Dramatis Personnae (with dialogue)
Eli Yishai [Shas leader]: “They are sick people”
Shlomo Benziri [former minister, in prison uniform]: “In the past they used to be stoned”
Nissim Zeev: “They will come back as hares and rabbits”
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef
Ahmadinejad: “We no longer have that phenomenon”
This is a cartoon by Haaretz’s Amos Biderman which takes on the ugly homophobia and incitement by Israel’s Sephardi religious party, Shas, in light of the anti-gay massacre in Tel Aviv yesterday. Eli Yishai, the Party’s current leader and current government minister has, in the past, called homosexuality a disease. The Party’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Yosef (at whose “table” they all sit), has blamed all manner of national catastrophe on gays. Shlomo Benziri (in prison pinstripes) is a former Party leader convicted of bribery and serving a four year jail term.
The crowning irony of this graphic is that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joins his fellow religious fundamentalists in fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of homosexuality. Though Iran and Israel may be on a collision course, Biderman is telling us that “their” crazies and ours aren’t so different.
After John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Malcolm X said it was a case of the chickens of coming home to roost. That is, that the very violence that Kennedy had not done enough to avert in the case of American Blacks eventually took his own life. In the case of Shas, just as in the case of the extremist settlers who likened Rabin to a Nazi and called for his death (and got their wish), so the chickens of incitement have come home to roost. In politics, words matter even though so many of them are empty lies. And in this case, some Israeli nutcase very well may have taken to heart the preaching of Shas and similar religious ranters.
In many societies crimes against gays and prostitutes are hardest to solve because the police have a natural antipathy to the victims and also don’t understand the social milieu in which they live. I only hope that the fact that the killer is still at large is not an indication of this in the case in the Tel Aviv massacre.
Yossi Sarid has written an especially powerful denunciation of Israeli homophobia in Haaretz. One interesting sidebar of his column is his attack upon an Israeli government plan to use Iran’s intolerance of homosexuals in order to besmirch that nation in the world’s eyes:
I…recently read…that Israel will escalate its public relations campaign against Iran. Our foreign ministry plans to enlist the gay and lesbian community worldwide to expose the persecution of homosexuals led by the ayatollahs and their people. We should hope that this campaign is being undertaken with the blessing of the entire coalition, some of whose members have characterized homosexuals as “deviants who should be put to death.”
The anti-Iranian campaign has now been short-circuited and poured down the drain.
H/t to Sol Salbe.
Amos Biderman, not Dan
Thanks for the correction.
Wasn’t it Benziri (not Yosef) who made a fool of himself in the Knesset, blaming earthquakes on gays?
The headline (“Gay Incitement”) should, perhaps, read
“Anti-Gay Incitement”:-)
Absolutely right. Thanks for the correction.
The recent attack on gays is another example of the moral bancruptcy of Israel. By the way, your recent article critical of gays likely contributed to the atmosphere of anti-gay hatred-just another demonstration that it is impossible to be progressive and pro-Israel. It is more difficult to imagine than pregnant virgins
I note that you’ve refused to tell us what year you allegedly graduated from HUC. Could it be you’re a rabbi like my bubbe was a prima ballerina?
Oh you take the position that the first all-Israeli cast for a gay porn movie is an important achievement for Israel and the Jewish people? Don’t be such an idiot. There are numerous gay readers of this blog yet not a single one managed to come up with yr wonderment of a comment. I wonder why?
“After John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Malcolm X said it was a case of the chickens of (sic) coming home to roost. That is, that the very violence that Kennedy had not done enough to avert in the case of American Blacks eventually took his own life.”
Yes, only 10 days after Kennedy was assassinated, Malcolm X did say it was a case of “chickens coming home to roost.” Does Richard Silverstein agree with Malcolm X’s “chickens coming home to roost” view of the JFK’s assassination?
32 years after JFK’s assassination, on 9/12/01, the day after 3000 innocent individuals were cruelly murdered by terrorists imagining themselves avengers of fellow Muslims, Ward Churchill used Malcolm X’s same “chickens coming home to roost” metaphor to explain the 9/11 deaths of those he famously characterized as “little Eichmans.” Does Richard Silverstein agree with Ward Churchill’s “chickens coming home to roost” view of 9/11?
And now, only two day after this outrage in Tel Aviv, Richard Silverstein reaches for this same freighted metaphor of “chickens coming home to roost” to account for that massacre of innocent gays there. Sure you don’t want to reconsider your use of this meme?
Malcolm X said he was “glad”(!) for those “chickens coming home to roost.” Who can be other than profoundly saddened by what happened in Tel Aviv.
(And it’s simply nuts to say, “that the very violence that Kennedy had not done enough to avert in the case of American Blacks eventually took his own life.” Lee Harvey Oswald was not avenging American Blacks when he shot JFK, nor was Sirhan Sirhan when he shot RFK 5 years later. Those were as related to violence against American Blacks as was the murderous attack on the Seattle Federation office by Haq, which is to say not at all.)
So let me explain this to a narrow, rather impoversihed mind like yours. I used a famous historical quotation which I found provocative but not necessarily accurate in its original context in order to apply it to a contemporary Israeli incident for which I found it entirely apt. Do you follow? I thought not.
In other words, when someone employs a historical reference they’re not necessarily accepting every piece of freight that it might carry unless they acknowledge that’s what they’re doing.
And btw, Malcolm X never said or believed that JFK was killed because he didn’t do enough to promote civil rights or help Black people (though he certainly believed that JFK was deficient on that score). He specifically made the “chickens coming home to roost” statement regarding the level of violence in this country whether it be against blacks or in the Vietnam war which was beginning in earnest at the time. In other words, those who do not do enough to combat violence could be felled by it. Which is what happened.
You do remember another famous Malcolm saying: “Violence is as American as apple pie.” Note, he didn’t say violence against African-Americans is as American as apple pie. He meant to refer to the plague of violence in this country whether Blacks or whites were the victims.
Why must I be forced to agree with every numbskull who has ever quoted the “chickens coming home to roost” statement? You have an incredible poverty of rhetoric to believe this. Though it’s certainly convenient for you to try to pin Ward Churchill’s stupid theories on me. It would make your job of impugning me that much easier. But I’m not going to make it easy. I’m going to make it very hard.
Not at all. And in light of yr attack I’m even more convinced of the aptness of the quotation.
“And btw, Malcolm X never said or believed that JFK was killed because he didn’t do enough to promote civil rights or help Black people…”
I didn’t say or suggest he did. You’re the one who did so, writing above…
“After John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Malcolm X said it was a case of the chickens of coming home to roost. That is, that the very violence that Kennedy had not done enough to avert in the case of American Blacks eventually took his own life.”
Would you say the same apropos of RFK’s assassination, that is “that the very violence that Kennedy (RFK) had not done enough to avert in the case of American Blacks eventually took his own life”?
“So let me explain this to a narrow, rather impoversihed mind like yours. I used a famous historical quotation which I found provocative but not necessarily accurate in its original context in order to apply it to a contemporary Israeli incident for which I found it entirely apt. Do you follow? I thought not.In other words, when someone employs a historical reference they’re not necessarily accepting every piece of freight that it might carry unless they acknowledge that’s what they’re doing.”
Ah yes, you are so respectful of those who would disagree with you on just about anything. (Do you see my dissenting comments as a “personal attack” on you, and thus the snarky retorts as warranted?)
Those were Malcolm X’s words verbatim (“chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.”) according to the New York Times’s account 10 days after Oswald shot Kennedy. So how was this “famous historical quote” that you found to be provocative “not necessarily accurate in its original context”? You do or don’t think “that the very violence that Kennedy had not done enough to avert in the case of American Blacks eventually took his own life”? (Those particular words were yours, not Malcolm X’s.)
Me: “Sure you don’t want to reconsider your use of this meme?”
You: “Not at all. And in light of yr attack I’m even more convinced of the aptness of the quotation.”
Fine, stick by all of it, if you wish. (BTW, when you say “in light of yr attack,” that means you see my challenge to the thoughts you expressed as an “attack” on you personally rather than your thinking here?)
Re Ward Churchill: This execrable person deserves all the opprobrium one might heap on him, but “numbskull” is not an apt label. The guy managed to con academia with his Indian ruse, chair a department at the University of Colorado, and garner the sypathies of many “progressive” colleagues there who, even after he was exposed for the fraudster he has always been, protest his firing. Churchill is, to be sure, a different story from Norman Finkelstein, but both share in common major character flaws, unworthiness of any academic appointment, and support from some in the “progressive” camp because of their politics.
You still have not answered my question about yr ideological/organizations affiliation. Do you have a problem about telling us where you come from, how you got here & why you’re defending David Brumer here?
Regarding JFK & Malcolm X, I think it was a little bit of both. Clearly, Malcolm was most concerned about the violence against his own people though he did not restrict him comments to them and spoke about violence in a broad American context. Though JFK did NOT do enough to promote equality for American blacks, it was not the proximate cause of his assassination.
You called me a hypocrite. Where I come from calling someone that whom you’ve never met or said or written a word to is considering disrespectful. Once again, I respond to you in a way that corresponds to the way you respond to me. Disrespect me & you’ll receive the same treatment fr. me. Respect me & you’ll be respected. It’s up to you.
Look, you want to get into a knock down drag out fight about every possible usage & context in which this quotation was employed. Good luck to you. All I can say is that the “chickens coming home to roost” quotation perfectly fits the Israeli context in which violence, hate & intolerance against Israeli Palestinians and Israeli gays, immigrants & all manner of minorities runs rampant. These killings spring from this context. Israel is a nation that is not a full democracy, does not fully respect human & individual rights of minorities.
I know a lot of pro-Israel rightists who share major common character flaws yet I for some reason only find you attacking Norman Finkelstein & Ward Churchill. Why is that?
You’re entirely wrong about Finkelstein & his academic record. I’ve already covered that ground here & instead of trying to engage on that subject read what I’ve already written. I’m not reopening old arguments on that score since prior commenters have already written anything you could possibly say about it.