Feeling The Hate In Jerusalem — The Censored Video from Max Blumenthal on Vimeo.
Max Blumenthal’s recent street video, Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem, has generated lots of heat from center-right pundits like Ron Kampeas of JTA and Jeffrey Goldberg. I think it’s safe to say they consider it cheap-shot, ambush journalism slightly higher in ambition than TMZ’s stakeout and harassment of Hollywood celebrities in order to catch them in embarrassing moments.
There is perhaps an element of truth in this. Blumenthal and Joseph Dana, with whom he produced the video, picked young, drunk, hate-filled American Jews who were ripe for satirizing, ready for a fall. I think Blumenthal knew what he was getting and was just as happy to allow these Jewish boors to implicate themselves in their own sleaziness. It would perhaps have been more enlightening to invite these same individuals to talk to when they weren’t inebriated and could sustain more than a few words without an expletive. But I have little doubt that the sentiments wouldn’t have been almost the same, though perhaps cleaned up a bit.
This video, however, is what it is and there is nothing wrong–contrary to Kampeas’ and Goldberg’s contentions–with it. Claiming that interviewing geshikert Jews is somehow unfair to them is bogus. These kids hold virtually the same views stoned or sober. To argue differently is to be divorced from reality. Anyone who reads this blog knows that such racism and hate lurks not just under the surface, but right out in the open within Israel and in certain pockets of right-wing pro-Israel American Jewry. Read the vile genocidal words of Chabad Rabbi Manis Friedman published in Moment Magazine. Read the warning of a Yeshiva University dean that Ehud Olmert should be hung if he gives up an inch of Jerusalem in a future negotiation. Read racist IDF t-shirts boasting of raping Ismail Haniye and shooting young Gaza children. Remember the hooligan pogroms by extremist Jewish settlers in Hebron in which a Palestinian family was almost burned to death in their home.
This is not a bad dream. This is not something that can be dismissed with a wave of the hand. This is not a few bad apples. This is a seam that runs right through the bedrock that is modern Israel and American Jewry. The challenge I have to the Kampeases and Goldbergs of the Jewish world is: what are you going to do about this? Are you doing to dismiss it as testosterone-infused teen-aged horseplay; or are you going to engage in combat with this infected stream of nationalist Zionist thought?
Huffington Post has already given Blumenthal its answer. After he uploaded the video to its site, the editors took it down claiming it had no news value. Similarly, HuffPost refused to publish the post I wrote for them about the IDF racist T-shirt episode. It seems that for some liberal political websites posting material that is too embarrassing for Israel is treif, even if it is Israelis or Jews themselves who are doing the embarrassing.
Here are a few of the more articulate passages of the video worth considering:
Interviewee: I think it’s really fucked up that he’s going to all the Arab states and not coming to Israel. Oh, he’s a Muslim for sure. And who even knows if he was born in the United States. We haven’t seen his birth certificate yet. Bullshit. He’s not from the U.S. He’s like a terrorist. What is he doing for this country so far? Nothing. And I’m a political science major so I know my shit.
Interviewer: Do you know who Benjamin Netanyahu is?
Interviewee: No. Is he the Israel prime minister or something? I don’t know who he is. Who’s Benjamin Yahoo?
Interviewee 2: You’re all about talking to the Arabs, going to Cairo, making a speech to the Muslim world, trying to get them to love you. What about the Jews, man? What are we, chopped liver? You don’t care about us? Are we nothing to you? Do we matter? Do you care if we get driven into the sea? Do you care if we get nuked? Are we even on your–do you even care about us?
My grandmother was in Auschwitz, Obama. We’re not gonna take any Nazi bullshit. Listen man, my grandma’s number was 1268493. I remember her number on her arm, dude. And listen, Never Again will we deal with this. Never again. Bring it on, motherfuckers.
“And I’m a political science major so I know my shit.
Interviewer: Do you know who Benjamin Netanyahu is?
Interviewee: No. Is he the Israel prime minister or something? I don’t know who he is. Who’s Benjamin Yahoo?”
I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard that. I almost suspected Blumenthal of having faked that scene. This woman probably knows next to nothing about the place except that she has a ‘birthright’ to it.
I wonder how many there are like her. To judge from the crowd around her probably quite a few.
Condemning such a video report by the pro-Israeli extremisms is a hypocritical. They would love such video and “support” it to the end if the interviewed people would be Arabs or European Nazis expressing “equal” views about Israeli Jews and their own “supremacy”. These pro-Israeli extremists never get tired to mention the video of celebrating Palestinians after 911 represents to view of the Arab/Muslim world.
As Lieberman said just said world opinion is Israel’s No. 1 problem. But in contrary to Lieberman’s beliefs Israel has created its own present public image, not the Arabs. It is actually a “miracle” that it took so long to reveal the widespread racist and aggressive attitude among Israel’s Jewish population and their American brothers in faith.
You might want to take a look at Vanessa Hidary.
This reminds me very much of a scene that Sacha Cohen did in his Borat film. As I recall, he interviewed some drunk young southerners and recorded them making racist remarks. Blumenthal seems to have taken the same tack.
“My grandma’s number was 1268493”
Unlikely. The numbering scheme didn’t go that far. Lower numbers were re-used.
This isn’t the only thing spoken by these brutes that was a fraud. Mix 19 yr old boys with liquor & you’ll get a lot of such nonsense.
They were wannabe’s. They saw the equivalent of Rambo movies, and said “I wannabe a marine”. “I want to join the badass IDF”.
Extremely misguided, and as journalism maybe reflective of some larger phenomena. Who knows?
In the follow-up radio interview with Dana (also on Mondoweiss), he acknowledged that after the Obama speech, he also interviewed orthodox and Americans on the street stating “Obama is a great man, a prophet”.
Its a more moral stance to describe balance, rather than cheap shots.
Phil’s writing coming back from Gaza was so effective and indisputable. This trash as the most watched product of his, was upsetting to me. I felt that his brand that was finally finding his voice, went back to Norman Finkelstein’s voice at his most reactive.
“Phil’s writing coming back from Gaza was so effective and indisputable. This trash as the most watched product of his, was upsetting to me.”
Normally I don’t find much to agree with you on, Richard, but on this point I wholeheartedly concur. In fact you’ve summed it up so well in those two sentences that I won’t endeavor to expand.
I do encourage anyone who doesn’t regularly visit Mondoweiss to do so; specifically to read Phil’s Gaza accounts, though the site’s regular content is top-notch as well.
Interesting… good eye! In all the analyses I read of the video, no one bothered to bring that up. Not that I doubt that the young man’s grandmother was a victim of the Holocaust, but it does show that it was more important to him to display his venomous, racist hatred of Obama and distorted views than it was to correctly remember and honor his grandmother’s suffering.
Amitai Etzioni has a column over at TPM Cafe. He wrote a piece saying that he supports creating a Palestinian state but that it should be demilitarized. He then got so many foul mouthed curses and attacks at him from the “progressives” who comment there that they had to take the comments down. We also see many vile, profane antisemitic comments over at MONDOWEISS. Should we all extrapolate these to saying that all “progressives” (many if not most of whom are “college educated” are foul-mouthed, racist, antisemitic extremists?
I read that blog’s comments regularly & hardly ever see what you claim to see. Could you give us a few examples of what you claim is vile, profane & antisemitic??
And boy, if you want to match up this blog’s commenters or Mondoweiss’ with these thugs to see which is more profane I’ll take that bet anyday. Can I also throw in commenters here who call for my extermination or beheading along with the Jerusalem thugs in the video?
Richard,
For one, I actually have to agree with Bar Kochba here. I read Mondoweiss regularly, and there’s no doubt that many of the people who gather around it are openly anti-semitic. When you talk about Jewish ethnic loyalty, as Philip Weiss does, you’re bound to attach a bunch of ugly acolytes.
I read that blog regularly as well and occasionally contribute to it. Those who are interested in putting together an anthology of insults and terms of abuse can find some meaty contributions there from the Israel firsters. The illustrious Bill Pearlman deserves a chapter for himself even though he is not very active nowadays.
The Friedman quote is staggering but common understanding of what modern defense approach is, articulated by such “genocidalists” as Colin Powell. Its called shock and awe.
Powell described it as a LESS-VIOLENT approach where one is confident that the results will be to stop military or terror assault, and the attack is overwhelming, focused, and not drawn out.
That thesis was rationalized as applicable to Lebanon and Gaza, which turned out to be untrue.
When the thesis is applied where infeasible, the results are gruesome and ineffective.
The purpose of the Friedman description is a little different than shock and awe. Its application is extremely limited to conditions in which a lethal assault is known, the assailants are known and attacking is genuinely a preventative measure.
His negligence was in his lack of clarity. As he is regarded as a teacher, that negligence is severe. But, it is overwhelmingly likely NOT advocacy of genocide.
Exagerating to defame someone is NOT ethical in my book either.
Wow….these kids are “monsters” but the HAMAS charter, of an organization that carried out many suicide bombings, and which says the Jews are responsible for two world wars and other ills of mankind “was written by a shmegege” and is of no importance.
I see also that Martillo posted here.
Very interesting.
Richard, you claim not to see what everyone else sees, i.e. that MONDOWEISS is full of profanity and anti-Jewish bigotry. Well, maybe Adam and Phil themselves agree with me:
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/time-out-for-comments.html
It’s possible that because of the Max Blumenthal video which they hosted that they’ve been dredging up some real anti-Semtic slime from under the rocks. I guess I don’t monitor the comment threads there as well as I thought I did.
I do precisely what they announced they were going to do. I filter out the most egregious anti-Semitic & anti-Muslim remarks from my threads as well though I don’t manually approve every comment as they seem to be saying they will do. Manually approving first time commenters & banning the worst offenders seems to work reasonably well.
I agree with you, Richard, that there is so much racism and aggression towards Arabs in Israel and in the American Jewish community. In their drunken state, these young people are probably being more honest than others who may want to hide the racism.
Recently my colleague, Rabbi Sid Schwarz, encountered a shocking example of this racism at the Salute to Israel Day parade in New York City: young religious Jews dancing ecstatically to Am Yisrael Chai (The Jewish People are alive) alternating with “Let the Arabs die!”
He wrote:
“Then a band launched into a rousing rendition of Am Yisrael Chai. I spent more than 25 years as an activist for Soviet Jewry. This was our theme song signaling solidarity both with the history of our people and with all those oppressed Jews in the world whose cause we championed. A group of young men in their 20’s with kippot and tziztzit were right in front of me dancing in a frenzy. But they alternated the verse that meant “the people of Israel lives” with “all the Arabs must die.” It rhymed with the Hebrew. Given the way all joined in, it was clear that this was not the first time it was sung.
I leaned over to a young man who was next to me, also wearing a kippah and tzitzit. I nodded at the dancers and asked: “Does this song bother you?” He looked at me with a suspicious look and replied: “This is Zionism.”
You can read his full piece in the Jewish Week.
It’s too bad Rabbi Schwartz didn’t read my post written a month before the concert he attended in which I documented in advance the horrors he would encounter there. The hosts of this concert are notorious supporters of the most extreme of the settlers. I derived the info originally from Jewschool.
What is the connection between the fact that many Americans have abused black Americans and Israel? College kids drink and say stupid things anywhere! What is the point? Most of them grow up and some do not. Again, what is the point? Are there not real isuues to confront and solve in a productive way? Madoff is a Jew. Does that make all Israelis thieves?
Earl