The Israel lobby at work
Shimon Samuels, Director for International Relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Paris division, goes into a frenzy over the essay by Jostein Gaarder:
Translated into 53 languages and with 26 million copies sold, so many of his readers will mourn Gaarder’s current loss of vision, coherence and, above all, his recruitment to the forces of darkness.
[snip]
Gaarger [sic] yearns to extinguish the light of Jewish sovereignty and for the eternal wandering Jew to live once again at European sufferance - this time given “milk and honey” on the death march.
Norway surely seeks not complicity in this “Gotterdamerung” [sic] revival.
Shimon Samuels and his “center” — in fact a huge international lobby group — are a disgrace. In the name of millions of murdered Jews they shy no means, short of violence, to bully, intimidate and vilify anyone who points out the dark underbelly of Israel, or what I have called the Spartan side of Israeli society.
One example out of many is how they have led a campaign to have the UN recognize any objection to Zionism (the nationalist ideology underpinning Israel as a specifically Jewish nation-state) as racism worthy of censure and censorship:
[snip]
Spearheaded by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, this is developing into a full blown movement with attacks on Mr. Doudou Diène, the Rapporteur on Racism, who refused to support the Zionist position in Barcelona, as well as on UNESCO and the UN Human Rights Commission in an effort to force their position.
In other words, far from being in a position to criticize Gaarder’s highly problematic conflation of Judaism with the state of Israel, Samuels has lobbied for having the UN recognize that very same conflation. The only difference is that Samuels extols the package solution and condemns anyone who doesn’t as evil or deranged.
Samuels’ previous communiques on matters Norwegian are marked by the same sense of unhinged dishonesty. In a recent open letter to the Prime Minister he claims that Norway has donated $100 million to Hamas since January 2006, whereas the actual amount is $0 (all support being channeled to President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, whose office even the US doesn’t mind funding). He also conveniently ignores the reason why one government party is proposing to slash tax deductibility for donations to certain Zionist institutions: these are financing settlement expansion on the occupied West Bank, a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which Israel refuses to ratify on these very grounds.
Last year, in another open letter to PM Jens Stoltenberg, he held the national government responsible for a provincial council’s boycott of Israeli products, which he called a return to Quisling. I don’t know, Mr. Samuels. The motivation for the provincial council’s decision is the similarities between Israeli occupational practices and the apartheid regime of South Africa, which that council was the first in Norway to boycott. The similarities are confirmed by people like Ronnie Kasrils, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela; are they Nazis too?
Perhaps in your mind, Israelis and they alone are a priori immune from such comparisons, judging by your misplaced complaint to Norway’s ambassador in Washington about a newspaper caricature of Ehud Olmert?
This is how the Israel lobby operates.
Anyone who sincerely wants to restore Israel’s standing in the eyes of the world are better advised to engage in honest dialogue with those of us who find pictures such as this more obscene than any cartoon or essay:
Manal Husseini, killed in Israel’s war of choice. R.I.P.
P.S. The English version of Gaarder’s piece accompanying Samuels’ letter is largely based on my translation. It is instructive to note, however, that Samuels & co have tried to get a better fit with traditional anti-Semitic myths. For instance, my accurate translation of the term ‘barnemordere‘, ‘child murderers’, has been altered to the incorrect ‘baby killers’. Nice job.
Let’s see…the “Israel Lobby” exists to support the State of Israel. Oh,yeah, it’s largely funded by Jews in the Diaspora. On further reflection, the Lobby is hyper-sensitive about comments that can be construed as antisemitic and which are made by the current tenders of the largest Jewish graveyard in history, that is, Europe. And now that I begin to think about it, those wily Zionists are also touchy about Muslim antisemitism, most of which is really a…(surprise) European transplant! Hey, isn’t the Holocaust still within living memory? I guess the Israel Lobby spends most of its time scared to death that given Eurabia’s track record, and growing ties to the Arab Middle East, wish to turn Tel Aviv into Auschwitz redux. So I guess that those inconvenient Jews aren’t willing to trust Europe’s assurances that “single state solutions” and singing Kumbaya with Hiz’b'Allah will mean lasting security–or even survival.
If that’s what you mean by the “disgraceful” acts of the Israel Lobby, then I guess that’s what the Israel Lobby does–protects the interests of the Jewish State against….I forget, what was it about Europe that scares Jews?
Comment by yankee — August 9, 2006 @ 9:22 pm
I recall from my childhood the ditty: “How odd of God to choose the Jews” and the refrain, “It’s no so odd the Jews chose God.” This self-assertiveness is indeed disturbing to tyrants - as a voice for freedom, diversity and conscience - the Jew, as witness, has been a “light unto the nations” throughout the ages. Not by claiming an absolute truth, but as a significant or early warning system for, what begins with the Jews is often a barometer for the human condition.
I don’t consider myself a tyrant, but what he calls “self-assertiveness,” I’d hubris or perhaps self-righteousness. Anytime a group of people, whether they are Christians, Muslims or Jews, start thinking of themselves as God’s chosen people and using that as an excuse to commit acts of violence against the unchosen people, they stop having any relation to God as far as I’m concerned and start being an enemy to humanity. Since religious fundamentalism is on the rise around the world and since many of these people seem bound and determined to start WW III and turn it into a holy war, perhaps the Jews are indeed a barometer of human condition. Woe unto us all.
I believe the Jewish state has a right to defend itself, but I don’t think indiscriminately levelling Lebanon is the way to go about it. They are destroying the lives of innocent people while creating more hatred and more enemies for themselves and the US, and believe me, we are quite capable of doing that all by ourselves.
Comment by Gal — August 10, 2006 @ 2:42 am
Believing, that “all Jews” and “all Palastines” are murderes, is strange for me. I have friends on both sides.
There is the religion, since 1000s of years, there where always “wars” between the neighbours in that part of the world, for water, wood, food, …. this seems to be genetical for those people there. Look to their history. Both have not learned from racism and nazism and hate in the past, as they show it daily to the world.
I think, they will never have a “peace” like other civilisations are trying to have, their “brains” are disformed. The rest of the world has to suffer about.
A lot of the “public opinion” is made by special interest, on both sides.
For my opinion the main-error was made in 1948, by GB-Government to “allow” building Isreal, by stealing the land from the people who were living there.
“God” told them that’s their own? Which God? There are lots all over the world, and there is more than “the only” religion.
The history tells us, making war “in the name of God” is always said by people who don’t believe in “Him” (or whatever the name is). The victims are always the people who want to live in peace, the children, the women, the elder ones.
There are no “winners”. Only those poor companies (on all sides) who invest in arms, bombs, and help with money to make wars and terrorism, and also those who “poison the public opinion with the real truth” through their publicity-channels. In this sense: Gangsters like Bin-laden or Samuels, what’s the different? Guilty are both, terrorist of words.
As long as a clear “Stop now and forever” is not published (and the Norwegian article can be a start-up), there will go on murdering, on both sides, as they did it in their history (with short interuptions (Egypt, Roman, Osman-Imperiums, but even they have gone down, follows the US?).
Saying this, is ant-semtism? Ok, if you think so, than it is. Than I’m the “bad guy”, as I was in war-times in Yugoslawia, during Apartheid in Southafrica, during the killings in Corea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Beijing, Armenia, Congo, Ethiopia, Kurdistan, Irak/Iran-war, or all other places in the world where (whoever) murdered “in the name of Freedom (commercial) or God (relegion) or both”. Believing, that “all Jews” and “all Palastines” are murderes, is strange for me. I have friends on both sides.
There is the religion, since 1000s of years, there where always “wars” between the neighbours in that part of the world, for water, wood, food, …. this seems to be genetical for those people there. Look to their history. Both have not learned from racism and nazism and hate in the past, as they show it daily to the world.
I think, they will never have a “peace” like other civilisations are trying to have, their “brains” are disformed. The rest of the world has to suffer about.
A lot of the “public opinion” is made by special interest, on both sides.
For my opinion the main-error was made in 1948, by GB-Government to “allow” building Isreal, by stealing the land from the people who were living there.
“God” told them that’s their own? Which God? There are lots all over the world, and there is more than “the only” religion.
The history tells us, making war “in the name of God” is always said by people who don’t believe in “Him” (or whatever the name is). The victims are always the people who want to live in peace, the children, the women, the elder ones.
There are no “winners”. Only those poor companies (on all sides) who invest in arms, bombs, and help with money to make wars and terrorism, and also those who “poison the public opinion with the real truth” through their publicity-channels. In this sense: Gangsters like Bin-laden or Samuels, what’s the different? Guilty are both, terrorist of words.
As long as a clear “Stop now and forever” is not published (and the Norwegian article can be a start-up), there will go on murdering, on both sides, as they did it in their history (with short interuptions (Egypt, Roman, Osman-Imperiums, but even they have gone down, follows the US?).
Saying this, is ant-semtism? Ok, if you think so, than it is. Than I’m the “bad guy”, as I was in war-times in Yugoslawia, during Apartheid in Southafrica, during the killings in Corea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Beijing, Armenia, Congo, Ethiopia, Kurdistan, Irak/Iran-war, or all other places in the world where (whoever) murdered “in the name of Freedom (commercial) or God (relegion) or both”.
Comment by George — August 11, 2006 @ 5:33 am
The aggression of Isreal against Lebanon and Gaza and the U.S. support of the Isreal in this aggression made me loose faith in God. I was wondering where is God? Then all of a sudden I stumbled on Jostein Gaarder’s article and all of a sudden I smiled, God works in a mysterious way. I lost my sleep for the past 30 days since Isreal attacked Lebanon killing and destroying an entire cournty for the sake of northern Isreal and the whole world was just watching and no one dared to say a word agaist Isreal or US’s support for this war. I found my God in Jostein Gaarder and I am not angry about the Mohammad’s Cartoons any more. May God bless people like Jostein Gaarder who has the courage to write such an article. Jostein Gaarder, I will protect you with my life. Thank you and Thank you very much for this article and now I am going to buy every single book you have ever written. My special thanks to the Haaretz, where I first read about this article.
Comment by One Goodman — August 12, 2006 @ 2:11 am
BRAVO Jostein, I would like to add that one of 10 comadments Moses received
“you shal not kill” and right after, Moses and the rest of them until now are kiling people left and right, they even invented new word for that “COLLATERAL DEMAGE”, but not in my country o no, in my country it is called terrorist attack .?????
I’m questioning for a long time how bilions of people over the ages got themsefves in the Biblical religion/fanatisizm. Out of the whole book the only logical teachings/ideas for the whole humanity to survive in coexistance is in the New Testament.
On the other hand my personal theory on that subject is as follow: No matter how long we will discuss here the religious or political rights of anybody we will achieve nothing. THE WHOLE THING ALREADY HAPPEND, AND WE ARE JUST ARRIVING ON THAT DREADFULL CAROUSELL TO WITNESS IT. We are just entering the worst anybody could emagine. About Bible, St.Malachy, Copi Indians, Nostrodamus, Wiliam Casey etc. the only truth is that they were able to see our future for some strange reason and some of them without being able to explain it the fenomenon they applyed RELIGION to it.
Wlodek
Comment by Wlodek — August 20, 2006 @ 6:25 pm
the Simon Wiesenthal Center is not even a legitimate organization. They claim to be a charitable organization, yet they don’t meet the basic standards of one, and seem to refuse to disclose basic information about their operations. hmmmm.
Comment by S — August 22, 2006 @ 11:39 pm
allah yir7amkom ya 7usayniya!!!!143
Comment by Shafka Al-Husseini — May 22, 2007 @ 4:15 pm