An open challenge…
You know, I fancy myself a non-violent pacifist… but in the case of Protocol’s Stephen Weiss, I really want to kick the turd’s ass. This bastard talks more shit than Roto-Rooter and really can’t back it up.
Let alone the fact that he unjustly tore into me for merely suggesting that high profile Jews encourage antisemitism by partaking in shady business and thus casting negative aspursions on Jewish people (a traditionally accepted Jewish critique supported by Pirkei Avot which states that one should “loathe public office,” particularly for this reason); he further ignored my revisiting of the Neocon issue and publicly branded me an idiot. And now most recently, for simply posting another blogger’s opinion regarding Greg Easterbrook’s critique of Jewish propagation of violence in Hollywood (just two posts down), he deemed me “unable to think for [my]self.”
Perhaps Weiss could’ve read the comment I left on Atrios’ site before waging this contention, which stated that,
i’m gonna have to disagree to some minor extent, and i voiced this same concern when moran opened up his mouth– as a jewish person of strong moral conviction, i think that jews are to an extent responsible for the ire they draw. regardless of whether easterbrook or moran are antisemitic or merely voicing antisemitic rhetoric, the reality is that jews have no business making violent movies nor influencing governmental policy. these sorts of things are prohibited in the jewish faith. however, because these people are anything but religious, a) who gives a fuck, and b) why is their cultural heritage relevant? if they were doing business under the auspices of promoting judaism or just being jewish, it would count. but because it’s likely these men barely identify with being jewish, why (sic) does their jewishness have to do with anything?
But no… Instead, Weiss goes on to corroborate the previous point I’ve made about Jewish responsibility, saying Easterbrook
“…appeals to what he thinks should be the moral sensibilities of the Jewish executives distributing the film. The interesting thing is that his moral argument doesn’t simply appeal to a traditional Jewish moral sensibility based on, say, Bible and rabbinic texts, it appeals to Jews as victims of senseless violence — who therefore should reject glorification of senseless violence. It’s a cute, and pretty weird, argument. But it’s certainly not anti-Semitic.”
Yet when I interpret non-Jewish criticism of Jews supporting hawkish neoconservativism as a valid example of the reasoning behind such statements as the one I cite from Pirkei Avot, I’m an idiot. Yeah, okay.
Well, here’s what I think, Stephen Weiss, you have no decency, compassion, or even basic civility, your ongoing immaturity is astounding, and frankly it makes me ill. You obviously ignored the whole “forgiveness” portion of the Yom Kippur ritual, and have instead opted to inaugurate me as your annual whipping boy. Well, I won’t stand for it. If you think I’m an asshole because I believe Jews should hold other Jews accountable for their actions and the way they reflect upon the community as a whole, then you are most assuredly a bigger asshole than I. Judaism’s most certainly not a “turn the other cheek” religion, but I’d definitely like to turn one of your ass cheeks with a size 11½ Puma. Just name the corner, fool.
Who should hold Jews accountable?
re-read the post… i was revising it before you even posted
what happened to the dick head picture??? put it back!
Stephen Weiss aint worth the blog space you’ve wasted on his ass that you wish to turn,
or sumfin…
Regarding the idea of collective guilt / collective responsibility – there was an interesting argument regarding that made by a Philosophy professor from Toronto in an article entitled What is Antisemitism? :
“Do we want to say it is antisemitic to accuse, not just the Israelis, but Jews generally of complicity in [Israel’s] crimes against humanity? Again, maybe not, because there is a quite reasonable case for such assertions. Compare them, for example, to the claim that Germans generally were complicit in such crimes. This never meant that every last German, man, woman, idiot and child, were guilty. It meant that most Germans were. Their guilt, of course, did not consist in shoving naked prisoners into gas chambers. It consisted in support for the people who planned such acts, or–as many overwrought, moralistic Jewish texts will tell you–for denying the horror unfolding around them, for failing to speak out and resist, for passive consent. Note that the extreme danger of any kind of active resistance is not supposed to be an excuse here.
Well, virtually no Jew is in any kind of danger from speaking out. And speaking out is the only sort of resistance required. If many Jews spoke out, it would have an enormous effect. But the overwhelming majority of Jews do not, and in the vast majority of cases, this is because they support Israel. Now perhaps the whole notion of collective responsibility should be discarded; perhaps some clever person will convince us that we have to do this. But at present, the case for Jewish complicity seems much stronger than the case for German complicity. So if it is not racist, and reasonable, to say that the Germans were complicit in crimes against humanity, then it is not racist, and reasonable, to say the same of the Jews. And should the notion of collective responsibility be discarded, it would still be reasonable to say that many, perhaps most adult Jewish individuals support a state that commits war crimes, because that’s just true. So if saying these things is antisemitic, than it can be reasonable to be antisemitic.”
When I read that I found it an interesting and compelling argument, because when I grew up, I had been taught that the “good Germans” who went along and didn’t speak out were guilty of complicity
Yes, but the Jews refer to others as “Good Germans”. We claim that these were the people who fought silently against the Nazis, defecting, joining resistance and hiding the persecuted from the SS at the risk of their own lives.
Additionally, a German in Germany during the horrors of the Holocaust must be viewed in a different light than a Jew who drops a quarter into a Tzedakah box on his annual trip to the synagogue, but can’t even locate Israel on a map.
Second, please, please, the Horrors of the Holocaust outweigh much anything we as humans have witnessed over the span of civilization. Israel, although wrong sometimes, has not set an edict to exterminate an entire race from the face of the Earth.
easterbrook apologizes
escapist — do not neglect the armenian holocaust, black slavery, or any of the other wretched mass attrocities that have taken place in human history. the only difference between other groups that have been persecuted, and ours, is that we didn’t have a national homeland.
also, babylonian — all that text is based on the premise that you find israel guilty of commmitting war crimes and attrocities. if you believe that israel is defending herself from terrorism, then there are no parallels between jews who support israel and germans who support the 3rd reich, simply because you can not compare israel’s actions to those of nazi germany’s. it is insulting and blows israel’s actions completely out of proportion.
at most, 2,500 palestinians have died since the intifada began. these people were not herded into camps, starved, stripped, and forced into ovens. they were shooting at police, murdering innocent civillians, or aiding in the act of murdering civillians. further, jews were not airing programs on national television calling for the murder of germans everywhere in the world in the name of hashem. jews were not being shipped weapons and explosives from neighboring countries. the comparison is nonsense.
http://masada2000.org/holocaust.html