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Commentary :: Israel / Palestine
Propaganda for Jewish Culture and Society Current rating: 0
17 Sep 2006
Modified: 10:01:45 AM
Israeli journalist Amnon Lord has been invited by the UIUC Program for Jewish Culture and Society to speak not about politics, but about the Israeli cinema (Wednesday, September 20). Nevertheless, the reactionary and racist nature of his political views should be duly noted, in the context of the PJCS's failure to promote a serious examination of Jewish Culture and Society, here or in Israel.

Photographs below - Israeli schoolgirls write messages on a shell at a heavy artillery position near Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel, next to the Lebanese border, Monday, July 17, 2006. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner) Consequences are shown in third photo.
israeli_kids_1.jpg
israeli_kids_2.jpg
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The following excerpts are from articles written by Amnon Lord, an Israeli journalist, published in the Jerusalem Post between 2002 and 2004. The articles from which they are pulled can be accessed through a Lexis-Nexis search. While I apologize for pulling these quotes out of context, it really isn’t a big mystery what this guy is about. He’s a former Israeli leftist who hates the current Israeli Left, tepid as it is, as much as he hates the Palestinians and the Arabs in general. Sound familiar? (think Irving Kristol, etc., the formerly Marxist founders of neoconservatism).

Not a bit of subtlety, not to mention empathy, compassion, and humanity. Not a hint of an objective analysis of the dire situation that we are all faced with in the Middle East and in our own country. Such, apparently, are the ideological (and perhaps petty political) limitations of "Jewish culture and society" at the U of I.

Lord has been invited by the Program for Jewish Culture and Society to speak not about politics, but about the Israeli cinema (Wednesday, September 20). Nevertheless, the vile and racist nature of his political views should be noted.

For example:

"Cannot Peres, who called Khomeinism the new Nazism, see that the whole of Palestinian society - from the individual terrorist to the entire political echelon -
has come down with the same disease?"

I would ask, does PJCS support the notion that all Palestinians are Nazis? Will it question the credentials of a speaker who does? Will anyone else?

In the wake of the American-Israeli destruction of Lebanon and the ongoing starvation of Gaza, I would suggest it is a feat of Eichmannesque proportions for the U of I to host such a man to talk about movies. Once again, the PJCS has proved that it is not interested in promoting a vital and self-critical debate about Jewish culture and society, but in defining and normalizing that culture with the hateful, racist, and reactionary views of Jewish Israeli (invariably Ashkenazi male) “intellectuals.â€

I am aware that Lord's allegedly leftist wife is showing up next month. I'm not, however, expecting the devastating self-critique that Israeli society needs and deserves, and that Jewish-Americans and others desperately need to hear. But unlike JCPS faculty members who claim to be leftist, at least perhaps she will be able to get the frog out of her throat subsequent to her nation's criminal and murderous activity, fully supported by our own, and especially by mainstream Jewish leadership.

What a sad and pathetic state of affairs.

______________________________


Excerpts from the Jerusalem Post, June 2002 – July 2004


The fact that Israel still exists, and does so as a proven democratic state, is the long-term result of its decision in June 1967 to go to war. The decision and its execution were like a vaccination for many years, maybe for generations, that created the aggressive combative instinct necessary for a democratic society to survive in an environment of terrorist dictatorships.

____________

The Arabs have managed to instill in the mind of the world community the idea that war is a natural condition of the relationship between the Arabs and the State of Israel. They have succeeded so brilliantly that despite their ongoing crime of maintaining war against Israel, it is Israel that is expected to make concessions to the aggressors if it aspires to live in the peace that was its birthright to begin with.

____________

In spite of all the evidence of Palestinian
intentions, we Israelis seem to be busy repressing and denying the nature of the onslaught. Instead of facing it, we talk of building a fence and behave like butterfly hunters running around with ridiculous nets, attempting to catch mosquitoes.

Israel's leadership, headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, is responsible for not defining this grave reality in the clearest possible terms.

Cannot Peres, who called Khomeinism the new Nazism, see that the whole of Palestinian society - from the individual terrorist to the entire political echelon - has come down with the same disease?

____________

In this current war the main goal of the Arabs is to prove that no matter how good the Israeli Defense Forces are, and no matter what international assurances and agreements the Israelis have obtained, the Arabs can still massacre the Jews and get away with it. I therefor call this war Meoraot Tashsa, because the terrorist attacks started on Rosh Hashana Tashsa (2000).

________

The justification of terrorism against Israelis by the British and European media is very similar to the justification of the Stalinist terrorism by Pravda and Radio Moscow. The regime defines a system of ideals and lofty values, and whoever does not adjust themselves to them, is defined as an "enemy of the people" or "enemy of the revolution."

As long as all the demands of the "human rights" organizations are not met, terrorism is justified.

____________

Today's world is divided into quarters: places where anti-Semitic and anti-Israel Jews can come and go freely, but which in every other respect are judenrein; and places where Jews can huddle together.

Is this not the beginning of a new ghettoization process of the Western, post-modern variety?

______________

In spite of the foul smell wafting from it at the moment, the Likud is nevertheless the true centrist party, both in terms of the state and in terms of Zionism. Its size and its strength will determine whether the next government is stable. Therefore, I, for one, am going to vote Likud. The stronger the Likud is, the greater the chances Binyamin Netanyahu
will be the next foreign minister. Netanyahu is the only one who can lead the diplomatic offensive against terrorism. A weak Likud means Shimon Peres again, or even worse, Amram Mitzna, as foreign minister.

______________

There's nothing like a Hizbullah flare-up on the northern border to illustrate, to Israelis and those abroad, what lies in store for Israel behind the fence in Judea. There is no indication that the prime minister is planning to buy peace and domestic quiet at the price of political concessions. Quite the contrary: Defense Minister Mofaz recently told Defense Ministry planning officials that in the next bout with the Palestinians, Israel will no longer adopt a strategy of limited confrontation, and will opt for strategic victory.

Should the Palestinians infringe the cease-fire, said Mofaz, "the Palestinian Authority's historical role will come to an end."

As far as Israel is concerned, it will be the end of experimenting with the lives of Israelis for no other reason than to placate domestic or foreign decision-makers, however powerful these might be.

________________

Since Sharon came to power in March 2001, Israel has gradually had to nibble away at artificial red lines in order to effectively confront Palestinian terrorism. Initially, the "A" areas of the Palestinian Authority were considered sacred, and when IDF forces first entered them, they had to withdraw within a few hours - due to "American pressure." Only after a blitz of massacres, that lasted from June 2001 (the Dolphinarium) to the end of March 2002 (the Pessah massacre) were IDF forces permitted to operate for a period of some two weeks inside "A" areas.

About a month before Operation Defensive Shield, the forces operated - with success that surprised all the pessimists - in the heart of the terror bases in Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus and Ramallah. But the arrival of US emissary Gen. Anthony Zinni compelled the IDF to withdraw its forces well before completing its mission. The IDF paid heavily for this premature cessation in its next operation in Jenin. The futile negotiating process gave the terrorists in Jenin and in other places precious time to organize to fight in the midst of a civilian population.

_______________

The Palestinians, led by Yasser Arafat, are waging a revolutionary war against Israel on many fronts and with various allies. The Israelis planning a propaganda "ceremony" to sign the Geneva Initiative are part of that system, even if we assume their intentions are good.

It would be presumptuous and foolish to propose any kind of "peace plan," because "peace plans" are part of the total war the Palestinians are waging against Israel.

_____________

It is time to present the accusers among us with a real moral choice: If Israelis - by their very existence and actions - are a criminal people, thereby justifying Palestinian massacres against them, the moral action for those intellectuals, artists, refusers and fence-cutters is to pick up some Kalachnikov rifles and start shooting at civilian centers in Israel.

Why don't they join this just war against Israel with their bodies?

Instead these intellectuals and peace activists choose to participate in the terror fest by redesigning the moral system so as to create a comfortable environment for murder. Ophir and his friends bear a heavy responsibility for creating the moral, conceptual and legal vacuum that allows the Palestinians to execute their terror campaign.

___________

The word "treason" is unsuitable in the context of various figures on the Left and their actions. It is an issue of an entire elite class turning its back on its nation and country. Yossi Beilin and his people's Geneva agreement expresses that moral collapse in the most poignant way. It includes a willingness to collaborate with PLO propaganda against Israel, a surrender of matters of principle such as Jerusalem and refugees, and especially a waiving of Jewish sovereignty in Israel along with a waiver of our ability to defend ourselves.

_____________

Shulamit Aloni, too, who in recent years blatantly joined the anti-Israeli campaign, was originally a member of Hashomer Hatza'ir in its Stalinist phase. Although she learned to speak "democratic," her accent is still heavily Stalinist... especially when referring to "pluralism" or "universalism."

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Re: Propaganda for Jewish Culture and Society
Current rating: 0
19 Sep 2006
Those pesky, pesky Jews. What is to be done about them?

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