I was in Israel in 1960, as a child. Again after the 6-day war. I had many relatives in Israel. I also lived in Paris and London, and have had many Arabs as friends, of all faiths, and of none. I know two things: Antisemitism is an essential ingredient in Israeli victimhood, without which none of their behavior is possible. And, from “Becket”: “Why do they hate us? Because we always hate those whom we have wronged.”
I had a dear friend, Lebanese, Christian, a fierce activist for Palestinian freedom, and a passionate advocate of Arabic culture. Fifty years ago she said to me: “Arabs don’t hate Jews. We hate oppression and injustice. They would be welcome here if they could only learn to be good neighbors.”
The hate-filled beligerence of Bibi the Butcher Netanyahu and the Likud underscores how the Zionists in Israel seek no peace; only dominance through the acquisition of Palestinian land. Zion has a choke collar around the neck of the U.S., a cruel reality fostered by Joseph R. Biden.
What an excellent interview with historian Avi Shlaim, another wise elder dedicated, like Norm Finkelstein, to sorting the truth from all the twisted lies and going back to the roots of those lies about "anti-Semitism" in the Pre-Israel Middle East! I also know a number of people from Middle Eastern Countries who tell similar before and after stories.
We so need mature voices and documented personal experiences and histories like these in this current increasingly virulent propaganda-laden Western atmosphere. Especially concerning the political blanketing of this accusation of "anti-Semitism" against every compassionate protest and humanitarian support calling for justice and life itself for the Palestinians, that serves to foment greater violence and ignorance in the dominant Western Countries where the narrative of the mainstream media is increasingly controlled for the purpose of protecting and deflecting away from the Colonial aims and rapacious greed (called "National Interests") of the corporate/Wall Street/AIPAC/Military Industrial Powers that Be.
Not only is none of this any secret, it also puts a shiv into the myth of "Muh Western Judeo-Christian Civilization".
Until 1945 or so, most people in Europe most definitely saw Jews as "other". As in "Not Us". The United States was more tolerant than most European countries, but even then, Jews were de facto or formally barred from many institutions, and their numbers in other institutions limited.
Of course, Hitler and his crimes did more to make anti-Semitism socially unacceptable than anything that all the Jewish scholars, rabbis, composters, writers etc. could have done together.
Judaism is about evolution not stagnation. My father's father were Zionists and believed all land is Holy. Jerusalem is not holier than Montreal where Leonard Cohen sang his last Heneni at the Shaar. My father was a Zionist and considered Temple Worship blasphemy. His Holy Temple was in Vilnius Lithuania and Russia destroyed our Holy Temple in 1793 and the Holy Romans applauded in Canterbury and Rome.
Orwell in his essay on Nationalism said a religious Israel would be a Fascist State.
I met Cohen's friend and mentor the great Canadian Poet Irving Layton. He came to read his poetry and Layton was a tv star in 1960. He wrote about sex and passion and he didn't countenance censorship even in High School he was a graduate of MacDonald College, McGill's school for educators.
Christianity originated in Persia not Jerusalem and yet the Crusades brought about the extermination of England's Jews.
You are no doubt antiChrist and some kind of pseudo Christian.
What is it about hate that triggers and generates your endorphins?
The Vatican sponsored the riots in Havana in 1939 that began St Thomas Chrystasom's Final Solution Saint Thomas proposed the Final Solution in the fourth century.
The Iraqi Jews of my high school in Tehran told me they emigrated to Iran when the Shah offered their parents professional jobs. They left in 1963 when Saddam Hussein came to power. And they came as an entire community. After the Iranian Revolution they picked up, again as an entire community, and moved to the U.S., U.K. and Australia. A few moved to Israel and I know of only two who are still there. The people who left in small groups did not do very well in their new countries. The ones who left as a huge community of their own will are thriving. They were well-educated, well-heeled, and most of the Americans, within a year of emigrating to the U.S. and due to their incredibly strong family and community ties, were worth at least $1 million. Each. Not because they were Jews but because they help each other to an extreme degree whenever they move to a new country.
In 1956 my family lived in Aleppo and all the American nationals were kicked out of Syria temporarily because of false flag operations effected on Syrians by CIA and Mossad in an effort to convince Syria Jews to leave. The same M.O. as in Iraq. Mossad bombed Jewish establishments and blamed Muslims for it. With the CIA's participation this time.
Israel just used Arab Jews to justify further land grabs. Ironically, many of my Iraqi Jewish classmates, who were not stupid, have a sense of entitlement and superiority which they ape from what I might call their Ashkenazi cousins except for the fact that the two groups are not related at all. The Iraqi Jews are the result of the HISTORIC Jewish diaspora. The Ashkenazi are the result of a gradual movement of the descendants of people who CONVERTED to Judaism during the Armenian/Azeribaijani conflict of 700 A.D. eastward. I have no idea what they identified as before that time. But their descendants have brought the world to the precipice of potential world war. To me, this is a clear lesson in the importance of learning who you are, where you come from, and valuing your own unique identity. Trying to take on someone else's is self-destructive and can morph into a monster that can destroy your neighbors. Lack of self-knowledge is very harmful. The Ashkenazi have no absolutely NO connection to Palestine. None. They are thieves, liars, murderers, rapists, racist sadists. And lost. They are a lost people. That is the true tragedy of their current situation in Palestine.
I don't know why so few Iraqi Jews have the courage to speak up and tell the truth. I take my hat off to you, Avi Shlaim. You were robbed of an incredible community, as was Iraq.
Most Iranian Jews I went to school with did not leave and have not to this day. The history of Jews in Iran goes back millenia.
As an addendum to that "Canadian": Because my birthplace is in Syria and my ethnicity is not easily identifiable because I'm a mixed-race Asian (Japanese-Canadian), the Canadian border police always detain me when I'm visiting my Canadian cousins for at least 1-1/2 hours checking me over and over in Interpol's database. I would never choose Canadian citizenship, although I can as I'm 2nd generation, because their racism is even worse than the United States'.
Seems that old canard of Ashkenazim not being "real" Jews is still around. It is an old anti-Semitic trope used by Tsarist Russians, American racists, and the fringe Christian Identity group that insists that Nordic peoples (Germanic and Celtic) are the true descendants of ancient Israelites. Goes with the same "logic" as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is also still being claimed as true by the far right.
This falsehood comes from the idea that the Ashkenazim originated with the Khazars, a people of the central Caucasus, a small number of whom in the 9th century CE supposedly converted to Judaism. There is very little historical support for this; its recent popularity rose mostly because of the 1976 book by Arthur Koestler //The Thirteenth Tribe.// Recent genetic tests reveal no evidence for it, either. While Y chromosome analyses show Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Middle Eastern, and North African and Samaritan lineages to have common ancestry.
Traditionally, you are "Jewish" through your mother because before DNA testing there was no definitive way of identifying who your father was. Therefore the Y chromosome is irrelevant. Sharon was going to have all Israelis to have their mitochondria tested (which you get through your mother). Shortly after that announcement he had his mysterious massive "stroke" and disappeared from view until roughly 15 years later when people started wondering aloud where he was and what happened to him. The 'state" briefly began talking about him--very briefly, as I recall--and then he "suddenly" "died". He was disappeared because they were afraid of the results of mitochondrial testing of the Jewish Israelis. You might find some in recent generations of Ashkenazi but pre WWII the intermarriage of European and Middle Eastern Jews was pretty rare.
The issue isn't who is real or who is not real. But if your claim to the land of Palestine is based on it having been in your family 2000 years ago, your actual biological relationship to Palestinian Jews is relevant.
I could give a damn. Racist sadists are racist sadists; psychopaths are psychopaths; sociopaths are sociopaths. Murder is murder. Theft is theft. None of this behavior is JEWISH.
It isn't an anti-Semitic "trope". History is history. Ashkenazi are descended from a group, self-identified as Jews, who lived in southwestern Russia and whom the tsars used to create a coalesced Russian identity through the age-old system of identifying one group as "other". The "Jews" were "other" and in harassing and trying to remove them, the tsars developed a Russian identity among the other tribes then living in the area. They came from what is today Georgia which has a strong links to Israel today and as I understand it is primarily Jewish.
But you already know this. They converted in 700 to avoid being pulled into the Armenian/Azarbaijani conflict which continues to this day. Mizrahi are treated very poorly by Ashkenazi in Israel. They're second class citizens there which is why many Mizrahi whom I grew up with who emigrated there now live in Europea or the US. The Ashkenazi have serious identity problems.
A "real" Jew is someone who believes in and follows the rules of Judaism. I don't see much of that in Israel, whoever their ancestors are. Genocide is not Jewish.
Yes. A lot of my classmates' fathers did work in the oil fields in Ahwaz and Abadan, although some were lawyers, businessmen, CPAs, etc. It was a terrible brain drain, though Iraq did all right without them. Iraqis of whatever extraction were highly intelligent and very well educated until the US came in and pulverized their country. I am quite sure they are highly intelligent and probably well-educated today.
Whether or not Arab leaders unite--highly unlikely, though their populations are another matter entirely--I suspect the US and Israel will unite the Arabs quite well. Iran-ic. (pun intended) It's obvious to everyone in the Middle East what the US intentions are. (Pulverizing everyone.) However, they need shipping and/or trains/truck routes or pipelines to move that black gold. And I don't think they will be controlling any of those things.
I don't think they do know who they are. And if I tried to take over my cousins'--either Canadian or Texan--land I am sure the whole clan(s) would attack me. I don't belong in either place and am proud of that fact, frankly.
We don't accept that we are all each other's relatives because creating in-group/out-group dynamics has been necessary for our individual and group and species' survival. I might let an irritating younger sibling take over my house for awhile (though not for long) but I'm not letting an irritating cousin do so. I didn't grow up with them and don't know them that well. And I'm just talking about first cousins (and I have a lot of them, some being White Supremacists). We are also a territorial animal. "I need my space." I need my personal boundaries for my psychological survival. And you do too.
Many Muslim and Christian (and atheist) Palestinians are the descendants of converted Jews, if it comes to that. The Ashkenazi don't give a damn.
Come on. Read some history. The original Ashkenazi were working with the German rulers. They used each other. They weaponized Judaism because they needed bodies. They couldn't take over Palestine by themselves. And the original Zionists were privileged Europeans. Isaac Asimov was a privileged person. He wanted as much distance between himself and his ancestors he could create.
I would be interesting to learn what his attitude would have been today. Definitely.
According to Israeli historians I am reading, the Ashkenazi worked with the Nazis. I wasn't born. I'm not German. And I am not Ashkenazi. But I've known a lot of Ashkenazi through the years and without a doubt, they have serious identity problems and a very twisted sub-culture. I have sympathy for them. Losing your identity and culture is terribly painful and an awful loss. But I don't care for the damage they inflict on others.
Sure! I'm reading a mixture of Palestinian and Jewish Israeli and Jewish Americans. I haven't read Amira Hass but would like to. All these books I've read are by men. Nur Masalha wrote a book on Palestine going back into its real history, if you want to know about Palestine itself. As regards WWII and Zionists working with Nazis, there's not that much out there but mostly that information comes (for me) from Ilan Pappe and Gordon Levy. I'm also reading Norman Finkelstein although I don't remember if he goes down that corridor. An interesting American writer nobody much talks about, Thomas Suarez I think his name is, has written a number of books about how Israel was formed using terrorism. He is a violinist from NYC who worked with a Palestinian orchestra, not sure which one, for several years--I think he was in Gaza but am not sure--and has written quite a number of interesting books, not all about Palestine. I find him particularly interesting because he doesn't have anything to prove or defend. I also am particularly concerned about Mossad and Shin Bet so have read what i can get my hands on over the past 40-50 years. Ari Ben-Menashe, the Cockburns, Stephen Green (I think it was--I only have a xeroxed copy of his book), books on surveillance in the Israeli state, books on assassinations by the founders of Israel. There's a lot out there. If you want to know how terrorism birthed Israel, Ilan Pappe, Gordon Levy, and Suarez are the ones I would recommend first. There are also a lot of very informative sites online. I follow individual writers and decide how reliable they are and then really dig deep into what they are saying. I'm not interested in Nazis. I think our support of Ukrainian Nazis is incredibly stupid. I don't like right-wing fascists of any stripe. And I have lived under an authoritarian right-wing quasi-dictator (who took his orders from the CIA) who kept control with a well-developed police state so if terrorism is all you have to start a new country, you probably shouldn't, in my opinion. As for "true" history, I don't know about that. Read widely from many points of view and decide who you think is telling the truth. Zionism and Nazism have a lot in common and they did work hand-in-glove in Germany because they both wanted the same thing: Removal of Jews from Europe. The Nazis didn't care where to and the Zionists very much cared: European Jews died because the Zionists insisted they had to go to Palestine and nowhere else. Ilan Pappe. Start with him. He's had access to restricted archives. I haven't read that much of Levy. I'm sure I'm forgetting others.
Read my reply about the Khazars above. There is very little, if any, solid historical evidence. Plus recent genetic testing shows the Ashkenazim to be very much related to the other Jewish lineages.
My comment is now below; it's a 2nd tier response to Parker's 1sr post, a sound argument from history and genetics. And explains about the Khazars.
Yes, I could link precise scientific studies, which would only be titles. Won't change the mind of anyone determined to believe the contrary. It's like people determined to deny COVID, or climate change, or that the Jewish or Native American holocausts happened, or that the US Dem party is not democratic.
Do a search for "ashkenazi jews y chromosome link to other jewish groups" Plenty will come up. Including from the respected scientific journal "Nature" with precise chromosome loci and statistical analyses. One from Harvard Med published in the journal "Cell" on founder event genetics regarding Ashkenazi Jewish history. Another published in the American Journal of Human Genetics is of the Ashkenazi Cohanim, a priestly group by inheritance through the paternal line (ie, the Y chromosome.) It shows common ancestry with other Jewish groups and an origin in the ancient Near East. Another article in "Nature" is specifically about the R1a clade of the Y chromosome. There are also Wiki entries on the subject. Point is there's lots of scientifically sound evidence.
I am familiar with the claims by the authors you cited. Very.very few people, especially academics, support them.If you really want to examine this, check their sources. It's an old story retold for many reasons, few of them very good. Especially in old Russia, the history of which I have studied. Including reading in Russian.
I just read the Jewish Encyclopedia source referred to. It's much more subtle than those authors, including statements that much of the evidence about conversion of the Khazars is doubtful. (BTW, "Khazar" is the standard spelling; "Chazar" is used in the Encyclopedia probably because that's the old way of transliterating the associated Hebrew sound.) Most telling is that the extensive piece on Khazar history has absolutely NOTHING about the Khazars as the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews. Implying it does would be a deliberately misleading tactic on the part of those authors.
That's the last I'll deal with any of this. This thread is full of distortions and perhaps unintentional errors. Particularly with theological statements. But I'm an elder; I don't have the energy to handle every last argument by assertion.
And the truth shall set us free! - Indeed - this interview with Avi Shlaim is an important part of truth-telling - the exposure of the Ashkenazim and their false flag embroilment of Arab Jews - the Mizrahim (Avi himself born in Baghdad in 1945) seals the lying and murderous foundations of the modern Zionist state of Israel...
I keep reading these comments and I am sometimes amused by the ignorance of the world.
WE have 'tiny' planet which we ALL live on.......is it too much to ask that we 'share' our knowledge?
When I was in a Moravian school (in the dying British Empire)I was taught that the 'cradle of civiiization' was Persia. Yes this was a boarding school for girls whose parents were fighting for the British Empire in India/Sri Lanka/Indonesia etc.
I have a totally different 'mindset.'
I have lived my life in 4 different countries for a long time.
When I speak out in France against the Front National I am cited as British.
I stand there on the podium and forcefully proclaim " I have NO country."
I have been deridid in France and Little England but the fact is I am from this wonderful earth which each country I have lived in is destroying.
BULL PUCKY you ignorant American bigot and Imperialist. In 1939 your MANICHEAN Iranian third century church-initiated religion Saint Thomas Chrysostom and Saint Augustine inspired CHURCH began the Final Solution by sponsored rioting in Havana so Hitler could say nobody wants Jews on this planet and the British, Americans, Canada and all of Latin America denied even Palestine to Jewish refugees. I attended High Holiday Service in St Johnsbury and felt HUMAN but St Johnsbury knows Ben and Jerry , Paul Newman and Bernie made Vermont no longer worthy of my father's appellation controlle of Mississippi North. .
I am CANADIAN. Canada is a full democracy and loves Zelensky and both Israelis and Palestinians. We welcome Russian refugees and Mark Twain the greatest journalist that ever wrote said the only noble Russian noble is a dearly departed Russian noble in the 1860s. The good old days when America was great but Russia was number one Britain was number two (pun) We needed 2 million more Canadians yesterday to turn into Canadians.
You tell us how CHRISTIAN you aren't. Arthur Miller wrote the Crucible about Harvard not my wife's birthplace of Commodore the Nazi Vanderbilt's University John Ralston was the North American since Michigan's Miller to head PEN International.
This is Canada we love Venezuelan peasants and Haitians, Russians, Israelis and Palestinian and Americans know human bondage from their first homage to slavery and human bondage the Star Spangled banner. They never learn abour the farce at Fort McHenry.
What we need are burger flippers who understand real democracy and another Trump prresidency would allow our Tim Horton's to open 24/07/365 and Amazon would no longer be a money loser north of Vermont and New Hampshire.
I remember when I trusted Chris as a valuable journalist but John Ralston Saul is my hero and you may have written the Foreword of an Anniversary edition of Voltaire's Bastards but you never read the book dedicated to Hannah Arendt and THE BANALITY OF EVIL. It is not Chris' fault he is an idiot America teaches all its citizens to be BANAL. As Ambrose Bierce said in the 19th century. Abracadabrans are WHAT's the matter with Kansas and Baum wrote the Wizards of Oz.
David was a Jewish Messiah and a very flawed human but he slew Goliath the Palestinian in one of our more ethnocentric fables and Palestinians and Jews still fight over the blood soaked sands of Gaza. My ancestors fled the Basque in 1492 and fled Russian Orthodoxy in Ukraine. Russia is CHRISTIAN and Putin is a leading Patriarch. No Jews were allowed in WEngland from Richard's return from the Crusades and England celebrated with Jew roast before they had Texas Bar-be-que and no Jews were tolerated in Shakespeare's England.
Why do you hate Bibi he is an American Fascist not a real Jew. He is New England, Harvard not Jesus of Nazareth of whom Thomas Jefferson wrote of in1820. Jefferson understood Manicheanism isn't Christian.
Judaism is about balance Manicheanism is about Heaven or Hell.
St Thomas called for the Final Solution in the fourth century and the Vatican sponsored riots in Havana in 1939 that gave God's permission for the FINAL SOLUTION.
The Leader of our Democratic Socialists of Canada is Jagmeet Singh what do you think about Seikhs and Moslem Canadians or are you ST Thomas?
Samuel Johnson was a conservative and wrote the Dictionary and he was a racist and an English Supremacist
I just watched John the Fascist Kasich on nMSNBC talk trash and nonsense unchallenged because he is viewed as a Moderate?
When in 1964 Ronald Iscariot Reagan said Liberal democracy was America's worst nightmare after 31 years of liberal democracy brought most Americans out of poverty and illiteracy and made America the greatest it ever was.
The Southern strategy was and is morally ethically and socially bankrupt.
I went to school with moslems, protestants, atheists, jews and anyone who renounced Catholicism in a population 85% Catholic.
Edmund Burke could serve in Parliament because his parents renounced their Catholicism.
Fascism = religion in Quebec
We supported the ACLU for forty years they betrayed us by bringing Bill 21 to Canada's Supreme where if they agree to hear case Canada will cease to exist.
We are one of three fully democratic nations in the America's . Canada, Uruguay and tiny Costa Rica. Costa Rica was founded by Labour Zionists. Labour Zionists not fascists like Goldvasser and Miller. Labour Zionist are not University of Shitcago.
Labour Zionists are Bernie Sanders' secular democrat socialists and were even Republicans of long ago like Jacob Javits who believed public servants serve and electors rule until 1964 in San Francisco and Governor Reagan's southern takeover of America. The south rose again and America is respected only for itsmight not for its bright. Its been a long 60 year decline since America aspired to real greatness and lead us into a better future. Viet Nam was a mistake.
In early early 19th century Thomas Chandler Haliburton was the top selling English language writer on Earth said.
"When a man is angry and won't admit it, he always gets angry.".
Sam Slick is as American in 2024 as he was in 1824.
I know people have problems with your name but if you visit the mall on Cote des Neige just North of the Jewish General Hospital where Doctor Gopalan worked your name is more common than John Smith. Are you also a Canadian troll.
I had already understood your name. Doctor Gopalan was Tamil and I do a lot of different curries in my kitchen as I have for 50 years. Plaza Cote des Neige is replete with Jews, Hindus, Moslems, Atheists, Christians and people who love people.
Impressive Rutherford wow. My family and my wife's must give permission but at Chicago next lab over to my wife was David Suzuki and his Drosophila and they found us here in southern Quebec.
I just got some Chili Kush hot sauce from the Cannabis store Pineapple, apple cider vinegar, honey, orange habanero peppers sea salt, garlic, coconut oil, spice, Xanthum gum, Cannabis extract. Just the right formula for a political convention. My wife does not eat hot curries or inhale but my friends do.
The supermarket nans leave much to the imagination but our local organic grains are a wow.
These back stories are unknown to most and have laid the groundwork for todays reality.
The Middle East has been divvied up with little to no regard of the indigenous folk, same as most of the world.
The insights from this article tie in the Christian (Catholic) Church as a prime source of antisemitism as well as a progenitor of Islamophobia.
I am 89 years old, have traveled to 51 different countries including Iran and Israel and agree with Professor Avi Shlaim racism exists in Israel as well. It feeds on itself and creates the enemy necessary for Nationalism.
The Jewish American (born in Finland) writer Max I. Dimont wrote a couple of popular books on Jewish history. Including the era of what is known as the Babylonian Captivity. Perhaps as much as 25% of the population of Judah was forced to go to the Mesopotamian region now known as Iraq.
After its conquest by the Persian Empire (Iran) the Judeans were allowed to return to their homeland. Dimont describes what happened as "they stayed away in droves." Why leave a comfortable and learned urban culture for near desert conditions and an unstable future?
Point is that Jewish residents of majority Arab and Iranian lands go back a very long way. Given the extensive history, obviously that's evidence there weren't many problems for a very long time.
I finally got around to viewing this. Once again Mr. Hedges opens a window that has long been sealed. I was mesmerized during this whole discussion. I can't speak for Avi Shlaim's brilliance but I can for his wisdom. The history of the Arab Jews, if presented at all, has been totally distorted. Much time has been spent on arguing about a 2 state solution. Which I must admit I supported. Mr. Shlaim explained how that was really not possible. His proposal at the end of his book makes so much sense. But will it be possible in the world that's been exposed to so much misinformation, no historical perspective, and where war is political capital.
I saw another interview with the “estimable” Max Blumenthal on how horrible Biden has been while seeming to imply that Trump is going to be nicer to those Palestinians than Biden. Neither one of these politicians care at all about the Palestinians. And Max thinks somehow that the Big Oil cartel, are really just a nice bunch of people, instead of the ruthless cartel that it actually is.
Where are you getting this? Why "seeming to imply"--especially since this wording is a double cautionary that in itself implies a less than objective personal interpretation. As for favoring Big Oil--huh? I'm for sure not saying he's right about everything. But because of his pro-Palestinian and Ukraine critic writing, he has been subjected to vicious attacks by very powerful government and media people.
Blumenthal, along with the filmmaker Dan Cohen, made a film done from the perspective of Gazan Palestinians titled "Killing Gaza." Go read his material at the Grayzone along with the other writers there. Look at what they've reported that the MSM would not. And how much they've been right about.
I’ve been waiting for this article all my life.
I was in Israel in 1960, as a child. Again after the 6-day war. I had many relatives in Israel. I also lived in Paris and London, and have had many Arabs as friends, of all faiths, and of none. I know two things: Antisemitism is an essential ingredient in Israeli victimhood, without which none of their behavior is possible. And, from “Becket”: “Why do they hate us? Because we always hate those whom we have wronged.”
I had a dear friend, Lebanese, Christian, a fierce activist for Palestinian freedom, and a passionate advocate of Arabic culture. Fifty years ago she said to me: “Arabs don’t hate Jews. We hate oppression and injustice. They would be welcome here if they could only learn to be good neighbors.”
The hate-filled beligerence of Bibi the Butcher Netanyahu and the Likud underscores how the Zionists in Israel seek no peace; only dominance through the acquisition of Palestinian land. Zion has a choke collar around the neck of the U.S., a cruel reality fostered by Joseph R. Biden.
PLEASE don't use the word Jews.
Many Jews are fighting in the streets against Zionism.
I changed the reference as a courtesy.
Thank you.
👏👍
What an excellent interview with historian Avi Shlaim, another wise elder dedicated, like Norm Finkelstein, to sorting the truth from all the twisted lies and going back to the roots of those lies about "anti-Semitism" in the Pre-Israel Middle East! I also know a number of people from Middle Eastern Countries who tell similar before and after stories.
We so need mature voices and documented personal experiences and histories like these in this current increasingly virulent propaganda-laden Western atmosphere. Especially concerning the political blanketing of this accusation of "anti-Semitism" against every compassionate protest and humanitarian support calling for justice and life itself for the Palestinians, that serves to foment greater violence and ignorance in the dominant Western Countries where the narrative of the mainstream media is increasingly controlled for the purpose of protecting and deflecting away from the Colonial aims and rapacious greed (called "National Interests") of the corporate/Wall Street/AIPAC/Military Industrial Powers that Be.
Thank you both so much!!!
There is ONLY one answer to this which the US people will not do:
dO NOT pay your taxes1
Not only is none of this any secret, it also puts a shiv into the myth of "Muh Western Judeo-Christian Civilization".
Until 1945 or so, most people in Europe most definitely saw Jews as "other". As in "Not Us". The United States was more tolerant than most European countries, but even then, Jews were de facto or formally barred from many institutions, and their numbers in other institutions limited.
Of course, Hitler and his crimes did more to make anti-Semitism socially unacceptable than anything that all the Jewish scholars, rabbis, composters, writers etc. could have done together.
Judaism is Semitic and Jesus was a Jew. European Christianity is 3rd century Persian (Iran) Manichaeism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism
Feral I have come to view YOU as anti-European. In many ways correct but when the Jewish diaspora arrived in USA what did your country do?
I will leave you to explain this.
I have alo been in Yemen...........mostly they accept many nations except the USA.
Why.
Formidable people who invite you into their homes/feed you with all manner of exotic food.
Judaism is about evolution not stagnation. My father's father were Zionists and believed all land is Holy. Jerusalem is not holier than Montreal where Leonard Cohen sang his last Heneni at the Shaar. My father was a Zionist and considered Temple Worship blasphemy. His Holy Temple was in Vilnius Lithuania and Russia destroyed our Holy Temple in 1793 and the Holy Romans applauded in Canterbury and Rome.
Orwell in his essay on Nationalism said a religious Israel would be a Fascist State.
I met Cohen's friend and mentor the great Canadian Poet Irving Layton. He came to read his poetry and Layton was a tv star in 1960. He wrote about sex and passion and he didn't countenance censorship even in High School he was a graduate of MacDonald College, McGill's school for educators.
Christianity originated in Persia not Jerusalem and yet the Crusades brought about the extermination of England's Jews.
You are no doubt antiChrist and some kind of pseudo Christian.
What is it about hate that triggers and generates your endorphins?
The Vatican sponsored the riots in Havana in 1939 that began St Thomas Chrystasom's Final Solution Saint Thomas proposed the Final Solution in the fourth century.
The Iraqi Jews of my high school in Tehran told me they emigrated to Iran when the Shah offered their parents professional jobs. They left in 1963 when Saddam Hussein came to power. And they came as an entire community. After the Iranian Revolution they picked up, again as an entire community, and moved to the U.S., U.K. and Australia. A few moved to Israel and I know of only two who are still there. The people who left in small groups did not do very well in their new countries. The ones who left as a huge community of their own will are thriving. They were well-educated, well-heeled, and most of the Americans, within a year of emigrating to the U.S. and due to their incredibly strong family and community ties, were worth at least $1 million. Each. Not because they were Jews but because they help each other to an extreme degree whenever they move to a new country.
In 1956 my family lived in Aleppo and all the American nationals were kicked out of Syria temporarily because of false flag operations effected on Syrians by CIA and Mossad in an effort to convince Syria Jews to leave. The same M.O. as in Iraq. Mossad bombed Jewish establishments and blamed Muslims for it. With the CIA's participation this time.
Israel just used Arab Jews to justify further land grabs. Ironically, many of my Iraqi Jewish classmates, who were not stupid, have a sense of entitlement and superiority which they ape from what I might call their Ashkenazi cousins except for the fact that the two groups are not related at all. The Iraqi Jews are the result of the HISTORIC Jewish diaspora. The Ashkenazi are the result of a gradual movement of the descendants of people who CONVERTED to Judaism during the Armenian/Azeribaijani conflict of 700 A.D. eastward. I have no idea what they identified as before that time. But their descendants have brought the world to the precipice of potential world war. To me, this is a clear lesson in the importance of learning who you are, where you come from, and valuing your own unique identity. Trying to take on someone else's is self-destructive and can morph into a monster that can destroy your neighbors. Lack of self-knowledge is very harmful. The Ashkenazi have no absolutely NO connection to Palestine. None. They are thieves, liars, murderers, rapists, racist sadists. And lost. They are a lost people. That is the true tragedy of their current situation in Palestine.
I don't know why so few Iraqi Jews have the courage to speak up and tell the truth. I take my hat off to you, Avi Shlaim. You were robbed of an incredible community, as was Iraq.
Most Iranian Jews I went to school with did not leave and have not to this day. The history of Jews in Iran goes back millenia.
As an addendum to that "Canadian": Because my birthplace is in Syria and my ethnicity is not easily identifiable because I'm a mixed-race Asian (Japanese-Canadian), the Canadian border police always detain me when I'm visiting my Canadian cousins for at least 1-1/2 hours checking me over and over in Interpol's database. I would never choose Canadian citizenship, although I can as I'm 2nd generation, because their racism is even worse than the United States'.
Seems that old canard of Ashkenazim not being "real" Jews is still around. It is an old anti-Semitic trope used by Tsarist Russians, American racists, and the fringe Christian Identity group that insists that Nordic peoples (Germanic and Celtic) are the true descendants of ancient Israelites. Goes with the same "logic" as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is also still being claimed as true by the far right.
This falsehood comes from the idea that the Ashkenazim originated with the Khazars, a people of the central Caucasus, a small number of whom in the 9th century CE supposedly converted to Judaism. There is very little historical support for this; its recent popularity rose mostly because of the 1976 book by Arthur Koestler //The Thirteenth Tribe.// Recent genetic tests reveal no evidence for it, either. While Y chromosome analyses show Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Middle Eastern, and North African and Samaritan lineages to have common ancestry.
Traditionally, you are "Jewish" through your mother because before DNA testing there was no definitive way of identifying who your father was. Therefore the Y chromosome is irrelevant. Sharon was going to have all Israelis to have their mitochondria tested (which you get through your mother). Shortly after that announcement he had his mysterious massive "stroke" and disappeared from view until roughly 15 years later when people started wondering aloud where he was and what happened to him. The 'state" briefly began talking about him--very briefly, as I recall--and then he "suddenly" "died". He was disappeared because they were afraid of the results of mitochondrial testing of the Jewish Israelis. You might find some in recent generations of Ashkenazi but pre WWII the intermarriage of European and Middle Eastern Jews was pretty rare.
The issue isn't who is real or who is not real. But if your claim to the land of Palestine is based on it having been in your family 2000 years ago, your actual biological relationship to Palestinian Jews is relevant.
I could give a damn. Racist sadists are racist sadists; psychopaths are psychopaths; sociopaths are sociopaths. Murder is murder. Theft is theft. None of this behavior is JEWISH.
It isn't an anti-Semitic "trope". History is history. Ashkenazi are descended from a group, self-identified as Jews, who lived in southwestern Russia and whom the tsars used to create a coalesced Russian identity through the age-old system of identifying one group as "other". The "Jews" were "other" and in harassing and trying to remove them, the tsars developed a Russian identity among the other tribes then living in the area. They came from what is today Georgia which has a strong links to Israel today and as I understand it is primarily Jewish.
But you already know this. They converted in 700 to avoid being pulled into the Armenian/Azarbaijani conflict which continues to this day. Mizrahi are treated very poorly by Ashkenazi in Israel. They're second class citizens there which is why many Mizrahi whom I grew up with who emigrated there now live in Europea or the US. The Ashkenazi have serious identity problems.
A "real" Jew is someone who believes in and follows the rules of Judaism. I don't see much of that in Israel, whoever their ancestors are. Genocide is not Jewish.
Yes. A lot of my classmates' fathers did work in the oil fields in Ahwaz and Abadan, although some were lawyers, businessmen, CPAs, etc. It was a terrible brain drain, though Iraq did all right without them. Iraqis of whatever extraction were highly intelligent and very well educated until the US came in and pulverized their country. I am quite sure they are highly intelligent and probably well-educated today.
Whether or not Arab leaders unite--highly unlikely, though their populations are another matter entirely--I suspect the US and Israel will unite the Arabs quite well. Iran-ic. (pun intended) It's obvious to everyone in the Middle East what the US intentions are. (Pulverizing everyone.) However, they need shipping and/or trains/truck routes or pipelines to move that black gold. And I don't think they will be controlling any of those things.
I don't think they do know who they are. And if I tried to take over my cousins'--either Canadian or Texan--land I am sure the whole clan(s) would attack me. I don't belong in either place and am proud of that fact, frankly.
We don't accept that we are all each other's relatives because creating in-group/out-group dynamics has been necessary for our individual and group and species' survival. I might let an irritating younger sibling take over my house for awhile (though not for long) but I'm not letting an irritating cousin do so. I didn't grow up with them and don't know them that well. And I'm just talking about first cousins (and I have a lot of them, some being White Supremacists). We are also a territorial animal. "I need my space." I need my personal boundaries for my psychological survival. And you do too.
Many Muslim and Christian (and atheist) Palestinians are the descendants of converted Jews, if it comes to that. The Ashkenazi don't give a damn.
Come on. Read some history. The original Ashkenazi were working with the German rulers. They used each other. They weaponized Judaism because they needed bodies. They couldn't take over Palestine by themselves. And the original Zionists were privileged Europeans. Isaac Asimov was a privileged person. He wanted as much distance between himself and his ancestors he could create.
I would be interesting to learn what his attitude would have been today. Definitely.
According to Israeli historians I am reading, the Ashkenazi worked with the Nazis. I wasn't born. I'm not German. And I am not Ashkenazi. But I've known a lot of Ashkenazi through the years and without a doubt, they have serious identity problems and a very twisted sub-culture. I have sympathy for them. Losing your identity and culture is terribly painful and an awful loss. But I don't care for the damage they inflict on others.
Sure! I'm reading a mixture of Palestinian and Jewish Israeli and Jewish Americans. I haven't read Amira Hass but would like to. All these books I've read are by men. Nur Masalha wrote a book on Palestine going back into its real history, if you want to know about Palestine itself. As regards WWII and Zionists working with Nazis, there's not that much out there but mostly that information comes (for me) from Ilan Pappe and Gordon Levy. I'm also reading Norman Finkelstein although I don't remember if he goes down that corridor. An interesting American writer nobody much talks about, Thomas Suarez I think his name is, has written a number of books about how Israel was formed using terrorism. He is a violinist from NYC who worked with a Palestinian orchestra, not sure which one, for several years--I think he was in Gaza but am not sure--and has written quite a number of interesting books, not all about Palestine. I find him particularly interesting because he doesn't have anything to prove or defend. I also am particularly concerned about Mossad and Shin Bet so have read what i can get my hands on over the past 40-50 years. Ari Ben-Menashe, the Cockburns, Stephen Green (I think it was--I only have a xeroxed copy of his book), books on surveillance in the Israeli state, books on assassinations by the founders of Israel. There's a lot out there. If you want to know how terrorism birthed Israel, Ilan Pappe, Gordon Levy, and Suarez are the ones I would recommend first. There are also a lot of very informative sites online. I follow individual writers and decide how reliable they are and then really dig deep into what they are saying. I'm not interested in Nazis. I think our support of Ukrainian Nazis is incredibly stupid. I don't like right-wing fascists of any stripe. And I have lived under an authoritarian right-wing quasi-dictator (who took his orders from the CIA) who kept control with a well-developed police state so if terrorism is all you have to start a new country, you probably shouldn't, in my opinion. As for "true" history, I don't know about that. Read widely from many points of view and decide who you think is telling the truth. Zionism and Nazism have a lot in common and they did work hand-in-glove in Germany because they both wanted the same thing: Removal of Jews from Europe. The Nazis didn't care where to and the Zionists very much cared: European Jews died because the Zionists insisted they had to go to Palestine and nowhere else. Ilan Pappe. Start with him. He's had access to restricted archives. I haven't read that much of Levy. I'm sure I'm forgetting others.
Read my reply about the Khazars above. There is very little, if any, solid historical evidence. Plus recent genetic testing shows the Ashkenazim to be very much related to the other Jewish lineages.
My comment is now below; it's a 2nd tier response to Parker's 1sr post, a sound argument from history and genetics. And explains about the Khazars.
Yes, I could link precise scientific studies, which would only be titles. Won't change the mind of anyone determined to believe the contrary. It's like people determined to deny COVID, or climate change, or that the Jewish or Native American holocausts happened, or that the US Dem party is not democratic.
Do a search for "ashkenazi jews y chromosome link to other jewish groups" Plenty will come up. Including from the respected scientific journal "Nature" with precise chromosome loci and statistical analyses. One from Harvard Med published in the journal "Cell" on founder event genetics regarding Ashkenazi Jewish history. Another published in the American Journal of Human Genetics is of the Ashkenazi Cohanim, a priestly group by inheritance through the paternal line (ie, the Y chromosome.) It shows common ancestry with other Jewish groups and an origin in the ancient Near East. Another article in "Nature" is specifically about the R1a clade of the Y chromosome. There are also Wiki entries on the subject. Point is there's lots of scientifically sound evidence.
I am familiar with the claims by the authors you cited. Very.very few people, especially academics, support them.If you really want to examine this, check their sources. It's an old story retold for many reasons, few of them very good. Especially in old Russia, the history of which I have studied. Including reading in Russian.
I just read the Jewish Encyclopedia source referred to. It's much more subtle than those authors, including statements that much of the evidence about conversion of the Khazars is doubtful. (BTW, "Khazar" is the standard spelling; "Chazar" is used in the Encyclopedia probably because that's the old way of transliterating the associated Hebrew sound.) Most telling is that the extensive piece on Khazar history has absolutely NOTHING about the Khazars as the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews. Implying it does would be a deliberately misleading tactic on the part of those authors.
That's the last I'll deal with any of this. This thread is full of distortions and perhaps unintentional errors. Particularly with theological statements. But I'm an elder; I don't have the energy to handle every last argument by assertion.
And the truth shall set us free! - Indeed - this interview with Avi Shlaim is an important part of truth-telling - the exposure of the Ashkenazim and their false flag embroilment of Arab Jews - the Mizrahim (Avi himself born in Baghdad in 1945) seals the lying and murderous foundations of the modern Zionist state of Israel...
I keep reading these comments and I am sometimes amused by the ignorance of the world.
WE have 'tiny' planet which we ALL live on.......is it too much to ask that we 'share' our knowledge?
When I was in a Moravian school (in the dying British Empire)I was taught that the 'cradle of civiiization' was Persia. Yes this was a boarding school for girls whose parents were fighting for the British Empire in India/Sri Lanka/Indonesia etc.
I have a totally different 'mindset.'
I have lived my life in 4 different countries for a long time.
When I speak out in France against the Front National I am cited as British.
I stand there on the podium and forcefully proclaim " I have NO country."
I have been deridid in France and Little England but the fact is I am from this wonderful earth which each country I have lived in is destroying.
COME together.
BULL PUCKY you ignorant American bigot and Imperialist. In 1939 your MANICHEAN Iranian third century church-initiated religion Saint Thomas Chrysostom and Saint Augustine inspired CHURCH began the Final Solution by sponsored rioting in Havana so Hitler could say nobody wants Jews on this planet and the British, Americans, Canada and all of Latin America denied even Palestine to Jewish refugees. I attended High Holiday Service in St Johnsbury and felt HUMAN but St Johnsbury knows Ben and Jerry , Paul Newman and Bernie made Vermont no longer worthy of my father's appellation controlle of Mississippi North. .
I am CANADIAN. Canada is a full democracy and loves Zelensky and both Israelis and Palestinians. We welcome Russian refugees and Mark Twain the greatest journalist that ever wrote said the only noble Russian noble is a dearly departed Russian noble in the 1860s. The good old days when America was great but Russia was number one Britain was number two (pun) We needed 2 million more Canadians yesterday to turn into Canadians.
You tell us how CHRISTIAN you aren't. Arthur Miller wrote the Crucible about Harvard not my wife's birthplace of Commodore the Nazi Vanderbilt's University John Ralston was the North American since Michigan's Miller to head PEN International.
This is Canada we love Venezuelan peasants and Haitians, Russians, Israelis and Palestinian and Americans know human bondage from their first homage to slavery and human bondage the Star Spangled banner. They never learn abour the farce at Fort McHenry.
What we need are burger flippers who understand real democracy and another Trump prresidency would allow our Tim Horton's to open 24/07/365 and Amazon would no longer be a money loser north of Vermont and New Hampshire.
I remember when I trusted Chris as a valuable journalist but John Ralston Saul is my hero and you may have written the Foreword of an Anniversary edition of Voltaire's Bastards but you never read the book dedicated to Hannah Arendt and THE BANALITY OF EVIL. It is not Chris' fault he is an idiot America teaches all its citizens to be BANAL. As Ambrose Bierce said in the 19th century. Abracadabrans are WHAT's the matter with Kansas and Baum wrote the Wizards of Oz.
David was a Jewish Messiah and a very flawed human but he slew Goliath the Palestinian in one of our more ethnocentric fables and Palestinians and Jews still fight over the blood soaked sands of Gaza. My ancestors fled the Basque in 1492 and fled Russian Orthodoxy in Ukraine. Russia is CHRISTIAN and Putin is a leading Patriarch. No Jews were allowed in WEngland from Richard's return from the Crusades and England celebrated with Jew roast before they had Texas Bar-be-que and no Jews were tolerated in Shakespeare's England.
Why do you hate Bibi he is an American Fascist not a real Jew. He is New England, Harvard not Jesus of Nazareth of whom Thomas Jefferson wrote of in1820. Jefferson understood Manicheanism isn't Christian.
https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc
What can I say that Orwell didn't say better.
Judaism is about balance Manicheanism is about Heaven or Hell.
St Thomas called for the Final Solution in the fourth century and the Vatican sponsored riots in Havana in 1939 that gave God's permission for the FINAL SOLUTION.
The Leader of our Democratic Socialists of Canada is Jagmeet Singh what do you think about Seikhs and Moslem Canadians or are you ST Thomas?
Samuel Johnson was a conservative and wrote the Dictionary and he was a racist and an English Supremacist
Taxation no Tyranny 1775
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_no_Tyranny
Johnson wrote the dictionary
religion
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=religion
conservative
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=conservative
Pedantry is AMERICA: SEE HUMPTY DUMPTY ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS.
Agreed let's talk fascism
Orwell's essay on Fascism comes to mind Orwell taught me I wanted to write despite my autism.
https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc
I just watched John the Fascist Kasich on nMSNBC talk trash and nonsense unchallenged because he is viewed as a Moderate?
When in 1964 Ronald Iscariot Reagan said Liberal democracy was America's worst nightmare after 31 years of liberal democracy brought most Americans out of poverty and illiteracy and made America the greatest it ever was.
The Southern strategy was and is morally ethically and socially bankrupt.
I went to school with moslems, protestants, atheists, jews and anyone who renounced Catholicism in a population 85% Catholic.
Edmund Burke could serve in Parliament because his parents renounced their Catholicism.
Fascism = religion in Quebec
We supported the ACLU for forty years they betrayed us by bringing Bill 21 to Canada's Supreme where if they agree to hear case Canada will cease to exist.
Bill 21
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-appeal-court-decision-bill-21-1.7128447
We are one of three fully democratic nations in the America's . Canada, Uruguay and tiny Costa Rica. Costa Rica was founded by Labour Zionists. Labour Zionists not fascists like Goldvasser and Miller. Labour Zionist are not University of Shitcago.
Labour Zionists are Bernie Sanders' secular democrat socialists and were even Republicans of long ago like Jacob Javits who believed public servants serve and electors rule until 1964 in San Francisco and Governor Reagan's southern takeover of America. The south rose again and America is respected only for itsmight not for its bright. Its been a long 60 year decline since America aspired to real greatness and lead us into a better future. Viet Nam was a mistake.
In early early 19th century Thomas Chandler Haliburton was the top selling English language writer on Earth said.
"When a man is angry and won't admit it, he always gets angry.".
Sam Slick is as American in 2024 as he was in 1824.
I know people have problems with your name but if you visit the mall on Cote des Neige just North of the Jewish General Hospital where Doctor Gopalan worked your name is more common than John Smith. Are you also a Canadian troll.
I had already understood your name. Doctor Gopalan was Tamil and I do a lot of different curries in my kitchen as I have for 50 years. Plaza Cote des Neige is replete with Jews, Hindus, Moslems, Atheists, Christians and people who love people.
Impressive Rutherford wow. My family and my wife's must give permission but at Chicago next lab over to my wife was David Suzuki and his Drosophila and they found us here in southern Quebec.
I just got some Chili Kush hot sauce from the Cannabis store Pineapple, apple cider vinegar, honey, orange habanero peppers sea salt, garlic, coconut oil, spice, Xanthum gum, Cannabis extract. Just the right formula for a political convention. My wife does not eat hot curries or inhale but my friends do.
The supermarket nans leave much to the imagination but our local organic grains are a wow.
Thank you
Very informative, very interesting.
These back stories are unknown to most and have laid the groundwork for todays reality.
The Middle East has been divvied up with little to no regard of the indigenous folk, same as most of the world.
The insights from this article tie in the Christian (Catholic) Church as a prime source of antisemitism as well as a progenitor of Islamophobia.
I am 89 years old, have traveled to 51 different countries including Iran and Israel and agree with Professor Avi Shlaim racism exists in Israel as well. It feeds on itself and creates the enemy necessary for Nationalism.
The Jewish American (born in Finland) writer Max I. Dimont wrote a couple of popular books on Jewish history. Including the era of what is known as the Babylonian Captivity. Perhaps as much as 25% of the population of Judah was forced to go to the Mesopotamian region now known as Iraq.
After its conquest by the Persian Empire (Iran) the Judeans were allowed to return to their homeland. Dimont describes what happened as "they stayed away in droves." Why leave a comfortable and learned urban culture for near desert conditions and an unstable future?
Point is that Jewish residents of majority Arab and Iranian lands go back a very long way. Given the extensive history, obviously that's evidence there weren't many problems for a very long time.
I finally got around to viewing this. Once again Mr. Hedges opens a window that has long been sealed. I was mesmerized during this whole discussion. I can't speak for Avi Shlaim's brilliance but I can for his wisdom. The history of the Arab Jews, if presented at all, has been totally distorted. Much time has been spent on arguing about a 2 state solution. Which I must admit I supported. Mr. Shlaim explained how that was really not possible. His proposal at the end of his book makes so much sense. But will it be possible in the world that's been exposed to so much misinformation, no historical perspective, and where war is political capital.
I never knew of this history. Thank you for this work.
Strangely enough there are actually billions of people that are fine with diversity.
I saw another interview with the “estimable” Max Blumenthal on how horrible Biden has been while seeming to imply that Trump is going to be nicer to those Palestinians than Biden. Neither one of these politicians care at all about the Palestinians. And Max thinks somehow that the Big Oil cartel, are really just a nice bunch of people, instead of the ruthless cartel that it actually is.
Where are you getting this? Why "seeming to imply"--especially since this wording is a double cautionary that in itself implies a less than objective personal interpretation. As for favoring Big Oil--huh? I'm for sure not saying he's right about everything. But because of his pro-Palestinian and Ukraine critic writing, he has been subjected to vicious attacks by very powerful government and media people.
Blumenthal, along with the filmmaker Dan Cohen, made a film done from the perspective of Gazan Palestinians titled "Killing Gaza." Go read his material at the Grayzone along with the other writers there. Look at what they've reported that the MSM would not. And how much they've been right about.
Amazing, Chris. Lots of new insights (for me).