Re: Saima Alvi's Contribution to Understanding

I want to second Matthew Caygill's comment. The anti-Semites and Zionists share
a premise: the identification of Israel with "the Jews" or "Jews." So for the
anti-Semite any Israeli brutality is perpetrated by "the Jews" and for some
Zionists any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism, an attack on "Jews"
generally.

Paul

"Caygill, Matthew [CES]" wrote:

> Oddly the quote given doesn't contain anything like the anti-semitism that
> is alleged, whereas the comments about the 'whole world' and nothing needing
> to be said about it seemed to me like a version of the generalisation that
> the proposed rule 13a would prohibit - even if cast in the negative. And
> this sort of discourse is really a very familiar attempt to prevent
> criticism or opposition to Israel.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: lr [SMTP:luca269_up2000@hotmail.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2002 10:23 AM
> > To:   wsn@csf.colorado.edu
> > Subject:      Re: Saima Alvi's Contribution to Understanding
> >
> > I have to thank you because I missed that article. It seems that you need
> > a second read, because it is just a collection of others' quotations. Many
> > of them quite factual and/or authoritative. Did you check its sources?
> > Regards.
> > l.
> >
> >       ----- Original Message -----
> >       From: Kessler Adam <mailto:adkes@pipeline.com>
> >       To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu <mailto:wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> >       Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2002 5:10 AM
> >       Subject: Saima Alvi's Contribution to Understanding
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >                   In the 19th century it was deemed perfectly acceptable
> > for educated, well-meaning people to make generalizations about ethnic,
> > religious or national groups along the lines of: "the Irish are
> > drunkards," or "the Negroes are happy-go-lucky," or "the X are a
> > commercial race." Then around 60-70 years ago with the rapid rise of
> > modern racism this began to change. Expressions of this type slowly
> > disappeared from civilized discourse. It is unimaginable for example, for
> > someone on this list to utter a sentence like "the blacks are criminals,''
> > even though prisons throughout America are filled with black people.
> >
> >                   The piece by Mark Weber which Alvi is disseminating
> > demonstrates that there is one people about whom such sentences can still
> > (or again?) be spoken: "the" Jews. The article itself consists of  layers
> > and layers of lies, non sequiturs, and paranoia: in other words the most
> > standard kind of old-fashioned anti-Semitism, which is apparently
> > acceptable nowadays in some circles, especially on what might be called
> > "the stupid left." It is useless to try to disentangle such stuff. One
> > comment will suffice: Kofi Annan is quoted as saying that "the whole world
> > is demanding that Israel withdraw [etc., etc.]. I don't think the whole
> > world...can be wrong." The "whole world" presumably consists of the 191
> > members of the U.N. Among these are countries such as Libya, Sudan and
> > Syria which are regarded as perfectly respectable, eligible to serve on
> > the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, etc. Nothing more needs to be said
> > about "the world."
> >
> >                   But I wish to make a more general contribution to
> > current discourse on this list and elsewhere. And that is to formulate a
> > set of modern debating rules. Rule 13a goes like this:
> >
> >               Rule 13a:
> >                           If in the course of a debate participant P
> > states: the X are Y (where for X substitute a religious, ethnic national
> > or "racial" group and for Y substitute some attribute, positive or
> > negative) then P is a jerk.
> >
> >