American Jews ought to know what Israel’s most extreme settlers are saying about our president. And they might actually get a chance if the NYT’s Ethan Bronner didn’t sanitize their language:
Rabbi Yigael Shandorfi, leader of a religious academy at the neighboring settlement outpost of Nahliel, said…the message to President Obama…is that this is Jewish land. He did not use the president’s name, but an insulting Hebrew slang for a black man and the phrase “that Arab they call a president.”
Undoubtedly, he called Obama a kushi, which can be translated as “darkie” or “nigger.” To me, calling this “insulting slang for a black man” somehow sanitizes the language. As for the second phrase, Bronner merely reports it and never makes a single reference to the explicit race hatred in the term. The term Aravi (“Arab”) among nationalist Jews carries deep opprobrium and is the equivalent of “nigger.” Bronner of course neglects to point this out too.
In effect, he wants to have his cake and eat it too. For the sake of his sophisticated readers, he wants to report the racist content of the speech. And for his pro-Israel readers he wants to subtly downplay the content by never calling it by its proper name. This way, he can claim he did his job by reporting the terms used, but he also pulled his punches by not calling excessive attention to it.
Jews in this country also ought to know that the extremist settlers believe in poking a finger in the eye of U.S. diplomats by deliberately creating illegal outposts when they arrive in Israel to negotiate a settlement freeze. Israel’s extreme nationalists are little more than provocateurs. And unfortunately, their own government does almost nothing to put a stop to it because they tacitly approve of the behavior. The 11 new outposts built during a week when national security advisor Jim Jones was in Israel along with George Mitchell, probably won’t be torn down. But even if they are, they will be rebuilt. And the settlers will win this tit for tat battle because they know that their devotion to their benighted cause is stronger and more lasting than the government’s will to fight them.
Returning to Bronner’s entirely inadequate coverage of the outpost story, read this Haaretz version of the same story and note what Bronner’s left out: the IDF troops standing back as the new settlement is built:
Some 200 people, mostly children, arrived near the West Bank town of Tul Karm on Monday to establish a new illegal outpost. The Israel Defense Forces did not stop them or interfere.
To read the following passage is to understand how the settlers abuse Jewish tradition for partisan political gain. It’s a total shande that one of Judaism’s most sacred works of mysticism in being milked for all its worth by impressionable teenage girls:
In their final group discussion the girls heard a proverb from The Zohar – a book widely seen as the most important work on Jewish mysticism – likening the Land of Israel to a mother, who weeps when her children leave her and go into exile.
“What we do is like bandaging a mother’s wounds,” Amitai says, explaining the proverb’s meaning. “This empty earth is a wound that must be bandaged with a settlement.”
The earth, of course, is not empty. It actually has an owner and that owner is Palestinian. But for these girls there are no such things as Palestinians. Unless the earth has a JEWISH owner it is barren. This too is racism.
When will we American Jews get it into our heads that the millions the more rightist among us send to support these endeavors only exacerbate the conflict. They reinforce the worst, most base instincts among the settlers. Is this what Judaism has come to? Race baiting of a U.S. president? Even our Talmud tells us that we must give respect to our secular political leaders and their laws.
We must put a stop to this. We must tell the settlers that if they want to debase Judaism, we will not go along for the ride. We must end the tax-deductibility of donations to support settlements. The Obama administration and the IRS must take this action and it would be nice if “liberal” Jewish leaders like Eric Yoffie and others who claim to oppose this disgusting behavior would have the courage of their convictions and call for such a policy as well.
H/t to Rob Browne.
Richard,
I repeat my questions here, in a more appropriate place, because I would like your answers. I am not being rhetorical.
ellen says:
July 31, 2009 at 5:19 AM
Richard,
Considering your great esteem for barack obama, and your certainty that HE is going to hold Israel’s feet to the fire, what is your comment re continuing settlement in the West Bank? This activity does not quite fit the definition of “freeze”.
And what is your speculation as to what mr. obama is going to do about it?
I don’t see Israel having its feet held to the fire. Perhaps you do?
“NERIA, West Bank, 7/29/09, New York Times — In this land of endless history and ethereal beauty, several thousand Jewish settlers gathered on a dozen West Bank hills with makeshift huts and Israeli flags over several days this week to mark an invented anniversary and defy the American president, conveying to his aides visiting Jerusalem what they thought of his demand for a settlement freeze.”
Ethan Bronner, 7/29/09,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/world/middleeast/30settlers.html?_r=1
ellen
I am horribly embarrassed by this kind of talk. When people are angry/scared or sadly, racist, these kind of words and vulgarities become all too common. I wish they’d realize that their language and hostility in essence are not how a Religious Jew should be acting. Can they be angry? Sure. Can they be scared? Sure. Can they hate a man based on his skin color or religion? Certainly not. I don’t know, and don’t claim to know like some people here, how widespread this is but I think we need to really look in the mirrors and ‘re-educate’ ourselves in many areas.
A few other points:
1) These are not all ‘Settlers’ Richard. This is something I expect from Haaretz.
2) The first speaker (America will be punished) said nothing wrong.
3) Kahanists are loons, and if that was that Nadia (Women in Green) woman, then she’s really on the fringes of the right … She touches the fringes of the Left all the time in the way she speaks!
4) I didn’t hear anyone in the video saying what was implied they said in the title.
I have heard far, far worse than this from nice, young American Jews on their “Birthright” tour, and from Israeli Jews participating in a festival in Tel Aviv.
I know, you watched videos of Blumenthal & Dana – who as Phil Weiss (their Anti-Zionist mentor) said proudly was ‘sensationalist and cherry picked’.
Are there some people with sick, racist views? Yes sadly, and as I said before, they embarrass/anger me greatly because I think it’s a disgrace and unbecoming of what we should be striving to be as Jews/Israelis.
Yes, I watched the videos of Blumenthal and Dana, but I do not recall Philip Weiss, whose blog I do read fairly regularly and comment on from time to time, proudly saying they were sensationalist and cherry picked, and I am not sure that is a fair characterization on your part.
Avram, I appreciate the fact that you disassociate yourself with these views and the people who hold them, and I appreciate you for it, but given the evidence, I would in no way minimize how widespread or how significant such views are. The fact that the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews supported the unspeakable slaughter and terror perpetrated by your government in Gaza in December/January, and the callous attitude toward the treatment of the people in Gaza in general does not speak well for Israeli Jewish society.
Read’s Weiss’s comment on the first Blumenthal video – he quite clearly says ‘Cherry Picked’ & ‘Sensationalist’.
“I appreciate the fact that you disassociate yourself with these views and the people who hold them”
I don’t disassociate myself from them. I find the views abhorrent but they’re still ‘my people’ and I ensure they know how sickening their words are when they are around me. It doesn’t do much good to blindly ignore issues within your country – then you can’t really try and fix them ‘within your circle’.
“The fact that the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews supported the unspeakable slaughter and terror perpetrated by your government in Gaza in December/January”
I supported it too. If you want to twist that into a ‘Israeli Jews are so hateful and a b c (choose whatever words you want) because they want to x y and z (I’ll let you phrase it however you like too)’, so be it. I’m sure if you were in my shoes and I was in yours, it would be the same thing … So I guess I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
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Richard Silverstein why is it when someone challenges you to your radical beliefs, you bar the person from posting on here. It sounds like your afraid of a debate.
Maybe we should now call you Grand Ayatollah Richard Silverstein.
If you read my comment rules you’ll find the reasons why someone’s comment might be deleted or they might be banned. There’s always a reason. And anyone who wishes a more specific reason, I always provide one & offer advice if they wish it to help people follow the rules.
Now if all you’re seeking to do is grandstand be my guest. But you’ve attempted to publish 3 whiny comments here today & they repeat themselves. Publish one comment that says what you want to say, not three.
The ‘Grand Ayatollah’ bit was pretty feeble AND an ad hominem attack (another comment rule violation). So you’re on notice.
Why dont you allow us to post what Arabs say in their media about Jews.
Anyone familiar with the Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah or the weekly rants of the Friday preachers in the Palestinian mosques is aware–means not peaceful coexistence but the elimination of the state of Israel, and death to those they call “the usurping Jews, the sons of apes and pigs.”
Because that’s not the purpose of this blog. It may your purpose & I welcome you pursuing it in a more congenial setting. But telling the world about Arab perfidy (or Israel perfidy for that matter) is not the purpose of this blog.
Well, you’re NOT familiar with them since you aren’t Arab, Muslim or from the Middle East. How ARE you familiar with them? Through the mediation of MEMRI perhaps? I wouldn’t say that hearing something fr. an anti-Arab propaganda source is the same as “being familiar with it” at the source. You’re actually quite ignorant and repeat the slogans you’ve been spoonfed at some partisan site or other. Not terribly impressive.
This is not a debating forum. You don’t score pts for proving Arabs are demons or devils or whatever you think they are. In fact, that’ll lose you yr comment privileges really fast. Your choice.
Whenever I think of MEMRI I remember their egregious and clearly malicious mistranslation of a Palestinian children’s program a year or two ago. Among other clearly intentional mistranslations they claimed that a little girl on the program had said “I will shoot”, when she clearly had said “I will draw a picture” (there is absolutely no way on earth to mistake the two statements, believe me), and even more egregiously they translated “the Jews will shoot us” as “we will annihilate the Jews”, which could not possibly have been an honest error. Not even a mediocre first semester Arabic student would make such a mistake.
The funny thing is I’ve had some of their translations confirmed by my Arabic speaking friend (Baghdad born and bred) and the one’s I’ve been curious about (I think the Pepsi conspiracy was one) were all confirmed as accurate.
What I find ironic about your attitude Shirin is you’re quick to highlight the racist nature shown in the videos bye Bluemthal and his crew, but quickly blast MEMRI (who don’t mis-translate everything unfortunately) … I guess it does make it easy to run away from the issues that do exist within Arab society (Another example of this, the aforementioned Iraqi didn’t realize Jews were ‘normal’ people until he was granted Asylum in the US during the 2nd Gulf War. He has major issues with Israel, which always leads to colorful discussions, but at least he’s honest enough to say he’s embarrassed of the ‘Jew hatred’ he was taught in Iraqi schools though the 1980s and 1990s … But it’s something that is rarely discussed, or even acknowledged, in the Arab world …)
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There’s something deeply fascistic about these extremist settlers. They display a peculiarly intense form of zealotry that is very, very scary indeed. And the way they’ve corrupted and indoctrinated their young is both sad and really vile.
The beauty of youth is their (usually) natural open-ness to the world, open-ness to the other. Views and opinions generally have not become ossified and encrusted, closed off in some oxygen-free cell of the mind as happens so tragically often with (ideologically-uploaded) adults.
For elders and authority figures to twist young people into little storm-troopers as we read of above. To pre-emptively close off young minds, with this intense tribalist poison. It makes the heart ache and bleed.
Richard,
You seem to generally answer questions directed at you.
Can you at least tell me WHY you won’t respond to mine?
Perhaps you find it combattive. I assure you, I ask questions because I want to know the answer, not to make a point.
I am aware you and I disagree strongly about Obama.
Which is why it is of interest to me what your reaction is to the event I posted about.
ellen
I just replied to your comment here. Sorry again for missing yr original question.
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Interesting that Shandorfi also called Obama a racist and an anti-Semite. Talk about standing truth on its head. This echoes Glenn Beck and others on the far-right in this country who are trying to paint Obama, Sotomayor, etc., as reverse racists. Typical big lie strategy–make the victims of racism appear to be the criminals. Regardless of how you feel about Obama’s commitment to Palestinian rights and whether he’s really holding Israel’s feet to the fire on the settler movement, it’s extremely important for the progressive movement to defend him from this racist assault.
It is funny how some complain about your censorship here when they know very well that these settler thugs antics almost never make it to our TV screens.