Why has the Left turned against the Jews?

[Gilgamesh]

I still don't understand why the Right hates Jews....for pure anti-semitic reasons??? That is like saying the Right hates Jews because the Right hates Jews.

There has to be a reason one would think. The Right doesn't hate Hindus...or Buddists...or Russians...or Argentines...or Greeks...or the Welsh. I don't even think the Right hates Muslims.

As a member of "the Right" I believe it is important for me to know. I am only half playing with you on this. I hear this so much I would like to know why you all think the Right hates Jews.

"The Right" is a too broad a term. I agree, "the Right" you are talking about is not the same "right" I was talking about. I am talking about the "Far right" of the neo-nazis and superemists ect... not on "The Right" i.e. Republican party and affiliated organizations and churches.

Rupublican party right untill BUSH JN and the 9-11, was considerered RELATIVELY anti Israel, due to the influance of the pro Arab oil lobby. It has changed on 9-11. The oil lobby lost his grip, and the far left pulled the political culture to "understand" the terrorists motives for hating America...

So we are talking on a new world right now... politicly speaking of course...

I suppose the far right hates Jews because they think we Jews are most powerful of their enemies... but fact of the matter is, that the far right hate any body who is not of their stock, including Indians, Korean, Blacks, Chinees...

For anti semetism itself... there is no explainable rational reasoning. Other people on similar pressures as we Jews experianced, have all vanished and assimilated. We Jews survived. Other nations had lands and armies to push their interests, while we Jews were landless and powerless. Things changed only due to Zionism, where we are a nation like any other... only better in some aspects... what draws more hate toward us from the far left as well as the far right.

[Mediocrates]

Why are the Frenchonistas soooo quiet about the US announcement to withdraw 50% of its troop force from Europe in the next 10 years? I mean if their goal was to remove the Great Satan from the Middle East, why not Germany?

[MGB8]

Alfred,

Until very recently, Jews weren't allowed in many country clubs, couldn't get into many fraternities, couldn't move into certain neighborhoods, couldn't get into certain Jobs or professions, etc. etc. etc.

This was a product not of the left, but of the old-school right, including some anti-semetic (not so) Christian groups.

Do you think that this group, and these sentiments, have just gone away? They are alive and well in certain "paleo-conservative" groups. Fortunately, these groups are less and less prominent, but these groups are still very powerful, well represented, and have spokespeople like Robert Novak, James Baker, Pat Buchanon, etc. etc. - who say some good things, but still carry around this bagage.

[Roland]

Why are the Frenchonistas soooo quiet about the US announcement to withdraw 50% of its troop force from Europe in the next 10 years? I mean if their goal was to remove the Great Satan from the Middle East, why not Germany?

What do you mean "why not Germany"?
The U.S. plan to remove 70,000 troops (1.st tank and 1.st infantry divison(?)) out of here. Loads of good friends and customers .
The locals are still shocked. And that only months after our own plans to reduce army-garrisons. Bad luck for some areas.

[Mediocrates]

What do you mean "why not Germany"?
The U.S. plan to remove 70,000 troops (1.st tank and 1.st infantry divison(?)) out of here. Loads of good friends and customers .
The locals are still shocked. And that only months after our own plans to reduce army-garrisons. Bad luck for some areas.

Well that's certainly true but I would have to say that your own government should have got in front of this issue years ago. For instance in South Korea (RoK) the current administration ran on the 'Sunshine Policy' platform that linked better relations with the north with a reduction of US troops in the south. When the US announced a force realignment plan 2 years ago it suddenly dawned on the RoK that backfilling that US presence would increase the RoK's defence budget by more than 8 billion dollars or 50% of the current spending. So the RoK and the US worked out a mutually acceptable bilateral plan. It seems self serving tha the German government couldn't see this happening and didn't plan for it, after all since the Reagan years the relationship between European countries and US strategic and tactical forces could be described at best, frictional. With the end of the Cold War the rationale for keeping a large US contingent there is logically less. Keep in mind that the operational doctrine of the US forward structure in Germany was that it simply could not confront the Warsaw Pact force structure with equally matched conventional forces. It relied on a tactical nuclear option to backfill a 4 or 5 to 1 conventionally deployed force inferiority. But by the late 1980's there was almost zero public support for a forward deployed tactical nuclear force on the ground in Europe (coincident with a French decision to remove its own land based nuclear force and rely instread on naval and air nuclear strike power. At the same time EU states began an implied build down of all their militaries. This is where the notion of the EU RRF (Rapid Response Force) came from - a multilateral force deployed to various brush wars and hot spots around the world as an extension of EU foreign policy initiatives. Not defence and certainly not defence from Russia.

For better or worse it seems that the Germans should have been awake to all of this and planned for a gradual withdrawal on their own instead of waiting for a political moment to be outraged.

[Mediocrates]

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/ne...php?artid=9772

Israel Low On U.S. Jews’ Radar
Suprising finding in new poll that shows strong support for Kerry.

James D. BesserJames D. Besser - Washington Correspondent

Kerry tops Bush by more than 3-to-1, but 18 percent of his supporters told pollsters they may change their vote.Gettty Images

A new poll by a partisan Democratic group shows that Republican outreach to Jewish voters may not produce the dramatic gains for President Bush predicted by some analysts, with John Kerry favored by 75-22 percent among American Jews.

One reason may be a surprising figure buried in an avalanche of statistics.

Despite the preoccupation of major Jewish groups with the ongoing Middle East crisis, Jews in the sample rated Israel as a relatively low priority in making their presidential choice.

When asked “which two of the following issue areas would be MOST important to you in deciding how to vote for a candidate for President?” Israel was mentioned by 15 percent of the respondents — far behind “terrorism and national security” and “the economy and jobs” at 42 percent, “affordable health care” and “the situation in Iraq” at 24 percent, and “Social Security and Medicare” at 19.

The survey of 817 likely voters was conducted July 26-28 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Jonathan Sarna, a Brandeis historian, said the Israel number has huge political implications.

“What it points to is that the Jewish community is bifurcating around the issue,” he said. “It’s increasingly split between those for whom Israel will be the decisive factor in their voting and those for whom it isn’t.”

While the poll suggested there is little hope of a GOP tidal wave among Jewish voters, it did confirm a core GOP strategy, Sarna said: focusing on Israel among the relatively small segment of Jewish voters whose vote is shaped almost exclusively by that issue.

The GOP hopes to win modest gains in a handful of swing states, such as Florida, where even minor shifts in Jewish voting could make a big difference.

“It’s a smart strategy,” Sarna said. “It could be a successful one for the Republicans.”

Sarna said the relatively low priority placed on Israel is the result of a number of factors, including “the growing emotional detachment of younger Jews from Israel” and the increasing discomfort many liberal Jews feel with Israel in the era of Michael Moore.

He said the gap also could reflect a growing gap between religiously active Jews, who tend to place a higher priority on Israel in their decision-making, and more secular Jews who rate it lower than other issues.

In the NJDC poll, 73 percent of the respondents said they attend synagogue “several times a year” or “hardly ever,” and 60 percent reported belonging to no Jewish organizations.

Jewish Democrats claimed the poll confirmed their argument that Republican Jewish outreach is not working.

“For all their efforts, the Republicans have gained almost nothing with American Jewish voters,” said NJDC director Ira Forman.

In the most striking finding, Kerry enjoys a 75-22 percent lead over Bush among Jewish voters. In 2000, Bush received about 19 percent of the vote; many observers have predicted his strong support for the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could boost that total to 30 percent or more in 2004.

Independent candidate Ralph Nader, whose comments about Israel have incensed Jewish leaders in recent weeks, was supported by about 3 percent of the Jewish respondents.

Only 20 percent of the Jews polled rated Bush favorably. Kerry received a 59 percent positive rating.

Anna Greenberg, the principal pollster, said Jewish voters give Bush “about the lowest job approval performance ratings I’ve seen outside of African-American voters.”

Vice President Dick Cheney, she said, “is even less popular than Bush” with a 79 percent unfavorable rating.

A little more encouraging for the Republicans: 18 percent of the Kerry supporters said there is at least some chance they might shift their vote to the president.

Eighty-five percent said Kerry would do a better job on abortion, and 78 percent preferred the Democrat on issues relating to “the role of religion in public life and politics.”

But Kerry’s numbers dropped to 66 percent on the issues of Israel and the war on terrorism. That suggests the Democrats are the most vulnerable on the question of Israel, especially among pro-Israel single-issue voters.

“The Republicans have defined the Achilles heel for the Democrats in the Jewish community, and they’re focusing on it,” said Kean University political scientist Gilbert Kahn.

Bush, he said, clearly has no chance to win over significant numbers of Jewish voters on a range of domestic issues. But there is a narrow window of opportunity to win over some single-issue pro-Israel voters, Kahn said.

Jewish Republicans blasted the poll as partisan in origin and biased because of its timing.

“I look at this as a poll taken by a partisan organization,” said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives. “From my talks with people around the country, it’s clear there has never been a time when the pro-Israel community has been as comfortable with who’s in the White House.”

Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, criticized the Democrats for conducting the poll during the Democratic National Convention, when national attention was riveted on their candidate — and during Tisha b’Av, which could have affected responses from GOP-leaning Orthodox Jews.

“The fact is, the NJDC deliberately picked the dates to go into the field to manipulate the data and produce the results they wanted,” he said.

But NJDC leaders said that because the poll was conducted on the Internet over three days, observant respondents had a chance to participate. They noted also that the Orthodox segment of the sample was 8 percent, within striking distance of the Orthodox proportion of the Jewish population.

The timing of the survey was a coincidence, according to the Democrats.

Greenberg said the figures are “in accord with most if not all of the recent studies and historical information we have about Jewish voters, including looking at the National Jewish Population Study, the recent Gallup studies, exit polls and the research I did a few years ago on Jewish voters. We feel extremely confident about these data.”

But Brooks countered that the poll “is wildly inaccurate.

“What will speak loudest,” he said, “is the data that will come out on Nov. 3, after the election.”


<American Jews are just getting fed up with Israel...>

[Emunah]

If I forget thee Oh Jerusalem....

I wonder how hysterical you guys might find it if I told you that from my vantage point, it sure does look like the world is getting together a planetwide lynch mob against the Jews...AGAIN!!!????

Please tell me it's just me?

[Mediocrates]

Oh wait, the friend of the enemy of my enemy is....no wait, the enemy of my friend is my...no that's not it..Oh screw it.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editorials.php#top

Friends And Future Promises
The relationship between Israel and the United States is subtle and ever changing, even if it is reduced to caricature in the Arab world and hyperbole in the Jewish one. It has become an article of faith among some that the choice for president can be reduced to the relationship between Israel and George W. Bush. Some say he is “the best friend Israel ever had,” a title so indiscriminate that it has been bestowed upon each of the 11 American presidents since Israel’s rebirth in 1948.

In a world where Israel has become the most unwelcome of wallflowers, perhaps we too easily confuse realpolitik for romance. Zionist lonely hearts can be forgiven for swooning for any man, particularly a president, who seems to like us — even if that man doesn’t want to be seen with us when he gets together with his friends in the coalition against Iraq.

In election years, when complexities are reduced to slogans, when pandering is high art, it is easy to flatter ourselves that the interests of the U.S. and Israel are one and the same, indivisible, good for the goose and gander alike. But this last week has illuminated a different reality — that no international friendship is as inviolate as we’d like to think.

Three news items on the front burner have underlined the fault lines in the American-Israeli relationship: First, the administration announced plans to sell missiles to Jordan, even as Israel’s Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz pleaded with the Pentagon not to do so. Second, the administration scolded Israel for construction in Maale Adumim, in America’s eyes a disputed and unfortunate settlement where Israel’s sovereignty doesn’t even extend to the right to add on a two-car garage, but a healthy and harmless suburb of Jerusalem in most Israeli eyes. And third, the administration continues to favor diplomacy as the way to defang Iran’s nuclear capability, even as an impatient Israel — Iran’s likely target — worries that Tehran will soon seek to make good on its threat to destroy the Jewish State. The world well remembers that when Iraq made similar threats and was nearing nuclear capability, Israel launched a surgical air strike that destroyed the nuclear factory with virtually no fatalities.

That 1981 strike, of course, is credited with saving untold Israeli lives when Iraqi missiles — without nuclear warheads — landed on Israel during the Gulf War. Nevertheless, Israel’s strike was strongly “punished” and condemned by the international community, including President Reagan (though he, too, was said to be “the best friend Israel ever had”).

This is not to criticize President Bush, or endorse either candidate. Nor is this to suggest that the sale of missiles, the differing views of Maale Adumim, or anyone’s Iranian option is anything but well intentioned. Good people agree and disagree on each of these points in both Israel and the United States. Instead, the sharply divergent approaches to three international options in one week are a cold reminder that as linked as our two countries are, friendships don’t guarantee fidelity.

Even among “best friends,” the next four years will be highly unpredictable. In the aftermath of Iraq, both candidates say they will try to win the hearts and minds of an Arab world that sees the Israeli-American relationship as poison. In Israel, the next four years are unimaginable, with no Israeli political party, nor the Palestinians, having any semblance of a stability that allows for prophecy.

“Best friends” are good to have, but in international politics, one can’t always count on them.

[MGB8]

Its not just you...

The world, led by Europe and the Arabs, has made it clear that hatred and racism against Jews is OK. And, as we can see in Paris, in Germany, in New Zealand, even the beginnings in the US, the message has been absorbed loud and clear.

When one group is treated differently, worse, than every other group, that is discrimination.

When Israel, the Jewish state, is the ONLY nation in the world that had demanded of it to (1) give all the land back it won in a defensive war, (2) endanger its national survival by doing so, (3) not attack the leaders of those who plan mass murders of its civilians, (4) not have those who do not recognize it, in violation of the UN charter, at minimum scolded if not condemed, (5) have a hugely dispraportional amount of UN hate motions against it for crimes minor compared to those on which the UN refuses to speak, (6) when other nations can openly call for the nations destruction and genocide, and the other nations of the world at best remain silent, if not join in....

Don't you think the masses get the message. After all, the greatest racists of the Third Reich were not "just" the Nazi leadership, but the masses of Germans and other Europeans.

Once again, the hatred of Jews, disguised as the hatred of Israel, is legitimized. But the people are smart enough to see what this really means, and they just follow along. Michael, Independent, Takeo, TDidier, Jorge....just examples of people who have internalized the WESTERN world's message..these are the biggest danger to Jews worldwide, the biggest instigators of another genocide. But they will wash their hands like Pilot did...."it wasn't me..."

That's why Israel should save a couple nukes for Paris and Brussells, among other places....

[TheMagus]

Whew, 'Rover' man......

You do seem to 'get off' on going overboard sometimes.....

Why pick on New Zealand? After all, wasn't it Mossad bungling and theft of NZ Passports that caused the friction there? Why blame them for an Israeli stupidity?

And since when have Israel's "wars" always been defensive? Didn't they launch a pre-emptive strike on Egyptian airfields in the 1970's? Oh, I see.... they attacked Egypt because they were "defending" themselves, that's right.....

By your logic, it must follow that by their 'agreement' and silence, the masses of Israel are just as responsible for Sabra and Shatila as Arik Sharon and the Falangist bandits (who were funded, armed and supported by Israel). Etc, etc and so forth.

And please, include me as a Jew who has also internalised the Western World's "message" that Israeli behaviour has gone beyond the bounds of human decency. I am not ashamed to be in that company.

And just as an 'aside', it is "Pilate", not "Pilot". Strange that you should choose him as a point of reference, bearing in mind that he apparently 'washed his hands' in disgust at the abominable behaviour and irrational hatred shown by the Sanhedrin as they tried to cause the murder of someone that he could find no fault with. Interesting......

But finally - you seem to suffer from the common Israeli illusion that Israel is able to "punch" far above its actual 'weight'. Bear in mind that France retains some 1,500 nuclear warheads, and Britain another 800-900. It makes Israel's puny 200 or so look very 'small' indeed. And just because Israel can (barely) contain the low-intensity "war" against a rag-tag band of Arab "irregulars" amongst the Palestinian population - doesn't mean that they would be able to do so against a modern well-trained European army. If it came to a scrap between Israel and, say, France - I'd have to bet on the French. Sorry.

[MGB8]

Well, progress Magus,

You admit that you are a self hating Jew (although I doubt that you are Jewish), and then have bought the idea that there was nothing cynical about Pilate (whoops, a spelling error on a message board, whoa is me!), who ordered Jesus' death, washing his hands. Instead you repeat the blood libel - that says quite a lot about you, also.

As for the airstrikes...I believe you were talking about the 6 day war, in 1967, which exposes your ignorance...so now we've shown you are an IGNORANT jew hating blowhard. Yay.

Sabra and Shatilla....Israel certainly "looked the other way" as Arab Christians "settled the score" with Arab Muslims...which, of course, is much less than what Europe did in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sudan, the mid-east including Hama (Syria massacred 20,000), Jordan, Iraq, Iran, China, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia... sigh.

Oh...FINALLY, Israel would only use its nukes if it was about to be destroyed - that's why they call it THE SAMSON OPTION. Samson, about to die, pulling down the pillars...c'mon, you Jew boy knew about Pilate, why not Samson? If Israel is going to die, it will take a lot of folks with it. France, should Israel decide that Paris is heavily responsible for Israel's destruction and strike back with its dying breath...is free to retaliate - Israel would be dead either way.

[TheMagus]

Yo, Leyland Rover?

Not a "self-hating Jew". A Zionist-Terrorist/Settler -hating Jew. There is a very distinct difference.

[TheMagus]

But I don't really "hate" anybody, honest. As I said, the only thing I hate is deliberate and wilfull ignorance.

[Mediocrates]

you love to hear yourself talk

[TheMagus]

So sue me.

You just don't like competition to your own self-aggrandisement.