchering a Jew whose sole purpose in life is to perform non violent outreach among Jews in a country that is some 3000+ kilometers from Israel.

    The second paragraph notes that in the minds of most people the difference between the Holtzbergs being Jewish or Israeli is negligible. Which of course is the entire point of the attack being anti-semitic, but lets ignore that problem and move on. From here we set up the third and fourth paragraphs which explain why the fact that most people do not see a difference between Israelis and Judaism implies that attacking an Israeli target is in effect, to put it in vulgar terms, a marketing ploy. Because obviously Pakistani Terrorists hell bent on murder could care less about the Palestinian cause.

    “Attacking a target perceived as Israeli allows the terrorists to enlarge their grievance and the drama of their cause.”

    “So in a sense I see Chabad House as target chosen quite cynically, allowing the terrorists to appropriate a popular Islamist cause. Besides, killing Israelis and other foreigners would bring even more notoriety and media attention to their cause than simply killing Indians,”

    Now the obvious problem with this is that adopting a group as a target because of cynical manipulation is classically part and parcel of racist or anti-semitic motivations. Pogroms were not merely allowed in Czarist Russia, but were encouraged by the government precisely because the ruling government knew it would let off some steam of the oppressed underclass. In the American South, Mark Twain noted how the most miserable, oppressed sharecropper would be proud that his fellows treated Black Americans like dogs precisely because it got his mind off his own suffering. Doubtless, the Southern ruling elite encouraged this because it got the mind of the oppressed public off their own misrule.

    Invoking Godwin’s law, the Japanese elite were said to have remarked to the Nazis that the lack of Jews in their country was unfortunate, because a perceived subhuman scapegoat was a necessary part to the establishment of fascist rule.

    But the main problem with paragraphs three and four is that the motivations and inclinations of a racist are not really that important. What is important is that they single out a particular group of people, for whatever reason, based on a factor beyond that groups control. In this case, it is the evident Judaism of the Holtzbergs. I do not say religious Judaism, because I doubt very much whether the vicious subhuman dogs that attacked the Holtzbergs cared how religious any of their targets was. What they wanted was somebody visibly identifiable as a Jew and the Holtzbergs were the best target.

    The worst line is this “Every fibre of my being wishes that this story is false. If it isn’t, it will set back Jewish-Muslim relations years, if not decades”. Oh? This implies that the main horror is the setback of Jewish-Muslim relations and not the idea that a six month pregnant woman was tortured to death in front of her husband. What Mr. Silversteins private reactions were to this are not relevant, the only reactions I know are the ones he tells me. In a public article. Given in the UK. About a terror attack against unarmed innocents. This tells me plenty. It tells me that the dehumanization of Jews is in full swing.

    There was one amusing line though. That was this “Since this crime crossed international borders, I’d encourage India and Pakistan to try them before an international court of justice.” Given the utter failure of the Hague to try a damn thing, that gave me a bit of a laugh. And a choked sob. Because R.S. is not an idiot, he knows as well as everyone else how little chance that would ever have of working.

    The line that has the most irony for me is this:

    “Even the Chabad movement should taken to task for not providing greater security for its facility. In a city already beset by past terror attacks, any target perceived as Jewish or Israeli (not just Israeli government buildings) should have had serious surveillance (ie security cameras) and the ability to lock itself down quickly. “

    Apparently Mr. Silverstein believes we should have crack troops at every Jewish community center. Surveillance cameras in places dedicated to worship and private reflection. And the ability to “lock … down quickly”. How much good “locking down” will do, when a lunatic armed with a submachine gun comes knocking on (or smashing through) your door, I don’t know. All this doesn’t even take into account how a locally funded (all Chabad houses are funded locally) organization should pay for this.

    But the irony here is this: the first person to suggest this to me wasn’t Mr. Silverstein. No, it was a lunatic from the JDF who was convinced that this attack vindicated his ridiculous beliefs.

    Now something that is by definition anti-semitic is being passed off as otherwise. That is not an honest way to act.

    The author of that article has claimed that criticism directed at him is being done so for political purposes. Which is utter nonsense. People are criticizing him because they have the decency to have seen the attack for what it was, and that article for what it is.

    Further there is a great deal of cynicism (if I may borrow the adjective) downplaying the decent outrage over a horrific and brutal attack against wholly innocent human beings, (people that we may very well even be related to!) for whatever reasons, noble or otherwise. When it is very well known that if anything even remotely similar was conducting by a Jewish group, there would be screaming for blood. Imagine for five seconds the reactions of R.S. if G-d forbid, a JDF lunatic a.k.a Goldstein, decided to attack a peaceful Imam doing outreach Tokyo. I remember a lot of reactions, but I don’t remember a single one thinking he did something beneficial for anyone. Contrast this with other groups who harbor terrorists, regardless of ethnicity or religion (think Basque separatists if you like). There is always some moron in the crowd that cheers them on and lives vicariously through the murderers.

    Now how does this foster strife? Because by dehumanizing the victims, equivocating on behalf of the murderers and demonizing the critics, Mr. Silverstein effectively says to those who sympathize with the Holtzbergs (and the other Jews whose names no one has bothered to print) “you are anathema to us. Your lives and suffering have no meaning for me, and I will throw you to the wolves if convenient.” Now maybe he doesn’t feel that way, I wouldn’t know. But that’s the impression his article has given. So what do you think is going to be the first reaction of someone reading that by a member of the subject group? Why he’s going to treat someone from Mr. Silverstein’s (perceived) group with the same contempt. And that person will then continue it, and on and on.

    That is not unity, that is division. If compassion is the basis of healing and unity. If tolerance and understanding is the basis for compromise, then the Guardian article, and this article which I’ve just read are their exact opposites. That is why I made such harsh statements about him. That is why I say he is fostering hatred and rage.

    Now I say this is obvious, because it is obvious. I should not have had to write a long comment to explain this. If you want to respond feel free of course, but I have to let you know that I don’t intend or see the need to argue this.

  19. Wow, Ron, first you rant for something like 20 paragraphs, then you finish off with “I don’t intend or see the need to argue this.” Kinda doesn’t make me want to talk to you either, since if all you want is to vent, what can I say to even get through to you?
    But seriously, you were claiming that Richard was “downplaying the brutal, savage murders of innocent Jews in Mumbai”. Then the only evidence you produce of that in all of the 20+ paragraphs was that “in the first three paragraphs of his Guardian article only one word or sentence is devoted to condemnation of the attacks.” Your mistake here is that you expect to read an article that you you already composed in your head. Plenty of others – Richard in this blog including – already wrote outraged posts and articles. Richards article in the Guardian was called “Exploiting Mumbai’s tragedy” and was dedicated to that aspect of the story. If you expect every article having to do with any evil to start off with paying a service to denunciation of that evil (with a level of outrage determined by you) then you’re in for a big disappointment in your life. When I read an article entitled “Exploiting Mumbai’s tragedy” I don’t need to be reminded of how terrible and outrageous what happened there was – I can manage my outrage without Silverstein or you, for that matter – I want to hear and interesting and compelling opinion. I can even disagree with it – as it looks like I am, somewhat, with Richard on this one – but I don’t need any check marks for sufficient outrage or anything like that.
    Next, you say “The implication being that if you tie up and butcher an Israeli whose sole purpose in life is to perform non violent outreach among Jews than that is slightly less bad than butchering a Jew whose sole purpose in life is to perform non violent outreach among Jews in a country that is some 3000+ kilometers from Israel.” Besides being a somewhat confusing sentence, it is also a very unlikely conclusion from the Silverstain’s quote, which never stated that anything was “less bad” or “more bad” or whatever, but was dealing with the argumentation as to why RS thinks the attack should be clasified “anti-Israeli” as opposed to “anti-Semitic”. You can disagee with the argumentation, but don’t put words in RS’s mouth he never uttered.
    Then you attack RS by saying, in so many words, that you… basically agree with him that the attack was to a large extent a marketing ploy (“cynical manipulation”)! So, again, your problem seems to be that RS is just not jumping up and down his table shouting “those bastards!” as you’d have him?
    Then, again, your implications: “This implies that the main horror is the setback of Jewish-Muslim relations and not the idea that a six month pregnant woman was tortured to death in front of her husband.” Ron, your English comprehension is marred by your outrage, as it prevents you from reading what is actually written instead of twisting it. No, RS is not “OK” with torture when it doesn’t set back Jewish-Mulim relations, either. If somebody “implies” that from the reading he or she has a twisted mind, that’s all.
    I’ll leave the Hague or Chabad security out as those have nothing to do with the lack of outrage on RS part that outraged you so much. Trying reading this with an open mind.

  20. 1.a Wow Ron – when you challenge someone to respond using words like “articulate” and then get it; starting your reply with an informal sarcastic one is silly, and causes your listener to lose respect. It doesn’t play to the crowd either by the way. But do what you like.

    1.b first you rant for 20 paragraphs – As I recall, I said I had a long post, but decided to ditch it. Then you were the one who insisted that I was being unfair in saying that if someone can’t see this it’s because they didn’t want to. Further you indicated confusion as to what I initially wrote. I decided to do you a courtesy and explain my thinking clearly. Obviously a mistake, since it was only grist for sarcasm. Furthermore, keep in mind that this is a blog with a reputation for deleting comments not appreciated by the maintainer, and no, not all the comments deleted were insulting or rude; I should know.

    2 Plenty of others – Richard in this blog including – already wrote outraged posts … – Plenty of Richard’s other blogs and posts were not published in the Guardian which has a reputation and audience the average blog doesn’t enjoy.

    3 – …if you expect every article having to do with any evil to start off with… – Actually, no I don’t. But when an article tries to explain that a vicious, racist attack is not racist; I expect that out of common decency the author affirms that it was vicious. It takes all of four words to do. It isn’t very much, especially since it was obviously racist in any case. As I pointed out Alex Stein did exactly that. Last I heard, he wasn’t a raging conservative.

    4. Being a somewhat confusing sentence – I’m not particularly interested in parsing the grammar of every sentence I write in a comment, on a blog I will probably never look at again, for a person who seems less interested in understanding what I am saying than in merely refuting it.

    5. it is also a very unlikely conclusion from the Silverstain’s quote, which never stated that anything was “less bad” or “more bad” – The word “Implication” follows after the word “The” in the very same quote you bring down.

    6. So, again, your problem seems to be that RS is just not jumping up and down his table shouting “those bastards!” as you’d have him? – Yes, yes Mister Straw Man, you nailed me perfectly. I concede the entire argument. How silly of me to have even bothered. You are credit to your entire philosophical viewpoint.

    7. Trying reading this with an open mind – I did. Like #1 above, it’s silly to say that at the end of response that begins with “your rant”. First, you should have wrote it at the top, then you should have made it your business take out anything that the reader might take personally. But like #1, I realize that it was written merely to make you sound genuine than out of any sincere desire for rapport.

  21. @Mark Gardner: Oh please. THe JPost article referred to COMMENTERS at those sites and Petra. They all in their individual attacks on me represent Jewish right wing views. The political orientation of Harry’s Place & Engage are slightly diff. issues. I am a Jewish progressive. Any site that attacks me consistently is ipso facto not progressive.

    And I’ve got news for you–Ariel Sharon supported a 2 state solution. That doesn’t make his progressive, nor does it prevent you fr. labeling him right wing (though he certainly took some positions that happily could be described as “centrist” esp. towards the end of his life).

    I label things as “Jewish” when they are. What else should I call them? “Anti-Jewish reaction?” What does this mean? Are we still afraid of pogroms? You don’t think the non-Jewish world can withstand Jews disagreeing w. ea. other w/o thinking of wanting to kill or harm Jews?

    The settlers motivation has nothing to do with “Israel” as a secular state & everything to do w. a mystical religious (but) almost pagan connection to the land. They are Jewish theocrats. For them the current State of Israel is a defiled entity.

  22. @Mottel:

    Pinchas’s comment is both childish and slanderous in nature

    No, it’s far worse than childish or even slanderous. It’s racist because it is obsessed with Jews defiling their racial purity by whoring after Arabs. You do know about Nazi obsession with racial purity, don’t you? If so, you’d recognize a commonality bet. Pinchas’ attitude & Nazi attitudes. Those images of my mother sleeping with Arabs were all in Pinchas’ mind btw. I didn’t invent the atrocious images which he expressed. So talk to him about it, not me.

    I do not read JPost regularly. I couldn’t stand the partisanship & shallowness of much of what passes for journalism there. However, once in a while they DO publish an interesting piece which I do read.

  23. @Brad Brzezinski:

    There are TOO FEW JEWS to even have an effective “holy war against Islam.”

    Tell it to the 29 Palestinians mowed down by Baruch Goldstein or the 20 Palestinians nearly immolated by settlers in Hebron last week. All it takes is one Jew w. an AK 47 or box of matches.

  24. Ron,
    Can I please ask you a question, a sincere question?

    Do you think that ISRAEL’S actions vis a vis the Palestinians create great animosity with some people or not? I’m not even going to specify Muslims, in fact I’m specifically NOT going to imply Muslims because the faith of the person claiming great agitation is of no relevance, let’s just say it’s a human being, in fact, let me ask you if Israel’s actions might agitate many people.

    Do you?

    It’s a very simple question with no “therefor” agenda implied.And please try your best to leave ANY reference to religion out. Israel=nation state, possibly agitated person=human being.

  25. @ron:

    downplaying the brutal, savage murders of innocent Jews in Mumbai,

    I dare you to prove I have done anything to “downplay” their murders. This is a lie.

    you are enraging a lot of decent people and justifying it by calling them right wing.

    Almost every critic of mine views Israel as being in a global holy war against Islam. Most of them completely dismiss the notion that resolving the I-P conflict would have any impact on Muslim-Arab attitudes toward Israel. That is a right wing pro-Israel position, one fully endorsed by U.S. neocons btw.

    increasing the contempt and hatred people in both camps have for one another.

    This is just too much. I hear the swelling strains of the violins in the background…to claim that I am stoking the first of hatred is preposterous. But hey feel free if you want to maintain such delusional ideas.

    I think you are a wicked man

    I find it hilarious that you would accuse me of hatred and rage & increasing contempt bet. Jewish camps & then accuse me of being “wicked.” But hey, once again thanks for doing me the favor of banning yrself for major violation of my comment rules.

  26. @ron:

    In the first three paragraphs of his Guardian article only one word or sentence is devoted to condemnation of the attacks. That word was “terrorists”

    I’ve written thousands of words about Mumbai here in this blog & used the word “terrorist” MANY times. You wish to characterize the entirety of my output on this by the first 3 paragraphs of what I wrote in my CIF article? If you want to make horrid accusation against me I’ll require that you spend more time reading me than what it takes to read 3 paragraphs.

    decent people performing outreach have been tied up and butchered like cattle.

    You’re just trying to score propaganda pts. Isn’t the fact that they were murdered enough? Where did anyone credible say they were tied up or butchered like cattle?

    The implication being that if you tie up and butcher an Israeli whose sole purpose in life is to perform non violent outreach among Jews than that is slightly less bad than butchering a Jew whose sole purpose in life is to perform non violent outreach among Jews

    Yr problem is that you’re so obsessed by yr own political agenda that you can’t stop to read what I actually wrote. I condemned the killings at Chabad House regardless of what motivated the attackers. My attempt to distinguish bet. the motivations of the attackers had NOTHING to do w. what you claim. I feel rather sorry for you because you’re like a broken record & nothing will move yr needle out of the groove.

    the main horror is the setback of Jewish-Muslim relations and not the idea that a six month pregnant woman was tortured to death in front of her husband.

    Can yr rather small brain not comprehend that if relations between Muslims and Jews are so poisoned that each wants to do nothing more than spill the others’ blood that there will be scores if not hundreds more Chabad Houses in both our futures?

    Once again you are completely fabricating a scenario of what happened inside Chabad House with those ever present violins swelling in the background. For me, the fact that they were both murdered is quite sufficient to enable me to feel outrage. I don’t need to magnify it with irrelevant, specious & unverifiable details.

    Given the utter failure of the Hague to try a damn thing, that gave me a bit of a laugh….He knows as well as everyone else how little chance that would ever have of working.

    On the contrary, many criminal have been convicted by the Court and are currently in prison. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

    Apparently Mr. Silverstein believes we should have crack troops at every Jewish community center. Surveillance cameras in places dedicated to worship and private reflection.

    You’re being ridiculous. Chabad House was not merely devoted to worship or private reflection. It was a house with entrances that should have been monitored by surveillance equipment just as any Israeli government office or Jewish federation would be here in the U.S. or abroad. The distinctions you’re trying to assert are ridiculous. If you want Chabadniks to live & not die you’ll figure out a way to maintain their security. And btw, there are security systems which can lock down facilities no matter who is knocking on the door & no matter what weapons they carry. I’d venture that when Chabad House is rebuilt it will have precisely all the systems in place that I’ve outlined.

    I don’t remember a single one thinking he did something beneficial for anyone.

    Wrong. Baruch Goldstein, to this day, is worshipped among a group of settler extremists who dance at his grave every Purim. You can read about it in this blog.

    Mr. Silverstein effectively says to those who sympathize with the Holtzbergs (and the other Jews whose names no one has bothered to print) “you are anathema to us. Your lives and suffering have no meaning for me, and I will throw you to the wolves if convenient.”

    Now you’re beginning to irk me. I’ve posted 10 pieces here about the Chabad House attacks in which I’ve written diametrically opposite to what you claim above. You can’t be bothered to read any of it & expect readers here to accept yr scandalously ignorant mischaracaterizations of my views.

    I say this is obvious, because it is obvious

    What is “obvious” to me is that you are an utter, hateful ignorant fool. And don’t worry about arguing anymore, at least not here.

  27. Ron, I agree that my post was snarky and sarcastic and apologize for that. I wrote it piqued by your comment “You should be ashamed of yourself for what you wrote, but I think you do not have the capacity for honest shame. This may sound pompous, but I think you are a wicked man, in the old meaning of the word.” which is unfair and mean (and I think you should apologize to RS for that). After all, reading your post you main beef with RS is for him not writing the post for the specific audience (Guardian) the way you wanted — ticking a list of platitudes about the horror of the attacks. I don’t think you really believe he is not outraged or that he thinks the main problem with people being tortured is the setback to Jewish-Muslim relations and other nonsense like that. You concede his point that at least some of the motivation for the attacks was “cynical manipulation”, so, again, the re is no real disagreement here but that of terminology.
    Taking people’s words and intentions out of context is very easy — I could attack your comments, for example, for having a racist bent: why do you spend so much of your outrage on the Jewish victims while vastly larger number of dead in the attacks were not Jewish? Why don’t you start with something like “while I condemn the killings of all the innocent victims of the attacks…” etc? Why don’t you even mention the non-Jewish victims of the attacks? See, that’s easy, yet silly, because your comments were dealing with a specific aspect of the story.

  28. @ Richard S:

    “I am a Jewish progressive. Any site that attacks me consistently is ipso facto not progressive.”

    They didn’t attack you for being progressive or non progressive.

    1.They attacked you saying that Mumbai killings were anti-Israel not antisemitic (See Ron’s post for why that might not go down too well).

    2. They were made far angrier by the fact you’d done this on Guardian CiF.

    Still, being called “right wing” is, I suppose, better than being called a “Jewish jihadi” or “little Jewish holy warrior”

  29. @ Richard S:

    “Oh please. THe JPost article referred to COMMENTERS at those sites and Petra. They all in their individual attacks on me represent Jewish right wing views.”

    Its a Jewish right wing view to get pissed with someone whom you (rightly or wrongly) believe to be going easy on antisemitic murderers? Do us a favour!

  30. @Mark Gardner:

    going easy on antisemitic murderers?

    It is simply a lie or total ignorance to claim that I “went easy” on the terrorists. I did nothing of the sort.

    And btw, I’d like you, Harry’s Place, Engage, Petra and Alex to stew on this terrific piece written by Shaul Magid, Jewish studies professor at Indiana University, which comes at Mumbai fr. a slightly diff. angle than I, but which raises essentially the same pts. & draws very similar conclusions. I only wish I had known about Magid’s piece when I’d written my CiF piece.

    Now, I dare all of you to call Magid an “evil human being,” self-hating Jew, “half Arab,” “terrorist apologist,” etc. Grapple with his thesis & then get back to me.

  31. Spot the difference between what I wrote and what Richard Silverstein then accused me of saying: (Hint – its the bit in the brackets)

    Me:

    “Its a Jewish right wing view to get pissed with someone whom you (rightly or wrongly) believe to be going easy on antisemitic murderers?”

    Richard Silverstein:

    “going easy on antisemitic murderers?

    It is simply a lie or total ignorance to claim that I “went easy” on the terrorists. I did nothing of the sort.”

  32. That was indeed a terrific article by Shaul Maggid. Compared to your own piece it is in a different league all together.

    It makes many complex points in a calm and rational analysis that explains different perspectives without casting value judgements upon them.

    It ensures that the “anti-Israel” terrorism argument is not open to misinterpretation or politcial abuse by those who are bascially hostile to our community and often to the very existence of Israel.

    It is not in Guardian CiF of all places.

    In its closing paragraphs it shows a keen understanding of the dangers arising from putting your enemies or critics into ideological boxes of hatred.

    This is EXACTLY why I have tried to take you to task for ridiculously and dangerously defining your critics as “Jewish jihadis”; “little Jewish holy warriors” and “right wingers”. Here, read Maggid’s closing paragraphs again, and see if you get the message this time: (if not, try reading it twice).

    “Not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists agree with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Some Jews may even practice another religion. But these distinctions, important as they are, are largely lost in the politics of terror. Hatred erases distinctions, violence has no time for subtlety. Innocent civilians died; some Jews, some not. Some of the “Jews were Israelis,” one was an anti-Zionist, two may have been non-Zionists. Jew and Israeli are not synonymous. And all anti-Israelism is not anti-Semitism.

    The figure of the Jew is a complex one and to flatten it by suturing it to a political reality, good or bad, is unfortunate. Maybe Schneershon was right, maybe the only real weapons to fight hatred are the weapons of mitzvot, charity, and acts of kindness. That is what the Holtzmans believed in, and that is what they died for.

  33. you were right….i watched the whole thing unfold here in taiwan on
    CNN tv screen…they attacked Chab for Israeli connection, nothing
    against Jews as Jews….you are right….sigh…..only a few
    understand this

    keep writing this way

  34. There is another possible explanation for targeting the jewish community here that has nothing to do with anti-semitism or the Middle East. As anyone who has been in the north-western regions of India (including Kashmir) over the past few years would know, its not unknown to see guesthouses with ‘no Israeli’ signs up. Its nothing (to my knowledge) to do with anti-semitism as it is known in the west (an alien concept to most Indians), its simply that young Israeli backpackers are deeply unpopular up there, for reasons that are obvious to anyone who has had to share a guesthouse or cafe with some of the them. Israeli backpackers are to some Indians what boozed up Brit sunseekers are to the Spanish or German sex tourists are to Thais.

  35. @Mark Gardner: You’re not reading for comprehension unfortunately. I said it was a lie to accuse me of going easy on terrorists. Where did I accuse YOU of perpetrating the lie? And yes it IS a right wing view to see me as going easy on Mumbai terrorists.

  36. @Mark Gardner: There is absolutely no difference bet. my views and Magid’s. There may be a stylistic diff. & I didn’t deal w. the issue of Israeli citizenship per se. But otherwise, our arguments are almost identical. So I suggest that the problem here doesn’t lie w. me but with yr readiness to see me as the enemy.

    The fact that the managing editor of Religion Dispatches, where this article was published, sent me the article & asked me to begin writing for the site only reiinforces that some people with less of an axe to grind understand this.

  37. @Danny Bloom: This comment appeared verbatim at CiF. Alex rebutted it there & now he’s going to rebut it here. Pls. don’t duplicate comments you’ve already published at another site.

    I’m making no judgment on the validity of the comment. It may be for all I know. Just don’t recycle.

  38. @ Richard S:

    Its not a mere stylistic difference its a deep qualitative one.

    Perhaps more importantly, its about location and what your readership at that location take from it.

    If you’d posted your article on your own site, or even on Jerusalem Post or Settlers Monthly, then I’d never have bothered. Guardian CiF however, is playing with fire.

    Still, we’ve been here before, probably at least two weeks ago now.

  39. @Mark Gardner:

    Its not a mere stylistic difference its a deep qualitative one.

    That’s horse manure. The “qualitative” difference is in yr own mind & the minds of the readers of Jpost, Engage & Harry’s Place. And I’m not sure “quality” is the adjective I’d most attribute to all of you. So I’ll rest content that those who solicit my work for publication outside this blog, including the editor who solicited Shaul Magid’s work have an appreciation of the “deep qualitative similarity” bet. my work & authors like Magid. Somehow the fact that I don’t persuade people like you doesn’t much concern me.

    But do keep reading CiF. No doubt you’ll find equally offensive work by me there in the near future.

  40. What say you about this: http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1218869&pageid=0 ?

    “Think 26/11, and images of the carnage at the Taj come to mind. But the terrorists themselves were in no doubt that Nariman House was the prime focus. For this was the place which housed a Jewish centre, and the fanatics from Pakistan were clear that they wanted to send a message to the world from there. . . . When asked during interrogation why Nariman House was specifically targetted, Ajmal reportedly told the police they wanted to sent a message to Jews across the world by attacking the ultra orthodox synagogue.

    1. First, this is not a quote from Kassab but rather a paraphrase. Second, it uses the glaring term “reportedly,” which renders the statement devoid of credibility. Third, this characterization directly contradicts the Times of India’s statement. I know which version I’d choose.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *