… and the absolute certainty of a presidential pardon from Dubya.

Such peril, ooooh.

November 7, 2007 at 19:11

sentimental pro-Zionism, very anti-colonialism/anti-Likudism

How does that work?

“The original Zionists were socialists, and many were atheists. Ever read The Chosen? The Ultra-orthodox, now a critical component of the Likud-dominated ruling coalition, were originally opposed to Zionism because it was a secular, modernist project. I call it ’sentimental Zionism’ because the Israel of, say, 1948, is a very different country than it is today.

Furthermore, one can support the project of the Jewish Homeland without supporting the settlements in the West Bank, for example.
If Israelis can love their country and disagree with their government, why can’t the rest of us do so as well?” Why?because the Labor Zionists were Socialist like the NSDAP.was socialist.It was nominally Socialist for Jews by Jews to the exclusion of all others.Most prominently the indigineous residents of that land where they deiged to build this new workers utopia.Most of the modern Socialist movements were built with an aim of international workers solidarity,while Zionist “Socialism”included and excluded based on race,ethnicity,religion.Since there is still dispute as to what makes a Jew I’ll include all three.And I have to say your “sentimentality” for the “Isreal” of 1948 strikes me as either extremely naive or willfully ignorant,I’m hoping for the latter.There has been absolutely no strategic difference between Labor and Likud when it comes to “serious policy”similar to the status of the two major parties in the U.S.1948,Haven’t you ever heard of the Nakba or Der-Yassin??

Sloop Douche B? I wanna go home.

See, what point I’m trying to make here is that Dersh being a douchebag is really not some damning indictment of Judaism as a whole, just of him.

Patkin, no one here is claiming that it is “some damning indictment of Judaism”, anymore than we are claiming that Rev. Phelps douchebag-osity is a damning indictment of Christianity, or David Duke’s whiteness is some damning indictment of whites. In fact we are all going out of our way to say that it doesn’t. You are reading something, that we have not said, into what I and others are saying . Duke’s douchebaggery is hung around his “whiteness”, Phelp’s around his “Christianity” and Dersh’s is hung from his twisted sense of his Jewishness, which in his case manifests as an over the top, hypocritical defense of Israel at all cost.

Dersh’s defense of torture, something that a true “civil libertarian” would never condone, is completely tied to his history, over the past 20 odd years, of defending Israel’s use of torture. And his apologetics for Israel are hung from his sense of Jewish superiority; in other words, his sense that Jews are not to be criticized for doing things to non-Jews, that he would be gnashing and wailing about if they were done BY non-Jews TO Jews. And no one is saying that this sense of superiority is some distinctly Jewish trait. There are plenty of ass-hats of all religions, ethnicities, cultures and genders who go around thinking that their identity group is somehow better than the rest, and that different rules apply. Dersh just happens to subscribe to the Jewish flavor of that universal human failing. That’s the point.

Douchebags, probably.

See, what point I’m trying to make here is that Dersh being a douchebag is really not some damning indictment of Judaism as a whole, just of him. If he were a Palestinian lawyer, you can be pretty certain he’d produce the same stupid argument, just for the other side.

He’s a douchebag. That’s it. Falling into the trap that somehow his “heritage” is what makes him that douchebag is foolish. There’s thousands, if not millions of Jews, Americans, or Jewish-Americans who are not Dershbags.

Please, let Dershbag’s douchbaggery taint his Dershbagness alone.

If that makes any sense at all, and it really doesn’t.

Judaism is factionalized and politicized, just like any other religions. And there are definitely types of Jews who are assholes, just like there are types within any other religion that are assholes – and it’s not anti-Semitism to say so, any more than calling Fred Phelps an asshole is anti-Christian, or calling Osama bin Laden an asshole is anti-Muslim. And in both cases, the assholery of these people is related to their religious views.

I mean, what else would you call a pro-Nazi Jewish terrorist group? Not saying the Dersh is a Lehi sympathizer, mind – just pointing out that you can, on occasion, call groups of Jews assholes without worrying overmuch about getting stuck with the “Nazi” tag.

Come to think of it, I guess I’m not even saying that the Dersh’s assholery is really related to his Jewishness. I’d have to think about it more than I have before I’d be willing to say that.

Just for the sake of intellectual honesty, I would ask that you look at exactly the moments he made his decisions about torture. Dershowitz was a fairly orthodox civil liberatrian until ‘99. He considered accusations that Israel tortured anyone as a sort of blood libel until the day the Israeli Supreme Court asked for the sort of torture warrant that he afterwards subscribed to. At that exact moment he hit the WSJ and said it was a great idea. Later the Israeli Supreme Court said no, that’s bullshit, torture is illegal, but do what you have to do and there may be a legal defense after the fact and Dershowitz hit the WSJ to give his new opinion which I guess serendipitously coincided with the Israeli Supreme Court’s new decision.

The guy wrote a book a called “The Case for Israel”, and it’s so incredibly obvious that he think’s he’s Israel’s lawyer it’s embarassing. Yeah, he’s a douchebag independently of being a Jew and vice-versa, but I think if you crawled inside his head he wouldn’t be able to make that distinction himself.

HOW?

DID 6,000,000,000 JEWS DIE FOR NOTHING?

On the plus side, it’s nice to see they finally have the interweb in the nursing home now.

How about Democratic Party Candidates pledging that they are “personally against the use of torture” but because they are all Big He Men, they want to see the USA use torture all the time and everywhere, even on innocent people.

That way America will know Democrats are tough son of a guns!

Torture: It’s not just for Nazis anymore! In fact, all the cool kids are doing it!

I would point out, merely for the sake of pointing out, that your ultimate conclusion follows the flipside of this sentence; that is, “someone’s outlook on life can mold someone’s interpretation of their religion or ethnicity”.

To direct this, Dershowitz is a great big fucking douchebag. He is, perhaps, derived from the Platonic ideal of douche. In this case, it is not truthfully relevant whether Dershowitz is a Jew, a Caucasian, or even a man. He would still be a fucking douche were any of those conditions different, merely a different face covering the douchebag. Were he Catholic, he would be a torture-apologizing Catholic. Were he a black man, he would be a torture-apologizing black man. Were he a woman… well, you see where I’m going with this.

To say “well you know, since Dershowtiz is a douchebag, and he’s a Jew, it’s a valid point” is to fall into grampaw’s deadly web.

Dershowitz is a Jew. Dershowitz is a douchebag.

But he is a douchebag independently of being a Jew, and he is a Jew independently of being a douchebag.

I am morally certain that the terrorist mastermind Alan Dershowitz is about to unleash another editorial upon the helpless and unwitting American masses. There’s only one way to stop him, and that involves the use of handcuffs, K-Y jelly, and a soldering iron.

You forgot the fresh-baked cookies, straight out of the oven.